The Rio Stanton Report

Tag: liberals

Policies Matter. Actions Matter More.

Let me explain something again for the liberals who keep confusing progressive politics with a cult of personality.

Ahem.

We do not give a fuck about worshipping politicians. We care about what they do.

If Trump delivered humane, progressive policies that materially improved people’s lives, I would acknowledge those accomplishments. That would not require me to excuse everything else about him.

When Biden was president, I wanted him to succeed. I wanted an administration willing to meet the scale of the problems facing us. Give us the ambition associated with FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society (without the devastating and unjust war, of course), and I would have plenty to praise.

But wanting a president to succeed does not mean pretending that everything they do is enough.

And voting for someone does not mean surrendering the right to criticize them.

That was true when I wrote the original version of this post. It is still true now.

I am tired of people treating progressive demands as unreasonable while expecting us to accept political responses that fall short of the conditions we are living through.

Yes, Biden actually said this to a group of wealthy donors behind closed doors. But he governed surprisingly to the left (even by a little) than anyone who has occupied that position since Jimmy Carter, in my opinion.

People cannot afford housing. They struggle to get healthcare. They work themselves into exhaustion and still cannot establish financial security. Racism continues to shape their opportunities and treatment. Environmental threats keep demanding action.

Then we get told to be patient, lower our expectations, and remember how much worse the other side would be.

We know the other side is worse. What the fuck are you going to do about the problems we elected you to address?

That question should not cause this much damn discomfort.

I am not opposed to every smaller improvement. If a policy helps people today, that matters. What I reject is treating incrementalism as the permanent ceiling on what we can demand.

A partial victory should give us something to build on. It should not become an excuse to declare the work finished or tell the people who are still struggling that they are asking for too much.

Too often, “be realistic” means accepting that the people with power will remain comfortable while everyone else adjusts to insecurity.

I do not accept that as a political goal.

And no, Bernie Sanders is not a messiah.

He became important to many of us because he gave national attention to policies and grievances that other politicians dismissed. He spoke about healthcare, wages, education, corporate power, and the lives of people who felt unseen.

That is why we supported him. His appeal came from what he advocated and what he appeared willing to fight for.

My appeal to Bernie Sanders was solely based on policies that Sanders fights for.

Sanders is fallible. He has disappointed people on the left, including me. When he does, he gets criticized too.

The same should apply to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, any other progressive politician, and whoever comes next. Nobody gets to substitute their name or reputation for accountability.

If a politician abandons the commitments that earned our support, we have every right to challenge them. That is political consistency.

I wanted Biden to be a good progressive president. I wanted him to deliver. I wanted the people who voted for him to have something meaningful to show for it.

I also wanted the United States to confront its racism. Wanting that did not require me to pretend we had already achieved it.

The same principle applies to an administration. I can want it to succeed and still refuse to accept inadequate responses to real problems.

People’s lives cannot be managed as though the goal is to keep them just hopeful enough to make it to the next election cycle.

They need relief. They need security. They need power over the conditions shaping their lives.

And they need more than a lecture about how complicated everything is.

I like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). However, she is not above criticism. She needs to be judged on the policies that she fights for and her voting record, not on her looks, her former job, or slander about her intelligence.

Yes, governing is complicated. There are institutional barriers, hostile courts, narrow majorities, and opponents who will obstruct whatever they can. Those things deserve serious consideration. They really do.

But an explanation should help us understand what happened, what was attempted, and what needs to change. It should not shut down every question about whether leadership could have done more.

I hate excuses that make no logical sense. I hate watching people dodge simple questions about matters they are supposed to understand. I hate the double-speak that turns failure into strategy and criticism into disloyalty.

And I cannot stand the dismissive attitude toward corruption, donor influence, and the conflicts between what politicians promise voters and what they protect once they hold office.

Do not tell me I am being unreasonable for noticing those conflicts.

Policies are important. Policies are important. Policies are very important.

And actions are more important, especially when the country is watching how politicians move.

A platform tells me what you claim to support. Your actions tell me what you are willing to pursue, defend, compromise, or abandon.

That is what I am watching and paying the most attention to.

When Biden was president, many of us criticizing him had voted for him in the general election. We understood the choice before us. We made that choice.

But our votes were not promises to remain silent.

We did not agree to applaud every compromise, excuse every disappointment, or defend the administration against the very people whose needs it was supposed to serve.

We voted to put someone in office. Then we expected them to do the work.

That standard survives Biden’s presidency. It applies to the current administration, to Democratic leadership, and to every future candidate asking for our support.

At the time that this was written (well, rewritten) and published in this Blog, all of the people that you see here are speculated to seek the 2028 Democratic Party nomination for president. There are some that I like. There are some that I don’t like. Race doesn’t matter. Looks don’t matter. Name recognition doesn’t matter to me. What matters are the policies that help American people and end wars. Any one of these people could get my vote if they are advocating for things that align with my personal politics and morals.

You are not owed our devotion. You are accountable for what you do with our votes.

We have to keep holding their feet to the fire. Organize. Ask the questions. Make the demands. Recognize the gains, and keep pushing where the work falls short.

Because if we stop demanding accountability, the people in power have every reason to keep giving us less… and expecting us to thank them for it.

October 2, 2026
Party Unity—Until the Left Wins

Whenever Democratic loyalists start lecturing the left about “party unity” and “Blue No Matter Who,” I want to ask a simple question:

Does that rule apply when your preferred candidate loses too?

Because I have been paying attention for a long time, and the demand for unity seems to get a lot louder when progressives are expected to fall in line. When the left challenges a favored incumbent, wins a primary, or questions the party’s direction, suddenly there are exceptions.

Then we hear about electability, ideological purity, troublesome supporters, and how the party cannot afford to be associated with those people.

Apparently, the big tent has a very selective admissions policy.

I remember 2008. Some disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters organized under the PUMA banner (“Party Unity My Ass”) and refused to support Barack Obama. Clinton herself urged supporters to back him, but the holdouts were serious determined, and angry. Some openly considered voting for John McCain.

I also remember Clinton invoking her support among “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” while arguing that Obama’s support was weakening. I found that appeal offensive then, and time has not improved that feeling.

My political memory did not begin with Bernie Sanders, and it did not end when his presidential campaigns did.

That is why I get tired of hearing the left discussed as though we invented bitterness, divisive primaries, or resistance to a nominee. The party has a long history of internal conflict. But certain people’s resistance gets treated as understandable disappointment, while ours becomes a character defect.

And the same attitude is still with us.

Angie Nixon is a Florida state Representative who won the Democratic Party primary to be the party’s 2026 United States Senate candidate for the state of Florida.

Look at Angie Nixon. She won Florida’s Democratic Senate primary in August, defeating Alex Vindman despite his financial advantage. Whatever someone thinks of her politics, Democratic primary voters chose her.

Nixon subsequently clashed with Florida Democratic chair Nikki Fried over socialism and whether she was receiving sufficient party support.

Reporting this month also described Vindman directing resources toward other Democrats and the state party rather than Nixon herself, while Senate Majority PAC was steering clear of her race.

Now, Florida is a difficult race. Parties have limited resources, and nobody is obligated to pretend every election is equally winnable.

But that explanation deserves scrutiny when “support the nominee” has been preached to the left as a moral obligation.

If progressives are expected to swallow their objections, volunteer, donate, and turn out for candidates they did not want, then they have every right to ask what support looks like when their candidate wins.

You cannot spend years demanding loyalty and then act confused when people expect reciprocity.

To many of us further left of the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans sound eerily similar.

Here in St. Louis, the fight involving Cori Bush makes the role of money impossible to ignore. Wesley Bell defeated her again in the August 2026 primary. AIPAC-backed efforts and other outside spending supported Bell, with spending on his behalf substantially exceeding spending for Bush.

Bush was not entitled to her seat. Voters could criticize her, challenge her, and choose someone else. That is how elections work.

Cori Bush was the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s FirstCongressional District. She served one term before being defeated by Wesley Bell. Bush was not defended by the same Democratic Party that stated that it would defend incumbents and frowned upon primary opponents.

But I am also entitled to question the priorities behind pouring money into defeating a progressive in a heavily Democratic district. I am entitled to ask why a Black organizer’s politics become something to neutralize rather than something the party has to engage.

Calling that spending “democracy” does not put its sources, motives, or effects beyond criticism.

Then there is Hasan Piker, who has become another target in this fight. In April, Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer joined Republican Representative Mike Lawler in introducing a resolution condemning alleged antisemitic rhetoric from Piker and other online personalities. Gottheimer renewed his push for a vote in August.

Progressive commentator Hasan Piker has become the new boogeyman in mainstream media. His commentary, often taken out of context, had been weaponized against progressive and leftist candidates who he is associated with.

I do not have to agree with every damn thing Hasan says to question why Democratic politicians are devoting energy to this.

He is a commentator. He can be criticized. His statements should be examined, including statements people find offensive or harmful. Having an audience does not make him immune to accountability.

But neither should a controversial commentator become an excuse to discredit everyone on the left who has appeared with him, watched him, or supported a candidate he supports.

Criticize the statement. Make the argument. Stop treating association as a substitute for discussing policy.

For as controversial as many in the mainstream media find Hasan Piker on the left side of the political spectrum, there are many more people on the right side of the political spectrum who are not weaponized against political candidates on the right.

This is where my original frustration still stands: identity-based bigotry is real, but the existence of bigotry does not mean every political disagreement is driven by it.

Sexism against women politicians is real. I have said that repeatedly, including when defending Hillary Clinton against attacks that male politicians would not have faced.

Antisemitism is real. Racism is real. All deserve serious attention.

But criticism of a woman’s policies is not automatically sexism. Criticism of a Jewish politician is not automatically antisemitism. Criticism of a Black politician is not automatically racism.

Democrats often defend bad candidates with bad policies against criticisms and for losing elections by charging critics and voters with bigotry. Although their charges aren’t totally baseless, they are often exaggerated and made into the primary reason why campaigns were lost, and their candidates or politicians face legitimate criticism.

And criticism of a government’s actions is not automatically hatred of the people associated with that government.

Context is important here. There needs to be a careful and sober examination of the evidence. What was actually said matters more than the political spin.

These questions require more work than deciding that an accusation ends the conversation. Using genuine struggles against bigotry as political shields makes it harder to address both the bigotry and the policy disagreement honestly.

I do not want the left exempted from that standard. I want the standard applied consistently.

Progressive candidates should answer for their records. Their supporters should answer for what they actually say and do. But establishment candidates should face the same scrutiny over their donors, policies, alliances, and treatment of the people whose votes they expect.

Too often, the left’s demands are described as dangerous or unrealistic before they are even seriously discussed.

Progressive and leftist voters are told to “fall in line.” These voters are often scoffed at and then blamed for electoral losses.

Universal healthcare. Affordable housing. Stronger labor rights. Public investment. An end to policies that treat human suffering as an acceptable cost of somebody else’s profit.

Those are political demands. People can argue against them. But dismissing the people making them as naïve, toxic, disloyal, or unelectable is a convenient way to avoid the argument.

And I think some of that hostility comes from the interests those demands threaten. A party comfortable with its donors and existing arrangements is going to feel pressure when its own voters start demanding changes that those donors do not want.

That is my interpretation of the pattern. It is also why I refuse to accept every attack on the left as neutral advice about winning elections.

Winning for what? Delivering what? And accountable to whom?

The media and party leaders often dismiss progressive and leftist candidates as unelectable.

I understand the danger Republicans pose. I do not need that explained to me every time I criticize Democrats.

What I need is for Democratic leaders and loyalists to understand that opposing Republicans does not require me to surrender my judgment. It does not require silence about the party’s failures, and it certainly does not require pretending that its treatment of the left is fair.

If you want unity, give people a meaningful role in shaping the agenda. Respect their victories. Engage their demands. Show them that their participation matters beyond election-day turnout.

Stop treating the left as a workforce you can insult between elections and summon when you need votes.

Party unity cannot mean that we do the work, accept the blame, and shut the hell up.

October 2, 2026
MAGA’s Messiah and the Myth of the Good Old Days

The thing that fucks me up about the MAGA cult is that so many of them genuinely, blindly, and sadly believe that Chump (Trump) is some messianic figure here to rescue this country from cannibalizing itself through neoliberalism, crony capitalism, and privatization.

To me, he represents the same appetite dressed up in a red hat. Nepotism, grifting, self-promotion, and incompetence sold as strength. Somehow, his petty belligerence becomes courage. His obsessive whining becomes a legitimate grievance. His need for applause becomes devotion to the country.

They see a professional con man and call him their savior.

And what, exactly, is he supposed to save them from? Those imaginary glory days when a White man could supposedly support a family with little education, women happily stayed in the kitchen, and Black people knew their place?

The visible rise of black people and other marginalized groups into socioeconomic positions once held exclusively by White people, including the presidency, created irrational fear and panic in many White Americans who felt that absolute power, wealth, and prestige belonged only to them.

Some people had real economic security during those years. But the picture being sold leaves out who was excluded, whose labor was exploited, and whose freedom was sacrificed to maintain it. Women were not universally happy with dependence. Black people were not content with segregation, domestic service, limited menial work opportunities, and second-class citizenship.

Your nostalgia does not get to erase our history.

The past they long for is part memory, part mythology, and part desire to restore a hierarchy they think should never have been challenged. They want the wages and purchasing power associated with that period, but too many also want its social arrangements.

During the United States’ economic golden age, Black people were still mostly working in menial jobs as domestics and laborers. They were being denied equal access to housing, especially in the newly built suburbs.

Those are two different things. And I wish they would stop pretending otherwise.

Personally, I never fell under the illusion that Biden (or even Obama) was a hero or a messiah. His presidency is over, and my standard remains the same: policies, actions, competence, and accountability. A diverse cabinet does not automatically transform an administration into a vehicle for liberation. Neither does putting a Democrat in the White House.

I wanted someone to do his/her fucking job. I also wanted more than competent management of a system that keeps squeezing working people while rewarding those who already own everything.

That criticism did not disappear because Trump returned to power.

My problem with MAGA is that its devotion to Chump repeatedly swallows the very accountability its supporters claim to demand. When something goes wrong, somebody else must have caused it. When he contradicts himself, they supply the explanation. When he disappoints them, they move the goalposts.

To many in MAGA, everything bad that happens during Trump’s presidency is the fault of Biden, Obama, or the Democrats. They see everything good as a direct result of Trump’s leadership.

At what point does the man you elected become responsible for the things he does?

The economic pain that helped create this movement is not imaginary. Communities have lost jobs, stability, and a sense of a future. But the explanation cannot begin and end with whichever president a cable news host tells you to hate.

Deindustrialization devastated communities built around factory work. Automation changed how many workers employers needed. Highways and suburban development reshaped cities, often at the expense of established neighborhoods. Energy markets changed. Smaller towns lost employers, young people, and resources.

Deindustrialization devastated once-thriving communities and neighborhoods, leaving them impoverished and blighted.

These changes did not all come from one president, one party, or one secret meeting of cartoon villains.

But political choices determined who received protection, who absorbed the losses, and who got rich from the transition. Decisions about labor rights, taxation, trade, public investment, and privatization were very important. And they still are today.

And administrations from both parties helped build or preserve arrangements that concentrated wealth and weakened working people’s bargaining power.

That is why I do not accept the idea that electing a billionaire with a talent for branding somehow frees us from billionaire power.

Chump offers people a villain, a slogan, and somebody to look down on. That does not necessarily give them a pension, affordable housing, healthcare, or control over their working lives.

You cannot pay the electric bill with the satisfaction of making somebody else miserable.

I suspect that part of MAGA’s appeal goes beyond economics. For some of its most devoted supporters, the fear is having to share power with women, racial minorities, immigrants, and people of different faiths, gender identities, and sexual orientations.

Equality feels like dispossession when you believe the country belongs to you.

They hear demands for equal treatment and imagine revenge. They hear criticism of White supremacy and imagine an attack on their existence. Meanwhile, most of the people they fear are trying to live, raise their children, work, and enjoy some relative peace and prosperity.

Many conservative White people fear acts of revenge from Black people. What they fail to understand is that most Black people just want to have equal opportunities for good neighborhoods, education, and jobs rather than plotting or enacting any form of revenge.

We should not have to remain subordinate just to make somebody else feel secure.

And Mango Mussolini’s constant need for praise does nothing to convince me that he is the tough guy he wants people to see. Pettiness is not strength. Vindictiveness is not leadership. Surrounding yourself with loyal sycophants does not make your judgment better.

Neither does refusing to accept defeat.

Trump lost the 2020 election and won the 2024 election. Both results can be true. Winning later does not retroactively turn an earlier loss into a stolen victory. If your respect for elections depends on whether your candidate wins, your loyalty is to the candidate.

That is the problem.

I have compared this kind of devotion to the danger represented by Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. That is a serious analogy, and the circumstances are different. But the warning behind it is important here: people become vulnerable when loyalty to a leader takes priority over evidence, judgment, and their own well-being.

A movement becomes dangerous when every criticism is treated as persecution and every demand from the leader becomes a test of faith.

MAGA devotion to Trump looks eerily like the devotion that many people had to Jim Jones.

Cultlike devotion to a person is never a substitute for political principles.

And yes, that applies to Democrats too. It applies to politicians I like. It applies to politicians you like. Nobody should receive a lifetime exemption from scrutiny because they once inspired us or made the right people angry.

I do not want a messiah. I want humane policies, accountable leadership, and a society where people can live without being sacrificed to somebody else’s profits.

My admiration for Bernie Sanders and the Squad does not come from a cult of personality. It comes from the policy solutions that they propose and the fact that they seem to address the needs of average Americans rather than corporations and the super-rich. They do this without engaging in culture wars and mindless platitudes.

The people I call “Y’all-Qaeda” are not going to disappear simply because an election ends or a politician eventually leaves office. The grievances, authoritarian impulses, and appetite for enemies require more than waiting for the next news cycle.

We have to confront the conditions that make people desperate, and the politics that teach them to aim that desperation at everybody except those benefiting from it.

Because the country does not need more people worshipping a man who promises to make them great.

It needs people willing to ask who gets the wealth, who holds the power, and who keeps paying the fucking price.

October 1, 2026
America’s Racial Problem Is Not in the Past, And I’m Tired of People Pretending It Is

One of the most frustrating parts of talking about racism in America is how often people act as if it is either exaggerated, isolated, or long behind us. Every time I say that most white Americans have, at minimum, participated in or benefited from racist systems and behavior, there is always a predictable backlash. The conversation shifts from the reality of racism to defensive utterances, including people charging me with racism, exaggerated claims of Black culpability in slavery, sloppy attempts to “both-sides” racism, and arguing that racism was a past reality that black people need to get over.

But history (and the present) tell a very different story, and I’m not pulling that conclusion out of thin air.

I’m looking at history, voting patterns, where people choose to live, how they react when Black people move into their neighborhoods, what they tolerate politically, and what I have personally watched happen over and over again in this country.

In 1991, David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, won 55% of the white vote when he ran for governor of Louisiana. Let that sink in. A man whose public identity was openly tied to white supremacy won a majority of white voters, including 40% of white Democrats. That was not the distant 1800s. That was the early 1990s.

And this pattern is not an isolated one. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Democratic presidential candidates have consistently struggled to win the white vote. Even in 1976, when Jimmy Carter performed unusually well among white voters, Gerald Ford still won them overall. That should force us to ask uncomfortable questions about what racial backlash has looked like in American politics for the last half-century.

These are not random or meaningless occurances. And it is not just “economic anxiety.” This is racism built into the bloodstream of American politics and manifest through voting decisions and patterns.

The same dynamic has shaped where people live, where they send their children to school, and how they define “good” neighborhoods and “bad” neighborhoods. White flight did not happen by accident. It was not simply about “better schools” or “quality of life.”

For decades, study after study (and plain old lived reality) has shown that white people love to talk about diversity until Black people actually start moving in next door. White families will say they want “good communities” and “nice neighborhoods,” but once a place becomes “too Black” (usually with a Black population at or above 10%), all of a sudden the moving trucks come out and the “For Sale” signs start multiplying like weeds.

In community after community, once Black families moved in, white families moved out. I have seen it with my own eyes. Entire white communities expanded further and further outward, into what had once been farmland, not because they were escaping crime or collapse, but because too many Black people had moved nearby.

And it did not matter if those Black families were educated, professional, stable, or middle class. Their Blackness alone was enough for those white families to flee further into the suburbs.

We want to act like racism was just Bull Connor, George Wallace, fire hoses, and white robes. We want to tell ourselves that racism was a regrettable chapter that “we overcame,” and now the only real racists are a few cartoonishly evil people at the margins.

That is a lie.

Racism in America was never just about the loudest extremists. It has always depended on ordinary white people making racist choices in ordinary ways: where they live, who they vote for, what schools they support, what fears they indulge, what policies they excuse, and what kind of treatment of Black people they are willing to rationalize.

I saw white parents rage against school bussing while talking about Black children as if they were grave threats. I saw anti-Black hostility dressed up as “concern” and “standards.” I saw white resentment toward Barack Obama, a man raised largely by white family members, treated as if he were some dangerous racial radical simply for existing in the White House while Black.

So no, I was not surprised when Donald Trump rose to power by openly winking at white grievance and white nationalism. I was not surprised when racist attacks on women of color energized parts of his base. I have seen this movie before.

A lot of white Americans want to be absolved without being examined.

They want credit for not wearing a hood while still supporting racist politicians, racist policies, racist housing patterns, racist school systems, and racist cultural assumptions.

That’s not how this works.

America’s racial problem has never been confined to a handful of extremists in white robes. That is the lie people tell themselves so they do not have to examine the everyday racism embedded in housing, education, politics, media, and social life. Racism in America has never just been about “bad people.” It has been about a society that trained millions of ordinary people to see whiteness as the norm, the standard, and the default.

And that is the real issue.

If white Americans are tired of being associated with racism, then the answer is not to get offended when people point it out. The answer is to stop supporting racist policies, racist politicians, racist assumptions, and racist social arrangements. Stop demanding that people of color quietly assimilate into a system built to marginalize them. Stop treating whiteness as the universal model of what is “normal,” “civilized,” or “American.”

Because America’s racial problem is not ancient history. It is not dead. And pretending otherwise is part of the problem.

July 16, 2026
People Don’t Hate Democratic Policies, They Hate Democratic Cowardice
The Democratic Party is currently under water in the polls. Their approval rating is lower than that of an unhinged and failing Republican President.

One of the biggest lies in American politics right now is the conservative claim that the Democratic Party’s low approval ratings are proof that progressive or left-wing ideas are unpopular.

That is not what is happening.

The Democratic Party’s low approval is not a sweeping public endorsement of conservatism, nor is it some grand rejection of ideas like police reform, clean energy, immigrant dignity, labor rights, racial justice, or social equality. If anything, many of those ideas remain more popular than the politicians and institutions claiming to represent them.

What people are rejecting is how Democrats campaign, govern, and legislate.

That distinction matters.

Many Democratic Voters Do Not Actually Like the Democratic Party

One of the most misunderstood things about American politics is that a huge portion of people who vote Democrat are not loyal Democrats.

Many progressives, leftists, disillusioned liberals, and politically alienated voters do not support the Democratic Party because they believe in it. They support it because there is no other viable alternative under the current two-party system.

That is not enthusiasm. That is containment.

Failure to articulate, fight, and deliever real changes leads to voter apathy.

Many Democratic voters are not politically “at home.” They are politically homeless.

They vote Democrat not because they think the party is transformational, but because the Republican Party has become openly hostile to democracy, labor, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, Black communities, Muslims, and virtually anyone outside its reactionary coalition.

That means Democratic votes are often votes of defense, not belief.

Democrats Are Not “Too Woke.” They Are Not Woke Enough.

Democrats charging progressives and leftists with seeking perfection is the latest in gaslighting excuses for their failure to champion and deliver for their most vulnerable constituents.

One of the more absurd claims pushed by conservatives (and sometimes even accepted by Democrats themselves)is that the party has become too “woke.”

But that depends entirely on what one means by “woke.”

Being “woke” is being aware, conscious, and alert. It is being ready to face systems of oppression with adequate knoiwledge to navigate through them without being a victim. Black poeople know that our freedom constantly hangs by a thread and enemies are everywhere.

In its original Black political meaning, being woke meant being conscious of danger, power, injustice, and the need to protect one’s people and community. It was never just about representation, branding, or inclusion language.

And that is exactly where Democrats fail.

They are often fluent in the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion while being utterly unwilling to confront the structures that actually produce inequality.

They do not threaten the system. At best, they try to make the status quo look kinder, more polished, and more diverse.

But a more diverse ruling class is not the same thing as justice. It truly doesn’t matter if the foot on our necks belong to a woman, minority, or a member of some other marginalized group, the oppression is still there.

In fact, the tokenism that puts a member of a marginalized community in charge makes the problem worse.

Diversity in positions of power does nothing for marginalized communities as long as the mechanisms of their oppression are still operating and supported by those in power.

The Core Problem: Democrats Campaign Left and Govern Center-Right

This is where much of the anger comes from.

Democrats routinely campaign on bold, popular ideas, such as healthcare reform, abortion protections, criminal justice reform, labor rights, student debt relief, climate action, immigration reform, etc., only to retreat, dilute, abandon, or proceduralize those promises once in office.

There is no joy in Democratic Party victories if the end result is that the people’s basic standard of living either doesn’t improve or worsen.

And when they fail, they almost always have an excuse ready:
- Senate procedure
- “Moderate” Democrats
- institutional norms
- electability concerns
- donor pressure
- political timing
- fear of backlash
At some point, people stop hearing these as obstacles and start hearing them as the pre-scripted permission slips for inaction they often are.

This is one of the main reasons the Democratic Party feels hollow to so many of the very people it depends on.

Democrats Alienate Their Own Coalition

Democrats often actively resist moving to the left. In fact, their solutions to electorial win and losses is to move further to the right.

The Democratic Party survives through a broad coalition, but it often governs as though that coalition is a burden.

Black voters, women, Arab and Muslim communities, immigrants, labor-oriented voters, poor and working-class people, LGBTQ communities, and younger progressives are all expected to show up every election cycle. But when it is time to govern, many of those same groups are sidelined, ignored, triangulated against, or used symbolically rather than materially.

Black voters have long experienced this in the form of tokenism, local “benign” neglect, selective outrage, and empty rhetoric about justice that rarely translates into structural change.

Benign neglect of communities only breeds resentment by many within those communities. If the Democrats want to keep their coalition of diverse voters, they have to fight harder for each and every one of them.

Muslim and Arab communities have seen it through surveillance, Islamophobia, selective empathy, and the treatment of dissenting lawmakers as liabilities.

Women have seen it through decades of strategic delay and complacency around abortion rights, only to watch those rights collapse under a reactionary judiciary.

Immigrants and Latinos have seen it through cruelty repackaged as pragmatism.

And progressives have seen it through endless lectures about realism from people who somehow always find the political courage to disappoint the left but never that same courage to seriously confront the right.

The Gaza Crisis Exposed Democratic Hypocrisy

There were calls by many of the political left in 2024 for Democrats to stop supporting the genocide in Gaza and support a ceasefire, These calls were mostly ignored and scoffed at by the Democratic Party leadership.

If there was one issue that crystallized this contradiction for many younger voters, leftists, Muslims, Arab Americans, and anti-imperialists, it was Gaza.

For many people, the Democratic Party’s response to the destruction and mass death in Gaza was not merely disappointing but it was also morally disqualifying.

Many potential Democratic voters could not vote for Democratic candidates alligned with Israel and its lobby in good conscious.

Pro-Palestinian protestors started to express their disappointment with the Democratic Party and vowed to vote against the Democratic Party during the general election.

Instead of responding with honesty, moral clarity, and equal concern for Palestinian humanity, much of the party defaulted to the same old framework: criminalize dissent, sanitize atrocity, and demand loyalty from people expected to ignore what they could plainly see with their own eyes.

That mattered and it sidelined many voters and activists who could have carried the Democrats to victory.

Why?

Because once a party asks people to suspend not just strategy, but conscience, it should not be surprised when those people begin to emotionally detach from it.

Republicans Have an Ideological Core. Democrats Often Seem to Have None.

Democrats struggle to use their power to help the people who elected them. They seem afraid to embrace popular left-wing positions. The Republicans, in contrast, use their power to push their agenda no matter how unpopular it my be. The Democrats appear weak while the Republican seem strong.

Part of the frustration here is comparative.

Republicans, however destructive, reactionary, and dangerous their project may be, often appear more ideologically committed than Democrats. They are willing to fight for what they believe in, even when those beliefs are cruel, anti-democratic, and deeply unpopular.

Democrats, by contrast, often appear to be a party whose primary belief is managing decline politely.

They want stability and not transformation. Procedure and not confrontation. Brand management and not political struggle.

That makes them seem weak, not simply because they lose, but because even when they win, they often act as if they do not know how to wield the power that they have.

This Is Not an Argument for Republicans

Let me be crystal clear about this post lest my words are taken out of context by conservatives using my words to make bad faith arguments: none of this is an endorsement of the Republican Party.

The current Republican Party is more overtly hostile to Black people and other marginalized communities than the Democratic Party is. That is reality.

One of the main reasons why Black voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat is not due to satisfaction or loyalty. Instead, it is because the Republican Party had been openly hostile toward the Black Community for decades. Racist dog-whistle politics may fool some but, Black people can indentify it easily.

Most Black voters, myself included, vote Democrat not because we are enchanted by the party, but because under the present system, it is often the only viable barrier against a more openly reactionary political project.

That is not love.That is only risk management. This is something many Black Republicans, who talk about loyalty to plantations seem to forget.

And Black history gives us every reason to take that risk seriously.

After the electoral victories of many Black people in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, an angry White Mob conducted a violent coup of the town in which Black residents were killed or driven away. This was one of the last holdovers of a succesful diverse government after the end of the Recontruction Era 20 years earlier.

The gains won through struggle can be reversed. They can be rolled back. They can be destroyed. Reconstruction taught us that. Wilmington taught us that. The 20th century taught us that. And the present is teaching it again.

The Real Crisis Is Political Homelessness

The deeper issue here is not simply that Democrats are unpopular.

It is that millions of people feel politically stranded.

They are too conscious to be satisfied with Democratic symbolism. too threatened to gamble on Republican barbarism, and too trapped in a two-party duopoly to build immediate alternatives with real electoral power.

That is a recipe for alienation. The largest voting bloc during the 2024 presidential election was eligible voters who chose the proverbial couch over casting any vote and any election.

Constant disappoinment leads to political disengagement.

And unless that changes, Democrats will continue to suffer from a contradiction that conservatives fundamentally do not understand.

This is that people may still vote for Democrats while deeply resenting them.

That is not political strength. Instead, that is political exhaustion.

And unless Democrats become something more than “the only adults in the room,” that exhaustion will continue to define American politics.
April 8, 2026
Limousine Liberalism and the Politics of Comfort

If the phrase “limousine liberal” needed a modern example, many critics would point to Bill Maher.

For decades, conservatives have used the term to describe a particular kind of liberal politics… one practiced by wealthy cultural elites who champion progressive social causes while remaining largely disconnected from the economic struggles of ordinary people.

Whether that label is fair in every case is debatable. But the criticism highlights a real tension within American liberalism.

The problem is not support for civil rights, LGBTQ equality, environmental protection, or other social issues, no matter how tepid and/or performative it may be. Those struggles are important and necessary. The problem arises when those causes are championed without addressing the economic structures that produce inequality in the first place.

This tension was visible in a recent segment of Maher’s show in which he criticized younger Americans for being overly pessimistic and encouraged people to “cheer the fuck up.” In his view, dissatisfaction with the current political environment reflects an overly negative outlook among younger generations.

But that interpretation overlooks the economic reality facing millions of Americans.

Over the past several decades, the United States has undergone a dramatic economic transformation. Manufacturing jobs that once provided stable middle-class livelihoods have been replaced by lower-paying service work. Wages have stagnated while the cost of housing, healthcare, education, and childcare has steadily risen.

Today, many Americans are financially fragile. Surveys regularly show that a large percentage of households would struggle to cover even a modest emergency expense. At the same time, economic growth and stock market gains are increasingly concentrated among a relatively small segment of the population.

When commentators dismiss widespread economic frustration as simple negativity, it can come across as profoundly out of touch.

For people living paycheck to paycheck, debates about stock market performance or macroeconomic indicators feel distant from their everyday reality. Economic insecurity is not simply a matter of attitude. It is a real material condition.

This is where critiques of “limousine liberalism” gain traction.

Symbolic gestures and self-righteous virtue signaling can coexist with an economic system that continues to produce inequality and insecurity. Without adequately examining the deeper structural issues of unsafe labor conditions, wage stagnation, sharply rising housing costs, decreased access to affordable healthcare, and the massive influence of corporate power, political rhetoric about social progress can begin to feel hollow.

Many Americans are not asking for perfection. They are merely asking for a political system that seriously addresses the economic pressures shaping their lives.

When those concerns are dismissed as whining or irrational pessimism, the gap between political elites and working people only widens.

And that gap helps explain why so many voters remain deeply dissatisfied with the current political moment.

March 12, 2026
Political Demonization and the Collapse of Civil Discourse
Over the past several decades, a pattern has emerged in American political rhetoric, particularly in certain corners of conservative media and political leadership.

People on the political left are not merely described as political opponents. We are often portrayed as existential threats to the nation.

For years, many prominent conservative commentators and politicians have repeatedly described Democrats and left-leaning Americans as:
- Anti-American or people who “hate America”
- Socialists or communists
- Participants in child-trafficking conspiracies
- Doctors who secretly perform gender surgeries on children without parental knowledge
- Supporters of violent crime
- Architects of mass immigration designed to manipulate elections
- Violent extremists who are responsible for “burning down cities”
- Lazy individuals who simply want government handouts
- Rampant sexual deviants who want to groom children into non-heteronormative lifestyles
Many of these accusations are not policy disagreements. They are moral accusations. They are claims that state that their political opponents are fundamentally dangerous, corrupt, or evil.

When these claims are repeated constantly through media ecosystems, they can shape how entire audiences perceive political reality. Over time, exaggerated or false narratives can become accepted as unquestioned truths.

This dynamic has serious consequences.

When political opponents are portrayed not simply as people with different policy views but as criminals, traitors, or threats to society, it becomes easier for some individuals to justify hostility or even lethal violence against them.

At the same time, many of the same political figures who use this kind of rhetoric often react strongly when criticism is directed toward them. Labels such as “bigot” (in any form), “authoritarian,” or “fascist” are often condemned as unfair or offensive, even when critics argue that those labels are based on observable political behavior.

The result is a deeply polarized environment in which one side hurls childish insults, irrational accusations, and charges of civic disloyalty, which endangers those on the receiving end. Then they clutch their pearls when met with the same energy in response.

In the end, our political conversation devolves into arguing against strawman caricatures of people, on either side, rather than having good-faith arguments based on facts and reality.

Healthy democratic societies require disagreement. Political conflict is inevitable and often productive.

But democracy becomes fragile when political actors stop treating their opponents as fellow citizens and begin treating them as soulless enemies who don’t love the land that we are in.

Once that shift happens, civil discourse becomes nearly impossible, and political conflict begins to resemble cultural warfare rather than democratic debate.
March 10, 2026
Political Realignment and the Persistence of Racial Tension

One of the most uncomfortable facts in American political history is that the party alignments of the Jim Crow era no longer resemble the political landscape we see today.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most white voters in the South identified with the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party of that era included the segregationist political leadership that dominated Southern politics during the Jim Crow period.

That began to change in the mid-twentieth century.

After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (landmark laws supported and signed by Democratic leadership), the political map of the United States gradually shifted. Over the following decades, many white Southern voters moved toward the Republican Party, while Black voters overwhelmingly aligned with the Democratic Party.

This shift did not happen overnight, but the trend is well documented in voting patterns from the late 1960s onward.

Today, white voters, particularly white voters without college degrees and many white voters in the South, tend to support Republican candidates by significant margins. Meanwhile, Black voters remain one of the most consistently Democratic voting blocs in American politics.

These voting patterns are measurable realities, even if they make people uncomfortable.

At the same time, discussions about race in the United States often provoke strong reactions. Many Americans reject the idea that racial attitudes still influence political behavior. Others argue that the issue is not simply politics, but broader patterns of social separation.

Sociologists have long observed that Americans often feel more comfortable within communities that resemble themselves culturally or demographically. Neighborhood patterns, school demographics, and social networks frequently reflect those tendencies.

The result is a society that remains more segregated in practice than many people are willing to acknowledge.

When people point out these patterns, the conversation often becomes heated. Accusations of racism are exchanged, defensiveness rises, and productive discussion becomes difficult.

But acknowledging uncomfortable realities does not make those realities disappear.

If Americans want to have honest conversations about race, politics, and social trust, then those conversations must be grounded in evidence rather than denial. Voting patterns, historical developments, and lived experiences all contribute to understanding the country we live in today.

Ignoring those realities may feel easier in the moment, but it does little to address the underlying tensions that continue to shape American political life.

March 9, 2026
Being Nice Is Not the Same Thing as Being Good

One of the strangest arguments that repeatedly appears in political discourse is the idea that harmful political movements should be judged more gently because the people involved in them can sometimes be “nice in person.”

Yes, many people who hold destructive political views are perfectly capable of being polite, friendly, or even charming in everyday interactions.

But that has very little to do with the consequences of the ideas they support.

History provides countless examples of people who were socially pleasant while simultaneously supporting or participating in deeply immoral systems. The ability to be personable does not erase the harm caused by one’s beliefs or actions.

Human beings are complex. Someone can be a friendly neighbor, a generous host, or an engaging conversationalist while still supporting policies, movements, or ideologies that cause real harm to other people.

Personal charm has never been a reliable measure of moral character.

Yet in modern political debates, some commentators, particularly within media circles, occasionally suggest that ideological hostility should soften if the person expressing those ideas happens to be courteous in private conversation or polite in a televised debate.

That standard makes very little sense.

Political ideas should be judged based on their substance and consequences, not the personal demeanor of the person expressing them.

A polite presentation does not make a harmful idea less harmful. A friendly tone does not transform prejudice into principle.

Being civil in conversation is a positive trait. But civility should not become a substitute for accountability.

If a political movement promotes policies or rhetoric that harm vulnerable communities, that reality does not disappear simply because some of its supporters are personable in everyday interactions.

The lesson here is simple.

Do not confuse personal niceness with moral integrity.

They are not the same thing.

March 9, 2026
American History Myths #5: Once More on the Myth That the Major Political Parties Never Realigned

I’m going to beat the proverbial dead horse here, but I feel I need to reiterate a point I made previously in this blog.

One of the most persistent myths in modern American political discourse is the claim that the Democratic and Republican parties have remained ideologically consistent throughout history. According to this narrative, the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and racial progress, while the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism.

This claim collapses under even the most basic historical scrutiny.

To maintain the illusion, modern conservatives must ignore several inconvenient facts. They must ignore the political dealignment and realignment that occurred between the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century. They must ignore the steady migration of white Southern conservatives—particularly segregationists—from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party during the second half of the twentieth century.

They must also ignore the uncomfortable reality that many of the political figures celebrated in modern conservative circles were themselves defenders of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy.

The historical record is clear: the ideology of Southern conservatism did not disappear after the Civil Rights Movement. It simply found a new political home.

During the 1960s through the 1990s, many of the most hardline segregationist politicians—often referred to as Dixiecrats—gradually abandoned the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the Republican Party. At the same time, the Republican Party increasingly adopted political strategies designed to attract white Southern voters who opposed civil rights reforms.

This shift was not subtle. It was openly discussed by political strategists and historians alike.

Yet modern conservatives often pretend that none of this happened.

Instead, they promote a simplified narrative in which the Republican Party “freed the slaves” and therefore cannot possibly bear any responsibility for the racial politics that emerged in the twentieth century. The fact that the ideological descendants of segregationists now overwhelmingly identify as conservative Republicans is conveniently ignored.

At the same time, many conservative politicians and commentators openly celebrate figures from the Confederate past while dismissing or ignoring the Republican leaders who actually fought to preserve the Union and end slavery.

Where are the monuments to Republican generals such as William Tecumseh Sherman or Ulysses S. Grant in the regions that once formed the Confederacy? Why are Confederate leaders, who were Democrats of their time, so often praised in modern conservative political culture?

The answer is uncomfortable but obvious.

For many conservatives, the issue has never truly been about party labels. It has always been about political ideology.

This ideological continuity becomes particularly visible when modern politicians attempt to avoid even the most basic historical truths.

For example, when asked about the causes of the American Civil War, some contemporary conservative politicians have offered vague explanations about “government,” “freedom,” or “states’ rights,” while carefully avoiding the central issue that historians overwhelmingly agree defined the conflict: chattel slavery.

Yet the leaders of the Confederacy themselves left no such ambiguity.

In their own declarations of secession, Southern states repeatedly and explicitly identified the preservation of slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union.

The historical record could not be clearer.

Attempts to obscure that fact are not efforts to promote historical nuance. They are attempts to preserve comforting myths about the past.

And those myths serve a political purpose.

By denying the ideological continuity between past and present forms of white supremacist politics, modern conservatives attempt to distance themselves from the legacy of segregation and racial hierarchy while continuing to benefit from many of the political narratives that sustained those systems.

None of this is to suggest that racism exists exclusively within one political party. Racism has existed across the American political spectrum throughout history.

But it is impossible to have an honest conversation about American history—or modern American politics—without acknowledging the ideological realignment that reshaped the nation’s two major political parties during the twentieth century.

History cannot be rewritten simply because it makes some people uncomfortable.

In fact, the opposite is true.

Understanding the darker chapters of our past is precisely how societies learn to avoid repeating them.

Black Americans have long demonstrated that it is possible to love this country while also confronting its historical injustices. Despite centuries of discrimination, violence, and exclusion, Black Americans have served in the nation’s military, represented the country in international competition, and fought relentlessly to expand the promise of American democracy.

Acknowledging historical injustice does not weaken the country.

Pretending that those injustices never happened does.

If Americans truly want to move forward, they must first be willing to tell the truth about where they have been.

March 8, 2026