When the Occupy movement was at its peak, I got an idea about supporting it that I wish I had attempted to promulgate. One of the problems with Occupy was that it was such a small and non-mainstream movement. It consisted primarily of a very small demographic slice of the population, and because of this, it was easier for the police to sweep it away without outraging most ordinary Americans.… [more]
I know that many of you donate a lot of money to progressive causes and candidates, but I recently got an idea for another avenue for societal progress you might pursue. The idea is a general one about a kind of action you can take that combines business, philanthropy, and political activism, but in this post, I'll describe it in terms of a specific type of business.… [more]
We need a new progressive third party. It would be a kind of Bizarro progressive third party, in that it would almost always do the opposite from what current progressive parties like the Green Party are doing today.
There's a lot of talk in progressive circles about "The Revolution." This was especially prevalent during the Bernie Sanders campaign. Some progressives had the idea that all that stood between us and Paradise was something so artificial that we could break through it with a single presidential victory. Unfortunately, the actual elephant in the room is far more substantial: the inconvenient truth that there are more conservatives than there are liberals in this country.… [more]
In all our declarations and discussions of how terrible Trump is, or how "broken" our democracy is, or how oppressive the "Establishment" is, let's not forget the doubly metaphorical elephant in the room: the fact that roughly half of our fellow voters cast their ballots for Trump, and that even now, after the disaster his presidency has been so far, a significant number of them still support him.… [more]
To my mind, the most important line from Bernie's email to his delegates yesterday asking them not to protest was, "But that's not what will expand the progressive movement in this country." For Bernie, the goal is to make actual progress in this country, and he realizes that in order to do that, the progressive movement needs to grow, because right now, we just don't have the votes to elect a presidential candidate like him.… [more]
About a month and a half ago, I wrote a post about why Bernie Sanders was losing the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton. Since then, Sanders has done much better in various state primaries, and has closed Clinton's delegate lead from 24% to 10%. Nevertheless, his chances of winning are much lower now than they were then, because there aren't many more delegates up for grabs. … [more]
Unfortunately, it's looking like Bernie Sanders is not going to win the Democratic nomination. Or if he does, it will only be through a miraculous turnaround in how Democratic voters have been casting their ballots so far. (Perhaps in combination with a number of superdelegates switching their endorsements.)
Here's the scope of the challenge:… [more]
I have lots of friends who are very committed to either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, and their zeal has me feeling optimistic about the future of the Democratic party. Whoever wins the nomination is going to have an army of near-fanatics at their service, and I'm excited about the possible VPs each might select. I'm also looking forward to the next meaningful primary cycle four or eight years from now, when I suspect we'll have even better candidates to choose from — Hello, Elizabeth Warren!… [more]
First, read this courageous comment on the bombing and shooting in Norway.
We had our own "Oslo moment" here in the U.S., of course: the 9/11 attacks. In the aftermath, there was a lot of talk about tightening national security even at the cost of compromising our freedoms. A point that was often made in defense of more, and more extreme, measures was that no matter how strong our security was already, the terrorists would only need to find one crack in the wall, and they'd be in again.… [more]
