"The leaders of two of the nation’s largest and most influential labor unions have quit their posts in the Democratic National Committee in a major rebuke to the party’s new chairman, Ken Martin...."

"The departures of [Randi] Weingarten and [Lee] Saunders represent a significant erosion of trust in the D.N.C. — the official arm of the national party — during a moment in which Democrats are still locked out of power and grappling for a message and messenger to lead the opposition to President Trump. In their resignation messages, the two union chiefs suggested that under Mr. Martin’s leadership, the D.N.C. was failing to expand its coalition. Both labor leaders had supported Mr. Martin’s rival in the chairmanship race, Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party...."

I'm reading "Two Top Union Leaders Quit D.N.C. Posts in Dispute With Chairman/Randi Weingarten, head of one of the nation’s most influential teachers unions, and Lee Saunders, the president of a large union of public workers, each pointed to Ken Martin’s leadership" (NYT).

The Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates debate.

The difference between these Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel is sharply defined.

AND: Here's a new NYT article, "The Trump Loyalist Aiming to Swing Wisconsin Back to the Right/Brad Schimel, a judge who is so supportive of the president that he dressed up as him for Halloween, is hoping to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court for conservatives":

The state’s Democratic Party is airing television ads tying Mr. Musk to Judge Schimel....

Click that link to see an ad that shows Elon Musk wielding the chain saw and giving the "Nazi" salute over and over again.

Bagmen.

Isn't it Soros plan electing his bag "person" Susan Crawford to our highest court?

— Gregory Jon (@gregoryjon) February 22, 2025

Is this the correct usage of the term "bagman"? The definition I'm seeing in the OED is "One who collects or administers the collection of money obtained by racketeering and other dishonest means." And "A bagman is one who administers the collection of graft money from either the underworld or the business world and its subsequent distribution among politicians and civil servants." It would be more accurate to call Musk and Soros "bagmen" than to call Crawford and Schimel "bagperson" and bagman."

By the way, you don't have to say "bag person." The OED has "bag woman" — in this criminal sense — going back to 1960: "Last week another million dollar action was begun against Powell by Mrs. Esther James, a 64-year old widow, who charged Powell had libeled her in terming her a ‘bag woman’ for uptown cops with underworld figures."

The Democrats have elected their party chair.

Introducing the new Chair of the DNC: @KenMartin73. pic.twitter.com/PIC6zBO6u7

— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) February 1, 2025

See my discussion of the race for the chair, earlier today, here.

ADDED: Here's the NYT article on the subject, "Democrats Elect Ken Martin, a Party Insider, to Lead the D.N.C./The Democratic National Committee chose Mr. Martin, the leader of the Minnesota Democrats, to help oversee a demoralized national party split over its future and its response to President Trump."

"What’s needed is a Democratic Party where grassroots activists and their allies in labor, environmental, and civil rights organizations sweep the pablum of past messaging aside..."

"... and replace it with an absolute commitment to economic and social and racial justice that gives frustrated Americans something to vote for. That means that the next DNC chair cannot be simply a competent manager—or, worse yet, a mere fund-raising complement to the party’s plodding congressional leadership.... But what the party needs just now is a new Fred Harris—a 21st-century version of the fierce Oklahoma populist who shook up the DNC during his brief tenure in the late 1960s and early 1970s.... When he was DNC chair and later as a presidential candidate, Fred Harris sought to create a Democratic Party that was recognized for its opposition to privilege. 'The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either,' he argued. 'The widespread diffusion of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of government.'  And of a Democratic Party...."

Writes John Nichols in "What the Next DNC Chair Must Do to Save the Party/Yes, pushing back against Donald Trump is essential. But to do that, the Democrats must turn themselves into a fighting force for economic justice" (The Nation).

The Dems need to be something substantial, not just opposition to Trump, and yet I think that Trump won by opposing the things the Democrats had been doing while he was taking a term off and regenerating. Is Nichols urging Democrats to go back to those substantive positions? Actually, no. He wants someone like Harris — Fred Harris — and "Harris wanted to identify the Democrats as the vehicle for raising people of all races out of poverty and to make the party the political wing of the working class." People of all races.

The vote is today, and, as WaPo puts it, "The top two candidates in Saturday’s election are Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota Democrats, and Ben Wikler, the chairman of Wisconsin Democrats":

"Ben Wikler's rise to Democratic stardom has a very Madison backstory."

A nice article in the local paper, The Cap Times.

I especially liked the part about The Yellow Press, which was sometimes edited right here in the house we now call Meadhouse:

[In high school,] Wikler and his friends had founded a satirical publication called The Yellow Press.... The newspaper... dovetailed with the rise of another Madison-area satirical publication, The Onion, where he later worked part-time as a headline writer. But while The Yellow Press included [silly topics] and occasionally rankled an administrator or two — an article titled “Prom Night Is Such a Romantic Night to Get F-----” landed the kids in hot water — the paper included serious subject matters. ...

"The two candidates who have emerged as front-runners... are both middle-aged white men from the upper Midwest and chair of their state parties whose politics are well within the Democratic mainstream...."

"[Ken] Martin, 51, is campaigning on a platform of returning power and resources to state parties, while his supporters are attacking [Ben] Wikler, 43, as a tool of major donors and Democratic consultants in Washington. Mr. Wikler’s supporters include a host of D.N.C. officials who have been perturbed at Mr. Martin for creating a group of state party chairs that has competed within the national committee for influence. They say that the Wisconsinite, who turned his state party into a fund-raising juggernaut, is the more dynamic figure who managed to turn state elections... into national causes.... Some Democrats see the D.N.C. contenders’ arguments about relationships with donors and their regular promises of more money for state parties as papering over a broader discussion of why Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election."

"As Democrats Reel, Two Front-Runners Emerge in a Leadership Battle/The race to lead the Democratic National Committee centers on the favorites, Ken Martin and Ben Wikler, but the party’s infighting over them looks nothing like a broad reckoning with its 2024 defeats" (NYT)(free-access link).

Well, Kamala Harris had plenty of money, so she lost for reasons other than money. And yet, if it's pretty obvious why she lost — and isn't it? — then raking in the money may still be more important than any elaborate soul-searching about the dismal loss last November. In any case, what evidence is there that Martin is better than Wikler at figuring out why the Dems lost? Personally, I knew Ben Wikler when he was a teenager, and I think he can do anything. I mean, I knew Ben Wikler when he was a white teenager, and now he's a middle-aged white man, and I tend to think he can do the best that anyone can to revive the Democratic Party.

"Everybody says this who meets with him, but like, he's, he's an incredible host. So we, we met with him at Bedminster Golf Club in, in New Jersey...

"... which is like, you know, absolutely beautiful, you know, we had a great time.... [What did Trump serve at dinner?] Oh, he said, he said what do you guys want to eat? And I, I just, I, for some reason I was just like, I, I, I, I know exactly what to say and I'm like, meat, I want meat. And so he literally ordered every meat dish. And, and by the way, he ordered every meat dish and nothing else. [There were no sides?] There were no sides.... It was all meat and it was glorious. There was so much meat. I don't think there was room on the table for sides. [Were there drinks or no alcohol?] There? It was a diet coke. He, he, he, he mainlines diet coke. And I was mainlining it right next to him."

Said Marc Andreessen — with questions from Bari Weiss in brackets — in this "Honestly" podcast episode. This is a great podcast. (Andreessen, to quote Weiss, "got his start as the co-creator of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser... He then co-founded Netscape... [and] now runs a venture capital firm... [that] invested in Airbnb, Coinbase, Instagram, Instacart, Pinterest, Slack, Reddit, Lyft and Oculus to name just a few.")

There's a nice "lightning round" at the end of the podcast. After asking about the food Trump, the "incredible host," served at Bedminster, Weiss asks: "Tomorrow you wake up and you're the DNC chair, what's the first thing you would do?"

"Even when he's lying out of his teeth, he's lying in an authentic way."

Says Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, in what is my favorite moment of his long interaction with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show": 

"People can smell authenticity. They can feel it. And I think Trump is a disaster for the country. It's very clear he does not think before he talks. He just says it. And there is something that draws people towards him about that. Even when he's lying out of his teeth, he's lying in an authentic way."

I really do think that what people like about Trump is that they feel that he's saying what he thinks. Some of the things he thinks are not precisely true. They may be exaggerations or simplifications or things he's heard people saying — "They're eating the pets" — but we're seeing his thoughts. It's authentic in a way "that draws people towards him."

I also liked when Stewart said to Wikler, "It’s like wrestling a bear. You’re a giant man with a golden tongue" (at 9:54).

"The Democratic Party needs to figure out better ways to counter disinformation, including the disinformation that it is elitist."

Writes Patrice La Belle, M.D., in the comments section of the Michelle Goldberg column in the NYT, "If Anyone Can Save the Democrats, It’s Ben Wikler."

"It’s clear from this election that there are many voters, especially those hardest hit by rising prices, those who experienced the pandemic-era financial support slipping away, who voted primarily on the economy."

"We’ve seen in the United States and worldwide if you have to break pearls in half to be able to afford your groceries, that is going to be the top-of-mind issue when you go to the ballot box. Democrats win when voters know that we’re the ones fighting for them against those who will seek to rip them off to add an extra billion dollars to their bank account."

That's Ben Wikler, answering the question: "You have said for years that abortion rights is the issue that best motivates Democratic voters and best convinces Republicans to vote for Democrats. Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights?"

From "Wisconsin Democratic Chair Says He Is the One to Revive a Distressed Party/Ben Wikler, who has led the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019, announced a bid to be national party chair with a platform to 'unite, fight, win'" (NYT)(free-access link).

I like Ben because I knew him quite well when he was a teenager. He's obviously got highly developed verbal skills. Not highly developed enough to keep me from noticing that he didn't confront the complexities of the Democrats' involvement with the abortion issue. They forefronted it, and he wanted them to forefront it.

Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights? What's the answer? The question required him to pick. Either it's no longer true that abortion is the Democrats' best issue OR the Democrats needed to push even harder on the abortion issue. But maybe leaping past a reporter's well-structured question and saying "It's the economy, stupid" in elaborate, elegant language is a good demonstration of the skill Democrats want in their chair.

ADDED: I spent a lot of time trying to ascribe meaning to "break pearls in half." A commenter — wild chicken — asked if that's "a saying in Wisconsin." And I got all involved:

I googled it when I was writing the post, and I considered elaborating on this figure of speech. I couldn't find any example of "break pearls in half" as a figurative expression. I did find out that pearls are *cut* in half for some purposes, but these were real, not metaphorical, pearls. What did Ben mean? All I can think of is Mickey Mouse, starving, and cutting one bean into slices.

Then I got a text from Meade: "Pills/Bad transcription by NYT."

For more laughs, here's Mickey:

Replete with cheeseheads and "Jump Around"...

Wisconsin weighed in at the convention:

I don't know why Governor Tony Evers had such trouble getting the words out, but what does it matter? The votes were cast, and the votes were not real anyway.

Nice to see Ben Wikler by his side.

As for the convention in general, no, I did not watch. Maybe I'll take a look at the Obamas speeches on YouTube... or just look at the transcripts... count how many times they said "hope" or something.

ADDED: I scrolled right to Wisconsin and felt good about hearing "Jump Around," but I see that all the states got their popular song. Here's a full list. Because they went in alphabetical order, Alabama was first, and the song is a song that used to make lefties cringe: "Sweet Home Alabama."

"President Biden arrives Friday in Madison, Wis., for what will be a critical few hours as he holds a rally attempting to inject new life..."

"... into a flagging campaign and sits for an ABC News interview as part of an effort to demonstrate his verbal and mental ability...."

I'm reading "Biden faces critical day to push back against calls to withdraw/With a rally in Wisconsin and an interview on ABC, Biden hopes to begin turning the tide after days of criticism of his recent debate performance" (WaPo).

Where is this "rally"? When is it? This is happening in my city, and I can't find anything in the local press about how a person could actually attend this event. Might I stumble into it if I go traipsing about? Will George Stephanopoulos and Biden do their interview in a room with an audience? It's disturbing that Biden has been hidden away throughout his campaign, so if the idea is now finally to emerge into view, why is he so hard to see?

Biden is scheduled to arrive in Wisconsin early Friday afternoon, with plans to be in the state for a few hours....

Does that sound like they want us to see him?

"President Biden’s reelection effort will launch a pilot test of its 2024 organizing strategy... that aims to directly leverage the personal relationships of volunteers."

"The moves come as the Democratic National Committee has redirected its organizing efforts to a new smartphone app that encourages supporters to communicate with people in their own friend, family and community circles and then report those contacts back to the party’s voter file. This 'relational organizing' has become a growing part of Democratic campaigns for several cycles, outperforming traditional door-knocking and call sheet lists that volunteers have long used to contact strangers during campaigns...."

From "Biden team launches organizing pilot project in Wisconsin and Arizona/The reelection effort is focused on recruiting large numbers of volunteers to use their own relationships to spread the Biden message directly" (WaPo).

"This could become a fireball that eats all of them up throughout 2024."

"The longer they push this forward, the more political price we want to build for Republicans in the Legislature and the whole G.O.P. machinery."

Said Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, quoted in "Why Republicans Could Impeach a Liberal Judge Before She’s Heard a Case/Republicans in Wisconsin have floated impeaching a newly seated liberal State Supreme Court justice who is threatening conservatives’ grip on state politics" (NYT).

A "hinge moment."

Today is a hinge moment in the political history of Wisconsin: we go from a far-right state Supreme Court majority to a progressive one. At 5 pm, Janet Protasiewicz—who won the April 4 election—will be sworn in. The path here is a testament to the power of grit. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/JQfNU1V6ez

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) August 1, 2023

Is "hinge moment" becoming a common expression? I like that it seems like a replacement for "inflection point," which has always annoyed me.

"In a contentious debate in Madison last week, in front of a standing-room-only crowd, the mutual contempt between candidates was palpable."

"[Daniel] Kelly kept pointing at [Janet] Protasiewicz and calling her a liar as she looked straight ahead; the event had a bit of the same vibe as the infamous second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Kelly inveighed against Protasiewicz for speaking in terms of policy outcomes rather than legal doctrine, calling her 'a candidate who does nothing but talk about her personal politics.'"

 
Writes Michelle Goldberg in "This Election Could Be the Beginning of the End of Scott Walker’s Legacy in Wisconsin" (NYT).

"What happens in Wisconsin doesn't stay in Wisconsin. It's the place where Republicans try out what they want to bring elsewhere. It is... the laboratory for autocracy."

Says the super-articulate Ben Wikler, Chair, Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is the laboratory for autocracy in America and we have to make sure that experiment fails. Watch full episode with ⁦@benwikler⁩ from ⁦@WisDems⁩ to find out what you can do to actively help save democracy in the next 6 weeks. pic.twitter.com/TiYzBsRhLX

— PoliticsGirl (@IAmPoliticsGirl) February 16, 2023

I try to stay neutral on Wisconsin politics, so don't read this as an endorsement of the Democratic Party. 

Abject fealty.

Don’t miss the inside scoop on Tim Michels’s abject fealty to Donald Trump election denialism—to the point of declaring his interest in overturning the LAST election—in this brilliant investigation https://t.co/60TMEu1egG

— Ben Wikler (@benwikler) October 14, 2022

"Abject" means "of low repute; despicable, wretched; self-abasing, servile, obsequious" — according to the OED, which gives this example of the usage of the word from 1579:

1579 G. Harvey Let.-bk. (1884) 87 Lerned philosophers..are the dryest, leanist, ill-favoriddist, abiectist, base-mind[e]dist carrions.

And I like this Tobias Smollett's "Humphry Clinker":

I know nothing so abject as the behaviour of a man canvassing for a seat in parliament.

Yes, everyone running for everything is abject. 

Here's Samuel Beckett (from "No's Knife," 1967):

The aversion my person inspired even in its most abject and obsequious attitudes.

Now, "fealty" is "The obligation of fidelity on the part of a feudal tenant or vassal to his lord" (OED). It's also used figuratively, which how Wikler — the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin — is using it. 

He's not quite saying that Michels is acting like a vassal to Lord Trump. The accusation of fealty is not to Trump the man, but to Trump's idea that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. 

When is the dedication to an idea low, despicable, and wretched or self-abasing, servile, and obsequious?

"In many states, including Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia and Florida, abortion’s new battleground is decidedly unlevel, tilted by years of Republican efforts to gerrymander state legislatures..."

"... while Democrats largely focused on federal politics. As abortion becomes illegal in half of the country, democratic self-governance may be nearly out of reach for some voters.... Democrats may have won the popular presidential vote in five out of the last six elections, but Republicans control 23 state legislatures while Democrats lead 14 — with 12 bicameral state legislatures divided between the parties. (Nebraska’s legislature is elected on a nonpartisan basis.)... Unshackled by the Supreme Court and often largely unopposed by Democrats, conservative organizations backed by billionaires like Charles Koch — including the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Republican State Leadership Committee — set out more than a decade ago to dominate policymaking at the state level.... In Wisconsin, Democrats hold virtually every statewide office, including governor. Yet, waves of gerrymandering have left Republicans with close to a supermajority in the State Senate and Assembly. That means an abortion ban that was passed in 1849, when only white men could vote, is set to go back into force now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. 'Because the structure of Wisconsin’s ultragerrymandered maps are so rigged against small-d democracy, we are going to have a law on the books that the overwhelming majority of Wisconsinites oppose,' said Ben Wikler, the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.'"

From "Supreme Court Throws Abortion to an Unlevel State Playing Field/The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade shifted the abortion fight to state legislatures, where gerrymandering has given Republicans an advantage." (NYT).