"Turning up for church hall meetings was well and fine. But haven’t you heard that Americans are bowling alone? Better to email. Phone banking turned into text-a-thons, where volunteers sent millions of text messages to cellphones we had not yet learned to ignore.... That... felt like the future in 2008.... By 2020, the Democratic advantage in digital campaigning was long gone.... As algorithms turned neighbors into unrecognizable partisans with crazy conspiracy theories, Silicon Valley abandoned the Democrats for Trump. Through it all, the frantic fund-raising text messages just kept coming.... [In the Michigan primary,] Abdul El-Sayed upset the deep-pocketed, establishment choice, Haley Stevens, by building a relational campaign on an economic populist message. El-Sayed won, in part, by characterizing the $62 million in outside money that backed Stevens’s campaign as a sign of... political corruption...."
So... money isn't the answer. You need something other than money, and the socialists do have something. How, then, can they be stopped? The linked column puts it like this: "I’d be looking for the candidates who are thinking and running as if they know that bases are made of people, not dollars."
If you really wanted to show that you are about people, you wouldn't say "bases are made of people." You'd say people matter and hide that the reason they matter to you is they're what is required to make a "base."
The socialists are to the Democratic Party what the Tea Party was to the GOP. All they need now is their Trump.
Top-rated comment over there: "Third Way and some other centrist groups seem far more interested in defeating progressives than defeating MAGA and far more interested in telling Democratic voters they’re wrong than earning their votes. If moderates are losing, then the problem is with those candidates, not the progressives who beat them."
The article notes that "the next big test is only a week away": "In Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist and state assemblywoman representing the progressive hotbed of Madison, has emerged as the party’s front-runner for governor in another key battleground race." There's not one word about the candidate/candidates the moderates are pushing.
You can ask him 100 times, and he's "going to give you the same damn answer: The issue is around getting things done."
"We're going to spend time on that bullshit that others are talking about on Twitter? Please."
Gov. Evers campaigning for David Crowley tonight in an attempt to stop Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong from winning next Tue: "You can ask me 100 times, and I'm going to give you… pic.twitter.com/336tlTDfhB
I'm afraid "getting things done" is awfully generic. Francesca Hong is the frontrunner. You can't just refuse to talk about her. I'm not even sure what he's calling "bullshit." Is it Hong's issues or is it what her antagonists are saying about her? I don't see how refusing to engage and asserting that your candidate will "get things done" can turn things around. I'm here in Wisconsin, planning to vote in the primary, and monitoring the news every day, and David Crowley has made no impression on me. Personally, I'm a sucker for blandness and normality and moderation, but I understand the appeal of a candidate like Hong who stands for something and offers to shake everything up.
ADDED: I published this post and clicked on my "David Crowley" link and realize "that bullshit that others are talking about" may refer to the dirt (McGirk) about Crowley. Crowley had made an impression on me, 2 weeks ago, but the impression had worn off. Evers cleverly kept me from remembering it. I'll give him that.
ADDED: Interrupting the Concerts on the Square can't be the best way to win over moderates. It was a beautiful day and this is an extremely well-established and much-loved Madison tradition:
"... is the one that the Platner boom offered before the bust. The hunger that lifted him — the overflow crowds, the volunteer armies, the sense that here, at last, was someone who meant it — was real.... Handed the chance to litigate what the party actually believes, Democrats have mostly declined.... Mr. Platner’s appeal was never really about oysters or facial hair. It was that he seemed to stand for something. He was angry on voters’ behalf about an economy that seems rigged for the powerful, and he was unafraid to say so. People responded to the promise of conviction. That signal is the one the party ought to be reading. The tragedy of a campaign like his is not only that it collapsed, as it deserved to, but that so much energy was poured into a messenger before anyone was sure of the message...."
So "he seemed to stand for something," but we really don't know what, and instead of letting us argue publicly about what that message was and whether it is what we want, they took out the man. I think they had the ability all along to destroy him as a man, but they propped him up as a man. The Nazi tattoo was somehow okay! But when they decided they needed to replace him (presumably, because he wasn't going to win), they used the personal material to take him out.
Here's how Platner himself explained it as he bowed to the Party's demand that he drop the nomination the primary voters had given him: "I think it's really important to understand why this is happening in the timeline, why this is happening right now.... there is a reason that this is happening now...."
And there's this, from Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party: "Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate."
But he won the primary. Shouldn't that at least mean that someone with the same political orientation should replace him? Otherwise, it seems as though the part of the Democratic Party that lost in the primary process is stealing the nomination. That means the only way Platner’s team can have any role in determining the nominee is for Platner to hang onto the nomination he won. Unfortunately for the Party, it has no role in stopping him.
He wants to hold on? He can hold on. The dream is dead? Hold onto that dream.
UPDATE: Platner abandons his dream. He’s out. Watch his video here.
That's the headline at the London Times, a question that assumes a proposition I don't accept as true. Democrats didn't ignore red flags. They saw them and went forward anyway.
The question should be why did they do that, and we know why. It's not hard to figure out. I don't for one minute believe that Democrats are deeply contemplating why they backed Platner despite what they knew. They wanted to win the Senate seat, and they imagined he was their best hope. Now, they are trying to act as though they were blindsided by this rape accusation, and it suddenly disqualifies Platner in a new way.
By the way, what's Platner's motivation to withdraw? He won the primary. It's his nomination. What's good is there for him in withdrawing? If he hangs on for a few more days, past the July 13th deadline for replacing him as the candidate, won't the heat die down? He will have weathered the storm, and he can present himself as a rebellious survivor.
Yes, he may lose, and that loss may be the one Senate seat that denies Democrats the majority they covet, but so what? I mean: "So what?" from his point of view. Should he shrink back into oyster-ridden obscurity because of a rape he says he did not commit? Because of a tattoo everyone knew about when he won the primary?
Host: "You campaigned with Graham Platner… you said, 'He's your kind of man.' … This is a guy who had a chest tattoo with a N*zi symbol… It's a guy that reportedly wrote 'people concerned about r*pe should take some responsibility… pic.twitter.com/zcy7r7BqnW
You can see that's from back in April, but it appeared at the top of the feed when I clicked on the "Platner" trend in the sidebar at X.
The timing of all of this matters. What did they know and when did they know it? Did they hold the accuser back and then let her loose? Look at Jake Tapper seeming to want something of an answer:
NEW: Woman who accused Graham Platner of r*ping her says America needs someone with his political stances in office, says his videos fired her up.
Jake Tapper: There are gonna be people who say this is politically motivated. What would you say to that?
I'm less interested in the random oysterman than I am in the Democratic Party leadership, what they were up to, and what they are doing now. It's so much like the story of Joe Biden's candidacy in 2024. They let the primary process occur, propped the guy up while democracy was in play, let the people expend their power to choose, and then and only then a fatal defect got exposed, and the people's choice had to withdraw himself. The Party got to insert their candidate, someone who never had to face the test of the primary. I want to hold the Party responsible for what it did. Was it just idiotically searching around for a "masculine" man and infatuated with his oysters? Did it cynically select him and think the people don't care about sexual misdeeds anymore — the #MeToo era is over and it's time to go for those "manosphere" votes?
ADDED: When I first clicked on this, I thought it was a humor sketch. The creaky voice on this Moraff character is something else:
Graham Platner was recruited to run for Senate by a pair of socialist political operatives, Daniel Moraff and Leanne Fan, who determined that another prospective candidate had “a skeleton in the closet.”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) June 8, 2026
AND: Scott Jennings puts it well:
Democrats fully vetted Graham Platner, happily signed off on his incredibly disturbing history to win a Senate seat, and are only pretending to be shocked now because they can no longer rationalize the hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/jkp12Gwv16
"... on social media. She proceeded to be nominated for a House race in New York last week by Democratic voters who presumably do not all share those feelings. The DSA now includes a growing caucus of supporters in Congress, has mayoral candidates well positioned to win in several big cities, and has plans to throw its weight behind a yet-to-be-determined presidential candidate in 2028. The DSA’s feelings about Democrats encompass not only the party’s leadership but also the philosophical commitments that have guided it since the New Deal: a mixed economy undergirded by democratic values. Chevalier, for instance, joined a post–October 7 celebratory rally and portrayed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a defensive response to Western 'bullying.' She previously called for seizing land and the means of production and has repeatedly praised communism. These positions are not holdovers from the idealism of youth or a bygone 'woke' era. They are a by-product of the DSA’s core ideology. The DSA has become a force in Democratic Party politics even as it has grown more hostile to the party, more illiberal, and more dogmatic...."
"... that swept a series of congressional contests last week in New York. Ms. Kiros, an immigrant and first-time candidate, was born the year after [Rep. Diana] DeGette, 68, took office. Her victory in the solidly Democratic district [Denver] all but ensures her election in November.... Her opposition to U.S. support for Israel was also a cornerstone of her campaign and central to her political identity.... In her campaign biography, Ms. Kiros highlighted the fact that the Manhattan law firm where she once worked had fired her in 2023 after she refused to take down a letter that raised questions about Israel’s historical legitimacy, defended pro-Palestinian campus protesters and challenged the firm’s response to activist law students. She has faced criticism for declining to call antisemitic a fatal firebombing attack in Boulder, Colo., on people who were marching in support of Israeli hostages...."
"I am totally comfortable in a political party that spends time questioning the policies of the government of Israel. In fact, I’m enthusiastic about that. I don’t want to be in a political party that denies the right of the state of Israel to exist. That’s just not– I just can’t do that."
"My State" = Wisconsin. Ben was chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party from 2019 to 2025.
He continues: "There’s a name for that approach today: 'relational organizing.' It starts with the recognition that people will be more open to a new message if they trust the messenger. So if you want to build a movement, build trust. Seek to do this outside of your own political bubble, because the people who are most apt to change their minds about politics are generally the people who are the least interested in it. Your goal should be to join or build a group that engages voters who don’t live, sleep, eat and breathe politics — in a barbershop, at a fish fry or at a farmers’ market."
I wrote about the term "relational organizing" back in 2023 — here — based on a WaPo piece the quoted Wikler. I said:
"... and that has propelled Democrats to victories across the country is aging. The G.O.P. is racing to disorganize and dilute Black electoral power across the South and the Voting Rights Act is all but dead. Your guess about the Democratic Party’s plan to fill the gaps is as good as mine. The party seems to want some kind of economic populist message without embracing the demographic reality that a member of the working class is just as likely to be Black or a woman as a white dude in a Carhartt...."
The suggested winning issue is opposition to data centers: "Americans hate data centers. They really, really hate them.... Data centers evoke strong emotions because they are tangible. Voters can hear them, smell them and see them.... [W]hen political problems become local, people can be persuaded to look beyond their party affiliation or even their own social class to help one another...."
"... according to three people familiar with the events. Forget dialing for dollars — Mr. Schlossberg said he needed a nap. He then effectively disappeared for the day, leaving his team reeling.... [A] group of fellow Democrats, family friends, union leaders and others with direct knowledge of the campaign described an operation so erratic and plagued by turnover that it raises questions about how he might handle himself as a member of Congress. Especially early on, Mr. Schlossberg would regularly blow off weekly strategy meetings called for his benefit, and made a habit of disappearing for long stretches with little notice or explanation. (He did carve out time to swim or paddleboard in the Hudson most days.)...."
"So we tended to start by trying to win the ones that were most popular. Gays in the military. Employment. We didn’t go after same-sex marriage, we didn’t make marriage a litmus test, until the very end. I analogize that to male-to-female transgender sports. That is the most controversial part of the agenda — the equivalent of gay marriage — so put it at the end. If you go at it that way, you build support for it. But if you insist on the most controversial parts all at once, you make it harder."
"As talks to end the latest disastrous war focus on reopening a narrow strait of water that was open before the war began, this seems like an obvious conclusion. And yet many Democratic politicians would most likely be wary of embracing it.... [M]any Democrats seem to fear being seen as antiwar. What if they vote against wartime funding, and then an Iranian attack targets U.S. troops or the homeland? Or what if Mr. Trump bombs Iran, and the regime collapses and is replaced by something better? You could feel this calculation within the Democratic Party as the war began — a hedging that only dissipated when the war’s brutality and insanity became clear.... We like to frame our wars as virtuous, but they are not. Instead, they resemble a declining empire sowing chaos along its periphery as a matter of strategy.... [T]he forever war has been destroying America from within, like an organism that must keep growing to survive, filling us with fear of outsiders and contempt for one another. War does that to societies: Once you normalize taking human life abroad, you tend not to value it at home...."
The litigation is already pending: "Lawsuits pending at Virginia Supreme Court over redistricting referendum" (ABC 13 News). There are 3 lawsuits, 2 of which challenge the language. The vote was allowed to go through, but we'll see what the court says. I can see how one might argue that the voters didn’t approve of anything that doesn’t "restore fairness" and the plan put forward by the Democrats was designed for the purpose of advancing the party— not to restore fairness — so the voters did not approve it.
"By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the center. I have given up on trying to change the Democratic Party. My main goal is to send a message that many traditional Democratic voters can’t accept what it is becoming—a replica of left-wing European parties that are hurting their countries."
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