All Opposition Getting Little Attention

Democrats’ current media problem is one of attention and fragmentation. Every day I get a bunch of great stuff in my inbox and via my feeds — it’s hard to pick just a few things to write about. Yet when I look at the mass media outlets, it’s all the chaos and disaster of Trump & Co’s making, with little of the pushback. So let’s dive into some of the latter.

Sen Chris Van Hollen is on his way to El Salvador to check on his constituent, Kilmar Obrego Garcia. Here’s his video on Reddit (anyone can watch). Unfortunately, Van Hollen is going by himself. As I wrote yesterday, this could be a real attention-grabber, and as details drip out about more removed persons, I hope other Reps follow Van Hollen’s example.

Bernie and AOC are getting mammoth crowds on their swing through the West. Here’s a local media report from Bakersfield, where AOC went after local Rep David Valadao (R-CA-22) who could lose that R+1 district next cycle. I don’t know about other’s media diets, but I’ve habitually had the app from the best local TV news in town installed on my phone to get weather and local news. In a time when local newspapers are decimated, weak and totally paywalled, TV news is probably the best local media source.

Gavin Newsom has taken a moment from his shitty podcast to do something useful: sue to block Trump’s tariffs. Good.

MTG and Chuck Grassley both took some heat at town halls. Greene’s town hall featured cops tasing protesters. There are hardly any other Republicans doing town halls, so some more empty chair town halls would be nice to see.

Joe Biden went after the Trump Administration’s damage to the “sacred promise” of Social Security. Good. It’s well past time for “norms” on what former presidents can say, a norm that Trump violated constantly.

Finally, David Hogg is getting some tsk-tsk coverage in the media because he’s simultaneously a vice-chair of the DNC and the head of an organization that’s raised $20 million to primary Democrats. As the linked story in Politico points out, Hogg is the only DNC official who didn’t sign a neutrality pledge to stay out of primaries. This is fine as far as I’m concerned. There are a bunch of safe-seat Dem reps who don’t say or do much. That needs to change. The funny (not ha-ha) thing about this story is that it was the most highly-placed story in the Post when I went looking for anything where Democrats had agency. The Times apparently broke it first. Democrats fighting is the only thing they care about.