Today I want to talk about two opposing views/actions that - IMHO - highlight the difference today between Democrats (in general with exceptions) and Republicans (pretty much in tight formation lockstep).
Viewpoint/Action #1: Government Can Do Good Things and Democrats Should Not Cede Gound on That
Adam Kinzinger has an interesting column today regarding - who else - Mayor Mamdani (Mister Mix had previously written about Mamdani doing a “good thing”: Keep Doing Good Things):
Kinzinger focuses on Mamdani’s “Nixon in China” ability to have credibility on issues that Democrats have historically ignored and/or on which they have been viewed as weak. I’ll come back to that in a bit. But I was drawn to another reference in Kinzinger’s post. So I went to the Mayor’s Management Report issued last week (if you want the full 530-page report, you can find it HERE):
This is a “nuts and bolts” report. It uses hard statistics and facts to drive home a point: government is working for you and doing the little things - as well as the big things - to directly impact your life and make it better. It’s worth reading the short “What You Should Know” summary, but here is a short list of the various and unrelated items it covers:
Affordability: worker restitution, food distribution, housing (financing and building affordable units)
Safety: drops in felonies, burglaries, shootings and crime in public housing/public transit
Investing in Youth: youth employment, recreation center attendance, job placement and child welfare
Public Goods and Public Service: pothole repairs, speed bump installations, waste diversion for landfills, tree planting, bus lanes, waste collection, parks & rec engagement
Health & Human Support: primary care medical access, disease reduction, free internet and phone access, increased utilization of NYC service agencies, massive increase in use of NYC 988 service (NYC 988 is a free, confidential, 24/7 mental health and substance use crisis line available by phone, text, or online chat)
This is an impressive list which struck me in two ways: 1) it shows that government can deliver on improving people’s lives in small ways and big, and 2) Mamdani is not afraid (or hesitant) to inform the people he serves that he is making their lives better (you can view it as a bit of a brag - that’s a GOOD thing politically and something Democrats have not done well - and that’s an understatement - over the years).
Back To Kinzinger’s post. He writes:
At a recent summit of mayors, he was asked about the state of the left, and he said something fascinating. He argued that progressives have essentially surrendered enormous political territory without a fight.
“Quality of life has come to be seen as somehow a right-wing concern. Efficiency…has been taken on as a right-wing concern. Rooting out fraud and waste, a right-wing concern.”
Not what you’d expect to hear from the poster boy for the DSA, is it?
But he’s right. Somewhere along the way, the left decided that ordinary human concerns, like whether the streets feel safe and clean, whether government actually works, whether taxpayer money is spent without waste, meant you were hiding Ayn Rand novels in your attic.
Instead of owning the very issues they were trying to solve with an involved government, they ceded the ground. And Mamdani’s point is that ceding the ground just hands the issue to the right, gift-wrapped and ready to be turned into attack ads.
Here’s how he put the consequence:
“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it.’”
I’ve read plenty of Democrats lamenting that the party still fails to connect with voters, even when Donald Trump’s approval ratings have collapsed. Mamdani gives them a clear answer why.
If you genuinely believe that the government can do good in people’s lives, then you should be obsessed with making it run well. You should want to be the party that hunts down waste, fraud, and abuse and fixes the broken agency, because a government that works is the best argument your side has.
Now, I could plausibly and comfortably argue that Democrats ARE the party that wants government to work and run well, and that ever since Reagan, Republicans (including Kinzinger?) have promoted the idea that government is inherently evil and cannot do good things. But that’s something we’ll talk more about another day.
I’ll just agree with Kinzinger on this; wherever one identifies on the Democratic Party spectrum - left or liberal or progressive or moderate or centrist - making government work for people AND letting people know you are making government work for them is a major aspect of the path forward.
SIDE NOTE: the other major aspect of the path forward is to improve trust in government through ensuring accountability and consequences for those in power and the Epstein Class
Viewpoint/Action #2: Free Speech Only for Those with Whom I Agree, and Laws for Thee but Not for Me
For those living in a cave without access to the modern world, a couple of days ago Trump banned certain media outlets from the White House Press Corps - CNN, MSNow and Politico. Their excuse morphed from Trump originally saying they were reporting Fake News to a tortured argument that somehow these organizations were threatening national security.
SIDE NOTE: I wrote about this to some extent in a post earlier this week: John Barrasso Spits on the Constitution in Defense of a Wannabe Dictator
Well, those organizations sued on First Amendment grounds, and this morning, the judge (a 2017 Trump appointee) ruled in their favor and issued a TRO (temporary restraining order) blocking the White House form enforcing it’s ban. From the WSJ:
Judge Orders Trump to Lift Ban on CNN, MS NOW, Politico
Some reporters say they were still denied access to White House Thursday despite ruling
Of course, because laws only apply to others, the White House is ignoring the judge’s ruling and still barring these three organizations from the White House.
Also, yesterday, in a little-known case in Iowa, a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Trump accusing The Des Moines Register and its former pollster of misrepresenting the state of the 2024 presidential race. From the Independent:
A state judge on Wednesday dismissed a legal challenge Donald Trump brought against The Des Moines Register and its former pollster, rejecting claims that media coverage of a pre-election survey violated Iowa’s consumer fraud law and ruling that press reporting on political contests is fully protected under the Constitution.
Describing the lawsuit as extraordinary, Iowa District Judge Scott J. Beattie cautioned that letting the case and its "faulty" legal claims move forward in court could have a severe chilling effect that "can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs."
Judge Beattie ruled in favor of pollster J. Ann Selzer and the newspaper, affirming that political polling and news coverage detailing survey results constitute constitutionally protected political speech rather than a commercial product governed by state consumer protection statutes.
To Trump and his fellow Republicans, speech they don’t like, or speech that they don’t believe, in their view, is “fair” (see my link to the Barrasso post above) should be quashed. to be or direct, in their view, any speech they don’t like is, in their view, ipso facto illegitimate.
It’s not easy to simply message this divergence of views, but as a Democratic candidate for office at any level, I would certainly try.
“I’m interested in making sure government does good things for the people I will have the honor of serving. My opponent doesn’t care about that - [he/she] agrees with Trump that laws are only for the little people and that any disagreements with their views are illegitimate. That’s waht dictators believe.”
Once again, Mamdani shows the way.
High School Musical Cast - We're All In This Together
