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- Really Cancelled
First, I just wanted to note that the whining privileged white guys who were “cancelled” can rejoice because Stephen Colbert, PBS and NPR were all cancelled, too, so MAGA got what they wanted, revenge for a perceived slight.
Second, I want to talk a bit about how the PBS and NPR thing went down. Basically, the rules around rescission, a budgetary process to take back budgeted money, include a 45-day deadline after passage of the budget. That deadline was Friday. Democrats in the Senate and the House declined to delay the process, so both PBS and NPR were zeroed out. Brian Beutler has a good summary:
To summarize, Republicans said their plan was to abuse power to play Democrats for suckers. Democrats had an opportunity to stop them, but chose to accept the slap in the face, offering four excuses:
1. The Epstein story is a more “productive strategy.”
2. Republicans will probably just break the rules anyhow.
3. Losing valuable weekend time really sucks.
4. Our voters aren’t paying attention, and if they happen to notice, whatever! They have the collective memory of a housefly.
Hakeem Jeffries, in particular, had the ability to hold the floor, which he showed during the debate over the Big Billionaire Blowjob. He didn’t. Instead, on Friday, he went to meet Zohran Mamdani and yet again decline to endorse:
In an office space in East New York — a predominantly Black and working-class corner of Jeffries’ district — Mamdani and Jeffries began getting to know each other. Mamdani had arrived seeking an endorsement and left about an hour later with only the promise of another meeting.
It was a sign of how cautiously Jeffries is approaching Mamdani’s new and evolving role in the Democratic Party. The House minority leader has stressed that he does not know the 33-year-old democratic socialist who rocketed to national fame after defeating former Gov. Andrew Cuomo last month. Jeffries has also underscored the daylight between him and Mamdani, including on the candidate’s defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which Mamdani has ever so slowly begun to walk back.
[…]
The East New York section of Brooklyn where the Mamdani-Jeffries summit took place was a stronghold for Cuomo in the primary. It’s a pocket of the borough that has gentrified more slowly with some promised development there stalled.
Gentrification — a topic of discussion in the two Democrats’ sitdown — has been a flashpoint in the broader analysis of how Mamdani won. He turned out new voters in a multiracial coalition, but the core of his base in the primary was white, affluent and highly educated residents of Queens and Brooklyn. Jeffries’ political operation has nicknamed emboldened democratic socialists threatening to primary House incumbents “Team Gentification,” according to CNN.
Instead of finding ways to fight on the floor of Congress, Jeffries and his staff have been engaging in thinking up nicknames for the party’s chosen candidate for mayor. That’s where the “leadership” of the party is at this moment: piss-pants scared of losing their party positions, and little concerned about the harm that Trump’s policies will cause. In fact, I’d wager that they think losing PBS and NPR are good for their strategy of passively winning back the House due to a backlash against Trump. And they might be right.
It’s worth noting that the chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Rodnyese Bichotte Hermelyn endorsed Mamdani a few days ago, accompanying her endorsement with a nice video of them touring Little Haiti, which is part of Hermelyn’s Assembly district. At some point Jeffries will be the cheese that stands alone.
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