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2025 & 2026 Elections

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Paine said:
I think your framing risks turning recent trends into permanent facts. Yes, there’s been an influx of culturally conservative migrants into places like Montana and the Dakotas. But to say those states are now permanently “MAGA forts” because of that, like there’s no longer any capacity for political realignment, feels overly fatalistic.

You say the people there now have “absolutely nothing” in common with the ones who lived there 30 years ago. But that erases a long tradition of economic populism that didn’t vanish, it was displaced. That displacement wasn’t inevitable; it happened through political neglect, deindustrialization, and the collapse of local institutions. It can be reversed, but only if someone tries.

You’re right that the ground doesn’t vote. But history tells us the people on that ground can change if someone meets them where they are, speaks their language, and offers a material alternative. That’s what Osborne is trying in Nebraska. That’s what populists once did across the Plains. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible.
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And Osborne will lose in Nebraska. He will dominate Omaha and Lincoln but be decimated everywhere else.
 
Paine said:

Independent Dan Osborn makes another run at Nebraska Senate​


Independent populist Dan Osborn, whose insurgent Senate campaign seriously threatened one of Nebraska’s Republicans from securing a third term last year, is now taking on GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts — one of the wealthiest members of Congress.

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Osborn, who has already met with state Democrats, announced his candidacy against the former Nebraska governor Tuesday via campaign video.

A Navy veteran and mechanic by trade, Osborn is aware he won’t be able to duplicate the out-of-nowhere grassroots campaign he deployed last cycle, when he outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris significantly in the state.

“There is no element of surprise [this time],” Osborn told POLITICO, adding that he expects Ricketts and his allies to “come out with a lot of money and go very negative right from the beginning.”

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National polling hints at a growing discontent among independents, Democrats and some Republicans over Trump’s policies, including the passage of his megabill last week that critics predict will add trillions to the national deficit and boot millions off Medicaid.

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As POLITICO reported in November, Chuck Schumer touted the race in a virtual rallydays before the election. The Senate Democratic campaign arm and its main allied super PAC also made late donationsto Osborn or groups supporting him. Democrats didn’t recruit a candidate into the race last year and aren’t planning to do so next year either, giving Osborn a chance to carry Democrats and the state’s many independent voters, according to Nebraska Democratic Party chair Jane Kleeb.

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Kleeb said for Osborn to win, he’ll have to make up ground in Nebraska’s 3rd Congressional District, which broke heavily for Fischer last cycle. She said it’s possible.

“We just think that there is so much anger at what is happening with all of the cuts, in particular in rural communities, that if there was ever an opening to win statewide, [2026] is the year.”

But Osborn vows to remain independent, saying: “I have no problem sitting at lunch by myself.”
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I hope he wins!
 
Paine said:
You’re denying something that’s empirically obvious: the right did build political infrastructure locally, methodically, and over decades. School boards, churches, sheriff’s races, AM radio, gun clubs, crisis pregnancy centers, local business networks. That’s infrastructure. That’s relational politics. And yes, they also did national dog-whistle messaging, but they had a base to carry it through.


You also frame this as a 2025 issue, as if organizing has somehow become obsolete. But the forces we’re up against (right-wing populism, right-wing media, corporate capture) have only made deep organizing more essential. The right understands that. They invest in infrastructure, even in places where they’re already winning. They build school board pipelines, fund sheriffs’ races, show up at every church picnic. That’s not simple nostalgia, it’s how power is built.
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How is this "empirically obvious"? What is the empirical evidence for it? You are acting like Republicans had some grand master strategy to invest at the local level instead of national level, with Dems doing the inverse, and that's what has caused the current landscape where Dems are strong in urban areas and Republicans are strong everywhere else. I haven't seen any evidence of that being the case. Again, I think you are looking at the fact that small counties everywhere support Republicans and concluding that it must be because Republicans have done better investing attention and resources in those communities, because it matches your theory that local investment is what drives ideology and party identity long-term. But the fact that the Democratic Party has a bad reputation in smaller communities nationwide has a lot more to do with the perception the people in those communities have of national-level Dems than it does with Dems failing to show up at church picnics or run for sheriff in the local races in their town. The national-level dog-whistle and nostalgia messaging is what built the base, not all this supposed local-level relationship-building. Republicans are running for local school boards because Fox News told them the liberals are trying to turn their kids gay and trans with children's books, not because the local Republican Party built a "pipeline" to the school board.

And yes, I do think that local-level organizing in the form you describe it has become obsolete. Church picnics and Rotary Club meetings? The institutions that you claim are critical to local investment are dying and have been for decades. It's part of the great shift in how the moral fabric of America is held together - and one of the reasons polarization has increased - that all of these formerly bedrock local institutions have died out or drifted into irrelevancy. Telling Dems to invest more in going to local community organization meetings is year 2000 advice that does not work in 2025 anymore. The communities that people identify with are increasingly more online and less local in nature. That's why I think you're off base in identifying how Republicans have done so well in the last 15 years. It isn't "local trust" it's their construction of an effective propaganda machine that allows them to message to millions at a time. I won't deny that their propaganda does better at "meeting people where they are" than Dems have done, but again, that's mostly nostalgia and dog whistles.
 
rodoheel said:
How is this "empirically obvious"? What is the empirical evidence for it? You are acting like Republicans had some grand master strategy to invest at the local level instead of national level, with Dems doing the inverse, and that's what has caused the current landscape where Dems are strong in urban areas and Republicans are strong everywhere else. I haven't seen any evidence of that being the case. Again, I think you are looking at the fact that small counties everywhere support Republicans and concluding that it must be because Republicans have done better investing attention and resources in those communities, because it matches your theory that local investment is what drives ideology and party identity long-term. But the fact that the Democratic Party has a bad reputation in smaller communities nationwide has a lot more to do with the perception the people in those communities have of national-level Dems than it does with Dems failing to show up at church picnics or run for sheriff in the local races in their town. The national-level dog-whistle and nostalgia messaging is what built the base, not all this supposed local-level relationship-building. Republicans are running for local school boards because Fox News told them the liberals are trying to turn their kids gay and trans with children's books, not because the local Republican Party built a "pipeline" to the school board.

And yes, I do think that local-level organizing in the form you describe it has become obsolete. Church picnics and Rotary Club meetings? The institutions that you claim are critical to local investment are dying and have been for decades. It's part of the great shift in how the moral fabric of America is held together - and one of the reasons polarization has increased - that all of these formerly bedrock local institutions have died out or drifted into irrelevancy. Telling Dems to invest more in going to local community organization meetings is year 2000 advice that does not work in 2025 anymore. The communities that people identify with are increasingly more online and less local in nature. That's why I think you're off base in identifying how Republicans have done so well in the last 15 years. It isn't "local trust" it's their construction of an effective propaganda machine that allows them to message to millions at a time. I won't deny that their propaganda does better at "meeting people where they are" than Dems have done, but again, that's mostly nostalgia and dog whistles.
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This certainly aligns more with my observations. Im open to being wrong but I dont see this geoundswell of local Republican efforts so much as I see local efforts being motivated based on dogwhistles and animus.
 
My theory isn't neutral but I can only speak for myself. My theory is that the tipping point of our society is passed. There isn't enough time left on the clock of this form of governance to do the kind of long range political building you are talking about. The nation is lost. The people are lost. We are well beyond a point where people would rather see it all burned down than come out of their ideological bunkers.

By the way, im not immune to that. I'm not saying that it's all Republicans at this point. Im saying that this nation is like a broken marriage where the spouses have beaten each other up so often and so ferociously that there will never be a reconciliation before there is a complete rupture.

Unfortunately that will mean lots of upheaval. Young people will maybe live to see a better time. Old people definitely will not.

You study the history of the early 20th century fervently. I applaud that but I say you likely are making the wrong comparisons to our political timeline. We aren't in 1944 or 1954 politically. We are in 1854 politically.
 
Paine said:
I appreciate this reply because I think you’re being more honest about the nature of your pushback, and that clarity helps.

To reiterate: I’m not claiming to have a master plan to solve racism. No one does. What I’m arguing is that the only thing that’s ever worked is organizing through shared material interest; not because it cures racism, but because it creates contact, contradiction, and stakes. I don’t expect a hospital town hall to turn a bigot into an ally. But I do believe that’s a better starting point than waiting for moral evolution on its own.

I don’t think that’s abstract. It’s what real politics has always looked like. You want concrete examples? Look at the Poor People’s Campaign in the South, where Black and white communities came together around shared material demands like housing, jobs, and healthcare. Look at Kansas voters defeating an abortion ban in a deep-red state by organizing across faith, class, and partisan lines. Look at the original CIO campaigns in the 1930s, where interracial union organizing succeeded even in segregated states because the focus was on the shop floor and the boss, not abstract moral unity. More recently, look at groups like Down Home North Carolina, which are doing deep listening and year-round canvassing in rural counties that most national Democrats have written off, talking about hospitals closing, wages stagnating, and how both parties have let people down. That’s what local, cross-racial organizing can look like. That’s what it has looked like.

You’ve said I sound like I have it all figured out. I think you’re mistaking a rhetorical and political strategy for arrogance. I have clarity about where power comes from, and it’s not donor strategy or elite messaging. It’s people. The problem isn’t that your objections are invalid. It’s that they always seem to function as reasons not to act. To delay. To wait for better conditions. But better conditions don’t just show up. They’re built.

The same tension shows up in many of my arguments with Rodo and Snoop. It devolves into them claiming they’re not advocating for abandonment while their entire posture implicitly leads to abondonment.

Yes, the old local institutions are gone. That’s not the end of the story. If the parties used to function because they were embedded, and they’ve lost that, then the only viable path forward is rebuilding from the ground up. If we don’t, we’re stuck managing decline and pretending the map is just what it is.

I get that your focus is 2025–2028. Mine includes that too but also 2030, 2032, 2034, 2036 and 2038. Because if no groundwork is laid now, there’s nothing to build on later. You may see my approach as speculative, but the current strategy is failing in real time, and that’s not speculation.

So, for me, this is about choosing to fight on the terrain where real political change has always happened: through contact, trust, and struggle. That’s what the left, in my estimation, has forgotten.
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1. I should read Theda's book, or at least read plenty about it. I'm not familiar with the material she covers/history she unearths. You mentioned that in a later post, not in the above but regardless. . . .

2. You skipped over an important question, probably not intentionally but your last line makes it more potent. WHY has the left "forgotten" this? I mean, "the left" is full of smart people, and what's more, historians are well represented. Not to mention, as you say, the left hasn't given up on community level action since the 1960s. So there had to be a reason for the changed approach. It can't have been a hundred thousand academics and grad students just forgetting what worked.

Maybe it's better to say it like this: every jeremiad needs a motive force, or what we would today call a "villain." Indeed, you've talked about the need for narratives with clearly identified bad guys and good guys. Terrific. Who's the bad guy in your jeremiad? It seems to be the "donor class" and "consultants" etc. But they don't like the left and the left doesn't like them. How are they forcing the left to forget?

3. I understand your impatience with what you see as defeatism and perhaps a concomitant quietism. Part of that is the message board format, though, don't you think? I mean, when it all comes down to it, what we have in common is that we post anonymously on a message board forum. What else are we going to do but talk about shit endlessly? You could make a case that this forum is precisely the opposite of the type of organizing you think necessary. So regardless of the merits of your ideas, regardless of their content, isn't it predictable that the response will be something short of grabbing a pitchfork and running to the nearest civic society organization?

4. I was like you when I was in my 20s. That type of youthful energy and exuberance is important -- irreplaceable even. I don't think anyone here wants to make you into some disillusioned cynic, even if sometimes the rhetoric seems to imply otherwise.

We've just been burned too many times by the Mamdanis of the world. Or maybe I should say, the reaction to them. The GOP is trying to make him the face of the liberals for a reason -- he's exceedingly unpopular in various parts of the country, especially the ones we're talking about here. I haven't seen polling on that; let's just accept for now that he will be dismissed by millions based on superficial knowledge. That's undoubtedly true. Maybe it is only because we haven't been organizing or whatever, but right now, Mamdani is a problem. Not a major problem. Probably not even a minor one.

Your response, I would assume, is that Mamdani isn't a problem for NYC. It's just that local organizing won't necessarily produce the same results everywhere. Mamdani wouldn't be right for, say, Baton Rouge or Atlanta. That's why we have elections everywhere. The basic principle of meeting people where they are applies in cities and in the countryside. About that, you're surely right, if it's possible.

But we do live in an age of the internet, and one of the consequences has been that it allows people to get outraged by shit that doesn't remotely affect their lives. The Times had an article about Aurora, CO that I didn't read. The headline says that Trump's claims that Aurora was taken over by gangs wasn't entirely wrong, that it was complex. Let's just say that's true. My question: why would anyone fucking care about Aurora, CO? It affects nobody's life. It is not a harbinger of things to come, obviously. But people did care, just as they did about they/them and eating pets in Ohio.

Or trans participation in sports. Or migrant caravans. Or Jewish students at Harvard being harassed. This is the outrage machine.

5. And then finally: Is it possible that the success of the right-wing organization was that it was accompanied by all this phony outrage? I mean, take QAnon as an example. QAnon is probably a signature example of what Skocpol was talking about (though it might have post dated her book; I don't know when it was written). And it's been pretty damn successful considering what an utter load of bullshit it has always been. But to what extent does its organizational success depend on the energy created by Pizzagate and all the subsequent, more amplified and more unhinged bullshit? And is that something we can replicate.

I mean, do we need our own Marjorie Taylor Greenes? People who can go into a community, spout utter tripe and nonsense, but be accepted by the people there because they also cling bitterly to idiotic conspiracy theories. You might not have been around long enough to experience the "chain email" but everyone my age knows about it, and has probably been forwarded emails from family members that were forwarded to them and so on, with the most ridiculous claims being parroted as if they are evidently true. Do we need that?

Maybe we do. I'm not judging it. Meeting people where they are is not something I do well outside of the context of my atypical life experience, so I don't have anything to say in that regard. I just think it's anathema for liberals to MTG it up. We would be hard pressed to find engaged foot soldiers, so to speak.
 
Ha, I just asked ChatGPT to describe Skocpol's work in a thousand words and then another thousand for her critics and their reply.

The first answer was a virtual replica of Paine's posts, with the same language and all. I'm not saying that to criticize. Paine is obviously very influenced by her work, which is fine. Not a bad person to be influenced by. Everyone has their mentors, real or virtual. It was just amusing to me, in the same way that double takes can be amusing.

And no, Paine is not ChatGPT. He might use it to draft, but that's OK.
 
So let's assume the truth of Theda's thesis for now. Republicans started organizing post 2008 when Dems mostly stopped. There are a couple of possible explanations:

A. Stupidity or mistakes by Dems. I am more skeptical of these types of explanations when we are talking about a long period of time. But 15 years? Could happen. Maybe the Dems switched to digital too quickly, or took its volunteers for granted.

B. Donor Class pressure. I'm skeptical of this one, though the internet tells me that Theda has a slightly different explanation than "pressure." It's more like piecemeal, patchwork donations. GOP donors are typically fighting the same causes. Dem donors have pet issues: some want to make abortion accessible; others want to fight racism; others climate change, etc. And elections are when the causes can come together, but in the off years the groups sort of do their own things -- as they have to, because politics accomplishes so little.

This modified donor-thesis does ring true to me given my experience with (and knowledge of) NGO proliferation. We don't have to get into that on this thread. I'm just saying that the "fractured donor class" explanation seems better than the "donor class hates the left" narrative, which is partly true but exaggerated in my view.

Fine. Let me offer a few other thoughts. The considerations above are kind of optimistic. I see where Paine comes from: we can do that too! Just like they did. Mine are, well, less so. Shocking, I know, but worth talking about.

1. Is there a natural asymmetry between the parties' goals and how it might relate to organization? The left is trying to fight climate change; the right is trying to fight doing anything about climate change. The latter goal is far, far easier and thus it engenders more enthusiasm. The right can claim wins that the left can't. "Drill Baby Drill" is a huge win for the right. The Clean Power Plan or subsidies for renewables are not wins. They are incremental steps. There's no way we can be as enthusiastic given that our goals are so future shifted.

Or take race. The left's goal is to lessen structural racism. That's hard. We came up with one approach that we called DEI, and it was good but nobody thought it was the whole ballgame. It was like scoring a run in the first inning. Spreading DEI was not a major win.

But the right's goal is to just to kill progress. To them, ending DEI is a huge win (as we can see from the excesses Trump has taken in this vein), because again they just want to preserve the status quo. So when they kill DEI, it's invigorating. Protecting DEI is just a step for us.

2. So maybe an issue is that it's much easier for liberals to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. And that's especially a problem because we only control government in fits and starts. We had a working legislative majority in 2009 and 2010. Then we lost it. We had a majority again in 2021-22, but it wasn't a working majority and we weren't able to get more done. And the rest of the time, what the fuck are we supposed to be doing? We spend all that effort to build Obama's policies and Trump wipes them away in 6 months time.

In this narrative, the villain is the filibuster. Or one villain, at least. Another is the leftists who torpedoed Al Gore and to a lesser extent HRC. I mean, they aren't villains per se; they just played that role in 2000. I often think about an alternative history: what if Ralph Nader hadn't sucked up so many votes and Gore was elected?

Imagine Gore reacting to 9/11. He probably would have done pretty much the same thing in Afghanistan, but definitely not in Iraq. The military buildup that became necessary wouldn't have been. Also, we wouldn't have been fucked by the 2002 patriotic war jingoism that cost Dems a few seats and also burdened our candidates with having to both support and oppose the war. Clinton achieved a peace dividend, and while defense spending inched up during this term, it wasn't until W that it blew up again. And those lessons from 2002 have been haunting the party ever since. It's why we have no peaceniks in Congress any more. That and Kucinich's obnoxious media presence.

3. How do we fight these tendencies? Well, Greta sailed around the world which was pretty goddamn spectacular but not something we can expect from most people. How do we maintain our energy levels when our goals seem so out of reach, while the right's goals are so attainable because they lack any ambition. And killing programs doesn't leave a negative legacy. Sam Brownback fucked up Kansas' public finance and the GOP there had to answer for it for at least two election cycles. But killing EV mandates doesn't have the same effect. There's no "wow, that was fucked up" moment because there's no before and after. There's just the same.

This is a problem for me in particular. I find it really hard to maintain energy to fight, because what am I fighting for? I always say that we're not liberals because it's easy; we're liberals because it's hard. We don't give up when things become inconvenient. I believe that. But there's "hard" and then there's quixotic and our efforts seem too often to fall into the latter category because we are fighting problems that are so enormous.
 
superrific said:
But we do live in an age of the internet, and one of the consequences has been that it allows people to get outraged by shit that doesn't remotely affect their lives.
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That cuts both ways. Mamdani got a lot of votes because of his views on Gaza - an issue that has exceedingly little to do with being the mayor of NYC.
 
Calheel said:
That cuts both ways. Mamdani got a lot of votes because of his views on Gaza - an issue that has exceedingly little to do with being the mayor of NYC.
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It does cut both ways, but again there is a structural asymmetry. Liberals care about issues like climate change and racism and health insurance, which almost by definition affects everyone and profoundly. One doesn't have to manufacture outrage at 100 degree temperatures in the Gulf of MEXICO.

There are some issues where the left gets easily distracted. Statues, for instance.
 
superrific said:
It does cut both ways, but again there is a structural asymmetry. Liberals care about issues like climate change and racism and health insurance, which almost by definition affects everyone and profoundly. One doesn't have to manufacture outrage at 100 degree temperatures in the Gulf of MEXICO.

There are some issues where the left gets easily distracted. Statues, for instance.
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It is hard to see why/how Gaza affects the mayor of NYC. That is more about identity politics. People like the way he views the world and so they want somebody like him to run the city. Same when someone in bumfuck Idaho likes Trump’s views on Aurora, CO or Springfield, OH.
 
Calheel said:
It is hard to see why/how Gaza affects the mayor of NYC. That is more about identity politics. People like the way he views the world and so they want somebody like him to run the city. Same when someone in bumfuck Idaho likes Trump’s views on Aurora, CO or Springfield, OH.
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I know. I wasn't disagreeing with the take on the NYC mayor. I just think it's comparatively rarer for the reasons I stated.
 
Paine said:
Can you expand on this?
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"When it counts" means when there is something riding on it. For instance, can Trump avoid chickening out on tariffs when it counts -- i.e. on the day the tariff is supposed to go into effect. Or "when it counts" like when Seal Team Six has a chance to kill bin Laden. Bush chickened out and Obama didn't.

Gaza never counts for the NYC mayor because the mayor has control over nothing that would affect that issue in any way. It's the opposite of something that counts.
 
Calheel said:
It is hard to see why/how Gaza affects the mayor of NYC. That is more about identity politics. People like the way he views the world and so they want somebody like him to run the city. Same when someone in bumfuck Idaho likes Trump’s views on Aurora, CO or Springfield, OH.
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You’ve encapsulated how Mamdani won the primary. Identity politics. It was a rejection of Cuomo (and Adams essentially), first and foremost… and embracing someone who views the world in a similar way. Which is all valid in ways, but let’s not pretend Mamdani’s promised policies hold water.

Before Mamdani’s name picked up momentum, conversations around town went like this:
“Who do you like for mayor?”
“I don’t know. But not Adams, and not Cuomo.”

So any heroic romanticizing about an organized uprising against the billionaire PAC machinery is incredibly overblown. Cuomo was an easy punching bag and deserving one, no matter how well funded. Mamdani capitalized on that and on identity politics and cherry-picked the win.

And the rest of us who remain unconvinced can at least say “well at least it’s not Adams or Cuomo…” So, yay?
 
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