Nihilism & the war on dems: a proposal
Feeling nihilistic is a normal response to the reality of Trump taking control of the United States of America, but its not an endpoint (no feelings are). Remaining politically nihilist going forward takes intellectual effort, you have to actively convince yourself and others that – in the face of much evidence to the contrary – there is no point in trying to change anything for the better. And at that point you may as well put that exact same amount of effort into literally anything else. A Lego set? Brushing the dog?
I read a short Holocaust memoir in which the survivor remembered how they always thought they'd reached rock bottom, but then it would get worse. That false sense of nowhere left to fall leaves you unprepared for what's next.
So for those of you dooming out now and saying we lost, it’s hopeless, I mean… be careful what you wish for. Very possible we could look back at this moment 8-10 years from now and realize how much freedom we actually had to change things.
I’ve read many takes and written one or two myself this week. Today—and this could change as I continue to read, listen, and learn from all of you— I think one thing we can do is get aggressive about hijacking the Democratic Party itself.
A #WarOnDems from within the Dems, if you will.
Left to its own devices, the Democratic Party will likely lose in 2028 worse than it did in 2024. But like monarchs protected by sycophantic courtiers, the folks running the show still don’t know it’s over. The electorate has moved into online spaces the Dems have no strategy for. The strategy they do have is elitist, outdated, and divisive. Social conditions are declining for millions of Americans, but the Dems’ donor class roadblocks the bold and popular working class politics that speaks to this reality. The Democrats must choose whose side they’re on, ours or the billionaires. We may have to make that choice for them.
The good news is that in many places, the party is a nothing burger so empty you can walk right in and make it your own.
I wish ranked choice voting (RCV) initiatives had had a big night last week but they were almost uniformly defeated. We may have even voted out our new RCV here in Alaska. So the path to de-MAGA our government is still locked up within the Democratic Party. The trick is we just have to also be organizing in fierce coalitions outside of the Dems too. Connected by populist values the Democratic Party machine and their donors will never embrace, we can be like the glowing extraterrestrial fungus from The Expanse, colonizing the carcass of the Democratic Party, leaving it pulsing with an alien light.
Look at how Trump took power. He is completely hostile to the GOP establishment but he did not start his own party, nor did the Tea Party. They used the GOP as a trojan horse. They blew a path through and took the reins. They understood the system, they used it in their favor, and they remade the institution, bringing generational energy and a national political realignment with them.
If magas had tried to do all that via third party they would be handing elections to the Democrats.
If experienced grassroots organizations like the Working Families Party, Indivisible, Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America et al plus some major unions, maybe National Nurses United, decided to go in on a new political party, that would be one thing. I would join. People with the know how and infrastructure deciding to shoot the moon and make the Democrats irrelevant could MAYBE catch fire with the right leaders. But I don’t think they will, because it’s still the riskier play in a desperate political moment.
Absent that fresh new party we're stuck with the Dems as our battleship. So maybe we need to get in the captains room and knock some people overboard. This is barely a metaphor. We would have to do it as part of a coalition of groups like Working Families Party and Justice Democrats and DSA and Indivisible and Moms Demand Action, etc because unlike the Tea Party and Trump, the actual grassroots aren't corporate backed and spending daddy's money. They have cash, we have numbers. Numbers that get more powerful the more we’re connected by common visions for our future and networked to take common action.
A populist outsider candidate in the 2028 Dem primary, fortified by enough of us rebels within the ranks, could stop Trump in his tracks. And may be our only hope. (See point #20 here for more on that.)
This election week was horrific. An absolute catastrophe. Most people of conscience understand how dire our situation is. It’s not joke or hyperbole. It’s bad. But there is also opportunity in chaos, and freedom in total failure. The good right now I see is: 1) people understand that something must be done and may actually be active; and 2) many people now see that the Democratic Party must change course, and that the course has to be toward the (left) populists.
This is not a silver lining. Silver linings are pre-existing & given to you for free. Any hope of change in the direction we need to go is nonexistent right now. But hope could exist if enough of us are willing to make it exist. The path is made by walking. So watch your mouths out there. Pay attention to what stories you're telling yourself and those around you. If you want to tune out and doom out, go for it, but stay out of the way.
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