Here’s what I’ve found interesting: I wish Democrats would try to become an opposition party; Kamala Harris deserved better from Joe Biden; what Biden just did with the ERA is outrageous; our tech oligarchs are trying to avoid being Trump’s Mikhail Khodorkovsky; how Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days; the New Apostolic Reformation feels its power; Pete Hegseth’s Christian patriarchy; the danger of extremism in the U.S. military; and opening the DNC’s black box.
Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.
#1
Now Is Not the Time for Surrender (Jamelle Bouie, The New York Times, Link to Article)
Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition.
What’s the difference?
An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government. An opposition would highlight the extent to which Donald Trump has no intention of fulfilling his pledge of lower prices and greater economic prosperity for ordinary people and is openly scheming with the billionaire oligarchs who paid for and ran his campaign to gut the social safety net and bring something like Hooverism back from the ash heap of history.
An opposition would treat the proposed nomination of figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth as an early chance to define a second Trump administration as dangerous to the lives and livelihoods of ordinary Americans. It would prioritize nimble, aggressive leadership over an unbending commitment to seniority and the elevation of whoever is next in line.
Yes “Anticipatory Obedience” Would Be Harder If Democrats Weren’t Cowering (Brian Beutler, Off Message, Link to Article)
The most generous interpretation of the Democrats’ conduct since November 5 is that they intend to continue Biden’s failed experiment, responding ever more passively to events in the hope that the beatings will stop. It isn’t too much to expect that an opposition party will actually act like it’s trying to stop bad things from happening. Democrats should imagine how Fox News would fill its airtime if this were a Democratic transition, and then speak and react as if they were creating soundbites for a big, aligned, signal-boosting media company.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Democrats were correctly arguing that Donald Trump presented a mortal danger to our democracy in the long ago time of—checks notes—November 2024.
But now we have Senators saying they want to work with him. We hear they are considering confirming even his worst nominees and looking forward to working with Trump on legislative priorities.
No. No. A million times, “NO.”
Democrats need to oppose what is coming. They need to stop thinking they can get something from Trump by giving in on a few things. Did they not learn from the first term that Trump is even more aggressive than Darth Vader was with Lando Calrissian at altering the deal whenever he felt like it?
How are voters supposed to understand how awful these Trump policies are if Democrats are providing votes for them? Why is any Democrat attending Trump’s inauguration after the insurrection he instigated in 2021? How will the public understand that Trump is bad if Democratic leaders are on stage yukking it up with his team hours before mass deportation events begin?
There should be no Democratic votes for any of Trump’s nominees (even you, Marco Rubio). Democrats should force Republicans to lose votes on bills—including the budget and the debt ceiling—so the media can report on GOP governing failures. Only then should they extract a high price for providing the votes that allow basic government functions to continue despite what the Freedom Caucus may desire. (It would be great if one price extracted happened to eliminate the debt ceiling, but that’s another post.)
As Ed Burmila explained on BlueSky:
Opposing the majority party is being the opposition party; signing on to what the majority party does makes you the junior partner in a governing coalition. When they succeed you get zero credit and when they fail you share blame. This isn’t hard, nor is it new ground.
I know which side I want Democrats to take. And if Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin are unwilling to change, they should step aside for new leadership who understands the stakes.
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#2
Kamala Harris Took Joe Biden’s Ass Whooping For Him. He Should Just Say Thank You. (Stephen Robinson, The Play Typer Guy, Link to Article)
According to exit polling, 68 percent of voters thought the nation’s economic condition was “not so good or poor.” Just 29 percent of voters thought they were better off financially than they were four years earlier, and 47 percent of voters thought their financial situation was worse. A whopping 73 percent of voters were dissatisfied or outright angry with the direction the country was headed, and 59 percent of voters disapproved of President Joe Biden’s performance.
Still, Biden thinks he could’ve been a contender. He told USA Today last week that he believes he would’ve won re-election. I regret making such an obvious joke, but he is aware that he’s the sitting president? Those exit poll numbers are a collective vote of no confidence for the current administration. Harris is undeniably part of the administration, which is where her troubles began, but the buck stops with Biden, who remains stubbornly in denial.
…
There are people who’ll argue that racism and sexism is primarily responsible for Harris’s defeat, and while that probably played some role in the results, ultimately I think Harris lost because voters didn’t see the new, exciting Black woman candidate but instead the same old white guy they blamed for their expensive omelettes.
Harris was Biden’s running mate, but she eventually became his political Secret Service agent. She took a bullet for him, sparing him the public humiliation and rebuke whose clear signs he’d ignored for more than three years. He should thank her for her admirable service and accept all the blame he’d due, or at the very least, he could just keep his mouth shut as the nation burns.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
How dare he? It is absolutely not okay for Biden to throw his Vice President under the bus like this.
Biden’s inability to communicate his successes, his failure to be honest about his ability to run an effective re-election campaign, and his unwillingness to let Harris separate herself from his first-term agenda combined to sink Harris’ campaign. Biden needs to own all of that.
And I hope Harris is more than “disappointed” (as this Wall Street Journal story suggests) in Biden’s comments. I believe the key moment in the campaign was when Harris said on The View that there’s “not a thing” she would have done differently than Biden. Did Biden insist that Harris not criticize him as a condition of his dropping out of the race? In an election where the voters were signaling that—fairly or not—they wanted change?
Biden rightly told us for years that Donald Trump was an existential threat to our democracy. But rather than acting on that fear, his hubris (and the failure of the people around him) created the circumstances that erased Biden’s most significant victory—winning the 2020 election.
So, no. Biden doesn’t get to pretend he would have won in 2024. He wouldn’t have. The numbers are quite clear that he would have suffered a Mondale 1984 kind of loss and taken many more Democratic Senators and House members with him.
Biden may think he would have won. But, out of respect for Harris and Democratic voters, he should keep those thoughts to himself. A real leader takes the blame instead of pushing it off to others.
#3
What Biden didn’t do on the Equal Rights Amendment is more important than what he did (Erica Orden, Politico, Link to Article)
Legal scholars say President Joe Biden might be right about the Equal Rights Amendment — but his declaration on Friday has no legal significance.
In a surprise move on his way out of office, Biden proclaimed that the amendment has met the requirements for ratification and is now part of the Constitution. The ERA, he said, is the “law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”
But what matters, legal experts say, is what Biden didn’t do: He didn’t order the archivist of the United States to formally publish the amendment. And he didn’t direct the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to withdraw its written opinion that the deadline for ratification expired long ago.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
It is difficult for me to imagine how Biden’s handling of the Equal Rights Amendment ratification question could have been more harmful to the cause.
To throw out a statement like this in his last week in office and then not follow up with what would be required to enforce it is bad policy and worse politics. Biden has created a controversy that will make it nearly impossible now for the ERA to become the 28th Amendment without starting over.
That wasn’t helpful, Joe.
I have written in this space a few times about why Biden should direct the National Archivist to publish the Amendment. I agree with legal scholars like Laurence Tribe that the ERA became the law of the land when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it in 2020. Tribe explains why the time limits and retractions don’t matter in our Constitutional framework and why there isn’t a requirement for the archivist or anyone to confirm it.
But whether the ERA is ratified is now in the realm of politics. Biden could have made this an issue in response to the Supreme Court’s stripping women of their Constitutional right to manage their reproductive health. It could have been an issue in the 2022 and 2024 campaigns. He could have fought for it.
Instead, we now have some words on a page from a lame-duck president who won’t be around to try to convince others of their truth. He politicized what should be an administrative process. And Biden won’t be in power to defend it.
So no, Biden gets no credit from me for doing something he should have done years ago in a way that harms the cause.
Once again, I ask: how dare he?
#4
Zuckerberg Will Host a Party for Trump’s Inauguration (Theodore Schleifer and Mike Isaac, The New York Times, Link to Article)
Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta chief executive who has tried to keep a distance from politics, is warming to President-elect Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Zuckerberg is among several Big Tech executives who are expected to be front and center at Mr. Trump’s inauguration next week. He will be one of four hosts of a black-tie reception on Jan. 20, joining the longtime Republican donors Miriam Adelson and Todd Ricketts in hosting a party “celebrating the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President JD Vance,” according to a copy of the invitation seen by The New York Times. The event was first reported by Puck.
Tech CEOs flock to Trump’s inauguration (Sam Baker, Axios, Link to Article)
Just about all the biggest names in tech will be in Washington on Monday for President-elect Trump’s inauguration — a much different scene than the beginning of his first term.
Where it stands: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is the latest addition to the Big Tech guest list for Trump’s swearing-in.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are also planning to attend, according to media reports.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
It has been quite an experience for me to watch our tech oligarchs fall all over themselves to support Donald Trump over the past few weeks.
Yeah, they are all working exceptionally hard not to be Trump’s Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Who?
Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man until Putin made an example of him for breaking the deal that oligarchs could keep their money as long as they stayed out of politics. As Greg Rosalsky explains in an NPR Planet Money newsletter:
Khodorkovsky proved to be a capable oil baron and brought Western-style management and transparency to his empire. As corporations do in the United States, he spent generously on lobbying and campaign contributions to politicians in Russia’s legislature. He funded opposition political parties. He even hinted he might run for president. As his empire grew, he became increasingly strongheaded. In February 2003, Khodorkovsky challenged Putin in a televised meeting, alleging corruption at a state-owned oil company. Meanwhile, Khodorkovsky was mulling a merger with the American oil company Exxon Mobil. Putin and his allies hated all of this.
In 2003, masked agents stormed Khodorkovsky’s private jet during a refueling stop and arrested him at gunpoint. Authorities charged him with fraud and tax evasion. They imprisoned him in Siberia, where he would languish for the next decade. The government took over his oil empire and handed the keys to one of Putin’s longtime associates, Igor Sechin.
The threat of getting arrested, imprisoned, poisoned, and losing most of your assets seems to focus oligarchical minds. And Trump explicitly threatened Mark “more masculine energy” Zuckerberg with spending “the rest of his life in prison” during the 2024 campaign.
Our tech leaders are demonstrating that they understand the message sent and the expectations of them in a second Trump term. I doubt we will benefit from that dynamic.
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#5
How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days (Timothy W. Ryback, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.
…
Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of the country’s first democratic republic came almost as much as a surprise to Hitler as it did to the rest of the country. After a vertiginous three-year political ascent, Hitler had taken a shellacking in the November 1932 elections, shedding 2 million votes and 34 Reichstag seats, almost half of them to Hugenberg’s German Nationalists. By December 1932, Hitler’s movement was bankrupt financially, politically, ideologically. Hitler told several close associates that he was contemplating suicide.
But a series of backroom deals that included the shock weekend dismissal of Chancellor Schleicher in late January 1933 hurtled Hitler into the chancellery. Schleicher would later remember Hitler telling him that “it was astonishing in his life that he was always rescued just when he himself had given up all hope.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Yep. I am breaking Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”), but even its originator Mike Godwin has said the comparison is meaningful when it comes to Trump.
But when we see the blizzard of executive orders that Trump and his team have promised for tomorrow, we should be looking for the dynamics Ryback describes in this article.
Trump has learned a lot from his first term. He will be ready to hit the ground running and has made sure the people around him will prioritize loyalty to him (and not concepts like the rule of law or the Constitution).
Will Trump use the Constitution to shatter the Constitution? Opposing him requires paying attention.
I want to add that Ryback’s book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power was one of my favorite reads in 2024. It covers the final days of the Weimar Republic until Hitler’s selection as Chancellor. The Atlantic article I quoted above continues the story of the 53 days that it took for Hitler to become a dictator. History sometimes happens quickly—but I hope it doesn’t rhyme this time.
#6
The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows (Stephanie McCrummen, The Atlantic, Link to Article)
What was happening in the barn in Lancaster County did not represent some fringe of American Christianity, but rather what much of the faith is becoming. A shift is under way, one that scholars have been tracking for years and that has become startlingly visible with the rise of Trumpism. At this point, tens of millions of believers—about 40 percent of American Christians, including Catholics, according to a recent Denison University survey—are embracing an alluring, charismatic movement that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights, or constitutional democracy. It is mystical, emotional, and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial, and unapologetically political. Early leaders called it the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, although some of those same leaders are now engaged in a rebranding effort as the antidemocratic character of the movement has come to light. And people who have never heard the name are nonetheless adopting the movement’s central ideas. These include the belief that God speaks through modern-day apostles and prophets. That demonic forces can control not only individuals, but entire territories and institutions. That the Church is not so much a place as an active “army of God,” one with a holy mission to claim the Earth for the Kingdom as humanity barrels ever deeper into the End Times.
Although the secular establishment has struggled to take all of this seriously, Trump has harnessed this apocalyptic energy to win the presidency twice.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
That short paragraph above explains why I have been focusing on the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation and will continue to do so.
This article provides a great way to familiarize yourself with the New Apostolic Reformation, the Seven Mountain Mandate, and the Christian theocracy they seek to create.
The article explains why you see the Appeal to Heaven flag outside House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office, on Justice Samuel Alito’s flagpole, and in the hands of so many of the January 6 insurrectionists.
They aren’t trying to hide who they are and what they want. They are welcome to their beliefs. But part of this democracy is an understanding that we don’t have to agree with them. I’m not willing to submit to a Christian theocracy that will harm people who are LGBTQ, non-Christian, or opponents of the Trump administration.
#7
Why Pete Hegseth nomination is a milestone for the rightwing Christian movement he follows (Liam Adams, Nashville Tennessean, Link to Article)
To his brotherhood within a theologically conservative, hard-right church coalition, Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s ascension as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department wasn’t merely opportunistic.
It was providence.
This church coalition, associated with a denomination called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) and mobilized by firebrand Idaho pastor Doug Wilson, has grown considerably in recent years by appealing to conservative evangelical Christians who are drawn to a more combative and openly rightwing temperament. Hegseth’s church, Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship outside Nashville, Tennessee, is part of this recent influx to the CREC.
This success has gained the CREC-aligned camp a reputation as an important group in a broader movement on the religious right known as Christian nationalism, though it’s been slower than other Christian nationalist factions to curry favor with Trump’s inner circle. Hegseth’s proximity to the president-elect is changing that.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The government is one of the mountains in the Seven Mountain Mandate and one of three spheres in the Sphere Sovereignty championed by the leaders of the Christian patriarchical church to which Hegseth belongs.
I suspect this is a big reason they are fighting so hard for Hegseth and why Republican Senators are retreating from their earlier objections.
I wish Democrats had spent more time focusing on Hegseth and the other objectionable Trump nominees over the past month rather than being quiet or seeking ways to work with Republicans.
A proper opposition party would have handled the last month differently. And Hegseth’s nomination—and what it means to people who believe our nation should become a Christian patriarchy—exposes what’s at stake.
#8
Extremism in US military is ‘sleeping danger’ says author of Pentagon report (Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, Link to Article)
The decorated combat veteran who led the Biden administration’s efforts to counter extremist activity in the US military has warned there could be further domestic attacks by individuals with current or past military ties if the Pentagon fails to take the threat seriously.
Both of the deadly incidents on New Year’s Day were carried out by discharged or serving members of the armed forces. The driver of a pickup truck who killed 14 revellers in New Orleans was a veteran with 13 years service in the US army, while the man who blew up a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Las Vegas Trump hotel, killing himself, was an active-duty Green Beret.
Bishop Garrison, who spearheaded an internal Department of Defense investigation into extremist activity within the military in 2021 and who became the target of a virulent rightwing smear campaign to discredit him and his mission, said that the New Year’s Day attacks should be a wake-up call. “Both incidents demonstrate the sleeping danger that we have failed to deal with as a country.”
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
This wasn’t the first time conservatives resorted to a smear campaign to try to discredit a report about right-wing extremism.
One of President Obama’s biggest mistakes was not fighting back when Republicans complained about a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (link to pdf hosted by the Federation of American Scientists).
I suspect a Secretary of Defense Hegseth will see this dynamic as a feature, not a bug, towards his plans to reshape our military.
#9
Opening the DNC’s Black Box (Micah Sifry, The American Prospect, Link to Article)
But who will make this decision? Officially, it’s a secret. According to the DNC, there are 448 active members of the national committee, including 200 elected members from 57 states, territories, and Democrats Abroad; members representing 16 affiliate groups; and 73 “at-large” members who were elected as a slate appointed in 2021 by the party chairman, Jaime Harrison. For a party that claims the word “democratic” and insists that it is a champion of transparency and accountability in government, the official roster of these 448 voters is not public.
Michael Kapp, a DNC member from California who was first elected to that position by his state party’s executive committee in 2016, told me the list isn’t public “because it’s the DNC—it’s a black box.” He told me that leadership holds tightly to the list to prevent any organizing beyond their control.
Today, we’re going to open up the DNC’s black box.
The list we are publishing was leaked to me by a trusted source with long experience with the national party. Like Kapp, this person thinks it’s absurd that the party’s roster of voting members is secret. Indeed, since there is no official public list, each of the candidates running for chair and other positions has undoubtedly had to create their own tallies from scratch—making it very likely our list comes from a candidate’s whip operation.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The Democratic National Committee is expected to elect a new chair (and other officers) at a meeting on February 1, 2025.
As you just read, the DNC has kept its membership roster a secret. That’s outrageous and counterproductive. The person who leaked the membership list to Sifry has done all of us a favor.
The DNC is not a powerful institution. But it does have more power when the president is a Republican. And sometimes, as Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy demonstrated, it can make a measurable difference.
If you care about the Democratic Party, you should care about this election. You can find out more about the candidates and see links to recent candidate forums on this website hosted by the Bay Area Coalition.
The Reality of the January 6, 2021, Insurrection
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump instigated a violent insurrection against the United States government.
People were hurt and police officers died protecting the Capitol. Vice President Pence and other elected officials just barely escaped danger. Our national streak of peaceful transfers of power ended.
It was not, as Trump claims, a “day of love.” And we must resist his efforts to rewrite the history of that dark day.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“We are here,” she said to me toward the end of the night, “to take the pieces of the universe we have been given, burnish them with love, and return them in better shape than we received them.” She told me she had always thought this was the only reason to tell a story, to redeem what is broken in our world, and for what it was worth, I might keep that in mind.” (Sam Sussman, The Silent Type, by Sam Sussman)
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