This from Klobuchar exemplifies the language problem in Democratic messaging. It's not fancy words or academic jargon. It's that they yoke so many concepts together, with logical links that are almost impossible for anyone with a normal attention span to track. Don't be clever! Just say one thing!
"Dems and billionaires" can't "rebuild" something like ACORN. They have to be willing to support and respect organizing that emerges from community, even if it makes donors and elected Dems uncomfortable. Orgs don't exist to elect Dems & might not follow the donors' preferred issue priorities. 1/
ACORN wasn't a Democratic Party electoral operation and could make Dems' life difficult--they called meetings w/ reps and staffers "accountability sessions." That came at a cost when they were under attack, but it was also their advantage. ACORN set out to give people a sense of political power. 2/
I'm not alone in appreciating ACORN more in retrospect. But Dems can't just reproduce an org like ACORN from above--instead, embrace and respect what exists and what's emerging--WFP chapters, FreeDC in DC, many other local orgs. Sometimes they'll be annoying, sometimes make impossible demands. Good!
This is a great example of the journalistic rule to report what people do or say, not what they might feel. I don't know if Exxon CEO Lee Raymond "doubted climate change," and neither does Bloomberg. All we know is that he *promoted doubt" about climate change.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
I'm thrilled to have been asked to become the board chair of scholars.org, one of my favorite organizations, and also to appear on their podcast, No Jargon, to talk about the recent paper and conference on strengthening US political parties that we published at @polreformna.bsky.social
and "reconstruct institutions" doesn't mean just putting all the dishes back on the shelf where they were. We need to build better and more resilient institutions, norms, programs, etc in their place--and that's not just an electoral challenge for Democrats, it's on all of us, post-Trump.
agree, and would add that the Democratic aversion to such orgs is partly driven by the hollowing of party (to quote Rosenfeld and Schlozman) - robustly organized parties aren't as vulnerable to concerns about orgs they share some affinity with but can't control.
Project 2025 was never a public-facing policy platform. It was a technical plan, often from old memos, for dismantling democratic institutions. The section on college accreditation, for example, is being implemented right now. Dems don't need more policies, we need plans to reconstruct institutions.
New, and I think important piece. Brainstorming policy ideas to address kitchen table issues is an important undertaking. But it is NOT the same thing as a Project 2025 analog, but for the pro-democracy movement to save the country. www.offmessage.net/p/project-20...
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
Mark Schmitt
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