#92: Democratic Friendly Fire

“It might be helpful for you to know that you are not alone. And that in the long, twilight struggle which lies ahead of us, there is the possibility of hope.”

“The Long Twilight Struggle.” Babylon 5, created and written by J. Michael Straczynski, Season 2, Episode 20, 1995.

Here’s what I’ve found interesting:

• Democratic Leadership chooses friendly fire;
• Democrats need to react to the coming Trump lies about the economy;
• Anti-Semitism in the Oval Office;
• The Trump regime’s effort to deport dissidents;
• Gavin Newsom falls into a MAGA trap;
• The Nerd Reich is pushing Freedom City legislation;
• Revelation-inspired diplomacy;
• Fired federal workers face family members celebrating their trauma;
• Democratic speeches flip 29 GOP votes to defeat anti-trans bills in Montana; and
• Let’s not allow Trump to rewrite the history of the January 6, 2021, insurrection he instigated.

Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.

#1

Three things the Democrats can do right now (Radley Balko, The Watch, Link to Article)

No Democrat has asked me for my advice, nor would they. But I’m going to venture outside my lane to offer some anyway: Stop acting like any of this is normal. Donald Trump isn’t Mitt Romney or John McCain. He isn’t even Dick Cheney. He’s Victor Orban, and aspires to be Vladimir Putin.

I understand the argument that you can’t use authoritarian tactics to stop an authoritarian. And I agree with it. We don’t need competing authoritarian parties.

But it’s also time to end the asymmetrical decency. You don’t owe any deference or reverence to “the office” of the presidency when the man occupying it is a vulgar thug who’s exploiting the office to enrich himself and smite his enemies and whose administration is provoking a constitutional crisis by openly defying the federal courts. You needn’t respect “decorum” during a speech in which the president is blood-libeling immigrants, threatening allies, promising to wreck the economy, and telling lies that everyone knows are lies as a raw display of power. And it is especially craven to scold one of your own for a modest act of defiance against an administration that has threatened to arrest and imprison you over protected speech.

That said, civil disobedience isn’t the only way to convey the seriousness of what we’re up against. The Democrats just need to start acting like the Trump administration is the threat they’ve long and correctly claimed it to be. Their actions need to match their words.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

I wasn’t thrilled to learn that the Democratic leader of the United States House of Representatives responded to the lies spoken by the president during his address to Congress by confronting the Democrats who protested.

Hitting members of your caucus with friendly fire? That’s not great. Sadly, it is the latest example of Democratic leadership failures since the election.

By treating President Trump’s authoritarian speech as a typical event, Democratic leaders helped to normalize his regime’s anti-constitutional actions.

There should be no cooperation from Democrats until Elon Musk’s anti-constitutional crime spree through federal agencies and our personal data comes to an end.

I am worried that the Senate Democrats will play nice and give the Musk-Trump regime a big win on the budget continuing resolution rather than using their powers under the rules—tools Republicans used without hesitation—to slow down events and force negotiations.

Balko also lays out other ways Democrats could help lead the opposition. Town halls in red districts, creating an unofficial Shadow Cabinet, and hosting daily briefings to outline the Musk-Trump regime’s anti-constitutional actions would be a great start and help ensure the truth has a chance to be heard.

This is not the time to play games with amendments or to defer to what has been considered normal. Our Constitutional form of government is under siege. Will enough Democrats defend it in time?

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#2

Be Prepared (Brian Beutler, Off Message, Link to Article)

But the battle for narrative control is only just beginning. As markets continue to deteriorate and if growth turns to contraction, the right will shift into a different gear—from panic to scapegoating. We’ll hear, loudly and endlessly:

* That Trump inherited a depressed economy from Biden (false);

* That Trump’s recession is a sadly necessary but carefully devised program to whip inflation and kick off a manufacturing renaissance (also false);

* That the economy is doing great, actually (false again);

* That wokes and “globalists” (😉😉😉) sabotaged the economy (false, bigoted);

* That the macroeconomic indicators are fake news (another lie);

* That the real numbers are these official government statistics (which have been manipulated by political appointees).

I don’t believe right-wing propaganda in the U.S. (and foreign propaganda aimed at propping up the U.S. right) is all powerful. Reality can still break through in dire circumstances. But I do believe it’s harder than many Democrats appreciate, and my hope is that they don’t assume that deteriorating material conditions will do most of their work for them. Again, Schatz is right. Democrats have a very good case to make—he made it right there in his tweet! But it’s just as important for them to anticipate and prebut the coming lies.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

Despite decades of experience, Democratic elected officials still tend to believe that the American people will figure out how Republican policies are hurting them.

As Beutler describes, MAGA media will start working overtime to absolve the Musk-Trump regime of any responsibility for the coming economic downturn. Democrats need to start explaining now why that’s bullshit. They can’t wait until they see baffling polling numbers.

The Musk-Trump regime dismantled USAID without much pushback because of surprise and speed. They also took advantage of the American voters’ lack of understanding about the size of our foreign aid budget and how many lives it saved around the world. Americans think that nearly a quarter of the budget goes to foreign aid when the figure was closer to one percent (see this February 2025 KFF Health Tracking poll for more details).

There are several issues where Democrats getting ahead of the story is vital. It is clear that the Musk-Trump actions with the Social Security agency are going to put payments to recipients at risk. Staffing cuts will make it more difficult to fix those problems.

Will Democrats wait until Social Security isn’t popular and the Musk-Trump regime proposes privatization or elimination before sticking up for the program? Or will they act now and give voters the ability to understand the sabotage that’s underway?

This is one of the reasons I support some of the ideas Radley Balko shared in the first story of this newsletter. Daily briefings and town halls would allow Democrats to tell a story that can be shared on legacy and social media. This is not the time to hide away and hope voters get what is happening. Democrats need to lead.

#3

Antisemitism in the Oval Office (Timothy Snyder, Thinking About…, Link to Article)

Last Friday I happened to start watching the discussion at the White House between Zelens'kyi, Donald Trump, JD Vance and Brian Glenn towards the end, when Vance was already yelling at the Ukrainian president: "you're wrong!" I took in the tone and the body language, and my first, reflexive reactions was: these are non-Jews trying to intimidate a Jew. Three against one. A roomful against one. An antisemitic scene.

And the more I listened to the words, the more that reaction was confirmed. I won't speak for how Zelens'kyi regards himself. Ukrainian, of course. Beyond that I don't know. These things are complex, and personal.

But not for the antisemite.

It was all there, in the Oval Office, in the shouting and in the interruptions, in the noises and in the silences. A courageous man seen as Jewish had to be brought down. When he said things that were simply true he was shouted down and called a propagandist. There was no acknowledgement of Zelens'kyi's bravery in remaining in Kyiv. The Americans portrayed themselves as the real heroes because they provided some of the weapons. The suffering of Ukrainians went unmentioned. An attempt to refer to it was cruelly and falsely reduced to a "propaganda tours" led by Zelens'kyi. The Americans portrayed themselves as the real victims of the because they paid for some of the weapons. It was all, bizarrely, about money. There is this odd Trumpian notion, unique to Ukraine, that aid should be paid back as if it were a loan, with Trump himself just making up the amount owed. Zelens'kyi was portrayed as someone who was taking our cash, giving is nothing in return, ripping us off. He was also mocked for not knowing how to dress for the space, as not belonging. And his deference was demanded: "Have you said thank you once?" "Offer some words of appreciation." And then was thrown out of the White House. And told to resign his office as president of Ukraine.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

Snyder explains why how the Oval Office betrayal by Trump and Vance, their opposition to supporting Ukraine, and the war goals laid out by Russian President Vladimir Putin are anti-Semitic.

They believed Zelenskyy needed to be put in his place. He cannot be the president of a fake country. He’s wearing the wrong clothes. It’s about the money. He isn’t worthy of respect.

That wasn’t subtle.

Snyder’s article goes into the details about how all of this fits into the history of anti-Semitism. The Trump-Musk-Vance regime’s leaders should not be given any benefit of the doubt about what hatreds are lurking behind their actions.

#4

What is happening to Mahmoud Khalil is chilling — and intended to chill all opposition (Chris Geidner, Law Dork, Link to Article)

But, even though there are complications and will certainly be more as we move forward, the specific responses of the administration tell me that there is more than enough happening here that we should all be alarmed by what is happening to Khalil.

First, Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighed in, stating on Sunday evening, March 9, that the U.S. government would be revoking visas and green cards of the vaguely termed “Hamas supporters.” This could mean anything and was nothing legal; it was a rhetorical flourish made to inflame.

If there were any doubt about the nature of Rubio’s statement, the Department of Homeland Security was more specific and more troubling — making clear that lines were almost certainly being crossed in justifying Khalil’s arrest.

In a statement issued a few hours later Sunday night, DHS tweeted that the arrest was made “in support of” Trump executive orders. The department also stated not that Khalil provided “material support” to Hamas — or any term known to the law — but rather that he “led activities aligned to Hamas.”

This is both vague and so overbroad that it could include virtually any activity.

If this were actually the legal standard, Khalil — or any non-citizen — would be deportable without the government even needing to claim any real connection with Hamas or any “designated terrorist organization.” The odd wording and grammatical structure — “aligned to” — reinforces that idea: The activities need not even be “aligned with” Hamas; activities being “aligned to” Hamas is enough.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

It is difficult to believe that what is happening to Mahmoud Khalil is about fighting anti-Semitism given how Donald Trump and so many people in his regime act.

In addition to what I wrote in the previous item, the Trump regime didn’t have a problem with Elon Musk using a Nazi salute during his inauguration festivities. And that was after Musk has allowed Nazis to run rampant on X (formerly known as Twitter), and has personally endorsed anti-Semitic statements.

It is absolutely possible to criticize the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu government in Gaza without being anti-Semitic. Khalil has not been accused of any crimes. He has permanent residency status. That means he is entitled to Constitutional protections, including the First Amendment.

But Khalil was taken into custody in front of his U.S. citizen (and eight months pregnant) wife, who was also threatened with arrest. Then he was moved without notice to his wife or his lawyers.

As Esquire’s Charlie Pierce asked, so we’re disappearing people now?

History demonstrates that these kind of authoritarian actions start with someone the regime hopes won’t generate much sympathy. But once regime is able to deport a permanent resident about speech that isn’t criminal, it establishes a precedent that can be broadened quickly to, well, any dissident. And as journalist Jonathan Katz observed, “Dissidents who will almost certainly, if history has any predictive power, include disproportionately large numbers of Jews.”

You may not like the speech Kahlil supported. But part of being an American is being able to say unpopular things without facing deportation or prosecution. The Trump regime is testing the system. As Geidner explains:

Trump is using Khalil — whom Trump and his allies believe they can paint unsympathetically to some — in order to establish a horrifying principle that leading opposition to Trump’s policies, even on a college campus, can get you deported.

That should frighten us all.

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#5

Gavin Newsom and the MAGA Democrat Trap (Gil Duran, FrameLab, Link to Article)

Gavin Newsom has unveiled a dangerous new strategy for the 2028 presidential race – and it’s precisely why the Democratic Party keeps failing.

His cynical idea? Flirt with Trump’s MAGA extremist movement to distance himself from the Democratic base and rebrand as a “moderate.” We saw the clearest signs of this strategy with his new podcast, This is Gavin Newsom. The premise? Newsom sits down with MAGA influencers and finds “common ground.”

His first guest? Charlie Kirk – a far-right extremist whose group, Turning Point USA, has promoted religious extremism and conspiracy theories while providing a “vast platform for extremists,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

Gil Duran does all of us a favor in explaining why Governor Newsom’s attempt to suck-up to MAGA influencers is not only doomed to fail but likely to harm efforts to resist the Trump-Musk regime.

And what was Newsom thinking by starting his new podcast by platforming Charlie Kirk? Why would Newsom want to provide any cover for a person who, as Media Matters has documented, “has a history of violent and bigoted rhetoric?”

Worse, Newsom didn’t fight back against Kirk’s lies. He accepted Kirk’s misleading framing. He accepted MAGA talking points. He was not prepared to debate factually over issues that were obviously going to be raised by Kirk, like transgender rights.

In each episode so far, Newsom has asked his MAGA guest to give the Democratic Party advice. Does anyone besides Newsom think that Kirk, Michael Savage, or Steve Bannon would be willing to share good faith advice to improve Democrats chances at winning?

Doing this podcast series is not going to get Newsom closer to the White House. MAGA people will never give him credit and he is making many Democrats (like me) angry.

That may get one near the top of the podcast charts. But it is stupid politics. Newsom should stop empowering MAGA while he has a few political allies left.

#6

‘Startup Nation’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’ (Caroline Haskins and Vittoria Elliott, Wired, Link to Article)

Several groups representing “startup nations”—tech hubs exempt from the taxes and regulations that apply to the countries where they are located—are drafting Congressional legislation to create “freedom cities” in the US that would be similarly free from certain federal laws, WIRED has learned.

According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Trey Goff, the chief of staff of the startup nation known as Próspera, tells WIRED that he and other Próspera representatives working under an advocacy group called the Freedom Cities Coalition have been meeting with the Trump administration about the idea in recent weeks. He claims the administration has been very receptive. In 2023, Trump floated the idea of creating 10 freedom cities. Now, Goff says that Próspera’s vision is to create “not just 10, but as many as the market can handle.” They hope to have drafted legislation ready by the end of the year.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

The techbroligarchs sense an opportunity through the Musk-Trump regime to fast-track the creation of their network cities, which I have discussed in previous issues (e.g. the third story in issue #89).

They seek to use federal land to start creating their freedom cities from scratch, because that’s easier than trying to revitalize an existing city. These cities would allow the techbroligarchs to have control without having to worry about governments, workers’ rights, or democracy.

Our technological elite believe they should not have to face environmental reviews or medical trial regulations. They believe democracy is finished and must be replaced by a new system that prioritizes their beliefs.

#7

Last Days “Diplomacy” (Andra Watkins, For Such a Time As This, Link to Article)

Christian Nationalists believe a one-world government will usher in the return of Jesus Christ. For this to happen, the world’s biggest democracy and economy (US) must be toppled.

This is a theme many Christian Nationalist pastors have been hammering for five decades, which is why I have repeatedly stated that evangelical Christians will become even more radicalized the worse things get. They will point to every fresh horror and exclaim, “Glory hallelujah! Jesus is coming!”

Tech bros want to create “techno-states” to replace democracy, but Christian Nationalists have a different goal: The consolidation of a one-world government under the Anti-Christ. They go along with Musk and his nerd reich because it gets them closer to their goal: The Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return on Jesus Christ.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

It is vital to be aware of this dynamic given how many Christian Nationalists are in leadership positions within the Republican Party.

Watkins explains why what we are seeing the Trump regime do in Gaza, Ukraine, Canada, Greenland, and NATO fits into the end times narrative.

Many Christian Nationalists interpret Revelation to require that Russia defeat Ukraine and re-integrate it into its Empire. They also believe that Israel has to annex Gaza to get closer to Jesus’ return.

Understanding how many Republicans interpret their religion clarifies many foreign policy positions that otherwise seem baffling or hypocritical.

#8

Thrust into unemployment, axed federal workers face relatives who celebrate their firing (Matt Sedensky, Associated Press, Link to Article)

Scrambling to replace their health insurance and to find new work, some laid-off federal workers are running into another unexpected unpleasantry: Relatives cheering their firing.

The country’s bitterly tribal politics are spilling into text chains, social media posts and heated conversations as Americans absorb the reality of cost-cutting measures directed by President Donald Trump and carried out by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Expecting sympathy, some axed workers are finding family and friends who instead are steadfast in their support of what they see as a bloated government’s waste.

“I’ve been treated as a public enemy by the government and now it’s bleeding into my own family,” says 24-year-old Luke Tobin, who was fired last month from his job as a technician with the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho’s Nez Perce National Forest.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

How awful do you have to be to celebrate the firing of one of your relatives? Cults are known to turn people against their families.

Remember this when MAGA cultists take to social media to complain that their relatives have frozen them out for their political beliefs. They will never understand why they should face any consequences for their hurtful reactions to traumatic situations.

#9

Powerful Speeches From Trans Dems Flip 29 Republicans, Anti-Trans Bills Die In Montana (Erin Reed, Erin in the Morning, Link to Article)

Something remarkable happened in Montana today. As has become routine, anti-trans bills were up for debate—the state has spent more than half of its legislative days this session pushing such bills through committees and the House floor, with Republicans largely voting in lockstep. But something changed.

A week ago, transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr delivered a powerful speech against a bill that would create a separate indecent exposure law for transgender people. Since then, momentum on the House floor slowed. Today, two of the most extreme bills targeting the transgender community came up for a vote. Transgender Representatives Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell gave impassioned speeches—this time, they broke through. In a stunning turn, 29 Republicans defected, killing both bills. One Republican even took the floor to deliver a scathing rebuke of the bill’s sponsor.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

This is why we need to fight. It is possible to change minds and limit the damage.

It’s harder work than just agreeing with a MAGA influencer on a podcast, but the work is worth it.

We can demand that all people are treated with respect and as human beings. Even Montana Republicans can agree to reject bigotry after hearing how it can impact their colleagues and others living in the state.

Democrats need to stop retreating and selling out people who deserve protection.

#10

The Reality of the January 6, 2021, Insurrection

On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump instigated a violent insurrection against the United States government. Here’s a video from the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol that one can review if their memory fades.

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:

“When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.s, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism.”–Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard who co-authored 2018’s “How Democracies Die.

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