The Two Democratic Parties (#104)
The Long Twilight Struggle is a newsletter focusing on the long twilight struggle against authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, and the influence of tech broligarchs. I also share links and commentary about sports, efforts to combat false accusations and wrongful convictions, and other stories I find interesting.
Here we go. I’m glad you’re here.
“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.
Leading Off
The Trump Regime stepped up its attacks on our Constitutional system during the August Congressional recess.
Illegally cutting federal funds Congress had appropriated to D.C. and blue states. Implementing tariffs under the pretense of a national emergency. Using federal military troops to occupy our nation’s Capital. Threatening to occupy other Democratic cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, and New York, based on the model created in Los Angeles. Wielding the Department of Justice to attack people opposing the Trump agenda—including a United States Senator, a Federal Reserve Governor, and New York’s Attorney General.
Democratic Governors, Attorneys General, and Mayors have stepped up, clearly called out Trump’s abuses, and are trying a myriad of ways to fight back.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has been particularly clear about what is at stake and has promised to respond forcefully if Trump tries to invade Chicago. His speech after the initial reports was strong and to the point—and he put the people whom Trump will ask to carry out illegal orders on notice: “You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually. If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson amplified those efforts by signing executive orders that direct the city’s police not to cooperate, not to wear masks, and to follow Illinois law that prohibits the police from cooperating with immigration enforcement unless federal officials have a judicial warrant.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore has similarly attacked Trump’s reported plan to invade Baltimore after the president rejected a request to come and tour the city with him. Moore ridiculed the president, noting how he used fake bone spurs to get out of Vietnam.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been effectively calling out Trump and his supporters on social media, including posting in ALL CAPS and with nicknames to demonstrate to the media and other observers just how wrong they have been to normalize Trump’s bizarre communications methods.
Democratic Attorneys General have been working closely together to file lawsuits against the Trump Regime’s anti-Constitutional actions. (You can see the work the California Department of Justice has done under Attorney General Rob Bonta’s direction by clicking here.)
Newsom today joined the governors of Oregon and Washington to announce the creation of a West Coast Health Alliance, a unified regional response to the Trump Regime’s unscientific attacks against the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Fighting back. Setting an example. Giving voters a reason to care and, yes, to cheer.
In the backdrop of all of this, the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives announced that he is still seeking “common ground” with the Trump Regime.
Hakeem Jeffries: "Donald Trump promised that he would lower housing costs on day one. Here's a suggestion for the Trump administration: try to legislate, and maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done for the American people."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-09-02T18:49:02.230Z
Oh, that is so not it, Leader Jeffries. What common ground exists with the people implementing or supporting the escalating Trump Regime’s authoritarian capture of our government?
The Democratic Leader of the Senate, meanwhile, seems content with sending strongly worded letters and joining his House colleague in pre-emptively surrendering in the upcoming fight about the federal budget. As Brian Beutler writes in Off Message:
The leaders make no demands. The closest they come is to request a meeting, in the hope of getting answers to these questions. Not to establish conditions for Democratic votes, just to see how uncompromising Republicans intend to be.
This is, if anything, a weaker posture than they adopted in March, before folding and igniting an enormous grassroots backlash. Here’s how you can tell that, as of now, they don’t intend to fight.
Wait. What? Are Democrats going to surrender again?
Democrats should be demanding the end of Trump’s anti-Constitutional invasions of blue cities. They should demand the removal of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the restoration of the CDC and other health agencies. They should demand the closure of the budget recission loophole. They should demand the release of the Epstein Files. They should demand the return of all personal information stolen by DOGE.
At least that would be a good place to start.
Instead, we get this letter demanding a meeting. A meeting!
I continue to wish our Congressional leaders would respond to the Trump Regime with the same urgency as their fundraising texts and emails demand. If Schumer and Jeffries are unwilling to meet the moment, they should step aside or be removed by their caucuses.
I still believe we can succeed at stopping Trump from winning his authoritarian bet. But it sure would be easier if our Democratic Congressional leadership were willing to join in the fight and stop acting like we live in another world where we could find common ground with Republicans who could be trusted to act in good faith.
Tabs I Closed Above
- Suddenly, Democratic Governors and Democratic Congressional Leaders Don't Seem to Belong to the Same Party (Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog, Link to Article)
- Schumer And Jeffries Prepare Another Blank Check For The Trump Dictatorship (Brian Beutler, Off Message, Link to Article)
- For Dems, playing by the rules is the biggest distraction of all (John Stoehr, The Editorial Board, Link to Article)
- As CDC declines, California will join West Coast public health alliance (Catherine Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, Link to Article)
Authoritarianism
- Stephen Miller Calls Democrats a “Domestic Extremist Organization” (Anthony Barnett, The Nation, Link to Article)
Stephen Miller recently ranted at Sean Hannity: “The Democrat [sic] Party does not fight for, care about, or represent American citizens. It is an entity devoted exclusively [his emphasis] to the defense of hardened criminals, gang-bangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
What is the common ground that Democratic elected officials and their consultants hope they can reach with Miller and the Trump Regime? Are they looking to be able to negotiate in what order we will be declared enemies of the state? - Trump’s war on his perceived enemies is escalating: faster, broader, harsher (Christina Pagel, Diving into Data & Decision making, Link to Article)
Pagel, who has been tracking and categorizing Trump’s hostile actions, explains what the data demonstrates: “Seven months into his second term, Trump has turned the machinery of the state, the courts, and the loudspeaker of the presidency into tools of personal retribution, ensuring that no judge, journalist, official, politician, business leader or cultural figure is beyond his reach.” - Don’t Worry About That Pesky Law Congress Passed, And SCOTUS Upheld, Banning TikTok; Trump And Bondi Have Spoken (Cathy Gellis, Techdirt, Link to Article)
Now that Trump is signaling that he will—for the fourth time—postpone the enforcement of the TikTok ban, it is worth remembering that the president does not, under our Constitutional system of government, have the power to unilaterally decide not to enforce a law passed by Congress and signed into law by a president. Letting Trump do this without complaint set a tone for the president to ignore more laws he didn’t like. - Surveillance at the Border (James Baratta, The American Prospect, Link to Article)
Does anyone think the spy drones, license plate readers, motion-activated cameras, and Palantir databases of information now being used on the border are going to stay there and not create a surveillance state in the rest of the country?
Christian Nationalism
- Christianity Was “Borderline Illegal” in Silicon Valley. Now It’s the New Religion (Zoë Bernard, Vanity Fair, Link to Article)
White Christian Nationalism is growing more popular in Silicon Valley, in part because it is a way to get closer to billionaire (and Anti-Christ obsessive) Peter Thiel. - Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women's right to vote (Judd Legum, Popular Information, Link to Article)
Hegseth’s extreme White Christian Nationalist views come with a desire to repeal women’s rights. I am sure it is just a coincidence that he has removed so many women from high-ranking positions since becoming Secretary of Defense.
Tech Broligarchs
- Sam Altman warns there’s no legal confidentiality when using ChatGPT as a therapist (Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, Link to Article)
Seems like a warning that should have been shared before so many people decided to give his company so much private information. But that would require Altman and his company leaders to care about the people using their app and not just the growth required to keep the investment money flowing in. - ChatGPT Lawsuit Over Teen’s Suicide Could Lead to Big Tech Reckoning (Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, Link to Article)
Companies and leaders who release these types of programs without appropriate safeguards should be held accountable for the harm they have caused. - Substack's extremist ecosystem is flourishing (Jonathan M. Katz of The Racket and Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket, Link to Article)
One of the reasons I left Substack is that its owners are perfectly okay with Hitler apologists and Holocaust deniers making money by spreading their hateful lies. The problem is that allowing the Nazi bar to exist allows some of its members to gain a bigger platform. For example: - How a Nazi-Obsessed Amateur Historian Went From Obscurity to the Top of Substack (Noah Lanard, Mother Jones, Link to Article)
As Lanard writes, “Over the last decade, Cooper’s ideas have not changed much. The throughline of his career is his abiding interest in reshaping people’s understanding of two groups: Jews and Nazis. But he has cleaned up his act enough to build a major audience. Instead of appearing on a neo-Confederate podcast, this year Cooper went on Joe Rogan, where he subtly shifted the story of the Nazis into a more flattering light for millions of listeners.”
Other Things I Find Interesting
- Meet the Fraudster Who Wants to Make California Its Own Country (Will McCarthy, Politico, Link to Article)
I don’t think these will be the people who lead California out of the United States. - AOL is finally shutting down dial-up (Thomas Ricker, The Verge, Link to Article)
September 30 will be the final day for the dial-up service, which launched in 1991. I don’t miss the CDs that AOL seemed to include in every magazine I was trying to read that decade. - ‘I’m sitting behind the bench’: Inside sports’ escalating stalking problem (Carson Kessler, The Athletic, Link to Article)
Leagues need to do more to protect their athletes—and should start with cracking down harder on the abuse they receive on social media. - Five Months After Bombing Nagasaki, We Staged an All-star Football Game in the Fallout Zone (Greg Mitchell, Mother Jones, Link to Article)
And they called the game the Atomic Bowl, because subtlety is not in our national nature. But after a few days of widespread coverage, everyone stopped talking about it. We should do all we can to ensure Nagasaki is the last place where nuclear weapons are used in anger.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:
“Democrats should be making it absolutely clear, right now, that anyone who carries out corrupt or illegal orders for Trump cannot count on bureaucratic obscurity to shield them from political or legal accountability later. Yes, Trump might preemptively pardon top officials who are legally vulnerable. But Democrats should pointedly pose the question: Do you really think it’s wise to count on Donald Trump to secure you from jeopardy later?” (Greg Sargent, The New Republic, Furious Trump’s Firing of Fed’s Lisa Cook May Be About to Backfire)
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Please let me know what you think about what you’ve read—and send me things you’ve found interesting or are giving you hope today! You can email me at craig@thelongtwilightstruggle.com.
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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.
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