Category: 2026 American Primaries and Elections

I saw the above over the weekend and, while I can’t say I was shocked exactly, I was nonplussed for just a second at the appalling gaucheness of this latest new low from the ought-to-be-disgraced soon-to-be-former-US-Rep from Dallas.

I was not impressed by Rep. Crockett from the first time she came to my attention, using slurs to mock Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s disability — and I have loathed Abbott for decades — and trashing Marjorie Taylor Greene’s appearance.

I noticed immediately that Crockett’s knack for getting attention online and from the MSM didn’t correlate with legislative accomplishment or progressive positions.

Most important for me was the contrast with MTG, who sacrificed her political career in opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where Crockett offered nothing but hairsplitting and excuses on the most important moral crisis of our era.

I’ve been trying to warn people about Crockett since July 2025 and really ramped it up last December, when she took the bait from the GOP Senate Campaign Committee (which had been featuring her in push polls for months) and entered the primary for the US Senate race.

The campaign was a total shitshow, centered on divisive identity politics, some of which she blundered into with stupid comments about Latino Trump voters and some of which she leaned into hard, all of which was divisive nonsense that couldn’t have been better calculated to play into Republican hands.

She didn’t even bother to hire a campaign manager, a tip-off that serving the people of Texas in the US Senate wasn’t her top priority.

Her top priority appeared to be accusing her critics of racism and sexism.

Crockett made no secret of her cynicism, openly calling the race a no-hoper and saying, “If you think it’s a losing cause, then who cares? But at least you could say we tried something new and we learned something from this experience.”

Her primary campaign in general was a fiasco, as one former Texas State House colleague told Politico:

“People who don’t understand politics will be upset because Jasmine was their hero,” said Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones, a Democrat. “But for people who understand politics, [Crockett] literally had no ground game.”

She added: “This L is on her.”

Crockett also played it real cute about whether or not she supported Israel, but made no secret of being funded by crypto and data center interests.

Thankfully, she lost that primary to James Talarico, who seems headed to the Senate, but not before doing her damnedest to turn it into a brutal, divisive, race-based, identity politics shitfest.

She topped it off by giving Talarico the most tepid of endorsements and then refusing to campaign for him. She managed to leave him off her list of endorsed candidates last week before grudgingly saying she “endorsed ALL Democrats and yes that includes James Talarico”

She did find time to travel the country campaigning on behalf of AIPAC-backed candidates in multiple primaries, most egregiously for Wesley Bell against Cori Bush in Missouri, although she still played it cute and insisted, “but I didn’t endorse him.”

While she was busy not endorsing or campaigning for Talarico, she found time to celebrate convicted domestic violencer Chris Brown and apparently get publicly hammered in the process.

This will be my last post about Jasmine Crockett. She’s irrelevant, embarrassing, and not worth the time.

But what does matter is the internal conflict between two wings of the Democratic Party.

Progressives Battle Neo-Cons for the Future of the Democratic Party

I would put Crockett in the category of shiny object or attractive nuisance whose all-style, no-substance drew MSM attention like flies to honey, but the creeps at The Bulwark are a much more serious threat.

David Sirota has been blasting the neo-cons and their cowbird move to take over the Democratic Party at The Lever:

The trending conversations online have revolved around The Bulwark, a multimillion-dollar media juggernaut run by a crew of former GOP operatives and pundits — one of whom was the Mini Me to Corporate America’s Dr. Evil, some of whom cheered on the kleptocratic Bush administration and helped lie the country into the Iraq War, and many of whom participated in creating the backlash conditions for the Trump presidency they now purport to despise.

The Bulwark has made a mint off an audience of liberals who either forget their entire world every 15 minutes and/or simply do not care about all the damage these one-time Republicans previously created, as long as they are now — momentarily — against their erstwhile party.

But after the outlet participated in the GOP-aiding ruse of using its megaphone to try to focus the 2026 election discourse on Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, some are finally starting to ask an important set of questions: What exactly do these former Republicans want? And are they really the purported experts at winning elections that they claim to be?

…

The Bulwark wants a neoconservative takeover of the Democratic Party, after Trump successfully (and dishonestly) cast himself as an anti-neocon and threw them out of the GOP.

That’s not really speculation; they all but said it on the eve of the 2024 election.

Watch the clip. After The Bulwark’s founder Sarah Longwell excitedly cheers on then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ saber-rattling, her colleague Jonathan Last does a Dr. Evil mug to the camera and says, “Did the neocons just take over the Democratic Party?” — which elicits a hearty guffaw, before Longwell scoffs at Harris occasionally offering some economically populist rhetoric.

“Boo,” said Longwell, who, years later, said she preferred former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

After The Bulwark’s Longwell fired back, Sirota hammered home his case that it was the influence of neocons that cost Kamala Harris the 2024 election:

In the process, founder Sarah Longwell is now trying to rewrite the entire history of the 2024 election, pretending that neocons’ success in influencing the Democrats’ strategy in that contest had no real impact on the outcome — when in fact data suggest it helped deliver the presidency to Donald Trump.

“My problem with the DSA types who are after us is not their political ideology or their opinions,” said Longwell, amid the social media uproar over my essay at The Lever. “Their analysis doesn’t make any sense. There’s not a single piece of empirical data that the Liz Cheney stuff mattered (in 2024).”

This is false, according to empirical data released by Data For Progress just after the election. As Newsweek reported at the time:

The poll found that more independent voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania said they were ‘less enthusiastic’ to vote for Harris after she campaigned alongside Cheney…

In Pennsylvania, only 21 percent of independents said Harris campaigning with Cheney made them more enthusiastic to vote for Harris, while 28 percent said Cheney made them “less enthusiastic to vote for Harris.

In Michigan, 23 percent of independents said campaigning with Cheney made them more enthusiastic to vote for Harris, while 30 percent said they were less excited to vote for her after she rallied with Cheney.

Those net losses among independents matter in key swing states decided by very narrow margins.

Longwell, of course, has a motive in trying to now revise history and memory-hole the Harris-Cheney disaster that she helped forge: Longwell appeared on stage with Harris and Cheney at a key end-of-campaign event in Pennsylvania, where the Harris-Cheney alliance was alienating independent voters. The Bulwark celebrated and monetized that Harris-Cheney alliance, even as it damaged Democrats.

Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, spoke for those who refused to vote for Harris because of her role in the Gaza genocide:

“I saw how the corporate Democrat sausage is made. It is worse than you think. And there is a righteous fury at the corporate-controlled, money-controlled electoral system we have that is absolutely illegitimate. And people cannot choke down voting for a candidate, I understand it, cannot choke down voting for a candidate that’s responsible for what happened in Gaza. And they just, they can’t do it.”

Criticism of Morello took the form of “crude identity politics” that immediately backfired:

Luke Thomas tweeted in support of Morello and Sirota:

This is what the Tom Morello critics can’t seem to grasp. The idea is not that Trump isn’t an insane threat. And sure, generic Dem is better than anything MAGA. But unless Dems aggressively govern to directly address urgent society-wide problems, we are guaranteeing future calamity. I’m begging these people to think beyond stage one. Dems committed to more incrementalism rather than trying to pass M4A will spell our doom. You’re not fighting fascism holding the line on vote blue no matter who. You’re facilitating it.

I’m going to close this post out with an episode of The Left Hook featuring Sirota making the same arguments against the unholy alliance of identity politics hucksters, the Democratic Party establishment, and neocon “Never Trumpers” to cut progressives off at the knees in 2028 and where this will ultimately lead:

Key quotes regarding the Democrats throwing in the towel on opposition to the Ellison Hasbara Empire’s acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery:

Wajahat Ali: The old guard that has ensconced itself in the anus of the oligarchy, the people who have feathered their nest, the people who are corporate consultants,

the Democratic leaders who realize there’s a surging tide of young voters who want to replace them. And they’re like, no, you have to drag this power from my cold, dead hands. And they’re willing to sabotage the left. Progressives, the popular base of the party to stay in power. So we’ve given you some examples of Gavin Newsom.

My fear is this, is if we let this type of Democrat win in 2028, my fear, Dave, is they’re not going to change. They’re being paid by all the same people. You know that AI and crypto, the bubble’s going to burst. They’re going to get bailed out.

They’re not going to institute the reforms that people need because they’re paid by the same people who have effed everything up. So what we’re going to get is milquetoast reform. They’re going to be better than Republicans. They’re not going to have ice-killing citizens, okay? But structurally, when it comes to the economic engine that is raping people, that engine will just get a few cosmetic tweaks, but it’ll keep running for the oligarchy. And then in 2032, we’re going to have a Nazi economic populist Republican president.

David Sirota: Yeah, I mean, the way I put it is… Re-electing or electing another Democratic establishment type like Gavin Newsom is a delivery system for an even worse Donald Trump. It is a delivery system for even more authoritarianism. That you’re just going to run the whole cycle back that has been run from that 2008 to 2016.

It cannot be said enough. That if the Democrats regain power and do not deliver in a real way, in a way that we have not seen in our whole lifetimes, if they do not do that, the Democratic Party will serve in history as a delivery system for something that is worse than Donald Trump.

And everyone needs to be focused on this. This is honestly… I don’t care what issue, particular issue, is the issue that you tune into, climate change, AI, the economy, whatever it is. The point is, the central fear that should be on your mind is that a milquetoast not serious about delivering Democratic Party is a delivery system for the kind of authoritarianism That’s worse than Trump and that we have not really experienced here in this country in our lifetime. I’m going to borrow that. I like it. It keeps me up at night. Honestly, when I think about the future for my children, I am thinking, and I’m not trying to be overdramatic here, but you have these moments that create Future political eras. And I do think we’re in one of those moments that is going to actually create a new political era. Well, I should say it’s either going to make the current political era even worse, or we’re going to create an actually new political era. And the prospect of making things 10 times worse than this current era, where we just keep going in an authoritarian direction… Everything in history tells us that we should deeply fear that.

…

Wajahat Ali: “My fear is this, is if we let [Establishment/Corporate] Democrat win in 2028 they’re not gonna change…So what we’re gonna get is milquetoast reform,they’ll be better than Republicans, but structurally, when it comes to the economic engine that is r*ping people, that engine will just get a few cosmetic tweaks, and then in 2032 we’re gonna have a Nazi economic populist Republican president.”

I’ve been blackpilled on the Democrats for years, but hope is the thing with feathers, and I keep getting sucked in when I see people I used to consider hopelessly centrist, like Ali move to the left and openly call out the Dem establishment.

And I keep hoping maybe I can wake up some of the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” types in my circle.

I’ve been blackpilled on the Democrats for years, but hope is the thing with feathers, and I keep getting sucked in when I see people I used to consider hopelessly centrist, like Ali move to the left and openly call out the Dem establishment.

And I keep hoping maybe I can wake up some of the “Vote Blue No Matter Who” types in my circle.

But then I watched Wajahat Ali guest on Briahna Joy Gray’s Bad Faith.

Key quote:

Briahna Joy Gray: My goal is not to help the Democrats.

It once was. It once was. I once was the national press secretary for Bernie Sanders, who was running as the Democratic candidate for United States of America. And for me, all of the inconsistencies and hypocrisies that you are articulating now were evident in the way that the Democratic Party and the establishment media handled the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign.

And in that campaign, which ended with the rise of the COVID pandemic, a massive job loss and concurrently massive 15 million people thrown off their health insurance. In that environment, seeing how little interest the Democratic Party had in backing a Medicare for All proposal that would have helped to save millions of Americans during a time of immense crisis when the public health implications demanded it.

Not to mention the choice to set all of these very popular COVID era policies to expire in a way that ultimately damned Joe Biden in many kind of easily articulable ways, including student debt, the student debt pause ending just before the 2024 election. During the Biden administration, there was an effort to strip the $15 minimum wage, the one promise Biden had made to Bernie when Bernie conceded out of the must-pass COVID relief bill. When I saw the bifurcation to build back better so they could kill all the public interest funding, when I saw the elected squad members’ unwillingness to use their leverage that they had because the margins in the House were so narrow to secure… Real wins for the left the way the Tea Party was willing to do two years later.

All of that to me made it clear the Democratic Party in my view is not a party that can be redeemed or reformed. So I cannot join you I’m saying that my efforts are to improve the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party has proven to me that it is not willing to be reformed or improved.

I don’t have an answer for Gray.

She’s right but I keep rooting for the slightly more progressive Democrats and pointlessly arguing with friends and family in the “Vote Blue” camp because I just can’t help myself.

Whatcha gonna do?

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