Please follow me at ReclaimTheFight.com.

Why the change? Below is my statement from RTF when I started it.

For 10 years, off and on - and too much off and on - I ran ThePeoplesView.net. I'm proud of what it accomplished - explaining and advocating for the Affordable Care Act, President Obama's banking reforms, and countless other legislative and policy initiatives during the Obama administration are among my proudest accomplishments. Just as fruitful was our efforts in the last two Democratic presidential primaries, fending off the far left. Now, it's time for something new.

Why Switch to Something Different

The inconsistency on TPV, which was entirely my responsibility, diluted its visibility and impact, but that isn't really the reason to start something entirely new.

In the Trump era - and hopefully what is soon to be the post-Trump era - of American politics, it is going to be more important to combat extremism and clickbait if we are to ever regain a sense of normalcy in our political discourse. That means taking back the debate from the deathgrip of ideologues, being ruthlessly realistic, and adding a voice to a growing if under-noticed chorus of pragmatists on the left trying to keep the Democratic party from suffering the fate of the GOP in the grips of the radical right.

We must be ruthless in our quest to reclaim the fight about what it means to be on the American left, what it means to be a liberal, and indeed, what it means to be an American.

So while I plan on offering much of the same content and tone as TPV, Reclaim the Fight will help brand my message better. Policy analysis from a vantage point of how best to help people and political analysis will still constitute the major pillars of the new venture.

The TPV Archives

None of the content with TPV will be lost. Currently, the archives are still available at www.thepeoplesview.net, and I will eventually migrate and integrate them to the new site.

-Spandan Chakrabarti

All offices of public trust - and especially the office of the president - belong to the people, not to their temporary holders, and peaceful transition of power is an acknowledgment and submission to this core fact of democracy. Donald Trump has, however, continually thumbed his nose at basic democratic norms, starting with his 2016 refusal to commit to accepting the results of that election should he have lost. So while it is shameful, Trump’s behavior fits a pattern, and it is, in fact, no surprise.

It also doesn’t matter. At least, not legally. And so far, the law has been followed when it comes to transition planning.

One of the prevailing myths surrounding presidential transitions is that it depends on the fiat of the sitting president. It does not. Presidential transitions are governed by the Presidential Transition Act (PTA), originally enacted in 1963. And under the Presidential Transition Act, transition planning starts long before a presidential election is even held, let alone decided.

According to the Center for Presidential Transition, the PTA not only mandates that the General Services Administration (GSA) provide office space and support services for transition teams for presidents-elect and vice presidents-elect, but also for transition staff of major candidates prior to the election, following the nominating conventions. Here is a summary of how the law requires that it work:

The Act establishes an early and organized cadence for the federal government’s transition planning:

- Before the election, each agency must designate a senior career official who will be in charge of transition planning, prepare transition briefing materials, and ensure that succession plans are in place so that as political appointees depart, career officials are prepared to step in place until new political appointees arrive.

- Six months before an election, the President must establish a White House Transition Coordinating Council, chaired by a senior employee of the Executive Office of the President and consisting of other high-level officials, such as cabinet officers; the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Government Ethics; the Administrator of GSA; and the Archivist of the United States. A transition representative of the major candidates also sits on the council. The council provides guidance to agencies on transition and facilitates communications between the administration and the transition teams.

- The Act requires a standing Agency Transition Directors Council, co-chaired by GSA’s Federal Transition Coordinator and the Office of Management and Budget’s Deputy Director for Management, and including agency senior career officials responsible for transition activities as well as transition representative of the major candidates. This working-level council works toward an integrated, government-wide approach to transition and ensures that briefing materials are prepared.

Note that the only job given directly tot he sitting president is the establishment of a White House Transition Coordinating Council six months before the election. Did this happen?

Yes. The White House did indeed direct federal agencies to begin transition planning in April, and a GSA report for May (the 6-month deadline to the election), details that both the White House Transition Coordinating Council (WHTCC) and the Agency Transition Directors Council (ATDC) have in fact been established.

Donald Trump is a bully, and like all bullies, he is a coward at heart. Speaker Pelosi has won numerous political and legal fights against Trump, including on government shutdown and impeachment. Just this month the State Department, run by Trump-twin Mike Pompeo, turned over documents subpoenaed by the House under the threat of a Contempt citation. Trump himself, after a whole summer of threats to turn more American cities into military occupied land, has largely been reduced to whining about Democratic governors not requesting enough federal assistance to intimidate protesters.

Donald Trump is not invincible. The legal wheels are in place for a transition. All we have to do is elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris by voting in massive numbers.

Trump’s bluster is not to be taken lightly, and there is little doubt that he will do everything he can to gum up the works, challenge the election results, and try to win by cheating. However, there is no legal maneuver for him to refuse to peacefully transition power once the election has been decided.

What’s more, as long as Trump holds up the results dooming him to a loss in court, Biden’s transition representatives - some of whom are already there - get to stay in their federal office spaces.

Trump’s threat to hold up a peaceful transition of power may be legally empty, but it can be dangerous in its true intent: voter suppression. The Trump campaign has been systematically implying that they will lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power not because they legally can, but so that the groundswell of people across political spectrum coming together to dethrone him will become dispirited and give up on exercising our franchise.

We cannot let this happen. We must vote in unprecedented numbers. Our votes matter, because if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep us from voting.

Vote.

Paul singled out New York, which got hit hard early on and where Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done a laudatory job in bringing down infection positive test rate to 1% or below sustainably. Paul suggested that New York’s success was due to a form of herd immunity, rather than creditable to the strong social distancing and mask-wearing measures New York has undertaken.

An obviously frustrated Fauci responded, basically, that Rand Paul doesn’t know what he was talking about.

Watch this clip:

FAUCI to Sen. Paul: "You are not listening ... If you believe that 22% is 'herd immunity', I believe you're alone in that."pic.twitter.com/WykoaZwRT3

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) September 23, 2020

Paul followed up by saying people could also have “cross immunity”, basically that people have developed immunity from fighting off colds and flu over the years. While the common cold is also caused by a type of coronavirus, it does not make one immune to the one that causes COVID-19, Fauci responded. Indeed, if the cold and flu gave us immunity to all coronaviruses, not only would there be no significant outbreak of COVID-19, but also other coronaviruses over the years - such as SARS, MERS, and H1N1 - would have been no cause for concern.

To say the least, self-certified “eye doctor” Rand Paul’s audition as a virologist didn’t go well.

Calm your fears.

An appeals court ruled last year that the individual mandate had become unconstitutional after Trump and the Republicans reduced the penalty to zero through their tax cut legislation in 2017. Republican attorneys general - and the Trump DOJ - are asking the Supreme Court to uphold that decision, and strike down the entire law by finding that part to be unconstitutional. When Chief Justice Roberts joined the Court’s liberals to uphold the mandate, the Court found it to be a proper exercise of Congress’s power to tax. But if no fine is being levied, it is no longer a tax, and the mandate is just a mandate. That’s the argument, anyway.

With Ginsburg’s seat now vacant, the fear is that even if Roberts still votes to uphold the mandate - and it is by no means a certainty that he will - the Court will split 4-4, rendering no judgment, and allowing the lower court decision striking down the mandate to stand.

But all is not lost, and it can all be restored, if, and only if, Joe Biden is elected President and Democrats capture the Senate.

First, it should be noted that the lower court held the individual mandate unconstitutional, but it did not render any judgment on whether that means the entire law should be struck. Although Congress did not specifically state it, courts often apply the principle of severability, meaning even when they find a part of a law unconstitutional, only that part is rendered unenforceable, but the rest of the law stands.

In this case, even if the Supreme Court splits 4-4, the lower court decision on the mandate stands, but since they did not render a decision on the whole law, it would continue to exist.

Not, however, if a third Trump justice is allowed to be seated. Conservatives would have their 5th vote to overturn Obamacare in full, and 100 million people with pre-existing conditions will instantly become uninsurable in the private market.

If a Trump nominee is stopped before the January inauguration and that inauguration swears in a President Biden, however, at the very least, only the striking of the individual mandate would stand.

Why at the very least? Because should Biden be elected, there is every possibility that court reverses its possible deadlock and overrules the lower court.

First of all, history suggests that the Supreme Court has a preference for avoiding deadlocks, which uphold lower court decisions but are not precedential. The Court is not obligated to render judgment right after it hears an argument. Most Supreme Court decisions are handed down in the summer. Roberts, as Chief Justice, can certainly slow down the process of rendering the judgment and drag it into the next presidential term if he wants. It’s possible, even likely, that a new Justice will be seated - in case of a Biden win a new Biden-nominated Justice will be seated - before the Court announces its verdict. In case that pending verdict is a deadlock, the Court can, and is likely to, rehear the case with the new Biden appointee seated. Obamacare is saved.

But even if the Court’s conservatives were somehow able to rush a deadlocked judgment out before the seating of a new Justice, it would still take more than enough time for a Biden appointee to make a difference.

How’s that?

Even though the Supreme Court is often known as the Court of final say, its processes allow for a freshly decided case to be reheard. Rule 44 of the Court provides that a party can ask the Court to rehear the case either on the merits or through a writ of certiorari within 25 days of a judgment being entered.

It is exceedingly unlikely that the Court renders its decision before Christmas for a case heard mid-November, and a decision on such a writ will certainly not be made before the start on the next presidential term, meaning not only that a Biden administration would have the opportunity to ask the Court for a rehearing under Rule 44, but also to seat a Justice before a decision is made on rehearing, and certainly to rehear the case once it is granted.

But this - all of this - depends on us electing Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and a Democratic Senate. Get to work.

But the Republican position in 2016 was never about principle, and everyone knows that. It was about power. It is about power. In fact, it is the quest for the same power that motivated their gross constitutional dereliction then that is motivating their rank hypocrisy now. Republicans and the religious right have waited for this exact confluence of events. This is why they came out to vote for Trump even as, in critical swing states, voters on the left happily wrung their hands about Hillary Clinton’s pantsuits and voted for Jill Stein. This, the opportunity to upend the balance of the Supreme Court for a generation, is what they’ve been waiting for.

This has always been about power.

Democrats need to wake up to that. Democrats are waking up to that. Since the passing of Ginsburg - there has yet to be a full 24 hours since as of this writing - ActBlue has taken in over $72 million, shattering all records. August, which was by all means the best fundraising month in presidential campaign history, only saw about $15 million a day raised through the platform. Even the nights of the Democratic convention during which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris accepted their respective nominations for president and vice president did not see fundraising approach this massive haul.

Democrats are motivated. Democrats understand the stakes. Democrats are not just giving money but are signing up to phone bank, text bank, poll-watch, and volunteer any way possible to make sure not only that we elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House, but also that we flip the Senate to the Democrats and hold the House (after all, if the Republicans manage to seat Trump’s next nominee, Democrats will need to legislatively expand the Court, and they will need both houses of Congress and the presidency to do that). Democrats are breaking early-voting and mail-in ballot request records.

But let’s be very clear-eyed about something. The right, too, is ready for battle. What’s more, they have had a significant head start. The right has focused on the Supreme Court singularly and like a laser for the past 30 years, while the left has been too busy with ideological gateskeeping and puritarian kneecapping of our leaders instead of protecting them.

Make no mistake. Yes, Republicans stole Merrick Garland’s seat from President Obama, but what made that possible was an abysmal 34% turnout in the 2014 primary. Before 2014, Democrats comfortably controlled the Senate with 54 votes. During that election, Republicans gained 9 senate seats. The 34% turnout in 2014 was the lowest turnout in a midterm election since 1942, and was even worse than the already catastrophic performance Democrats turned in during the 2010 midterms.

Had Democrats held the Senate in the 2014 midterm elections, not only would Merrick Garland have replaced Anthonin Scalia, it is entirely possible that Justice Ginsburg would have herself retired and allowed President Obama to name her replacement and a Democratic Senate to seat her. As a result, Donald Trump would have been left with appointing just one justice to the court, in stark contrast with three potential nominations he’s now barreling towards.

Succinctly put, a Democratic victory in the 2014 midterms had the potential to put 4 Obama nominees on the Court to Trump’s just 1, a far cry from the 2:3 split we are looking down the abyss of now.

Think of what that would have meant. Roe v. Wade would have been set in stone. Pre-existing condition protections being snatched away from 100 million people would stay. LGBT equality would be elevated, not threatened. The surgical Republican strike against voting rights would likely have been reversed.

Throughout the Obama years, the left spent most of its time either bickering with Obama, demanding that he alone fix all their problems, or pretending in the aftermath of his election and re-election, that he would. Republicans spent every waking moment plotting and building a power infrastructure that has now brought them to the brink of a total takeover of the judiciary and set progress back decades if not a century.

I don’t say this to discourage us from the coming fight but to take its measure. We have the capacity, if we wish to use it, to upend everything the Republicans think they have gained in a single election, but that won’t come easy. Still, Democrats have shown that we are up for the fight.

In contrast with the embarrassing and damaging 2014 midterms, the 2018 midterms saw the highest turnout in a non-presidential year since 1914 at some 53%, and Democrats won the popular vote in the House by the highest margin in history. We still lost two seats because of the layout of the land, but this year, Democrats are fully poised to pick up the 4 seats required for a Senate majority in the next Congress, if not more. But only if we remember the gut punch we felt last night every day through the election and beyond.

We no longer simply have elections to win. We have (to find just enough) Republican senators to scare - yes, scare - into holding the line on not appointing a new justice until the next president is sworn in. We will soon have a Trump nominee with a record to dissect and decimate in the public eye. We have a Senate GOP to proverbially melt down if McConnell dares to even begin consideration of Trump’s nominee.

The right has been on warpath for decades and we are only just waking up. We have no time to waste. Donate. Elect Biden. Flip the Senate. Hold the House. Volunteer. Get in the faces of your Republican senators. Get in the faces of Trump supporters blocking people’s access to polls.

Lastly, remember that our fight won’t be over after this election, even if we win it all. We need our own laser focus to continue to elect Democratic executives and expand Democratic majorities so that this can never happen again.

This is war. Suit up.

So it was hardly a surprise when, after in the past week Trump bombed a town hall and Biden aced his, CNN published a “fact-check” of a Biden ad, calling it misleading. At issue is a Biden campaign ad that calls out Donald Trump for calling the coronavirus and the COVID crisis a hoax, and CNN says the Biden ad is misleading by saying that Trump called the virus a hoax, which CNN says he did not.

Here’s the ad.

Donald Trump is not responsible for COVID-19, but he is responsible for his failed response and for lying to the American people. pic.twitter.com/cWuEoHiUxj

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 15, 2020

Let’s go to the record. Actually, let’s go to CNN’s record. This is CNN’s explanation for calling the ad misleading, in a nutshell:

Taken in totality, Trump's comments at the February 28 rally indicate that he is deriding Democrats for attacking his performance on the coronavirus. A full 56 seconds pass between the two clips the campaign ad edited together.

But this is not true, shall we say, ‘taken in totality’. Trump said, “coronavirus”, followed by some words about Democrats politicizing it, followed by some words about how Russiagate and impeachment - both actual facts - were hoaxes, followed by the sentence clipped in the ad, “This is their new hoax.”

There is actually no logical conclusion to be reached that in that last sentence, Trump was talking about the Democratic criticism rather than the coronavirus itself. Certainly, when Trump lies about Russiagate being a ‘hoax’, he’s not saying the Democratic response to Russia’s attack on our election is made up, but that the entire premise that Russia attacked our elections to help Trump is. When Trump talks about impeachment being a ‘hoax’, he’s not saying Democrats reacted to impeachment wrong, rather his claim is that the basis of impeachment itself - Trump’s on-tape blackmailing of Ukraine for political benefit - was a fabrication.

In both Russiagate and impeachment cases, then, Trump’s use of the word ‘hoax’ applies to the underlying facts, not the reaction to those facts by Democrats. Why does CNN think it’s different for the coronavirus?

Secondly, if CNN insists on taking Trump’s comments “in totality”, then its fact-checkers have a responsibility to take the Biden ad in totality as well. The totality of Biden ad delivers a coherent - and true - message: Donald Trump sought to publicly downplay the seriousness of how deadly the virus is and hundreds of thousands of people are dead as a result even as he knew the truth in private.

The part of the ad that comes after the line disputed by CNN shows Trump comparing the coronavirus to the flu, and then it cuts to tape released by Bob Woodward in which Trump calls it “the plague.” The following screen shows an increasing count of coronavirus deaths in the United States with the message, “He knew. He lied.”

That, I may suggest to CNN’s “fact-checkers” is the totality of Biden’s ad, and zero lies are detected in it.

That is what a lawyer for Assange told a court in the United Kingdom hearing a case for Assange’s extradition to the US to face charges for his involvement in the stealing of diplomatic cables during 2010-2011. The lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, told the court that she observed a meeting between Assange, then-Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and Holocaust denier and far-right activist with close ties to Donald Trump, Chuck Johnson.

At the meeting, which took place in 2017 and was reported on in the press back then, Rohrabachar, known as Putin’s favorite Congressman (now ex-Congressman), even told the right wing outlet The Daily Caller that some form of pardon would be needed for Assange to “move on with his life.” But that was only going to happen, of course, if Assange were able to offer the name of his source for the Clinton emails and provided that name wasn’t Vladimir Putin or the Kremlin. From the fact that Assange remains criminally charged and unpardoned 3 years after this meeting, one can assume that Assange was unable to offer such a source, because his source was, in fact, Russian intelligence, which hacked the DNC and released the emails by using Wikileaks as its conduit.

Had Assange been able to offer a non-Russian-connected name as the source of the Clinton emails, it would have served to benefit both Trump and Assange. If the source for the Clinton emails wasn’t a Russian government operation, that would mean the emails’ release, however sensational, was not part of the successful Russian effort to elect Donald Trump president of the United States. It would have been a massive success in Trump’s attempts to discredit US intelligence. Assange would get a pardon for stealing diplomatic cables during the Obama administration, which Trump could care less about.

But most of all, clearing the Clinton emails from having a tainted Russian intelligence source would revive the reputation of Wikileaks, which was a tremendous help to Trump in 2016. With Trump badly trailing in national and battleground state polls, he certainly could use that help again.

While it is not new that Donald Trump uses the pardon and commutation power of the presidency as a transactional tool for his personal, mob-boss-esque benefit, it should still shock us each time. From commuting Roger Stone’s jail sentence for lying for Trump to pardoning white supremacist Joe Arpaio to pardoning Dinesh D’Souza for funneling illegal campaign contribution to Republican candidates, Trump has demonstrated, with surgical precision, why character is singularly important for the person entrusted with the awesome powers of the presidency, and why, those with a moral void are desperately disqualified for the office.

November must be overwhelming.

The basic thesis for Cox and Thomson-DeVeaux appears to be that non-religious people need special attention specifically around being non-religious, the same way they believe conservative evangelical voters need to be assured of religious dominion.

But this thesis is wrong.

I am a nonreligious voter, and I believe I speak for the vast majority of us when I say there is no specific “non-religious” agenda that we are looking to enact. We’re not looking to proselytize or convert more people into non-believers or doubters by scaring them about a very unpleasant post-death existence. We are not looking for candidates who share our lack of religious convictions, and we are not looking to be “organized” around our beliefs about the afterlife.

Indeed, the whole point of being nonreligious is that we are not religious about our spirituality, or lack thereof.

The reason the Democratic party is generally favored among non-religious voters - Biden is currently polling at 72% among our bloc, second only to his dominance among Black voters - is a moral code that we have in common with people across the faith spectrum. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris represent that code well.

First, we firmly believe in the separation of Church and State. We believe that the government should stay out of people’s personal beliefs, and that religious dicta has no place in government. We believe that everyone should be able to make decisions about their own medical care without government interference, including women and transpeople. We believe that the civil institution of marriage should be available to any two consenting adults.

We believe in civil society and its institutions. We also believe that government should be a force for social good. We believe that as a people, acting through our government, we have an obligation to make sure that no one goes hungry, that everyone has health care they can afford and use, and that every child has a right to a loving home, a high quality education, a safe neighborhood, and freedom from bullying. We believe that we have a social compact to care for the elderly, recognize the talents of the so-called disabled, and preserve this planet that we have inherited from those who came before us for those who will come after us.

We believe in equal opportunity and equal treatment under law, and we believe that every human being has the inherent right to be treated with respect and dignity. We believe in service for our country, sacrifice for our community, and the human need to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

We believe Black lives matter.

We believe immigrants make America strong. We believe naturalized citizens love this country just as much as those born on its soil.

And we believe in science. We believe climate change is real, human-caused, and devastating. We believe in advancing technology, curing diseases, and agricultural advances. We believe masks and physical distancing work to stem the advance of COVID-19. We believe in evidence-based medicine, and we abhor political pressure on scientists, be it in terms of climate science, vaccines, health, or exploration.

This is why we are on board with Biden-Harris. The Biden-Harris ticket is unapologetically pro-science, they have a plan to expand health care and invest in low-resource schools, they will protect the right of women to make their own health care decisions, they believe public education is a social obligation and that domestic violence is an abhorrent and punishable crime. They have a vision of investing communities, delivering on the promise of rural broadband, and making it possible for every young person to obtain postsecondary education either completely free or without debt.

What’s more, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have the capacity to connect this moral code to that of people of faith. It is not important to us that Biden may reach through his faith the same conviction we may reach through belief in secular society. It’s important that the compassion and empathy that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris embody transcends individual religious belief and unites us in common purpose and commitment to one another.

That’s why we support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

These are all devastating, illegal, abuses of power we learned of in the past 10 days from heroes known as whistleblowers through legal channels.

Dawn Wooten, a nurse who worked at the facility at the Irwin County Detention Center holding immigrants detained by ICE in Georgia was represented by a score of whistleblower and immigration rights groups and filed a complaint with the Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a division, as well as other authorities.

DC National Guard Maj. Adam D. DeMarco, who blew the whistle on Trump’s infamous clearing of peaceful protesters on June 1 so he, Trump, could pose with a Bible, gave his whistleblowing testimony to the House Natural Resources Committee. DeMarco had the job of coordinating with National Park Police, which falls under the oversight jurisdiction of the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee of the Natural Resources Committee.

Brian Murphy, the DHS official who revealed Chad Wolf’s attempt to cover up Russian election invasion also filed a complaint with the DHS IG.

Indeed it was, in fact, a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s attempt to blackmail Ukraine brought to the attention of Congress as required by law by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) that got Donald Trump impeached on December 18, 2019.

All of these whistleblowers performed heroic public service by disclosing illegality and blatant abuse, and they did so in a way much of the ideological extremes have been convinced you cannot do: legally. Indeed, the cause-celeb of much of the self-styled steal-and-release bastardization of whistleblowing, Edward Snowden, who chose to take the law into his own hand and become a fugitive, sits comfortably under Vladimir Putin’s protection in Moscow, Russia.

Snowden didn’t have to, because if he truly believed in what his PR flacks on The Intercept say he was doing - exposing mass, illegal government surveillance - he had the same options availed by Dawn Wooten, Maj. DeMarco, and Adam Murphy. Heck, he could have been an anonymous whistleblower like the whistleblower whose report led to the impeachment of the sitting president of the United States.

I say all of the options were available to Snowden, because they were. The full range of the reporting options - from internal reporting to IG complaint to going straight to Congress are all protected under federal whistleblowing statutes, including the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012, signed by President Obama. Snowden stole information from the NSA, disclosed them, and fled the country in 2013.

This is because Snowden was not looking to inform the public of abuse. He was trying to gain notoriety through crime.

When Republicans refused to negotiate over a second stimulus package for the coronavirus pandemic and stalled the Heroes Act - which passed the House in May - and Trump used executive orders to implement certain measures meant more to be a political cover than a real solution to the economic pain Americans are experiencing from the pandemic, many on the Democratic side were concerned that Trump would win the political, and eventually the legislative battle.

Those fears weren’t entirely unfounded, given that the election is fast approaching, and Democrats couldn’t afford to be cast as the party standing in the way of some sort of relief. Republicans still control the Senate, after all, and with the White House appearing completely unwilling to engage in negotiations with the House, the stalemate didn’t have a clear political winner.

Until now. Just this morning, Donald Trump once again surrendered to Nancy Pelosi, in a Twitter diatribe:

That highlighted part, “Go for the [Democrats’] much higher number, Republicans” is key. That is Donald Trump, the cult leader of the Republican party, telling his party in Congress that they have no choice but to surrender to the Speaker, finally negotiate with good faith, and get a relief package done.

But how did this happen? For a while, Republicans and Donald were pretty sure that they’d be able to play this political game to their benefit. Republicans would obstruct aid in the Senate while Trump moved in with nice-sounding executive orders for a nice PR win. They really thought they had Democrats where they wanted them, and that their PR gamble would force Democrats to pass a Republican corporate tax cut bill masquerading as pandemic stimulus.

But Pelosi held firm, and to his credit, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer backed her up. Pelosi, Schumer, Congressional Democrats were always willing to negotiate and meet the Republicans in the middle, but they wouldn’t give up on essential priorities such as aid for state and local governments and additional unemployment benefits.

Pelosi knew that Trump’s gamble would never pay off. The centerpiece of Trump’s PR executive order, a $300 additional weekly unemployment benefit down from $600 in the original stimulus, would quickly run out of money. The funds to create this supplement were taken from the Homeland Security Disaster Relief Fund, which at the time had $70 billion available. The fund was still required to have at least $25 billion at hand for actual emergencies, making only about $45 billion available for unemployment aid.

Let’s do some back of the hands math here. With about 30 million people unemployed receiving $300 a week (not that everyone received it, but that’s another story) , that is $9 billion per week. Follow the math, and $45 billion only lasts five weeks.

Guess how much time has passed between Trump’s August 8 Executive Order and present day? Five weeks and four days. Funny how that works.

Pelosi grasps the fundamentals of government as as she understands her political opponents. Ultimately, Congress still maintains the power of the purse, and Pelosi knew that math would make Trump’s gamble collapse, and once it does, he’d back, hat in hand, begging to be bailed out a month and a half before the election.

And here we are.

According to climate science, we have just 10 years to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change, but according to climate ideologues, we must do so with our good hand tied behind our back.

That hand we must keep tied behind our back would, naturally, be nuclear power, the safest, fastest, most environmentally friendly way to tackle climate change. Don’t kid yourself, it is virtually impossible to get a hold on emissions that cause climate change without nuclear energy.

There’s a strong current of opinion in the professional activist sector against nuclear power based on a set of unfounded fears. Nuclear power is, after all, nuclear, and if it fails, the narrative goes, we can have daily Chernobyls in our midst.

SAFETY

But that’s just it. Chernobyl in 1986 is - and remains - the only reactor accident since the beginning of nuclear power generation some 70 years ago found to have caused any deaths or health damage. The other two widely known reactor accidents, Three Mile Island and Fukushima, did not cost a single human life, nor were ever found to cause radiation-related illness.

The human damage in the Chernobyl accident - which eventually resulted in about 50 fatalities and 5,500 cancer cases due to exposure, was attributable entirely to Soviet design without regard to safety in the middle of the Cold War.

One important thing to keep in mind is that contrary to popular perception, not every ‘accident’ at nuclear power facilities is deadly or major cause for concern. Despite there having been some 63 nuclear power plant accidents on record before 2007, the human damage toll remains limited to the Chernobyl, because of the extraordinary safety, redundancy, and auto-shutoffs practiced by nuclear plants.

Compare this to the “safety” record of the fossil fuel industry. Since 1969, over 40 major oil spills have polluted the waterways and coastlines of the United States alone, with the largest being the Deep Water Horizon spill in 2010. Over the last century, 100,000 people have been killed in coal mining accidents. And when it comes to a singular power generation disaster that cost the most lives in history, nothing comes even close to the 171,000 lives that were lost when the Shimantan Damn failed in China in 1975. Interestingly, like Chernobyl’s nuclear plant, the Shimantan Damn was also built with (wait for it) Soviet technology.

All of this to say nothing of the cost of air pollution, which costs up to 7 million lives every year, and the devastating cost of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events in lives and dollars.

Activists would argue, however, that they are not advocating for more fossil fuel. They want more solar and wind power instead.

RELIABILITY

Simply put, demanding solar and wind exclusivity in the short or medium term (and perhaps even in the long term) is tantamount to advocating for more fossil fuels. Why? Because the sun sets or gets covered by clouds (or you know, smoke). The sun is the most bright - and therefore solar generation capacity is at its peak - for only about four hours a day even (a couple of hours before and after solar noon) when and where sunshine is aplenty. And the wind, well, the wind stops. Even if solar and wind technology were to get to a place where it would be able to meet all power needs when in operation, there are natural limits to that operation.

Couldn’t solar and wind generation simply generate more power during bright days and high winds and store the additional electricity for later use? Not. Even. Close. Take it from someone who is an expert in battery and conductor technology, Aspen Institute Trustee William Budinger.

For the answer, consider a specific case for just part of one state. A while ago, well-intentioned activists pushed to close Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant and replace it with solar panels. The plant supplies a third of Arizona’s power and generates about 4 gigawatts (4GW) of 24/7 power. Had the activists been successful and actually replaced Palo Verde with solar panels and batteries, how much battery storage would they have needed? Since even Arizona can have a full week of cloudy days, those batteries would have to hold enough electrons to supply power for a week—some 670 GW hours of battery capacity (4GWx24x7).

Well, 670 GW hours is huge! As a point of comparison, the total battery storage expected to be in place in the United States at the end of 2019—utilities and homes—will be about 3 GW.

This, Budinger points out, is over 200 times the total US energy storage capacity - or 5,000 times the capacity of the most modern and largest battery in the world built by Tesla at the cool cost of $66 million.

Given even the advanced stage of storage technology, it is technologically impossible to meet our constant energy needs through solar and wind generation. Something else in the energy mix has to be a major partner in supplying the grid when the sun sets and the wind stops (even if you assumed there’s enough generation capacity).

For the time being, because of the fear campaign around nuclear energy spearheaded by activists, that something is coal and natural gas, both of which have large greenhouse gas footprints, though coal is the worst offender. Nuclear power, on the other hand, has a lower carbon footprint than wind at the to get started, and lower carbon footprints than both solar and wind for ongoing operation.

Note that although solar, wind, and nuclear power have no carbon emissions during the power production process, the carbon footprint is measured from the amount of emissions it takes to produce the parts necessary to produce raw material and build facilities and equipment.

WASTE DISPOSAL

The final fear campaign surrounding nuclear energy targets its waste disposal.

All the nuclear power that’s ever been generated have created less waste material - in total - that would occupy less space than a typical Walmart store. Waste is stored for 50 years before disposal, newer technologies allow for recycling much of the waste for more nuclear power generation, and when you’re not pulling a Sierra Blanca and following the advice of geologists instead, it turns out that deep underground storage in geologically proper areas is safe.

Nuclear power is exceedingly safe, extraordinarily clean, and effectively scalable. But for safe adoption of nuclear power to take hold, the planet must be saved, first and foremost, from climate ideologues.

I think it’s fair to say that a large majority of Democratic voters breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear that neither Sanders nor Bloomberg would be our nominee. Nevertheless, despite his many flaws, Mike Bloomberg is making good on his promise of infusing cash in favor of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and he is investing it smartly.

Bloomberg’s $100 million in cash is going to Florida, a critical swing state where Biden has made major inroads among seniors compared to previous Democratic candidates but appears to be running behind them in Latino support. The Washington Post reports that Bloomberg’s cash will “focus mostly on television and digital ads, in English and Spanish.”

That’s more critical than it sounds.

Bloomberg’s cash spells the first major independent investment to counter propaganda, disinformation, and viral conspiracy theories that have blanketed the radio airwaves and social media channels among Florida Latinos. In a report out in Politico this morning, the onslaught is described as follows:

George Soros directs a “Deep State” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem.

Wild disinformation like this is inundating Spanish-speaking residents of South Florida ahead of Election Day, clogging their WhatsApp chats, Facebook feeds and even radio airwaves at a saturation level that threatens to shape the outcome in the nation’s biggest and most closely contested swing state.

The massive, largely untraced campaign has had a significant effect in blunting Biden’s momentum among Florida Latinos, according to experts Politico spoke with. Facebook is a cesspool as always, and WhatsApp, a highly popular among international users as well as among immigrant communities connected to their birth countries or the home countries of their parents, is helping spread right wing lies like California wildfires.

Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, has demonstrated its clear contempt for the truth and an unwillingness to effectively deal with the spread of conspiracy theories and misinformation on its platform.

That leaves only one way to mitigate the rapidly spreading dumpster fire of misinformation spreading on Facebook’s (but also on other social media) platforms and on radio: Money, and lots of it.

That comes from Bloomberg, and I’m damn glad for it.

For a while in the 2020 election cycle, one could be forgiven for thinking that the reports in the mainstream press about the relationship between this year’s Democratic nominee Vice President Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders being more personally cordial and amicable than that between Sanders and Clinton were true. And in all honesty, maybe they still are.

But if you thought from Sanders leaving the race relatively early this year - qualified leaving, since he did not actually end his campaign and stop gathering delegates to the convention - and all the apparent cooperation over the platform that Bernie Sanders had himself matured beyond his most rabid supporters who are going around holding flop conventions, you should have prepared yourself for disappointment.

Somebody - hello, somebody? - has helpfully leaked to the Washington Post Bernie Sanders’s “concerns” that Biden is “at serious risk of coming up short in the November election” if he doesn’t adapt the approach of a two-time loser and fair weather Democrat. Sanders wants Biden to move away from a broad, centrist message that by all indications has served him well and focus instead on Bernie’s pet issues of economic populism. Sanders also wants Biden to use his campaign to elevate Sanders surrogates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who famously said that she and Biden didn’t even belong in the same party.

The Sanders camp essentially confirmed the story to the Post.

Those of us who’ve been observing Bernie Sanders for the better part of the past decade know what this is: running interference at the final stretch of this campaign by manufacturing a narrative of liberal dissent to distract form the narrative of Democratic unity and by making himself and his mini-me’s take up oxygen instead of where the focus needs to be: on beating Trump. Clearly, this is not advice offered in an attempt to rescue a campaign in distress. Biden’s lead over Trump has been large and remarkably stable, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are raising gobs of money.

Bernie Sanders is trying to sabotage the 2020 election in favor of Donald Trump, because Bernie Sanders is not, in fact, better than the worst of his followers.

This story drops on the heels of social media chatter on the far left corners of the Internet transforming from how Biden can’t win without heavily courting the horseshoe left to what it would mean for leftists if and when he does.

It is a frightening prospect for the online left that Biden may be on the way to winning the White House by shunning them and instead courting centrists and even moderate Republicans. Biden made it clear in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention last month that he will not be a partisan president. “I am the Democratic candidate, but I will be an American president”, he said.

The far left believes that a Biden win would reduce their power and influence. They’re right. They believe that Democrats should ‘bend the knee’ to the fringe left and if we do not, they will stick us with four more years of Trump, like they did the first four. Their power primarily rests in the threat of destruction, not in the promise of construction. But if Biden wins, their destructive threat is gone, and they will have to think of constructive ways of improving the lives of real people. And let’s face it, that’s just too messy, involves too much compromise, and just plain takes too much work.

Worse, they believe that a Biden win could cement a pragmatic approach to politics and policy for 12-16 years, as they, to my glee, feel that a Biden presidency is likely to be followed by a couple of terms for Harris.

In other words, a Biden win, for the Bernie left, would mean that their approach to burning it all down is locked out of national power for longer than they are willing to hold their breaths, but a Trump win will at least give them told-you-so bragging rights and let them try again in four years.

And for Bernie Sanders, progressive gatekeeping has always been more important than American revival.

The searing memory of 2016, however, will not let Democrats get comfortable, and that’s a good thing. Hillary Clinton led the national polls against Donald Trumps consistently, and even most swing state polls, but Trump ended up drawing an inside straight on his way to winning the presidency through the electoral college despite Clinton winning 3 million more votes.

Considering all that, it’s not difficult to see why Democrats sweat. For one thing, Trump outperformed his polls in swing states in 2016, a phenomenon many experts attribute to ‘silent’ Trump voters, people who will not tell pollsters or their social circles that they want to vote for Trump but will mark MAGA on their ballots.

Another top source of worry for Democratic voters and pundits alike comes from the drop in turnout among Democratic constituencies and geographies for Hillary Clinton compared to Barack Obama’s runs in 2012 and 2008. Yet another legitimate concern centers around the spoiler campaigns of third party candidates; indeed, the Green Party is in the Wisconsin Supreme Court at this very moment trying to keep Wisconsinites from voting by mail.

I believe that while these fears are legitimate, much of the dialogue has neglected specific antidotes to 2016, as well as some fundamental ways in which 2020 is different from 2016.

Donald Trump is not unique in this election as someone with a history of outperforming polls. Joe Biden outperformed in nearly every Democratic primary contest since South Carolina, which he also won by a greater margin than polls had predicted. By Super Tuesday, the anti-Sanders left had coalesced around Biden for certain, but still no one had predicted that Biden would not only come out with a delegate lead from Super Tuesday but draw his own inside straight through victories in states that had looked Sanders country just 24-48 hours prior like Massachusetts, Maine, and Texas. Biden won states he never visited during the primary, and he won delegates in Sanders’s home state of Vermont, something Hillary Clinton had failed to do four years earlier.

A week later, Biden handily won the Michigan primary, something Bernie Sanders had managed to do against expectations in 2016. The race was called early, and Biden won Michigan with 53% of the vote, having averaged only 37% in polls just days before the primary.

Biden wrapped up the primary way earlier in the cycle than Clinton had.

Not only did Biden outperform his polling consistently, Bernie Sanders - the leftist with a populist appeal much like Trump’s - significantly underperformed among key constituencies that had backed him against Hillary Clinton. While Sanders made major gains among Latinos, his Black support was at or below his anemic 2016 levels, and he hemorrhaged white support to Biden by large margins. Whereas Clinton had outmanuevered Sanders with a coalition of Democratic voters of color while narrowly losing the white Democratic primary vote to Sanders, Biden reversed those fortunes. Sanders also famously failed to back up his campaign narrative of youth enthusiasm as the increased turnout in 2020 primaries came from older voters and buoyed Biden.

Something of a similar story is playing out in the general election polling at this moment. In poll after poll, Joe Biden is fighting Trump to a draw among white voters and even inching ahead in a few. Almost unseen in modern political history, Biden’s strength among white voters is being complimented among his command among voters over 65, another constituency no Democrat has won in this century. In Florida, over-65s are making up for what appears to be a significant drop in support for the Democratic ticket among Florida Hispanics compared to Clinton’s margin in 2016.

Needless to say that if Biden closes the gap among white voters while holding onto a Black voter lead somewhere between that of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, November will be a bloodbath for Republicans. If Biden can maintain Clinton level support among Latinos, we are likely looking at an early night.

Joe Biden is also in that rare political position of being more financially flush than a Republican incumbent for the White House, and for this, much credit goes to the indomitable Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate. The Biden-Harris campaign and DNC shattered all fundraising records when in August they raised $365 million, a figured that dwarfed the Trump/RNC August figure by more than $150 million. The Trump campaign has also blown through $800 million this year, and that helps.

But the massive fundraising haul does more than allow Biden-Harris to make large and smart investments in swing states. It indicates that Democratic constituencies - and some constituencies not traditionally Democratic but disgusted by Trump are motivated, excited, and active.

This is a potentially huge difference from 2016. Although I and others went to bat for Hillary Clinton, who will always be a hero for me, there is no avoiding the fact that due to a 30-year character assassination by the national media, Clinton’s favorability was low, and combined with Russian propaganda, it helped depress turnout in key swing states. Joe Biden does not simply have lower negatives, but just as critically, those who dislike both Trump and Biden are breaking for Biden, whereas in 2016, those who disliked both candidates broke substantially for Trump.

2020 has another unique advantage (although that’s hardly the word to use) that Donald Trump has been president for four years. Disaffected voters who believed that there was no way Trump could get elected and they didn’t “like” either candidate now know Trump can get elected, and they know what happens when he does. Those voters are far less likely to play roulette by sitting out the election or voting third party.

All of this is resulting in Biden’s lead being more than twice as large as Clinton’s as well as far more stable, and the caution exercised by pollsters to account for Trump’s overperformance may in fact end up underestimating Biden’s numbers. It may well be the case that 2020 is a continuation of the trends we saw in 2018, rather than a repeat of the anomaly of 2016.

I also believe there is going to be a marginal but significant boost to the Democratic ticket from voters in the Asian, South Asian, and Caribbean diaspora stemming from the choice of Kamala Harris as the Vice Presidential nominee in some critical battlegrounds, a phenomenon I plan on addressing in a future post.

None of this should give anyone cause to celebrate a premature victory, and no one I know of is taking their foot off the gas because of Biden’s strong poll numbers. But it is important to understand that we do not have to be consumed by the fear of 2016.

I have come to the realization that I need to make a decision on this site. I need to either put my heart and soul back into it, or shut it down for good.

And my resolution is that I am going to give it a go.

Now, no one has any reason to just trust that it won’t go back to being dead, and I plan on rebuilding it with content and re-earning the trust of old and new readers. If I go away again, I will make a decision to shut this place.

The reason I am making the decision to give this a last go is that I have not, in any way, lost my passion for politics. I continue to be active on Twitter, under the handle @vetthebern. Nor have I lost my urge to express myself through written words. I do still think I have something unique to contribute.

So those of you who are still hanging on, thank you. Those who aren’t, I blame no one, and I sincerely hope that everyone is staying in the fight.

I am not asking anyone for anything, but I do plan on making this a fresh start.

Other than that, I am not sure about how the presidential race will go. Regarding the Senate, I am even less sure. It is looking as though Democrats have a realistic shot at taking back the Senate and the White House.

That being said, it is far from certain.

Some Very Clear Instructions

Because Trump’s appointed henchmen to the United States Postal Service have begun to sabotage this vital institution to help him with his reelection campaign, I will advise everyone here to vote early in person if possible and, more importantly, to do so safely. That way, your ballot is much more likely to count.

If your only safe option is to vote by mail, make sure you get your ballot in as soon as it is possible for you to get it. That way, your ballot is far more likely to be counted. Keep in mind the election is November 3, 2020.

Click here for information about early in-person voting.

Click here for information about how to vote by mail in your state.

Click here for information about where to safely drop off your ballot if you vote by mail. 

Prepare for a Pyrrhic Victory

Even if Vice President Biden and Senator Harris win the presidential election, the damage the 2020 election and the Trump administration have done to the social fabric of the United States will be extensive.

If Vice President Biden and Senator Harris win on November 3 (and that is a big if), millions of Americans will not see the results as legitimate. What is quite likely to happen is that Trump will contest the election results both in the courts and in the media, especially if it is close. This does not include how much trouble his allies in the Republican Party at the state and local levels will cause.

If everything goes according to plan and Vice President Biden takes office on January 20, 2021, President-Elect Biden in this hypothetical scenario will have an economy in ruins, a still-raging pandemic, and a federal bureaucracy (think the State and Justice Department) on life support. And even if the Senate is under Democratic control, Biden will face a fully Trumpified Republican Party out for blood if it is not fully crushed. 

In American politics, there are few forces more dangerous than a political party who has been stung by a recent and traumatizing defeat. Just ask Democrats in 2010 and Republicans in 2018 what it is like on election night during the midterms to see so much of your hard-fought-for power go up in smoke.

This means that the work of putting down the Republican Party in its current form will be much harder in some ways if Trump is defeated. (To be fair, it will be impossible if Trump wins on November 3.)

So in addition to Trump himself, the entire Republican Party must be crushed beyond the shadow of a doubt on November 3. There is nothing redeemable about it.

Regardless of the outcome, the United States is at its breaking point in every sense of the word. COVID-19 and Trump more broadly have acted as bedsores, both as symptoms and accelerants of everything that has been wrong in the United States.

The lack of respect for expertise, the geographic divisions, and, worst of all, the institutionalized white supremacy have been with this country since its inception. The pandemic and the Trump presidency have just accelerated these destructive traits. Unfortunately, unless we get really lucky, the country may not be able to get out of the hole the United States has dug itself in.

Either way, the ugly has only just begun.

Stay safe and vote as soon as possible.

Besides the race for the White House, the Senate is being fought for as well. Democrats must gain control of the Senate. Even if Vice President Joe Biden wins the White House, he will not be able to push through an agenda to save the United States without the Senate. So winning control of the Senate is vital. 

State of the Senate Race

The Republicans control the United States Senate by three seats. However, because Senator Doug Jones of Alabama is likely going to lose his seat, Democrats, in practical terms, need to win four seats. I will be going over the Senate races with the most potential for change and IDing Democrats who will need the most help in holding their seats. 

Before COVID-19 and the murder of George Floyd, the Republicans were poised to hold the Senate thanks to a highly favorable map, somewhat stable approval ratings for Trump, favorable polling numbers, and the fact that Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is an excellent political operative. 

However, thanks to the federal government’s catastrophic response to COVID-19 and the unleashing of Trump’s KGB lite in response to people protesting George Floyd’s murder, the odds of Democrats retaking the Senate have climbed considerably. Helping Democrats are several excellent recruits around the country. 

Side note: I will ask everyone to donate to Colorado and Montana governors Hickenlooper and Bullock, respectively, on principle alone because people have been begging them to run for Senate. It is not fair to ask someone to do a job, especially run for office, and then not give them the needed support. 

I will categorize the Senate races into must-win, will really help to win, and long shots. Must-win races are the Senate races that Democrats have the best chances of winning and have to win if they are going to retake the majority; will-really-help-to-win races are those that Democrats have a chance to win but are in some ways optional; and long shots are races in which Democrats have little to no chance of winning the Senate seat but still deserve support on principle. Senators who need help will be Democrats who may need some support fending off Republican challengers and will get their own category. 

Must-Win Races

There are four must-win races if Democrats are going to regain control of the Senate. They are the Senate seats held by Republican Senators Cory Gardner of Colorado, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona, and Susan Collins of Maine. All four of them deserve to lose their seats for a variety of reasons. All four of them are sycophants of the Trump administration. 

Fortunately, Democrats have recruited top-tier candidates to finally retire these yes-men and -women. 

Coming to challenge Senator Cory Gardner is former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. He is someone who has won in the most trying of circumstances. We may think of Colorado as a blue state today, but that was not always the case. Governor Hickenlooper helped transition Colorado from a purple state to a blueish state, and he did a good job as governor. Plus, people have begged him to run. He should get support on that principle alone. 

Looking to finally take down Senator Susan Collins is Maine Speaker of the House Sara Gideon. She has already proven herself by going toe-to-toe—and winning—against Maine’s former governor, Paul Lepage, on expanding access to Naloxone, a drug to help with opioid overdoses.

From the land of mavericks comes Captain Mark Kelly looking to take down Senator Martha McSally, a senator who has never won an election and was in fact defeated by Kyrsten Sinema in 2018. Ever since she was appointed, Senator McSally has been a disaster for Arizona. Captain Mark Kelly is an astronaut and a US Navy veteran who has served this country with honor and distinction. Captain Kelly is the husband of Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman and a survivor of being shot in the head. He is currently leading by a considerable margin in almost all the polls conducted for the Arizona Senate race, but he will still need help to defeat McSally for good. 

Last but not least in North Carolina is Cal Cunningham challenging Senator Thom Tillis, possibly the most corrupt out of the four most vulnerable Republican senators (quite a distinction, I would say). Cal Cunningham is a US Army veteran, a practiced lawyer, and an experienced state senator in his own right. He is currently leading in the polls, but not by a very strong margin. 

All four of these outstanding candidates need help to win their vital races. I will have their websites, Facebook pages, Twitter/Facebook accounts, introduction videos, and most importantly, their ActBlue links. Send these awesome people money and spread the word. 

• John Hickenlooper, US Senate, Colorado: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Sara Gideon, US Senate, Maine: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Mark Kelly, US Senate, Arizona: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video 

• Cal Cunningham, US Senate, North Carolina: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

Will-Really-Help-to-Win Races

Of course, it is always good to have a wide margin when holding a seat. The Senate Democrats are running some excellent candidates across the country. The must-win races are the four easiest for Democrats to win. Even if the races in this category are toss-ups, they will be tougher to win. Any Senate races that are consistently rated as leaning Republican will be placed in this category as well. 

In Montana, Governor Steve Bullock is running to flip another Senate seat for Democrats. Governor Bullock has done an excellent job as governor of Montana. He is looking to replace Senator Steve Daines.

From the state of Iowa, south of my home state of Minnesota, Senator Joni Ernst has been one of the Trump administration’s biggest sycophants. Her challenger is Theresa Greenfield, a successful businesswoman and farm girl if I have ever seen one. Out of all the will-really-help-to-win races, she has the best shot at actually winning.  

As for Kansas, former Republican Barbara Bollier is looking to take on current Republican Representative Roger Marshall. Because Bollier is not facing Kris Kobach (turns out losing a winnable governor’s race does not endear you to your colleagues), she will have a much tougher race, but she can still fight. That means she still deserves our support. 

In Georgia, Jon Ossoff is running against David Perdue for Senate. Before he died, the Honorable John Lewis endorsed Jon Ossoff for Senate. If he is good enough for Representative Lewis, he is fine by me. I am a bit skeptical, however; in 2017, he drastically outspent a Republican in a special election and was still defeated. 

I would encourage you all to donate to these excellent candidates so that we can have a bigger majority in the Senate. Spread the word about them as well.  

• Steve Bullock, US Senate, Montana: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

•  Theresa Greenfield, US Senate, Iowa: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Barbara Bollier, US Senate, Kansas: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

•  Jon Ossoff, US Senate, Georgia, General Election: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

Long-Shot Races

These are races that Democrats objectively have, at best, quite a step climb. Some of these Democrats have no chance at all. The Democrats listed here are in races that are either likely Republican or even safe Republican. But every Democrat deserves help. I am, however, excluding the Nebraska Senate Democrat because of his behavior.

Thanks to Senator Isakson retiring last year, Kelly Loeffler has stepped up to take his place. Even by Republican standards, she is incredibly corrupt. This is a senator who, when confronted with the data about how devastating COVID-19 would be, decided to sell her stocks and buy other types of stock. Two Democrats are running against her, Matt Lieberman and Reverend Raphael Warnock. Unfortunately, they both have some serious weaknesses for the general election. Lieberman recently published a novel with so many racist tropes that the local NAACP called for him to step down. Despite some heavy support, Reverend Warnock had a lot of trouble getting his campaign off the ground and is struggling in the polls. Personally, I am supporting Reverend Warnock because, again, the honorable Representative John Lewis supported him before he died. Nevertheless, I will include both of them so you, my friends, can make that decision for yourselves.

In Texas, MJ Hegar is running against Senator John Cornyn. She proved herself a tough opponent when she did much better than any Democrat for a Texas House race. That being said, I have serious doubts about her ability to win a statewide race in Texas, though that is in part because Texas is still too red for a Democrat to win statewide outside of special circumstances. But I want Democrats to invest more in Texas. 

Jaime Harrison is running against one of the most loathsome figures in the US Senate today: Senator Lindsey Graham. I still remember his face turning into a tomato during the Kavanaugh hearings. Even other Republicans were well composed compared to him. Harrison has already set up a formidable machine to take on this well-entrenched senator. However, the voting bloc in South Carolina is inelastic (meaning how little the voting changes) because of racial polarization; Black people in South Carolina are overwhelmingly Democrats, and White people in South Carolina are overwhelmingly Republicans. But Harrison deserves aid on principle. 

Dr. Al Gross is running for Senate in Alaska, the last frontier. Like all Democrats, he deserves a fighting chance to flip this Senate seat. He is something else, and more than a few Alaska natives on Twitter said they are reminded of Alaska when they see him. Every Senate seat counts. He is technically an independent, but independents sometimes have a better chance of winning in Alaska. 

I will include the rest of the Democrats on this list who are facing a Republican in a red state. Every single one of them needs support, especially if they are running in deeply red states. If you can, donate to them, but at least spread the word about them. 

• Raphael Warnock, US Senate, Georgia, Special: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Matt Liberman, US Senate, Georgia, Special: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• MJ Hegar, US Senate, Texas: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Jaime Harrison, US Senate, South Carolina: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Dr. Al Gross, US Senate, Alaska: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video 

• Amy McGrath, US Senate, Kentucky: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video 

• Mike Espy, US Senate, Mississippi: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video   

• Adrian Perkins, US Senate, Louisiana: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video  

• Paulette Jordan, US Senate, Idaho: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video  

• Abby Broyles, US Senate, Oklahoma: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video  

• Dan Ahlers, US Senate, South Dakota: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video    

• Marquita Bradshaw, US Senate, Tennessee: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Paula Jean Swearengin, US Senate, West Virginia: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

• Nathan Wendt, US Senate, Wyoming: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | 

Senate Democrats Who Need Help

However, just because Democrats are overall on the offensive this year does not mean that there aren’t some Democrats who need extra help. 

Senator Doug Jones is by far the most vulnerable Democrat. The man has served Alabama as a senator in truly outstanding ways. However, the morally right choice of voting for impeachment could cost him the Senate seat. However, it was a miracle that he won in December 2017 at all; let’s see if he can pull off another miracle. If you can, send him some money and spread the word, if for no other reason than because Senator Doug Jones is a good and brave man. 

The second-most vulnerable Democrat is Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. Although he is considerably ahead in the polls and won a statewide race as a Democrat in Michigan in 2014, he is consistently getting outraised by his Republican opponent. Send him money. 

Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota (my senator) needs some help as well, as does Senator Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico. Send them both money, though if you have to choose, send the money to Senator Smith. 

• Doug Jones, US Senate, Alabama: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video 

• Gary Peters, US Senate, Michigan: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Video 

• Tina Smith, US Senate, Minnesota: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | 

• Ben Ray Luján, US Senate, New Mexico: Website | ActBlue | Facebook | Twitter | Launch Video

I did not include any Democrat in a safe state because the money needs to go to candidates who have an actual fight on their hands. Look over this list to see if your state is here. 

Remember to vote as soon as possible.