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Opinion
Democratic Voters Want Fighters, Not Cowardly Cavers
The establishment wing of the party has once again sold out the people they were elected to represent.
Nov 12, 2025
If there is one key lesson from last week's blowout victory for Democrats, it's that Democratic voters want fighters. In waiting less than a week after the elections to announce their unilateral surrender late on a Sunday night, the eight members of the Senate Democratic caucus who handed Trump and his Republican allies total victory in exchange for nothing sold those voters out.
While Democratic voters in the November 4th election were elated by the first triumph in quite a while, the cavers took the wind out of their sails. There's a serious danger that some of these constituents won't bother to vote in the 2026 elections. It could cost the Democrats the election and allow MAGA to keep control of the House and Senate, while impoverishing many poor and working-class Americans. With gerrymandering, there will likely be only about 40 competitive House districts (and six or seven competitive Senate races). Many of them will be likely decided by a few thousand (or even a few hundred) votes and there's a good chance that the disillusionment with Democratic cowardice could make the difference in deciding who controls both chambers of Congress.
The two biggest stars emerging from the November 4th elections are Zorhan Mamdani and Gavin Newsom. They're from different wings of the Democratic Party—Mamdani is an unyielding progressive while Newsom is generally a moderate. What they had most in common was their willingness in this election to be fighters.
While many Democrats were wringing their hands over Texas's midterm gerrymandering, which is likely to hand Republicans five House seats, Newsom came up with the idea to amend the California Constitution to pick up five House seats for Democrats. He managed to get it on the ballot, despite the opposition of some Democrats who argued that "two wrongs don't make a right." After being the leading voice in support of Proposition 10, Newsom's amendment won in a 20-point landslide.
The result is that the handsome and articulate governor is now the likely front-runner for the 2028 Democratic Presidential nomination.
On the other side of the country, Mamdani received over 50% of the votes in a 3-way race. He mobilized over 100,000 volunteers, brought out the greatest number of voters in a New York mayoral race in years, and held huge rallies of enthusiastic supporters. He won 70% of voters under age 45 and 75% of those under 30. Many of this age group are not regular voters but jammed the polls to vote for Mamdani. They're the future of the Democratic Party, if they continue to vote in such numbers.
With his fighting outsider campaign, Mamdani became one of the leading young faces in the Democratic Party.
The victory parties for Newsom's Proposition 10 and Mamdani's mayoral win were raucous, joyous, and filled with an overwhelming sense of relief.
But the eight moderate Senate cavers couldn't wait even a week to take the wind out of their sails. Many of them, including those who were first-time voters, may be so discouraged and disillusioned that they hey won't bother showing up at the polls next November.
It may be that Republicans would have never agreed to pass the extension to the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Sooner or later, Democrats who, unlike Republicans actually care about the well-being of SNAP recipients, may have had to let the Big Ugly Bill pass. But, honestly, what was the fucking rush? Why couldn't they wait for more than a week after the elections to cave? They could have at least taken the time to explain their actions to voters and then maybe given in around Thanksgiving so as not to spoil the holiday. But if they were so desperate to unilaterally surrender after letting the country suffer for over a month in return for a non-deal they could have gotten at the beginning, why was it worth bothering with a shutdown in the first place?
If the quick surrender of so-called "moderates" depresses many who voted Democratic on November 4th so much that they won't be motivated to return to the polls next November, the Democratic cowards caucus may have made it harder for the party to win in 2026.
In any case, it's clear that people who voted for Democrats and policies on November 4th wanted fighters, not cowards. The lesson is also clear: without fighters, we're lost.
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We Were Right When We Said 'Don't Run, Joe.' Now We Say: 'Step Down, Chuck'
Senate Democrats’ collapse in the latest government funding fight is just the latest example of the party’s inability to advance bold members to positions of power, opting instead for milquetoast and uninspiring leadership.
Nov 12, 2025
In late 2022, RootsAction, the organization where I serve as political director, called for Joe Biden not to run for reelection. We were, we felt, simply saying out loud what had been whispered within the party for months—that Biden was too weak, politically and personally, to stop Donald Trump from winning a second term. Party activists and the international press took us seriously, but among party elites and the mainstream US media we were alternately derided and ignored.
Biden did ultimately heed our advice, but nearly two years too late. The cataclysmic effects of that disastrous delay are now playing out.
By now, of course, it is common wisdom that Biden should not have sought reelection, almost no matter whom you ask. Despite that, the Democratic Party has apparently learned very little from the Biden debacle. The same tendencies that enabled Biden’s ego-driven march for a second term are still on display today: deference to seniority, fear of bucking decorum, and a general strategic paralysis that has taken hold of the Democratic Party since Trump first won the presidency in 2016.
Senate Democrats’ collapse in the latest government funding fight is just the latest example of the party’s inability to advance bold members to positions of power, opting instead for milquetoast and uninspiring leadership.
Without a steady hand on the rudder, Senate Democrats fractured and failed to hold the line in a battle they had themselves set up.
By the end of this week, the funding “deal” that Senate Democrats have enabled will likely be on the books, as House Democrats will be unable to stop the legislation from making its way to Trump’s desk. After enduring the longest government shutdown in history, what Senate Democrats have to show for their capitulation is a promise from Republican leaders that there will, eventually, be a vote on extending the healthcare premiums assistance over which Democrats had ostensibly withheld their votes in the first place.
Those Democrats achieved nothing to restore Medicaid cuts. And with Republicans unlikely to back legislation bolstering the Affordable Care Act, Democrats have squandered the strategic leverage they held in the budget fight and likely doomed more millions of Americans to a future without adequate healthcare.
While many Democrats bear responsibility for caving on this fight—especially the seven Democrats and one independent who voted for the Republican budget proposal in the Senate—no one individual is more responsible than the Senate minority leader: Chuck Schumer. While Schumer himself voted against the proposal, a party leader’s responsibility goes far beyond his own votes in Congress. He or she is chiefly responsible for leading the party’s caucus, especially through difficult votes. That Schumer allowed his caucus to splinter in this critical standoff is a resounding indictment of his leadership.
Recent polling showed voters blaming Republicans more than Democrats for the government shutdown and the ensuing disorder it created. That same polling also showed a majority of voters of any party agreeing that Democrats should continue to hold the line on healthcare funding cuts, even if it meant prolonging the shutdown. And, Democrats just welcomed a slew of wins on Election Day, with strong evidence that voters are already tiring of Trump’s nihilistic second term. With the political winds in their favor, why would Democratic leadership allow its members to take an unpopular and politically costly vote?
In moments like these, Democrats often resort to arguments about electability—that is, that members need to take votes that may not be popular with the majority sentiment within the Democratic Party to appease voters in their district or state. However, none of the eight Democrats who voted for the Republican-led funding bill are up for reelection in 2026. To argue that these candidates would have been held to account for voting against reopening the government, in 2025, in the 2028 election cycle or beyond stretches credulity.
We are left to conclude that the party suffered from a lack of clear leadership, and for this, Schumer bears sole responsibility. Without a steady hand on the rudder, Senate Democrats fractured and failed to hold the line in a battle they had themselves set up.
This failure comes on the heels of numerous missteps Schumer has recently made. These include his refusal to endorse or embrace Zohran Mamdani (whom RootsAction was among the first national groups to endorse), the mayor-elect of New York City, even while Schumer’s corporatist Democrat colleagues grudgingly came to support the charismatic rising star. Schumer also has declined to put any distance between himself and the ongoing genocide in Gaza perpetrated by Israel. Even as polling shows that just 10% of Democrats support Israel’s military actions, Schumer posed for photos with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his most recent visit to the US.
Simply put, Schumer is not the man for the moment. The Democrats will remain out of power in Congress at least until January 2027. For the party to stay relevant and attract voters, it must win the public relations war against Republicans and Trump. This means taking bold, principled stances, and defending those positions, even under intense pressure from Republicans. Schumer is either unwilling or unable to lead the party in these efforts. Many within his own party have taken notice, too. In the last few days, House members like Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), and others have harshly criticized Schumer’s leadership ability; Khanna has explicitly called for Schumer to leave the leader position.
Other Democrats and fellow travelers stand ready to pick up the mantle: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for example, is still the most popular elected official in the country, and he has consistently argued that Democrats should take stronger stances against Trump. Or, Schumer could abdicate his role in favor of a younger and actually progressive senator, facilitating a generational change of the guard that has lately eluded the party.
Biden’s failure to recognize that he had fallen out of favor with his own party led directly to the waking nightmare of the second Trump administration. Let’s not make the same mistakes. It’s time for new leadership that’s aligned with the desires of Democratic Party voters: to fight Trumpism and push for progressive populism that speaks directly to the economic needs of working people.
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The Corporate Centrists Cannot Hold: 'Big Tent' Democrats Cave Once More
The perils of unprincipled, performative so-called "resistance."
Nov 12, 2025
Wow, seriously? The Democrats are caving yet again? What was all that suffering and harm for, those 40-plus days of anxiety and uncertainty, all the lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, jobs, and income, the swelling lines at food banks and unemployment offices? After all that, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer enables a centrist cave-in by corporate Democrats, right as President Donald Trump and Republicans acknowledge they are “getting killed” politically by the shutdown and the erasure of essential benefits?
Democrats and progressives everywhere are shouting and screaming—WTF! And rightly so.
Just a week ago, the Democrats appeared ascendant, having run the electoral table on November 4. The “abundance” crowd was agog about the party’s “Big Tent” coalition, ranging from a democratic socialist mayor in New York City to centrist wins in Virginia and New Jersey. Now, that tent has caved, precisely because it is too big and lacks any core pillars. To paraphrase the great Joan Didion, the center cannot (and did not) hold.
Most of what I’d call the Enabling Eight who spearheaded the Democrats’ cave-in are established centrists or about to retire. Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Angus King (I-Maine) are all center-right politicians who might as well be “moderate” Republicans. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) proclaimed that these cave-in enablers chose “principle over their personal politics”—but it’s likely the opposite. None of the senators who were likely deputized to vote Yes are up for reelection, most are in swing states, and put their political calculus above the principle of protecting healthcare for millions of Americans.
As Jeet Heer summed up in The Nation: “At a moment when the elections had left Republicans on the ropes, Democrats caved in exchange for a couple of months of government funding and a vote on healthcare that they are bound to lose, if Republicans even hold one. It’s hard to see that as much of a deal at all.” By agreeing to the capitulation, that handful of centrist Democratic Senators “are validating the cynical view that the shutdown was simply a stunt to hurt Republicans in the off-cycle elections.”
From the Mamdani miracle in New York City on November 4 to the Enabling Eight in the US Senate just six days later, the Democratic Party’s huge internal contradictions have been on full display.
Adding further injury to the insult, Robert Reich pointed out, “There’s no guarantee that Trump’s White House will go along. In fact, it’s clear that the White House will dig in on all sorts of programs Democrats support.” Now that they’ve willingly erased their own leverage, Democrats have zero bargaining power on anything. In the name of ending the harm of the shutdown, they voluntarily squandered their one shot at forcing Republican concessions and lessening harm to millions of Americans. It’s not only shameful, but also downright bizarre and pathetic.
You could see the Democrats’ cave coming from a mile away. Not only have they caved so many times before—there was never a clear winnable strategy, beyond punishing Republicans politically for their attacks on healthcare, food stamps, and other essential human life supports. The Democrats exacted their little pound of flesh with some hopeful wins on November 4—then they folded up their tent and squandered whatever inspirational energy and momentum those wins gained.
Sunday, as news of the collapse broke over social media, former Ohio state Rep. Nina Turner crystallized it cogently: “Tonight is a glaring reminder that gerrymandering this spineless party into power isn’t a viable fight for democracy. It further erodes democracy while allowing Democrats in Congress to have even less of a backbone. Fight for fair maps. Organize the working class.”
Indeed, the cave-in reveals the precarity of the Democrats’ generally tepid and wavering resistance. Even when they have resisted, it’s been tactical and lacking any inspiring core principles. There is a real danger in the Democrats relying on gerrymandering, redistricting, and performative “resistance” that sells out both constituents and principles. Voters and activists must keep demanding a party that inspires, engages, and mobilizes working-class power. Don’t let unprincipled, unreliable centrism be the Democrats’ “Big Tent” pillar.
The Democratic Party has proven itself unable and unwilling to be a real opposition party. When the “opposition party” keeps flailing and failing, what do we do? Just keep electing more of them? Plow yet more time, energy, money, heart, and soul into a party that continues to squander it all?
Is this the “end of the Democrats” as a Newsweek column surmised? Certainly not in the immediate term—but it’s yet another final straw for many. At the very moment that Democrats seemed, at last, ready to stand up and fight the hideously fascistic Trump administration, and just as they seized momentum and some political capital, they threw it down the drain.
Indivisible, which has been reliably supportive of Democrats, is sounding the alarm, “launching the biggest Democratic primary program we’ve ever run,” cofounder Ezra Levin announced, adding, “The only path to a real opposition party is through a cleansing primary season.” That fight has already begun with fast-spreading calls for Schumer to step aside as Senate minority leader and will rapidly pick up steam as more candidates jump into the fray.
The same energy and exasperation with the establishment that powered Mamdani to victory is now erupting over the Democrats’ cave.
Even one of the more prominent November 4 victories is problematic and should cause us to demand better. California’s Prop. 50, essentially a voter-approved temporary redistricting to counter Texas’ less-democratic gerrymandering, while perhaps necessary in the moment, is merely a tactical move that offers voters nothing beyond electoral chess or checkers. The party needs to embrace a bold, economic populist vision and program that can inspire and mobilize working-class, middle-class, and lower-income voters—something substantially more than just defending a foundering healthcare system and food assistance that barely keeps people going.
Tactical redistricting and fighting to preserve a fragile and insufficient status quo cannot be the Democrats’ calling cards. It’s time for another progressive uprising within and beyond the Democratic Party. Remember Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) “political revolution?” It seems a distant memory amid the necessary, urgent focus on combating Trump’s vicious and vile fascism and racism.
Zohran Mamdani’s remarkable victory in New York City has reignited progressive hopes nationwide. Polling shows Mamdani’s policies resonate far beyond the Big Apple. In a recent YouGov survey of voters nationwide, 69% supported raising taxes on corporations and millionaires; 66% supported implementing free childcare for every child ages 6 weeks to 5 years; 65% supported freezing rent for lower-income tenants; and 56% supported raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030.
A “big tent” may sound nice and may be necessary up to a point—every winning campaign involves a coalition, not just a core base—but it depends on who the tent is for and how big and broad it is. Stretched too wide and thin, lacking a core foundation, a “big tent” can easily collapse when its pillars are so malleable.
This problem goes beyond the shutdown and affects the identity of the party itself. When you have a party with such vast disagreements within it, ranging from fiscal conservatives and neoliberals to progressives—what does the party stand for, beyond the most basic notions of democracy? How can the party stand for and with working-class people when many of its leaders promote policies that alienate those voters?
In the short-term, it may be enough for the Democrats to unite around protecting democracy and the Constitution, but that will not be a lasting coalition unless the party offers real economic solutions and vision. On economic policy, the differences between democratic socialists and corporate neoliberals or fiscal conservatives are nearly as wide as those with the GOP. We are talking about the difference between whether we tax corporations and the rich fairly to address poverty, homelessness, hunger, and other critical human needs. We are talking about the difference between a healthcare plan that enables corporate profits and one that prioritizes human needs.
In the space of one week, we’ve seen the perils of the Democrats’ ill-defined, precariously erected “Big Tent.” From the Mamdani miracle in New York City on November 4 to the Enabling Eight in the US Senate just six days later, the Democratic Party’s huge internal contradictions have been on full display. Whether or how these contradictions get resolved, and for whose benefit, remains an open question and an ongoing battle. As the midterms hurtle closer, we should be wary of re-erecting a Democratic tent whose wobbly center cannot hold.
On the more hopeful side of this ledger, there is a political wildfire afoot nationwide—some are calling it a Democratic “Tea” Party. Millions are fed up, not only with Trump but with the stultifying Democratic establishment. The same energy and exasperation with the establishment that powered Mamdani to victory is now erupting over the Democrats’ cave. The surging energies of the 7 million people who marched nationwide in the latest “No Kings” protests have intensified pressure on the Democrats to mount a more serious and sustained resistance to Trump. While the cave has collapsed the party’s momentary momentum, it could now give rise to greater progressive uprising and a rebellion tilting toward that political revolution.
One can, and should, hope.
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Winter in Gaza
The most urgent task, to end genocide, requires truthful coverage about Israel’s war crimes.
Nov 12, 2025
On Saturday, 8 November, 2025, Dan Perry wrote in The Jerusalem Post about Israel's projected lifting of the media blockade on Gaza. Perry laments that Israeli censorship has left all reporting of the atrocity in the hands of Palestinians, who refuse to be silent. To date, Israel has assassinated over 240 Palestinian journalists.
Perry writes, "The High Court ruled last week that the government must consider allowing foreign journalists into Gaza but also granted a one-month extension due to the still-unclear situation in the Strip." He asserts that Israel had and has no motive for excluding foreign journalists save concern for their own protection.
He makes two appeals. First, the duplicitous demand that Israel should use the one-month reprieve to cover up the evidence of atrocities: "Soon, journalists and photographers will enter Gaza… They will find terrible sights. Hence, Israel’s urgent task: to document retrospectively, to finally prepare explanations, to show… that Hamas operated from hospitals, schools, and refugee camps." In other words, bury the truth with the bodies.
Secondly, that since in this conflict Israel did absolutely nothing that it could have wished to hide, it should learn not to impose absolute media blackouts so likely to arouse suspicion.
Our own hearts cannot escape the howling winter unless we take, far more seriously, the hell of winter and despair to which we continue to subject Palestinians living in Gaza.
I sense a cold, hard winter within the souls of people in league with Dan Perry’s perspective.
Now, a cold, hard winter approaches Gaza. What do Palestinians in Gaza face, as temperatures drop and winter storms arrive
Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi reports: "Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to endure hunger under a new starvation policy engineered by Israel, which allows only non-essential goods to enter the enclave while blocking essential food and medical supplies… shelves stacked with non-essential consumer goods disguise a suffocating humanitarian crisis deliberately engineered by Israel to starve Palestinians.”
“I haven’t found eggs, chicken, or cheese since food supplies started entering the Gaza Strip,” Aya Abu Qamar, a mother of three from Gaza City, told Anadolu. “All I see are chocolate, snacks, and instant coffee. These aren’t our daily needs,” she added. “We’re looking for something to keep our children alive.”
On November 5, 2025 the Norwegian Refugee Council sounded this alarm about Israeli restrictions cruelly holding back winter supplies. NRC's director for the region, Angelita Caredda, insists, “More than three weeks into the ceasefire, Gaza should be receiving a surge of shelter materials, but only a fraction of what is needed has entered."
The report states:
Millions of shelter and non-food items are stuck in Jordan, Egypt, and Israel awaiting approvals, leaving around 260,000 Palestinian families, equal to nearly 1.5 million people, exposed to worsening conditions. Since the ceasefire took effect on 10 October, Israeli authorities have rejected twenty-three requests from nine aid agencies to bring in urgently needed shelter supplies such as tents, sealing and framing kits, bedding, kitchen sets, and blankets, amounting to nearly 4,000 pallets. Humanitarian organisations warn that the window to scale up winterisation assistance is closing rapidly.
The report notes how, despite the ceasefire, Israel has continued its mechanized slaughter and its choke hold on aid.
In Israel's +972 Magazine, Muhammad Shehada reports: "With the so-called ‘Yellow Line,’ Israel has divided the Strip in two: West Gaza, encompassing 42 percent of the enclave, where Hamas remains in control and over 2 million people are crammed in; and East Gaza, encompassing 58 percent of the territory, which has been fully depopulated of civilians and is controlled by the Israeli army and four proxy gangs." This last, a reference to four Israel Defense Forces-backed militias put forward by Israel as Hamas' legitimate replacement.
If ever tallied, the number of corpses buried under Gaza’s flattened buildings may raise the death toll of this genocide into six figures.
The United Nations estimates that the amount of rubble in Gaza could build 13 Giza pyramids.
"The sheer scale of the challenge is staggering," writes Paul Adams for the BBC: "The UN estimates the cost of damage at £53bn ($70bn). Almost 300,000 houses and apartments have been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN's satellite centre Unosat…The Gaza Strip is littered with 60 million tonnes of rubble, mixed in with dangerous unexploded bombs and dead bodies."
No one knows how many corpses are rotting beneath the rubble. These mountains of rubble loom over Israelis working, in advance of global journalism's return, to create their counternarratives, but also over surviving Gazans who, amid unrelenting misery, struggle to provide for their surviving loved ones.
Living in close, unhygienic quarters; sleeping without bedding under torn plastic sheeting; and having scarce access to water, thousands of people are in dire need of supplies to help winterize their living space and spare themselves the dread that their children or they themselves could die of hypothermia. The easiest and most obvious solution to their predicament stands enticingly near: the homes held by their genocidal oppressors.
In affluent countries, observers like Dan Perry may tremble for Israel's reputation, eager to rush in and conceal Israel's crimes, clothing them in self-righteous justifications. These are of course our crimes as well.
Our own hearts cannot escape the howling winter unless we take, far more seriously, the hell of winter and despair to which we continue to subject Palestinians living in Gaza.
There is no peace in Gaza. May there be no peace for us until we fix that.
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