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I'm a Far-Left Radical. Here's What That Means.
Sound scary?
Sep 18, 2025
If you’re even remotely associated with the Democratic Party, whether running for office, helping out, or just breathing while Democratic, the GOP and their rightwing media attack dogs will label you a “far left radical.”
So, in the interest of clarity, let me make it official: I’m a far-left radical.
Here’s why. I believe:
— Every worker should have the right to democracy in their workplace (a union), and that nobody who works full time should have to live in poverty because the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in a stupid amount of time. I’m a far-left radical.
— Retired people shouldn’t have to pay income taxes on their Social Security (the way it was before Reagan), that morbidly rich people should pay into the system like the rest of us, that Social Security should pay enough to live modestly on, and that Medicare should cover all our expenses with minimum hassle. I’m a far-left radical.
— Every American citizen should be able to vote without a hassle, and taking away your vote should require a judge’s action to prove why, just like if a state wants to take away your gun. I’m a far-left radical.
— Speaking of guns, it’s obscene that the leading cause of death for our children is bullets, and we shouldn’t have to regularly terrorize our children with active shooter drills. We need rational gun control laws, like almost every other country in the world has. I’m a far-left radical.
— It’s crazy that three men own more wealth than the bottom half of America and pay less of their income in taxes than your average teenager. If we want the general prosperity of the 1950s, we should have the same tax rate that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower so loved: 90% on the morbidly rich after they’ve made their first few million dollars a year. I’m a far-left radical.
— Our children and grandchildren deserve a world where they needn’t fear being killed by climate-change-driven wild weather, drought, or wildfires, and the air and water are clean. And it’s nuts that we’re subsidizing the fossil fuel industry that’s preventing this. I’m a far-left radical.
— Every other country in the world helps their young people go to college; in most it’s as cheap as it was here in the 1960s when you could put yourself through school with a weekend job. Some countries even pay people to go to college, like the $100/month stipend my dad had with the GI Bill after WWII that built our scientific and business prowess. And it’s wrong to cripple entire generations with trillions in student debt. I’m a far-left radical.
— Across the 34 richest (OECD) countries in the world, over a half-million families are wiped out every year because somebody got sick. All of those families are here in America. Healthcare should be a right — like in every other developed country in the world — instead of a privilege that depends on how much money you have. I’m a far-left radical.
— Starting a small family business, once the backbone of every American town and city, should once again be possible; we need to break up the massive monopolies that have come to dominate every single industry. See: Republican Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Like them, I’m a far-left radical.
— Every person in America should be free to practice their own religion — or no religion — and raise their kids that way without government interference, government promotion, or their tax dollars subsidizing local megachurches’ religious schools. Like the Constitution says. I’m a far-left radical.
— People should be judged, hired, and promoted based on the quality of their minds, their work, and their integrity, not the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their religion. I’m a far-left radical.
— Women should have the same rights and privileges as men, from the workplace to the boardroom to the voting booth. I’m a far-left radical.
— Our queer brothers and sisters should have the same rights and privileges as everybody else, and be free to live their lives without discrimination or harassment. I’m a far-left radical.
— America is a nation of immigrants, and we have been strengthened in every generation by the diversity of talent and humanity that have come here to participate in the American dream. We need comprehensive immigration reform to clean up our system. I’m a far-left radical.
These are all positions Republicans hate, and any one of them will get you labeled as a far-left radical instantly.
So, the next time some rightwing idiot attacks you for voting for Kamala Harris or having a D on your voter registration or an anti-Trump bumper sticker, simply repeat after me:
“I’m a far left radical — and proud of it!”
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The GOP Is Waging a War on Democracy
Gerrymandering is just one piece of a much larger democratic breakdown.
Sep 16, 2025
A few days before the Charlie Kirk murder, I was invited on the radio show Heroes and Patriots to discuss gerrymandering. It’s still a timely topic. Kirk’s killing has led to a frontal assault on speech and democracy by Trump, Vance, and the MAGA right. While this is a newer phenomenon, however, other assaults on democracy have been underway for quite some time. These fights can’t be won individually. They need to be seen as part of a greater whole.
Gerrymandering, as most people know, is the process of altering electoral maps to favor one party, most visibly in congressional race. a Republicans have been the most aggressive practitioners of this dark art in recent years, although Democrats have certainly also engaged in it. It’s newsworthy today because Trump, fearful of a midterm congressional loss, directed the Texas GOP to redraw that state’s already-contested map to find him five more seats—and because Gavin Newsom, with the help of Nancy Pelosi, is openly attempting to counter-gerrymander the California map in response.
In this rancid historical moment, Newsom’s move makes sense. It’s tilting at windmills to oppose gerrymandering on principle while your opponent openly defies even the pretense of democracy. But it’s also important to point out that Newsom’s response will remain little more than theater, or partisan positioning, as long as our political system fails to respond more effectively to public interest and public pressure.
In a tactical sense, what Newsom is doing makes sense. But all of this is still playing out at the level of theater, rather than values, as long as neither party chooses to confront the real challenges to democracy—along with economic inequality, genocide, climate change, racism, and structural violence—in anything but the most superficial terms.
Things won’t change without major political pressure. That won’t happen until advocates link democratic principles to people’s everyday struggles.
We haven’t had a functioning democracy for a long time. It’s broken, and gerrymandering is one piece of that brokenness.
A few examples out of many:
- 80 percent of voters want Congress to raise the national minimum wage, which hasn’t happened since 2009.
- 60 percent of voters oppose further aid to Israel, something both parties support, and half of voters believe (correctly, according to experts) that Israel is committing genocide.
- Two-thirds of all voters support unions, but Congress has passed no major pro-union legislation since the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
- More than 60 percent of those polled agree that “reducing the influence of money in politics should be a top goal for the president and Congress.” As Pew Research reports, “While there are wide partisan differences on most policy goals, 65 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of Republicans rate this as a top priority.”
Despite all of this, there are no plans to make this a top priority.
This is not to argue that there are no differences between the two political parties. Rather, the system itself limits political possibility. Gerrymandering is just one piece of a much larger democratic breakdown, alongside systemic issues such as the Electoral College and Senate, media monopolization, the hijacking of the judicial system, and the overall influence of big money (dark, light, and everything in between).
The hosts mentioned several reform proposals, such as Hendrik Smith’s advocacy for AI-assisted independent commissions, which in my opinion could fuel “next-generation” gerrymandering. Newsom and others have expressed interest in commissions or referendums to explore the issue, which they typically describe as “bi-partisan.” I prefer the “non-partisan” approach, since both parties depend on big-money donors.
In any case, things won’t change without major political pressure. That won’t happen until advocates link democratic principles to people’s everyday struggles. The fight against gerrymandering must be part of a larger vision—a truly representative democracy that works for everyone. Until then, I fear that the fight against gerrymandering—important as it is—will remain little more than a tactical skirmish within a broken system.
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GOP Cuts to Medicaid 'Will Kill People,' Advocate Warns and New Research Bolsters
A working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
May 16, 2025
Critics who say extensive cuts to Medicaid being pushed by the Trump administration and House Republicans will result in the deaths of people were bolstered Friday by new reporting on a recent study detailing how the key health program for the nation's poor saves lives.
As Republicans in Congress pressed ahead this week with a plan that would cause at least 8 million Americans to lose Medicaid as part of a sweeping tax and spending bill desired by U.S. President Donald Trump, a recently published working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, first reported on by The New York Times, shows that Medicaid expansion saved over 27,000 lives since 2010.
A provision in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which went into effect in 2014, allowed states to expand eligibility for Medicaid to all low-income adults regardless of disability or parenthood status. The change is part of the reason that enrollment in the program rose roughly 50% between 2010 and 2021, according to the authors of the study.
The study, which used a dataset of 37 million low-income American adults, found that expansions increased Medicaid enrollment by 12 percentage points. The study estimates that people who enrolled in Medicaid were 21% less likely to die compared to those not enrolled.
"These expansions appear to be cost-effective, with direct budgetary costs of $5.4 million per life saved and $179,000 per life-year," according to a summary of the working paper.
The researchers told the Times that the timing of the release of the working paper was not connected to Congress' current conversation around Medicaid, though they told the outlet that the debate made their findings especially relevant.
The Times described the research as "the most definitive study yet" on Medicaid's health effects and health economists not involved with the research described it as the most persuasive proof so far that Medicaid and other types of health insurance save lives.
Meanwhile, on Friday, efforts to pass the GOP megabill hit a stumbling block when a handful of Republican so-called "fiscal hawks" voted with Democrats on the U.S. House Budget Committee to block the reconciliation package from advancing through a key committee vote. The Republican hardliners voted no because they want more cuts to Medicaid.
After the vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a panel member, vowed that Democrats would "keep fighting to protect Medicaid and the American people."
In response to the House Budget Committee vote, Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy group Social Security Works said on Friday: "Make no mistake, Republicans still plan to bring it to the House floor next week."
Lawson blasted the proposed Medicaid cuts, writing that "their plan will kill people."
"The ripple effect of these cuts will hit every single person in this country," he added. "Unless you are a billionaire, your standard of living and your health care will get worse if this despicable plan becomes law."
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