Yesterday’s Texas primary election results (and a smattering from other states) illustrate an ongoing realignment in the Democratic party and give Dems reason to hope they will claim a majority in the US Senate in November.
Caveats: Does the Senate Matter in an Age of Caligula?
Let me introduce this piece with two caveats.
One, the US Congress (both the Senate and the House of Representatives) are barely performing their minimum Constitutional duties, merely threatening to vote to reign in Trump’s war of choice on Iran, failing to impeach, etc.
Secondly, it’s entirely possible that POTUS Trump will attempt to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections.
As it was, the Texas GOP pulled some shenanigans that may have hurt Crockett in Dallas, although she has conceded the race, regardless.
But as long as we know we’re talking kayfabe as much as we’re talking kino, the election results are quality infotainment at a minimum and might actually have real-world impacts.
Texas Senate Race Set to Be Most Competitive Since 2018
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) March 4, 2026
The important thing to note is the primary vote totals. Talarico and Crockett earned over 2.2 million votes in the Democratic primary where Cornyn, Paxton and third-place Wes Hunt earned 2.05 million votes.
For comparison, in 2018 Beto O’Rourke and two opponents earned just over 1 million Dem primary votes and Ted Cruz et al. earned over 1.5 million GOP primary votes.
2018 was the recent high-water mark for Dem performance in US Senate races when Beto O’Rourke came within 200,000 votes out of over 8 million cast against Ted Cruz.
This represents an enormous surge in Democratic voter turnout in Texas that bodes ill for the GOP in November.
It should be noted that more Democrats voted in the 2008 Presidential primary than GOPers voted in their contest but still won the state handily in the general.
The New York Times lets Kevin D. Williamson make the case for a competitive Texas electorate in a guest essay:
Yes, the state appears to be as red as red can be, but it is not deeply so — Mr. Trump’s 2020 performance in the state was slightly down from his 2016 performance, and even his comeback win in 2024 (taking just a bit more than 56 percent of the vote) was closer to his showing in Iowa (an even 56 percent) and well behind his romps in Oklahoma (66 percent), Alabama (65 percent) and West Virginia (70 percent). Texas is more closely divided than you might think.
That is in part because Texas is no longer entirely the land of “wide open spaces” but an increasingly urban state, home to six of the 25 largest cities in the country and two of the five largest metropolitan areas. Republicans do not typically fare well in urban areas — they haven’t won a mayoral election in Houston in more than 40 years.
Especially since all signs indicate Trump will be even less popular after a long hot summer.
G. Elliott Morris has a more quantitative analysis with a similar sunny-side-up vibe for Dem hopes:
Democrats have six things working in their favor: Potentially a very weak Republican nominee, a good Democratic recruit, a massive enthusiasm gap, a diversifying electorate, a Latino backlash against the GOP, and a president dragging his party underwater.
Yet on the other hand, Texas is a religious, conservative, crimson-red state where Democrats haven’t won statewide since 1994, and primary enthusiasm does not necessarily translate to November results. In 2008, Democrats cast two-thirds of primary ballots and then lost the state to McCain by 12.
But consider the 2018 baseline. Beto O’Rourke lost to Ted Cruz by just 2.6 points — the closest a Democrat had come to winning a Texas Senate seat in 40 years. He did it against a reasonably popular incumbent, in an environment where Trump’s approval in Texas was 48% — significantly better than where it sits now (45% approve, 49% disapprove). Cruz also arguably got a late boost from the SCOTUS confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh that energized Republican voters right before the election.
So take the 2.6-point Republican margin, and now apply the Paxton penalty. If the political environment in 2026 is even comparable to 2018 — and the primary turnout data, special election results, and presidential approval numbers all suggest it could be as good or better for Democrats — then Paxton’s 2-3 point drag is the difference between another narrow loss and a win.
And then you can start to stack other favorable indicators on top of that baseline: Trump is losing independents by 47 points on approval; Democrats saw a 31-point swing in Tarrant County in January; Democratic primary turnout is up 274% vs 2022; and the Talarico nomination is a good match for Texas general election voters based on demographic patterns.
The Ballad of James vs. Jasmine
I covered US Rep. Jasmine Crockett’s last-minute entry into the primary for the Democratic nomination for US Senate in December.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) conducted a months-long push-poll campaign in an attempt to lure Crockett into the race.
When they succeeded, many in the GOP hoped they had saved the seat from the threat of the Lis Smith-backed State Rep. James Talarico.
Expectations were that, “(Crockett’s) nomination looked to be a fait accompli. With only three months left in the campaign, it seemed nigh-inevitable that a once-in-a-decade political opportunity would be completely squandered because Facebook-addicted liberals found it really funny when Crockett called Greg Abbot ‘Governor Hot Wheels.'”
Smith was the Svengali behind Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign.
In 2026, Smith adapted to the times and pushed Talarico into a far more populist direction and pulled off the upset.
Joshua A. Cohen of the Ettingermentum Newsletter described the campaign as between “James Talarico, a charismatic shape-shifting social media phenom running on a platform of inoffensive liberal populism” and “(Crockett who) proved to be a halting and ineffective campaigner, unable to address the most pressing questions around her bid.”
Talarico’s win is being attributed to his success with Hispanic and younger voters:
In the state’s heavily Latino areas, Talarico drew a dominant share of the vote. Across counties where the population is 60% or more Latino, Talarico outperformed Crockett roughly 63% to 34%, according to the Associated Press.
…
(Talarico) also forged alliances with key Latino candidates. In December, Talarico and Bobby Pulido, the Tejano singer and Democrat running to flip a South Texas congressional seat, endorsed each other in a joint rally in Weslaco, Texas. Pulido won his primary race on Tuesday night. In Hidalgo County, where Weslaco is located and Latinos make up 92% of the population, Talarico took 67% of the vote.
Talarico also leaned on Carlos Espina, a popular Spanish-language influencer with more than 14 million TikTok followers. Espina was on the campaign trail with Talarico for various stops across the state, including in Dallas and Houston, recorded videos championing Talarico and was featured in one of Talarico’s Spanish-language TV ads. Espina has become a go-to voice for Democratic candidates looking to connect with Latinos.
The GOP powers-that-be in DC, had hoped to see incumbent John Cornyn against Crockett in the general.
RINO vs MAGA Goes Into Overtime
Cornyn, a Bush-era relic, is commonly considered a Republican In Name Only (RINO) by much of the MAGA base that backs Paxton.
Trump, who has previously endorsed Paxton, has stayed out of the race so far an indication that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has Trump 2.0 on a short leash.
Unfortunately for them, Cornyn is in a run-off against often-indicted, never convicted state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
This paragraph from Politico sums up the Paxton story pretty well:
Paxton has survived an impeachment by the GOP-controlled state House, a federal securities fraud investigation and slew of ethics complaints. Three months after beginning his Senate campaign last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, alleging an extramarital affair. His competitors — including Cornyn, who has said Paxton is too unethical to serve in public office — have hammered his trail of scandals.
But there’s a positive case for Paxton as well, per Politico:
Paxton’s deep base of support is built in part from his lawsuits against frequent targets of the right — high-profile cases that were splashed on the front pages of local newspapers from Beaumont to Amarillo. Throughout his decade as Texas’ top lawyer, Paxton oversaw the Lone Star State’s transformation into an incubator for ultra conservatives issues, from defending abortion restrictions to warning that Muslims will attempt to introduce Islamic law in Texas.
And Paxton’s lawsuits aren’t all wacky far-right red meat either:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing five television manufacturers for “spying on Texans” through content recognition software.
Paxton cites ties to the Chinese Communist Party for some of the companies, implying the government the corporations are based in could be using Texans’ data for nefarious purposes.
Well, maybe not ALL wacky.
This AP map shows that Paxton (pink) dominated rural Texas where Cornyn (red) won in the urban areas of the state:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) March 4, 2026
Paxton is favored in the run-off, but he’s an underdog in polling against Talarico, per Politico: “Public and private polls have mostly shown close races in either matchup; Talarico would start off with the edge over Paxton but trail Cornyn.”
Trump Demands Right to Declare Winner
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) March 4, 2026
And it’s not going over well with some on the right:
Trump now says he is going to endorse either Cornyn or Paxton and demands that whoever does not get his endorsement must drop out of the runoff.
This is wrong and the people of Texas should be able to vote for WHOEVER THEY WANT!!!
NOT the candidate Trump demands.
People are… pic.twitter.com/j6oTRtIRAK
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 4, 2026
One Problem: Unifying the Dem Party
There are indications Jasmine Crockett won’t be a team player in the general election:
Jasmine Crockett going full Stop The Steal pic.twitter.com/z35v3mU3Ku
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) March 4, 2026
On the other hand, Crockett’s district has new representation:
Frederick Haynes III has won the Democratic nomination for Texas’ 30th Congressional District — a seat currently occupied by outgoing congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
The Associated Press called the race for Haynes just after 10:15 p.m. Tuesday. In his campaign kickoff, he emphasized health care for all, economic equality and abolishing ICE as priorities.
Haynes — a pastor and longtime activist for racial justice and civil rights — was endorsed by Crockett, as well as Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons and Kirk Johnson, son of Eddie Bernice Johnson. Johnson represented District 30 for three decades before Crockett.
The pastor has led Friendship-West Baptist Church in southern Dallas for more than 40 years, and was the hand-picked successor of civil rights icon Jesse Jackson to lead the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the social justice organization founded by Jackson. But Haynes unexpectedly stepped down as President and CEO of the coalition after just months on the job.
Tuesday’s contest was prompted by Crockett’s decision to run for the U.S. Senate, creating a rare opportunity in one of Texas’ safest Democratic districts.
AIPAC isn’t happy about this man being sent to Congress:
Jasmine Crockett’s replacement in the House pic.twitter.com/6v9uXrXYNA
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) March 4, 2026
Democratic Primary Realignment
Big picture wise, the pundits are seeing a trend.
The mainstreamers at Axios see it as a brush-fire rebellion that’s upsetting D.C.:
An expensive Democratic civil war is brewing this election cycle, with a staggering 30 House Democrats facing at least one primary challenger who has raised $100,000 or more, an Axios analysis found.
These primaries are drawing tens of millions of dollars from Democrats’ efforts to retake the House while priming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to inherit a rebellious class of new freshmen.
The collective fundraising in these races adds up to more than $64 million — out of roughly $500 million raised by all Democratic House campaigns so far this cycle.
Nearly a dozen House Democrats are facing primary challengers who have raised more money than they have.
Many of these primary insurgents — along with a huge cohort of outsiders and progressives running in open primaries — have declined to commit to supporting Jeffries’ leadership if elected.
…
A House Democrat close to leadership, speaking on the condition of anonymity, griped to Axios: “This is the new reality we live in, where people do not care about the party and trying to win.”“They just care about moving their ideological wing of the party forward,” the anonymous Democrat said.
Between the lines: Unlike in past cycles, it’s not simply a clash of the left versus the center.
Many of the incumbents who are facing the fiercest primary challenges are over 70 years old, with younger rivals calling for generational change.
Progressive Michael Lange has a slightly different take in his piece “The Democratic Primary Realignment: ‘It’s not left vs. right. It’s top vs. bottom.’”
…in the pre-midterm vacuum, two riveting and high-profile contests have stood out, defined by scores of national attention, record voter turnout, massive campaign spending, expanded electorates, and an incredibly diverse coalition of Democratic voters: the 2025 New York City Mayoral Primary and the 2026 Texas Senate Primary.
…there are remarkable similarities in how Talarico and Mamdani ran their underdog campaigns, compared with how Crockett and Cuomo — frontrunners flush with name recognition — failed to capitalize on their pronounced early advantages. These nuances, not explicitly ideological, translated into how their coalitions manifested: Crockett’s base (older, Black) mirrored Cuomo’s, whereas Talarico’s coalition (younger, college-educated, White, Hispanic, lower-propensity) is reminiscent of Mamdani’s.
Mamdani and Talarico combined style and substance. They consistently released algorithm-oriented vertical videos, becoming omnipresent in the feeds of younger voters.
…
most important to the Democratic Party, this fusion of style (everyman ethos) and substance (positive populism) produced a remarkably similar voter coalition. The Texas equivalent of the “Commie Corridor” is Travis County (the Austin metro area), flush with college-educated Gen Z renters and higher-income Gen X suburbanites, who mirror the class and educational attainment of Brownstone Brooklyn.Talarico won 76% of the vote in Travis County, eclipsing 90% in precincts adjacent to the University of Texas, while earning more than 80% in tonier Westlake Hills, where the median home price exceeds one million dollars.
Given Crockett’s pronounced advantage with Black voters and Talarico’s strength with White voters, the swing demographic in the Texas Senate Primary was Hispanic voters, who are disproportionately young and working-class.
And, while Talarico won Hispanic Texans by a greater margin than Mamdani won Hispanic New Yorkers, the symmetry is strengthened by the details: the Hispanic electorate in Texas, particularly in the counties handily won by Talarico (Hidalgo, Webb, Cameron, El Paso), is among the youngest in the United States (99th percentile for Gen-Alpha, 96th percentile for Gen-Z)…
Nonetheless, absent a pronounced advantage among middle-class White suburbanites, Talarico would not have prevailed.
David Sirota at The Lever is celebrating a new era in Dem politics:
A decade after Bernie Sanders almost tore the presidential nomination out of the decrepit hands of the Democratic establishment, the party’s old guard, ancient political formulas, and outdated corporate politics seem to finally be facing a moment of comeuppance. The long-overdue reckoning appears to be happening not just in a few predictably liberal locales, but across varied swaths of the country that seem ready to embrace populist politics.
First, it was Zohran Mamdani’s underdog mayoral victory against the billionaire class in the capital of global finance. Then it was Bernie Sanders’ former staffer, Analilia Mejia, winning an affluent New Jersey suburb that had once been the territory of country-club Republicans. Now this week, it is James Talarico running an explicitly anti-billionaire, anti-corruption campaign to win the Democratic Senate nomination in Texas.
…
Whether or not any of these particular candidates are true believers or ideologues doesn’t really matter – if politicians are more thermometers than thermostats, then what matters is that this new crop of politicians realize the temperature has changed, and understand their success lies in a very different kind of politics than the Democratic Party has been mired in.
Sirota then brings up a debate between surging Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and the Obama-ites of the Pod Save America podcast that’s worth a glance.
Jon Favreau:Where specifically has the party gone wrong in the last decade in terms of policies, decisions, positions?
Graham Platner: Absolutely, the financial crisis, bailing out the banks, bailing out the big industries, letting people walk away with golden parachutes, while those banks still turned around and foreclosed on people’s homes, while the average working person saw their retirement savings just disappear. And then we watched the political apparatus back up the people that broke the thing in the first place. I think that was huge. That broke a lot of trust.
Favreau: I was in the White House. We sort of knew that this was going to happen. We walk into the White House.
Bush had already done the the bailout. And we can’t really undo it at that point because we can’t let the banks fail because the whole system goes under and we make sure that the banks pay all the money back with interest, right?
The executives get away with the golden parachutes and I remember trying to talk to Larry Summers about it and he’s like ‘It’s contract law. We can’t claw back the bonuses. Like that’s illegal.’
And I’m like, ‘Okay, we talk about contract law, but there’s like people with pitchforks outside the White House, right?’
We’re same thing with like, ‘Why didn’t anyone go to jail?’
Well, the laws aren’t there. The DOJ won’t prosecute because the laws aren’t there. And obviously, we can’t direct the DOJ to do anything anyway.
Platner: I mean people should have gone to prison.
Iceland put people in prison.
The Trump administration’s happy to abuse the Justice Department and send them after folks. They send them after like Comey because he hurt Trump’s feelings.
I honestly don’t think the American people would be angry if the Justice Department went after folks that destroyed their retirement savings or kicked their neighbors out of their homes.
Favreau: I assume we want to make sure the Justice Department only goes after people who actually broke the law.
Platner: We still need to pass the law. But that’s the other thing. We need people in the Senate and the House who want to pass these laws and also frankly put enforcement mechanisms in place.
That’s one of our biggest problems right now. We got lots of laws, but then they get broken. I mean the Trump administration breaks the law every day and then a lot of people just stand around like, well, what do we do?
Back to Sirota’s analysis:
Taken together, (Platner and Talarico) are rejecting the Obama/Clinton notion that Democratic politicians’ job is to be a bulwark standing between oligarchs and their victims. In a country whose largest swing electoral bloc is anti-system voters, these candidates’ primary campaigns are tapping into the anger of Democrats who finally — belatedly — realize that their party leaders have too often turned hope and change into more of the same, which has played a role in creating the meltdown we’re now living through.
And in telling taboo truths in blunt language, this faction is effectively acknowledging that the ongoing refusal by Democratic Party leaders, pundits, operatives, and influencers to be honest and principled has created the party’s biggest political problem of all — one that goes unspoken.
I hope I haven’t filled any readers with false optimism, but hope is, after all, the thing with feathers and all that.
And besides, as much as I love the Belle of Amherst, my favorite 19th Century poem is this one by Walt Whitman:
To those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,
To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers- to over-ardent travelers- to pilots on
their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition- I’d rear
laurel-cover’d monument,
High, high above the rest- To all cut off before their time,
Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench’d by an early death.
If ya gotta go down, go down fighting.
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Once upon a time, the D’rats, when out of power talked a halfway good game. But then when in power whined that the Reptiles would not let them fulfill their previously stated mission.
That was then, and now?
Don’t get your hopes up, my Grandmother use to say.
An intra-party coup is underway; we’ll see if it succeeds and if so, how bad the new bosses suck.
We do not have anyone of the stature and inclination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in politics today. Remember that he saved the Oligarchs of that time from the results of their own meretricious machinations. If, as seems probable, this latest Neocon Adventure in the Middle East brings waste and woe to the world economy, who today will effectively tamp down the popular anger against the plain and obvious perpetrators of the economic disaster?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; politics is not business. Thus, a businessman or woman in Congress, much less in the White House is at best a place holder for someone who truly understands how society functions.
I’ll shut up after mentioning that what we need now is a political movement that engages in creating parallel structures to mirror and eventually replace the corrupt and dysfunctional class that is running the show in America today.
It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
Stay safe.
But we have plenty of people posturing to be FDR. Democrats have plenty of people like this. Sanders, AOC, Warren, fool pundits like Robert Reich. People who talk a good game but will fail and betray even before they encounter any serious opposition.
Betrayal is failure — though sometimes they are rewarded handsomely — and the Democrats got along for a long time with their games of blame shifting.
It maybe be a forlorn hope, but I tend to believe the games like “Villain Du Jour” are now widely known, but ever and anon, Democrats have a new game to fool and betray.
It’s the structure of the Democratic Party and beyond that the entire government that is at fault. Even someone who does understand how society functions has no real hope of alleviating the predicament the average American resident endures.
The American public needs a New Game.
Big Finance and Big Tech are too big and have too much money to throw around. We also have the best government money can buy. So nothing will change until that changes.
“The important thing to note is the primary vote totals. Talarico and Crockett earned over 2.2 million votes in the Democratic primary where Cornyn, Paxton and third-place Wes Hunt earned 2.05 million votes”
I’ve been searching for this number all day long. Thanks, Nat. There we go – this is the kind of data that can motivate people to vote, but the MSM hides it!
de nada. In their defense most of the MSMers I know can’t operate the calculator app on their phones.
Here’s one of the new demo running for office. She’s being attacked by AIPAC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwaV82KFLM
https://katforillinois.com/
She’s a whole kettle of fish I didn’t have time to get into. She’s pro-Palestinian but also seemingly pro-Taiwain/pro-empire. Might be a necessity to get elected. Not sure what to make of her.
Taiwan has a more vibrant democracy than the U. S. And it’s management of health is far superior than our Washingtoon’s.
Don’t tar Taiwan because the U. S. neo-con[men] have shown up
I’m not knocking Taiwan, I’m knocking the idea that the US needs to be involved in a military conflict over it. We agreed over 50 years ago that it was part of China.
I haven’t heard the Shanghai Communique discussed in any detail for decades at least.
So my memory is several decades old. But my old memory is this: technically we did not agree that Taiwan was part of China. We agreed that ” Chinese on both sides of the Strait agree that Taiwan is part of China.” It was a clever Kissingerian fudge-waffle.
For a couple of decades now, so far as I know, the Taiwanese majority on Taiwan has said that they are not Chinese, they are Taiwanese, which they say is two different things. They consider descendants of Chang Kai-Shek’s invading forces of 1948 to be Chinese, and interlopers to the island. So they are calling the Shanghai Communique’s bluff in that sense.
But even given that, the US should not be militarily involved in a military conflict with China about it. We will just have to feel whatever regret and guilt we will need to feel about that, because there is no difference we can make for Taiwan once the ChinaGov decides to invade, or strangle-blockade, or whatever other approach they decide to take.
As has been mentioned before by some, Taiwan is in a difficult position, with the USA tied up in Iran/Ukraine, a Taiwan invasion by China could trigger the destruction of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry by the USA rather than let China get control of the industry.
An unusual position to be in, having to worry about destruction of a country’s prize industry by an ally.
“Taiwan” is a cancerous wart that needs to be tarred and tarred until it’s paved all over. Any little regime that depends on America for its miserable existence needs to be extinguished lest it be proven that being an imperial outpost is a viable long-term strategy for anyone. Same goes for “Israel”, “Kosovo”, et al.
Please, less violence in the expression of these sentiments.
You got it, but my point stands. Thankfully China prioritizes liberation by peaceful means.
In NH, Karishma Manzur is running a progressive, antiwar campaign for Shaheen’s Senate seat, facing empty suit and AIPAC tool Chris Pappas in the Dem primary. On the Repug side, it’s Scott Brown vs a Sunnunu.
https://www.karishmaforsenate.com/
> Platner: I mean people should have gone to prison. Iceland put people in prison.
#OMFGYES
THAT … is amaaaaaaaaazing. And it’s exactly the kind of discourse you’d probably never see on #MSNowWeAreEvenShittier or #CapitulationNewsNetworkCNN.
I actually wrote a paper in grad school on the #IceSave fiasco, and the fact that people paid for their misdeeds there has been a talking point I wish surfaced more.
Excellent!
This is a pretty good rant on that theme, though it’s somewhat fail in that it basically calls for a few high profile perp walks, rather than lots and lots of systematic prosecutions with long sentences. I think they had those in the 1980s S&L crisis but we need them now.
https://edwardelson.substack.com/p/someone-needs-to-go-to-jail
Thanks for sharing!
A PerpWalk ain’t bad … :) (RIP Isiah Whitlock Jr! via YT) … if the perp is gonna do the time. But I hear where ya coming from. I saw a tweet the other day that read something like ” … if only we had a functioning SEC”. Platner’s right about laws … you’re just not gonna get them from the classes of people – plutocrats, kleptocrats and warmongers – who benefit most from financial chicanery.
That article made a huge deal about the red-eye photo of Former Prince Andrew in the police car (perp walk) when in fact I haven’t heard any indication that he might actually go to jail.
Ha! Yep … “released eleven hours later” … time for some follow up!
Yep, Platner looks like the real deal. I sailed the Maine coast for 10 years and met many watermen. I was a lazy sailor, and they were a tight bunch of focused working stiffs who were blasting out of the harbor at sunrise and had no time my bourgeois a$$. But if off the coast if I ever gave the slightest indication of having difficulties, they were motoring alongside checking that everything was OK.
Being a smart a$$, I always like to use the word weltanschauung. It must be the bourgeoisie in me. But these guys working the waters have a well defined worldview…weltanschauung is for the bookish knuckleheads. Seeing the horizen every day from sunrise till sunset will do that to you. It’s (no pun intended) leveling. They are organic community members. Tribal, but caring and open to others.
Anyway, I’m still a registered Maniac so the boy will get my vote. Prolly a couple of bucks too. Many thanks for the video…loved the t-shirt!
This is BS and was debunked by this site at the time. Yves provided several theories under which the White House could have reined in big banks. The government did not even try. To observers at the time, it was crystal clear that when they did put effort into something, it was always serving the interests of banks, never customers or voters.
Platner needs better information and background so that he can call out whoppers like this when he encounters them. He obviously takes this one at face value, and he shouldn’t.
I had the same wince-in-pain reaction. The laws are ABSOLUTELY there. Still are.
As Bill Black, a big player in the S&L crisis pointed out, the FBI was issuing warnings about an epidemic of mortgage fraud back in 2004. Black gave numerous interviews with high quality whistleblowers from inside big banks like Citigroup and said he couldn’t dream of this kind of star witness when he was taking down the Keating 5.
The SEC went after GS for ONE, exactly ONE CLO that was issued. They didn’t touch the hundreds of others that Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Lehman or any of the big banks issued.
Yves eagerly covered the oodles of dirt that was dug up during the sour-grapes litigation over AIG with Hank Greenberg. Geithner clearly turned AIG into a giant bailout vehicle to hide it from the public.
Platner has the good instincts, but he needs more knowledgeable firepower around him if he’s going to be an effective voice and legislator.
Just a fast join in on that. I was screaming as I read Favreau’s bs. I might give him that he didn’t know that there were laws in place that were broken, but when you are part of the communications of the administration and the Treasury Secretary is recorded saying HAMP was there to foam the runway for the banks you really have no excuse for trying to sell the line the administration was doing their best for the people. And I won’t even get into Obama’s influence on the structure of the bailout passed by the Democratic majority Congress even if Bush was President. No one paying attention at the time could take that whopper at face value.
I gave up on Obama’s boys over at Pod Save America a long time ago. They will go to their graves protecting the complete reaming of America under Obama. I regard Obama as the last real chance to correct course, and it’s not like he had to come up with something all new, there were extremely qualified people like Bill Black, Sheila Blair, and others (pointed out at NC) that had been screaming about that for years and could have both bailed out Wall St and cleaned up Wall St, and put a huge brake on neoliberalism. Instead we got almost THE WORST outcome where those that had caused the GFC were bailed out, and left in charge to prevent any real reform, and everything else was glossed over just enough to let the economic carnage continue.
I agree that Platner cannot go easy on those people or buy into any of their BS. Quite frankly being kicked off shows like Pod Save America would be the best possible endorsement he could get from those losers.
What? Obama and Clinton totally sucked at that and never acknowledged that as their job. As for throwing the system out, that was Obama’s whole hopey changey thing. People never stop falling for that. We’re about to see the same crap from Newsom and the rest of them. The Democrats old and new are institutionally worthless. I like how Labour in the UK just got kicked by the Greens. Not that the Greens are necessarily so great, but that the entrenched useless institution may be about to get toppled instead of just having a seat picked off here or there.
To me it’s a wonder that anyone bothers at all with horse race politics anymore. But maybe that’s just me. On the issues I personally care about the Democrats are as bad as Republicans, and they’re sneakier. In my state I don’t see anyone enthused about Democrats including crypto Democrat under-the-label warmongers like Sanders.
Although, to be fair I have no Democratic Party pom pom wavers among my friends anymore (mutual loathing) and only one family member that might be a Democrat. Maybe there’s a hidden reservoir of Democrat enthusiasts in the “blue state” where I live, but I see nothing of the sort.
Only maybe a sort of grim resignation.
My concerns are health care, working class power, Social Security/retirement and rights and peace, the Democrats, despite their sternly worded letter and statements, are nowhere to be found. And they’re not reining in Trump or the Republicans, or even really trying. And they’re not going to do any better even if they win the entire Congress.
Needless to be said, trying to vote shame me for the 2028 elections, if they happen, will be a non starter.
I’m very close to your thinking re: horserace politics, but alas it’s my area of expertise (along with the business of combat sports) so here we are.
People have forgotten what politics is for in the first place. I do like your posts and I sat this respectfully.
What is the purpose of politics at all?
This isn’t sports. Treating survival as team sports with two parties via virtual gambling sports, that want the same thing (to follow the orders of billionaires), is to be at some level, flippant.
Politicians playing cynical games with virtue signaling is beyond flippant and into the realm of endangering everything.
To me, the purpose of politics is to obtain one’s needs via peaceful activity. In the best case, to achieve all people’s basic needs. Health care. Safety. Peace. Not only survival, but reasonably happy survival.
People playing games with polls between equally mendacious political parties entirely miss this point.
There is no peaceful means any longer for most Americans to obtain their needs. And horse race politics obscures that reality.
Democrats don’t offer anything but grim endurance for Americans. But they do offer carefully worded statements.
I don’t see Democrats offering even protection for me and people in my situation .. and that has been the case for all my 61 years.
But offering nothing but face replacement and not even trying is extremely .. uh, destabilizing maybe?
I see things anecdotally but what *I* see is that everyone around me has had it.
in 2008 – 2010 times, when I discovered NC, Bill Black was a presence. He was involved in the savings and loan crisis under Reagan, and wrote “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One”. Over 1000 people were prosecuted , with many going to jail.
The laws do exist, what it takes is an executive willing to prosecute. Obama punted, Favreau is ignorant or lying. I can’t stomach that podcast, nor Pod Save the world (??)
Bill Black was a legend. We lost many irreplaceable treasures when his generation faded away. We also lost some real loons & demons.
Exactly!
“there’s nothing that we could do, our hands were tied” has been the go-to excuse for decades from team Dem!!!
Also, one of the reasons that you might want to let the banks fail and take them over, is that then you can put in a C suit team that assists the government in legal proceedings to the maximum extent possible, and is the other party in those contracts, so they can try to claw back bonuses.
Instead it’s just, we couldn’t do anything at the time and to prove this we must prevent anything being done in the future, or we will look silly.
Summers “forgot” that union employees had contracts and were still shafted by TPTB. A libertarian coworker thought those banks should not have been bailed out, that’s part of the rules of a free market that the Republicans of the time swore fealty to.
All true, and he made sure the same bankers that had crashed the world economy got to keep their bonuses:
Summers defends White House response to AIG bonuses
https://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/17/AIG.larry.summers/index.html
The fatal weakness of all polls is to corral people into a narrow range of choices, designed by people with questionable ethics.
If people find the poll sufficiently obnoxious and they participate at all they may answer “unsure”. But that may not capture the full range of reaction of the person being polled, because that, again, is a slot designed to convey a certain perception — in that case, uncertainty rather than disgust.
I myself think that in the present environment polls are increasingly useless. The designers of the polls themselves tend to be at best blind and more often obnoxious.
Maybe a good idea would be to always put a poll question to be “I find your question obnoxious and I refuse to participate”. But polls are not calibrated to people’s needs. I don’t want to choose between an Israel apologist and someone who will sell out for a million dollar campaign donation the first chance she gets.
I have been tapped recently to answer a poll and I have no interest in even entertaining the questions.
A vote is also a poll. And the polls themselves are not operative to the vast will of the American people. So they will give unpredictable and misleading results, always.
People forget, polling itself is an exercise in power and always on behalf of the current regime.
Perhaps poll designers themselves need to have better ethics.
I love the way Favreau turns around Obama’s misfeasance and makes it probity: Well, the laws aren’t there. The DOJ won’t prosecute because the laws aren’t there. . . . I assume we want to make sure the Justice Department only goes after people who actually broke the law.
I hope there is a special circle of hell for Jon Favreau.
The 2008 meltdown unmasked both the Republicans and the Democrats. Neither stood for their stated axioms – as you point out, a Republican/Libertarian/NeoLiberal would have said, “Insolvent banks mean that all leaders are out the door with nothing, unless they want to stay on for the average salary ($100k) and work towards solvency, and if they are required, the government gets ownership until they can stand on their own.” All Democrats/Leftists would have added, “All day to day workers are taking care of, and all investors take a haircut (and can sue the leaders that created the mess if they want). Additionally, any law breaking will be punished by prison time.”
Neither did anything other than stand by their moneyed friends/contributors. The 98% have had no political representation since (and likely before).
I remember Obama mumbling about how you could save several percent of GDP if you continued the bailout approach. I assume Larry Summers and friends told him that.
Jon Favreau like in “Chef” Favreau? Da movie guy?
Different Jon Favreau. He was Obama’s speechwriter for most of his political career.
Great analysis and discussion but all of this assumes the primary vote wasn’t electronically rigged.
I think that’s a pretty big assumption although maybe not as big as assumption as the accusations of Trump planning to cancel the elections.
The Democrats literally war gamed January 6 months in advance. Fulton County has exposed how corrupt our vote counting is. In my somewhat expert opinion, we haven’t had honest elections in this country since the turn of the century.
Trump just graduated from being our biggest slob in office to outright war criminal status, but I have yet to see anything resembling proof that he’s planning to cancel elections. Frankly this sounds like the kind of rumor Democrats would start before doing something something to cancel the elections.
I think Israel is going to be on trial this November, and that if the elections are canceled, it will be entirely at Israel’s behest working through their usual bipartisan channels many of whom decided to retire this year but would most certainly soldier on in office if elections were in fact canceled, something we have never done and for which there is no precedent.