Creator of Bracing Views. Contributor to TomDispatch, Truthout, HNN, Alternet, Huffington Post, Antiwar, and other sites. Retired AF lieutenant colonel and professor of history. Senior fellow, Eisenhower Media Network
As I watched NFL football yesterday, I noticed coaches on the sidelines wearing “salute to service” fatigue-like hoodies. The NFL does this every year to celebrate the military and to “support our troops.” It’s popular and lucrative to boot, since you can buy this gear on nflshop.com (a hoody will set you back a cool $115).
For $115, you too can own a team hoodie in military olive drab. Hooah!
Sports, especially NFL football, are incredibly powerful and influential within American society.
Back in 2018, I was briefly involved in discussions, associated with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, about the role sports played in the aftermath of the attacks in 2001. The general subject was how sports brought the nation together after those attacks. I shared the following comments below with two likeminded colleagues who were involved in the initial discussions, after which I never heard anything from the museum.
I think sports did help to bring the nation together after 9/11. The return of the games showed a return to normalcy. They were a chance for patriotic display and also an opportunity to forget, perhaps for just a moment, the losses America suffered in those attacks.
But they arguably set a precedent. In the aftermath of 9/11, patriotic displays took on a military flavor that has only grown more powerful over the years. My memory is of spontaneous displays that, over time, grew increasingly organized, exaggerated, and linked to corporate and commercial agendas, while retaining a strong military presence.
Anti-war demonstrations failed as the nation mobilized for war against Iraq in 2003. That war proved disastrous. The Bush/Cheney administration hid the costs of war from us (not even allowing us to see flag-draped caskets) and suppressed criticism of a disastrous war by telling us we needed to “support our troops.”
Not to be cynical, but how much of this sports/military/patriotism blending is done, not just for recruiting purposes, but to inhibit any kind of serious (and populist) movement against the “forever” wars we’re waging?
In other words, the post-9/11 sports/military nexus, while it may have soothed the country in the aftermath of 9/11, came with a high price tag: the lack of any serious questions about why we were attacked, and also the discouragement of anti-war protests as both divisive and disrespectful.
To me the high price is reflected in the life of Pat Tillman. He patriotically sacrificed a lucrative NFL career to fight the war on terror. It appears he came to question that war. He was killed by friendly fire [in 2004], which the Army hushed up, giving him a false narrative and a Silver Star under false pretenses. One man’s selfless patriotic act became twisted into a feel-good heroic moment that betrayed the ideals of the Army and of the country (and devastated his family as well).
Does the 9/11 museum really want to tackle tough issues like this? The appropriation of patriotism by the powerful as a way of silencing dissent? The betrayal of ideals we hold dear?
I added the following comment on “camouflage” sports uniforms being marketed around Independence Day in 2018:
I was talking with my wife yesterday. She, like me, hates the camouflage swag that’s been incorporated into sports uniforms. This is not “military appreciation.” It’s more military indoctrination and idolization.
We wear camouflage when we’re in deadly combat. It’s totally inappropriate for games that are supposed to be entertaining and fun, not a matter of life-and-death.
The Romans used gladiatorial games to accustom the mob to violence; to inure them to murder and killing; to train them to support the worst of Rome’s imperial policies. Are we using our games to accustom Americans to incessant warfare and surging military budgets and the “wonders” of our own empire?
I wrote something about this here: As America’s games are becoming more militarized, America’s wars are becoming more game-like, a form of infotainment, at least in the way they’re packaged and sold by the media:
So I think some of this macho militarism is being promoted as a counter to this “feminized society.” Trump tapped this sentiment, calling for protesters to be punched, for the NFL to allow more violent hits, etc.
We’re all supposed to be “real men” again: sort of like the Reagan years. Remember the book, “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche”? Now it’s real men punch protesters, wear camouflage, and …
I didn’t finish my list of “real men” activities in 2018. Today, we hear even more about “warrior ethos” and the like, about the need to show toughness, e.g. by summarily murdering people on speedboats in the Caribbean who may, or may not, be drug-runners, or by dragging young teenagers off the streets and shipping them hundreds of miles to detention centers because their papers aren’t in order, and so on.
So, as the NFL persists in wearing pseudo-military gear, perhaps they might consider a new rule that would make every player a member of the reserves or national guard, subject to military recall and service from the months of March to August. If they want to salute military service so vigorously, why not just serve in uniform?
War and rumors of war dominate the headlines. Venezuela. Nigeria. Iran. Somalia. A “new Cold War” involving Russia and China. What are we to believe?
The events of the 62 years of my short life (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, peace dividends that never arrive, military budgets that keep soaring, U.S. domination of the world’s weapons trade, the National Security State as America’s fourth and arguably most powerful branch of government, and on and on) make me highly suspect of official narratives about any war, especially as those same Pentagon budgets soar and those same arms exports keep flooding the world in the (false) name of democracy.
Nevertheless, warmongers in our country continue to shout and bray for more war. Those who make the most noise are typically the furthest from the fighting. Typically, the closer you are to the fighting, the more you want it to stop. Especially if you’re doing the fighting. Consider Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet on the Western Front.” When the main character, Paul, a frontline grunt, goes home on leave, he realizes the blood-thirstiness of the REMFs is far different from the war he’s seeing at the front. (REMF, rear-echelon mother-fucker, is a colorful and meaningful military acronym.)
Often those who talk about war use the most bloodless expressions. So, for example, I’ve read that Ukrainians must “prosecute their war of defense,” helped by generous supplies of American-made weaponry. When I think of war, I think of the concrete. Blasted bodies, a poisoned environment, disease, dead animals, PTSD and TBI, moral injury, atrocities and war crimes (because wars always produce atrocity), and so on. Phrases like “help Ukraine prosecute their war of defense” strike me as Orwellian in the sense of his classic essay on politics and the English language. It sounds good and noble, but how ready are those who support Ukraine to join the cause in the trenches?
An American president now speaks of “the enemy within” and city streets as a training ground for U.S. military action. When everything is war, nothing is safe as the worst crimes and atrocities become possible.
As a young man, Cheney had “other priorities” than serving in the U.S. military. Later, the further he was from battle, the more hawkish he became.
Postscript: As I was writing this, I learned that Dick Cheney has died at the age of 84. NBC News described him as the “Iraq war architect,” as if he was a highly skilled and creative builder instead of a war criminal. A reader sent along a BBC headline that suggests there was “faulty” intelligence leading up to the Iraq war in 2003, as if Cheney had no hand in manufacturing a malicious and mendacious narrative of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Even warmongers like Cheney, proud of their mailed fists, get treated and fitted with kid gloves by a fawning media. Of course, Cheney, when he had an opportunity to serve in Vietnam, famously said he had other priorities.
Maybe the American people, collectively, need to say we have other priorities than waging war around the globe.
Last week, I talked to Judge Napolitano about the Russia-Ukraine War, the Trump administration’s designs on Venezuela, and the rule of law in America.
A point I could have made more clearly involves casualty figures in the Russia-Ukraine War. There are no official figures that are trustworthy; each side is exaggerating the casualties of the other, which is unsurprising, since the first casualty of war is truth.
Figures that I’ve seen suggest that Ukraine has suffered over 100,000 killed and another 400,000 wounded/missing/captured. Russian figures may be double those of Ukraine but I honestly don’t know. My guess is that Russian casualty figures are higher because they have been on the offensive more and Ukrainian defenses have generally been robust and the troops increasingly skilled. Added to these battlefield casualties are the more than 30,000 Ukrainian citizens killed in the war, plus another six to seven million Ukrainians who have fled the country.
My point here isn’t to celebrate one side as “winning” or “losing.” To my mind, both sides are losing as they wage this devastating war, a war that will enter its fourth year next February. While some commentators see this war as a necessary one for Ukraine, a war for high ideals like democracy and freedom, I see a country that has lost roughly 20% of its territory, a country that suffers because the war is being fought largely on Ukrainian land, a country where roughly 7 in 10 people seek an end to this costly struggle.
A common narrative in the West is that Putin must not be allowed to profit from war, and if he does, the Russian military will next be on the march against NATO countries. This narrative suggests war and more war until either Putin is defeated or Ukraine collapses under the strain.
I would prefer to see negotiations to end the killing, the suffering, and the destruction, allowing Ukraine to recover, even if Ukraine must give up its desire to join NATO. I remain concerned that this war could expand further, as lengthy wars tend to do, becoming a wider regional war that could conceivably escalate toward nuclear weapons.
Remember when politicians had some notion of public service? That ideal now feels positively antediluvian.
What I’d really like to see is a genuine commitment to public service—especially from the most powerful figures in our government. That should begin with a reaffirmation of their oath to the U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land, and with a renewed dedication to transparency. Citizens have a right to privacy; the government, by contrast, should not. Yet today we have an unaccountable government that routinely hides behind “that’s classified” or the dark humor of “we could tell you, but then we’d have to shoot you.”
George McGovern, a true public servant
True public service also means not profiting from one’s position. I’d gladly support higher salaries for members of Congress if they swore off investing in sectors where they hold influence or privileged information. (Nancy Pelosi comes to mind, though she’s hardly alone in benefiting through dubious if technically “legal” means.) When, exactly, did public service turn into a “get rich quick” scheme?
It would also be refreshing if members of Congress, retired generals and admirals, and other officials were barred from becoming corporate lobbyists for at least ten years after leaving office. The revolving door between government, industry, and the military breeds conflicts of interest that corrode the public trust.
Once, public service was seen as sacrificial—and therefore honorable. Today, it’s often self-serving, self-enriching, and self-glorifying. Those in power increasingly see themselves as big fish—if not outright sharks—while the rest of us are left as so many minnows, or worse, chum.
It’s hard to imagine America becoming “great again” when the very notion of public service has come to be regarded as something only a sap would believe in.
News that President Trump may yet gain control over the Oregon National Guard despite the opposition of Oregon’s governor, mainly for the purpose of intimidating the City of Portland reminds us that our National Guard is worth protecting from power-hungry egotists scheming for war on enemies without and “within.”
In my home state of Massachusetts, I recently supported legislation to “Defend the Guard.” It seeks to prohibit the Massachusetts National Guard from being deployed into active combat without a formal declaration of war from the U.S. Congress.
Here’s the letter I wrote to “Defend the Guard.” There may be similar efforts in your home state; I urge you to support them.
Photo by Richard Cheek
*****
I’m a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who grew up in Brockton. Members of the MA National Guard included my neighbors and members of my family.
Since 9/11/2001 and the AUMF that followed it, Guard units across the country have been deployed to overseas wars (Afghanistan and Iraq most notably) without Congressional Declarations of War. Guard units have further been deployed to faraway conflict zones such as Africa. They are deployed for months at a time for missions unrelated to the defense of the United States. Hardships to Guard members and their families are considerable.
During the War on Terror, more than 40% of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan were Guard and Reserve units. Under Presidents Trump and Biden (2017-24), the bulk of U.S. forces in Syria and Iraq have often been National Guard units. Many state legislators do not know their NG units are deployed in this manner. Furthermore, those units are then unavailable to respond to local and state-wide disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and other contingencies.
The bill before the Senate does not restrict the use of Guard units in a legal war declared by Congress. It does, however, protect the Guard from being abused by irresponsible leaders who refuse to obey and follow the U.S. Constitution, the law of the land. For that reason, I strongly support this bill.
Please vote “yes” to protect your family, friends, and neighbors who serve honorably and selflessly in the Guard here in Massachusetts. The Guard defends us—please help defend the Guard.
Thank you.
*****
The bill itself is still pending in the Massachusetts State Legislature.
America’s overseas wars, with all their capricious and vicious violence, have indeed come home. For decades, our leaders projected power abroad under the banner of fighting evil — whether Communism, terrorism, or tyranny. Yet in doing so, they helped cultivate an authoritarian mindset that has now turned inward. The “enemy” is no longer some distant foe in a foreign land; it is “the enemy within.” For Donald Trump, that means the mythical “radical left,” a variation of the 1950s fantasy that a Communist was hiding under every bed. The irony, of course, is that the real danger then, as now, comes not from a phantom leftist menace but from a radical right-wing movement willing to strip Americans of their rights in the false name of security, safety, and patriotism.
Joe McCarthy (L) with Roy Cohn
Today’s moment is more perilous than the McCarthy era. In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy could destroy reputations and careers, but he was still just one senator. Today, we face a president who channels McCarthy’s demagoguery from the Oval Office, using the full power of the executive branch to punish dissent and reward loyalty. He is surrounded by a coterie of opportunists, lackeys, and lickspittles who feed his vanity, echo his grievances, and amplify his baseless conspiracy theories. The machinery of government — the same machinery once used to surveil and target foreign “enemies” — is now being aimed at our fellow citizens.
The global war on terror, it seems, has finally gone global in the truest sense — extending to America’s own streets, courthouses, and universities. Trump and his allies portray Democratic cities and progressive movements as breeding grounds of chaos and sedition. In his mind, anyone who resists his will — even through the most lawful and constitutional means — is an “insurrectionist.” He has long shown contempt for the Constitution he swore to uphold. Trump is often exactly what he appears to be: a dangerous blowhard with a vindictive streak, ignorant of the limits and responsibilities of his office. Yet others in his orbit, people like Stephen Miller, harbor more deliberate and insidious designs on American democracy.
What is to be done? Congress is paralyzed, fragmented, and largely disempowered. The Supreme Court is dominated by ideologues nursing grievances and eager to reshape the nation along reactionary lines. Who, then, will check a president determined to rule rather than govern?
The American experiment in self-government has endured many crises but rarely has it seemed so fragile. As journalist Nick Turse recently wrote in TomDispatch, the United States now stands on the precipice of authoritarian rule. Many Trump loyalists appear eager to leap — to wage an internal war against their fellow citizens under the guise of saving the nation.
Never has Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning, “Only Americans can hurt America,” been more prescient or more tragic. The enemy within is not a phantom of the left or right — it is the creeping authoritarianism that grows when fear conquers freedom.
As Master Po reminded us in Kung Fu, “fear is the only darkness.” My fellow Americans, we are in a very dark place.
I wonder why the Trump administration is so interested in Venezuela?
Oh, so that’s why.
A barrel of oil is selling for about $60 this morning. 303 billion barrels at $60 a barrel is more than $18 trillion in future earnings (likely much more than this as the price of oil climbs to $100 per barrel and higher).
Who put America’s oil off the coast of Venezuela? Remember, it’s the Gulf of America, people.
In other news, the admiral in charge of SOUTHCOM is retiring early. Rumor has it he’s objected to the kill and regime change policies of Trump and Hegseth vis-a-vis Venezuela.
President Trump himself recently admitted he’s authorized covert overt CIA activities against the Venezuelan government. A CIA-orchestrated coup combined with U.S. military attacks on Venezuela is likely coming. It’s shrouded in drug war rhetoric, but of course the real goal is control over Venezuela’s oil.
The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Venezuelan opposition leader is another fig leaf in this operation. Once again, war will be sold to the American people as advancing democracy when it’s really all about the Benjamins.
Trump and Hegseth’s murderous strikes against alleged drug-running boats (at least five already destroyed) is another pretext for regime change. Yet the USA was more than happy to tolerate, even encourage, a massive drug trade in heroin during the Afghan War.
Oh well. War always finds a way, especially when oil is involved. Just think of the Iraq regime change invasion in 2003. That went so well, didn’t it?
This short video by Max Blumenthal sums it up quite well:
Conveniently, the government is still shut down, so I guess Trump can’t ask Congress for a formal declaration of war. Yet another unconstitutional war has already started and Congress is nowhere to be found.
It’s time for regime change for democracy right here in America.
Back in June of 2023, I wrote a letter to my archdiocese in response to a request for money. (I am a lapsed Catholic who has in the past given money to the Church.) Here is the letter I wrote, with some follow-on thoughts:
*****
June 2023
Most Reverend ***
Archdiocese of Boston
Dear Reverend ***
I received your Catholic Appeal funding letter dated June 1st. I won’t be contributing…
[Well into the 1990s,] I took my Catholic faith seriously; in fact, my master’s thesis at Johns Hopkins, which examined Catholic responses to science in the mid-19th century, especially Darwinism, geology, and polygenism, was published in the Catholic Historical Review. But scandals involving the Church drove me to question my commitment to Catholicism and especially its patriarchal hierarchy, which was so intimately involved in the coverups of crimes committed against innocents.
I grew up in Brockton, Mass., where the archdiocese assigned a predatory priest to our church of St. Patrick’s. His name was Robert F. Daly. He abused minors and was eventually defrocked by the Church, but far too late. (See the Boston Globe, 6/14/11.)
When I attended St. Patrick’s in the 1970s, Father Daly was teaching CCD. A sexual predator was attempting to teach young people the meaning of Christian love. He had a decent definition for love, something like “giving, without expecting anything in return.” Selfless love, I suppose. Tragically, he obviously failed catastrophically to practice what he preached.
Fortunately, I was never abused. I was supposed to have one meeting with him, alone, that was cancelled at the last minute. I’d like to imagine God was looking out for me on that day, but that’s absurd. Why wasn’t God looking out for all those children abused by Catholic clergy like Father Daly?
To be blunt, I am thoroughly disgusted by the moral cowardice of the archdiocese in confronting fully its painful legacy of failing to protect vulnerable children against predatory priests like Father Daly. Shame on the Church.
The Bible says that all sins may be forgiven except those against the Holy Spirit. This is supposed to refer to a stubborn form of blasphemy. Yet I truly can’t think of a worse sin committed by the Church than to allow innocent children to suffer at the hands of predators disguised as “fathers.”
I sincerely hope you are doing something to change the Church, to reform it, to save it. I fear the Church has not fully confessed its sins, and in that sense it truly does not deserve absolution from the laity. Far too often, the Church has placed its own survival ahead of Truth, ahead of Christ as the Way and the Truth, and thus the Church has washed its hands of its crimes, as Pontius Pilate did.
I am staggered by this betrayal.
Perhaps you have truly fought to reform the Church. If you have not yet done so, perhaps you will soon find the moral courage. I pass no judgment on you. Judge not, lest you be judged. But I do find the Church to be wanting.
Recalling scripture, if the Church does not abide in Christ, should it not be cast into the fire and be consumed?
I am sorry to share such a bleak message with you. I find the Church’s decline to be truly tragic because we need high moral standards now more than ever. Yet the Church is adrift, consumed by petty concerns and obedience to power. Just one example: The U.S. Church cannot even clearly condemn the moral depravity of genocidal nuclear weapons!
I realize I am seriously out of step with today’s Catholic church. I believe priests should be able to marry if they so choose. I believe women who have a calling should be ordained as priests. I believe the Church’s position on abortion is absolutist and wrong. More than anything, I believe the Church is too concerned with itself and its own survival and therefore is alienated from the true spirit of Christ, a spirit of compassion and love.
Unlike you, I cannot in good conscience claim to be “devotedly yours in Christ.” But I am sincere in wishing you the moral courage you will need to manifest your devotion in directions that will help the least of those among us the most. For I well recall the song we sang in our youth: Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me.
Sincerely yours
*****
I’m happy to say I get a thoughtful response from a local bishop, who assured me the Church was serious about reform, was doing all that it could to eliminate pedophilia and to punish those who were guilty of it, and that therefore the Church no longer needed outside policing.
It was the last statement that puzzled me. The Church disgraced itself precisely because it had swept decades of crimes under the rug. Hadn’t the Church learned that earnest attempts at reform by insiders were necessary but not sufficient?
So I wrote back these comments to the bishop:
I will say this as well: I don’t think the Church can police itself from within. That’s what produced the scandals to begin with. It’s like asking the Pentagon to police itself, or police forces with their “internal affairs” departments.
The Church has to open itself to being accountable to the laity, not just to reformers like yourself. Thus the Church has to cede power and a certain measure of autonomy, and institutions are loath to do this, for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, the Church is being weakened by lawsuits, as people seek compensation (and perhaps a measure of vengeance) for sins of the past.
Skeptics would reply that it took a huge scandal with major financial implications to force the Church to do the right thing.
For too long, the Church tolerated these crimes. The Church is hardly unique here. Think of sexual assaults within the military (notably during basic training), or think of the Sandusky scandal at Penn State, where Joe Paterno clearly knew of (some) of Sandusky’s abuse, yet chose not to take adequate action. (I was at Penn College when that scandal broke.)
The challenge, as you know, is that the Church is supposed to be a role model, an exemplar of virtue. Priests hold a special place of trust within communities and are therefore held in especially high regard.
Image courtesy of the Mormon (LDS) Church
As my older brother-in-law explained to me, if a young boy or girl accused a priest of assault in the 1950s or 1960s, few if any people would have believed them. Indeed, the youngster was likely to be slapped by a parent for defaming a priest. That moral authority, that respect, was earned by so many priests who had done the right thing, set the right example. It was ruined by a minority of priests who became predators and a Church hierarchy that largely looked the other way, swept it under the rug, or otherwise failed to act quickly and decisively.
As you say, the Church has learned. It is now better at policing itself. The shame of it all is that it took so much suffering by innocents, and the revelations of the same and the moral outrage that followed, to get the Church to change.
*****
Friends of mine who are still firm believers tell me, correctly, that the Church is much more than the hierarchy. It certainly shouldn’t be defined by the grievous sins of a few. Still, I can’t bring myself to rejoin a Church that so grievously failed the most innocent among us.
There’s a passage in the New Testament where Christ says: “Suffer little children to come unto me.” As in, let the children come, I will bless them, for they in their innocence and humility are examples to us all. He didn’t teach, let the children suffer, molest them and exploit them, then cover it all up.
I still have respect for priests who exhibit the true fruits of their calling. I still find the teachings of Christ to be foundational to my moral outlook. But I find the Church itself to be unnecessary to the practice of my faith, such as it is. I do hope the Church truly embraces transparency and service; I hope it recalls as well its need to preach life and love and peace, as we need these now more than ever.
How can Democrats win in 2028? Not by doing what the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has been doing—chasing corporate money, currying favor with AIPAC, and catering to the donor class. That may enrich the DNC, but it’s not a winning strategy.
Winning elections requires inspiring people to vote for you—to believe you’ll actually fight for them. Kamala Harris lost in 2024 because too many people stayed home. Many of those same voters had once turned out enthusiastically for Joe Biden in 2020 and Barack Obama before him.
Nominating “Cheney-adjacent” Democrats—candidates who sound like Republican-lite fiscal conservatives and foreign policy hawks—hasn’t worked. These are candidates who embrace militarism, defend Israel no matter what, and cater to big money interests. That’s the path Kamala Harris chose in 2024, and even she later admitted it likely cost her the election. Establishment Democrats keep chasing the mythical “moderate Republican” who dislikes Donald Trump but could be persuaded to vote blue. It didn’t work for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and it failed again in 2024.
The reasons for the 2024 loss aren’t mysterious. Democratic leaders lied about Biden’s fitness for another term. They betrayed their base. They allowed the party to be captured by moneyed interests. And they ran a hollow campaign—focused on the “joy” of Kamala rather than on real issues like raising the federal minimum wage, reducing student debt, or protecting workers and the middle class.
Today’s Democratic leadership—an aging, entrenched gerontocracy—is out of touch. Obsessed with fundraising and self-preservation, they offer no charisma, no moral courage, and no compelling vision. Yet America desperately needs a strong, principled Democratic Party to counter Trumpism. What we have instead is a party that’s too old, too corrupted, and too timid to resist it effectively.
Democrats need to rediscover the spirit of Robert F. Kennedy Sr., George McGovern, and yes, Bernie Sanders. Remarkably, Trump now seems to many voters more “worker-friendly” than the average Democrat politician. He’s seizing traditional Democratic issues like lowering prescription drug prices while Democrats, paralyzed by caution, are doing little to challenge him.
Sanders himself has said the Democratic primary process is rigged against candidates like him. Voters recognize when they’re being sold a false bill of goods. When they feel manipulated, they stay home—or worse, cast protest votes for demagogues who seem more “authentic.” Sanders has also called both major parties “largely corrupt,”and sadly, the Republicans—corrupt as they are—are currently better at winning than the Democrats.
For his honesty, Sanders deserves respect. He’s one of the few major politicians willing to say plainly that the Democratic Party has become an obstacle to genuine democracy—rigging its own primaries and processes to favor establishment figures like Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, while marginalizing the progressives who actually energize voters.
As Sanders noted in a recent interview (see above, after the 40-minute mark), the Democratic Party would rather lose an election than risk upsetting the status quo. Which brings us to 2028: it’s easy to imagine the DNC once again anointing someone like Gavin Newsom (handsome but hollow), Pete Buttigieg (a corporate technocrat who happens to be gay), or Josh Shapiro (a reliable Zionist), all while ignoring the lessons Sanders tried to teach.
And when President J.D. Vance takes office in 2029, Democratic leaders will once again blame the voters—never themselves.
Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) is a rising star in the Democratic Party. In July she denied Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza and deflected criticism of AIPAC and its role in American politics. Earlier in March, she gave the Democratic response to Trump by citing with approval, I kid you not, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she called for increases to Pentagon spending and more U.S. troops to be committed to Europe.
Elissa Slotkin: Let’s criticize Trump by praising Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush
Slotkin checks just about every box the Democratic establishment loves: a woman, Jewish, former CIA officer, veteran of the National Security Council and State Department. She’s the military-industrial complex softened by a woman’s touch—a reassuring smile masking a hardened national-security mindset. I can easily imagine her as vice-presidential material in 2028.
And who might lead that ticket? My bet is on Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s governor. Like Slotkin, he’s Jewish, firmly pro-Israel, and rooted in a swing state Democrats must win. A Shapiro-Slotkin ticket—lawyer and intelligence officer, both hawkish, both “safe” for the donor class—would symbolize how far the party has drifted from its old progressive soul (think here of FDR and George McGovern).
Shapiro–Slotkin: the likely face of Democratic centrism in 2028.
And I know what my Democratic friends will tell me in 2028: No matter how pro-Israel and pro-Pentagon these Democrats are, they’re better than Trump or his successor. So hold your nose and vote blue no matter who.
Let’s not forget the time Josh Shapiro signed an artillery shell to be used against Russia. From Pennsylvania with love?
Israel, Gaza, and Moral Collapse
The Democratic establishment’s moral confusion (and collusion) over Gaza’s destruction is a measure of serious moral drift. Previous talk of a “partial offensive weapons boycott” against Israel was pure political theater, since Israel defines every weapon it uses as defensive. Even Iron Dome missiles—marketed as purely protective—provide cover for Israel’s ongoing offensive operations.
Let’s be honest: even Israeli human-rights organizations now call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. The term “war crime” implies a conventional war, with atrocities committed in battle’s chaos. But Gaza isn’t a battlefield—it’s an occupied territory subjected to systematic destruction. Israel’s goal is transparently obvious: mass death and displacement. How can mainline Democrats support this? In fact, how can anyone with a heart support this?
A Party I Once Belonged To
I say this as someone who once called himself a Democrat. I voted for Obama twice and stayed registered with the party until 2016. I even received my share of glossy mailers from the Biden campaign in 2020 and 2024 before it all went down in flames.
So yes, I’m a winnable voter—someone who could still be moved by a Democratic candidate like Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, George McGovern, or RFK Sr. But that kind of Democrat, a principled progressive, a friend to the working classes, has vanished from the party’s upper ranks.
Since the Clinton years, the DNC has courted and served Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the Pentagon with equal zeal. The result is a party that preaches “diversity” while funding foreign wars, that champions “equity” while enabling wanton Israeli aggression.
If Democrats nominate yet another national security hawk in 2028—someone who kneels before Netanyahu and calls it diplomacy—I’ll vote third party again. But if they rediscover their moral compass and nominate a candidate with real progressive convictions, I’ll be the first to sign up.
Remembering What Democrats Once Were
I invoke names like Geroge McGovern and RFK Sr. not out of nostalgia, but to remind us that the Democratic Party once stood (however shakily) for peace, diplomacy, and courage. These were leaders who challenged militarism and believed America could be a force for good. Think of JFK’s brilliant peace speech in 1963.
Today’s Democrats, with few exceptions, are indistinguishable from John McCain when it comes to their enthusiasm for war and weapons. They celebrate “defense spending” as if it were a patriotic sacrament, while the Pentagon drains over a trillion dollars a year from our treasury.
I’ve supported Bernie Sanders since 2015 and still respect his attempt to challenge this militaristic drift, though I’ve been disappointed by his compromises. Sanders in particular has been slow to denounce Israel’s genocidal crimes in Gaza. I find myself in broad agreement with commentators like Caitlin Johnstone, who call out Israel’s genocide and the U.S. government’s bipartisan complicity here. Her critique of American empire resonates because I still believe in a constitutional republic with a citizen-soldier military focused on defense and domestic health.
That vision once animated much of the Democratic Party. Today, it feels like a very distant memory.
Bracing Views 