Tag: DSA

“The Late Great John McCain”

Democrats Should Stop Praising Republican Warmongers

BILL ASTORE

SEP 03, 2026

I know: this is old news. But I was going through my notes from September of 2024 on the Harris/Trump presidential debate and came across Kamala Harris’s gushing praise of the “late great John McCain,” American hero. And I thought again to myself: this is how the Democrats run for office, by praising Republican warmongers like McCain?

I get it: Harris was trying to rattle Trump, who had no love of McCain. But as I wrote in my notes at the time, Harris came across as a moderate Republican against a madcap one in Trump. And when you offer voters a “choice” between a moderate rightist and a more extreme one, they tend to go for the extreme one. 

A few reasons why Harris struck me as a moderate Republican in that debate:

  1. Her high praise for McCain.
  2. Her tight embrace of military lethality.
  3. Her rejection of Medicare for All and her support for private health insurers.
  4. Her willingness to quote Goldman Sachs with approval.
  5. Her boasting of personal endorsements from Dick and Liz Cheney.
  6. Her strong support of NATO and Ukraine in its war with Russia.
  7. Her unchecked support for Israel despite the genocide in Gaza.

My Democrat friends will likely respond that she was “moving to the center” to win more votes. How did that work out for her?

Yes, I know Kamala wasn’t as crazy as Trump. If she’d been elected in 2024, we wouldn’t have been subjected to the DOGE, or absurdly high tariffs, or ICE goons, or the idiocy of Pete Hegseth. I get that.

But Harris did support “military lethality,” so the Pentagon budget would have increased (though not nearly as much as under Trump). She said Iran was America’s greatest threat, so her foreign policy vis-a-vis that country may have been as bellicose (though whether she would have started a disastrous and illegal war with Iran is unknowable but I think unlikely).

Looking through my old notes from that debate, I’m struck again by the grim vision Trump offered of America. Our country has gone to hell, he said. The nation is in decline, or dying. Other countries are laughing at us, Trump said. They don’t respect us. Migrant crime is killing America. Immigrants are eating your pet dogs and cats. Babies are being aborted (“executed”) at nine months. Biden doesn’t know he’s alive and Harris hates Israel. Or so Trump claimed.

Trump wasn’t wrong about America’s decline. What he fails to see is how rapidly he has accelerated that decline since he was reelected in 2024.

Trump is America’s first declinist president, as Tom Engelhardt has noted. Hence the whole MAGA ideal of a national revival, which resonated with so many people. The problem of course is how Trump is worsening that decline even as he uses the office of the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies.

It shouldn’t be that difficult for Democrats to beat a corrupt and venal blowhard like Trump, except the Democratic establishment thinks the way to do that is to praise John McCain and to hug the Cheneys. And even while Democrats today criticize Trump for the Iran War, they rarely do so on moral terms, even as they typically put forth their own preferred military action plan against Russia or China or both. Trump actually makes occasional antiwar noises, which is more than can be said for many Democrats.

If Democrats really want to gain the upper hand on Trump, they had best stop praising the McCains and Cheneys of America and reject constant warmongering. And they should be much stronger in their criticism of Trump and Company as WMD, as weapons of mass destruction to democracy, for that is exactly what they are proving to be.

The DSA candidates in 2026 get it: American voters really want alternatives rather than Democrats wearing John McCain and Liz Cheney masks.

Scary Democratic Socialists!

Empty the Prisons, Fire the Police, Be Afraid

BILL ASTORE

SEP 02, 2026

I had to laugh as I saw this definitional alchemy in the New York Times this morning:

What is the difference between the agenda of the Democratic Socialists and the agenda of the Democratic Party? | Marilyn McIntyre | Huntley, Illinois

The Democratic Socialists of America (D.S.A.) is an activist organization, not a political party, so its members typically run as Democrats. This has prompted confusion about the two groups. Many mainstream Democrats and D.S.A. members want to move in the same economic direction — raising taxes on wealthy Americans, increasing the minimum wage and expanding health care access. But while most Democrats consider themselves capitalists, D.S.A. members envision ultimately accomplishing those goals by establishing public ownership of the largest corporations. The D.S.A. agenda is also further to the left than most Democrats on social and foreign policy issues. It includes policies like ending all aid to Israel, closing overseas military bases and fully abolishing the police and prison systems. — Lisa Lerer, national politics correspondent

Now, I must admit I’m not an expert on the DSA. But in this “great” land of ours, how likely are we to see “the public ownership of the largest corporations”? How likely is a complete cessation of aid to Israel, the closing of all military bases overseas, and the total abolition of police forces and prisons? Is the DSA really calling for this?

Those scary Democratic Socialists! Radical leftists are they! Vote for them and all prisoners will be unleashed—even the most violent murderers and rapists. And they’ll be no police to protect you because they’re being abolished too. 

I like the line about “most Democrats consider themselves capitalists”: WTF? I’ve never defined myself as a “capitalist” as if it’s some kind of religion and money is something to be worshipped. Capitalism is an economic system that favors people with, well, capital. I’d wager the more capital you have, the more you identify as a capitalist. In short, working- and middle-class Democrats, even “mainstream” ones, don’t go around thinking they’re “capitalists” like Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island.”

“Mainstream” Democrats?

Also, so-called mainstream Democratic leaders like Schumer, Pelosi, and Jeffries have been singularly unsuccessful in raising taxes on the wealthy or in providing a higher federal minimum wage and Medicare for All (M4A). I like the way M4A isn’t even mentioned: the much more benign formula of “expanding health care access” is used. For most people access isn’t the biggest problem, affordability is.

I saw recently where, assuming the Democrats regain the House and Senate this November, the stated policy goal of Schumer and Jeffries is a return to the status quo under Joe Biden, meaning a fight for restoration of Obamacare subsidies, restoring funding for Medicaid, and the like. Nothing about M4A, nothing about a higher federal minimum wage, nothing about major cuts to Pentagon spending, and nothing about impeachment of Trump for waging an unconstitutional war against Iran.

As usual, establishment Democrats are protecting the establishment and especially “capitalists.” Compared to them, I’ll eagerly vote for and support just about any “scary” DSA member running for office.

Random Sunday Thoughts

On Long Wars, the DSA, Aborigines, and Democracy in America

BILL ASTORE

AUG 09, 2026

On a very warm and humid Sunday morning, here are a few random thoughts for today:

1. It’s rather amazing that the U.S./Israel War against Iran has entered its six month with no end in sight. Remember when the Trump administration suggested it would last no longer than eight weeks? The war is holding the world economy hostage, apparently for “greater Israel” and continued U.S. dominance of trade in fossil fuels. I say “apparently” because the war doesn’t make much sense to most Americans, who are in the main against it. The only selling point Trump keeps repeating is that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, even as Israel is allowed to have up to 300 of them. His own intelligence chief told Trump that Iran was not working to field a nuclear weapon, but the Israelis told him otherwise, and we know who Trump is most obeisant toward.

2. Patrick Lawrence has a great piece on the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, and how they want to abolish ICE and possibly the presidency itself while defunding the police, the Pentagon, and other instruments of authority and coercion. One sympathizes, but it’s neither a practical nor a winning political message. So I wrote this comment at his site:

Echoing George McGovern, “Come home, America.” You can’t abolish or dismantle everything. But we can downsize the imperium and reinvest in America rather than “investing” in more wars and Zionist Israel.

If the DSA wants to make a contribution, it should focus on that — downsizing the empire, putting the American people first, rather than dreaming of abolishing everything. For what will replace it?

Make the lives of average Americans better, more affordable, more livable. Clean up our environment. And forget the magical thinking and empty posturing.

Come home, America. Come home from wanton, wasteful, and immoral wars.

3. I was breezing through “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce and stumbled on his acerbic definition of “Aborigines”:

1. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

2. Considerate persons who will not trouble the lexicographer of the future to describe them.

Bierce, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, didn’t mince words here. There are always “persons of little worth” to oppressors who’d prefer that they leave or die. What was true of aboriginal peoples of the 19th and early 20th centuries is true of the Palestinians today: they are seen as obstacles to be overcome, even as terrorists to be exterminated.

4. Antiwar forces in America remain fragmented, and that’s partly by design. To oversimplify, you have the so-called radical left, which is antiwar, sometimes anti-military, often as critical of America as it is of empire, versus the “unpatriotic” (to Trump) right, which is anti-dumb wars, generally pro-military, and animated by putting “America first.” Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA. If they could combine, they would make a formidable force against the MICC and incessant warfare. Which is why each side is encouraged to distrust and even hate the other, i.e. the “radical left” is told the right is racist and reactionary and the “unpatriotic right” is told the left is woke, arrogant, and un-American.

The MICC and “Deep State” know that these two groups must be kept divided. They must never be allowed to cooperate in meaningful ways.

5. Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC. Note how Ike said nothing about the left or right. Being for democracy, freedom, and liberty isn’t a right or left issue. The same applies to being against war and killing and massively wasteful military budgets. These are human issues that should unite everyone irrespective of political allegiances.

Caveat: Any foolishness written above is on account of the heat, but fortunately I’ve been told global warming is a Chinese hoax. Stay cool, everyone.