Whew. That diatribe was a slog. But I read it all the way through -- and appreciated the insights. I support unions, too. But you ask the right question: If unions are meant to counter the excesses of capital, then what are public employee unions opposing -- the public? That's the seed of a major aha.
Nicely written… bet you a beer that by July 4th, 2026 you’ll be saying the lord really must works in mysterious ways - Trump, warts and all, and these MAGA people are the salt of the earth. All they want is a government of, by,and for the people… imagine that.
Joe—Brilliant, prescient and fearless. Good luck to you in your Sisyphean task of taking on lawyers and public sector unions (yes I expanded the category a bit), and I say this as less a Republican than an American.
The real loser this year wasn't the Democrats. They will delay, deflect, and deny. But the legacy media are another story. At last count, Joe Rogan got 55 million hits with his interviews of Trump and Vance. Not only did his audience utterly dwarf the broadcast and cable networks, but those shows were infinitely more informative than the two debates and the softball interviews of Harris on television.
In August, Warner Discovery wrote down the value of CNN to zero on its books. MSNBC is said to be on the auction block. The Washington Post awaits the day when Jeff Bezos says, "Enough with this b.s." and radically shrinks it. ABC, CBS, and NBC are financed entirely by pharmaceutical advertising, which explains why their "news" divisions never lay a glove on the drug companies. NPR and PBS are self parodies.
What's both galling and amusing is that the legacy media act as if this is still 1973 and they are information gatekeepers, when in fact their outright lying is now so easily checked. The public sees it, as evidenced by a long string of polling showing their trust ratings continuing to fall through the floorboards. All but Fox completely prostituted themselves for Harris, while Fox was for Team Trump. No one trusts ANY of them.
The Democrats should be worried, but the legacy media owners should be outright scared, and I bet they are.
Thucydides the historian, writing in democratic Athens 2,400 years ago, warned his readers against pursuing already-defeated politicians through the law courts—it created dangerous polarization.
Perhaps it was lawyers and unions, but it may have been the notion of CA lunacy, being nationalized. Roughly a decade ago, our son was playing in a Silicon Valley community basketball league. A commotion in the stands, drew everyone's attention, to 2 well-dressed women, on the verge of blows. One mother held a petition, banning boys from girl's bathrooms, locker rooms and athletic teams, in a San Jose school district. Her 12 year old daughter was an athletic stand out. She was mortified at undressing in front of a boy, that had recently joined her basketball team, after deciding he was a girl.
The other mother was screaming, at the petition holder, to get over her idiotic, religious views. My husband and I watched in amazement, sure the idea was just more Silicon Valley insanity, the rest of the country would find mortifying. Soon thereafter, a CA law was passed, allowing public school children, to determine their own gender, for the purposes of school bathrooms and athletic teams.
A decade later, there are similar laws in every Blue State, and an industry exists in removing children's healthy body parts. The lunacy, does not stop there. A friend who recently left the state, claims the sexual abuse of a child, is no longer a felony, under CA law, if the offender is within 10 years of the age, of the victim. Under those circumstances, the crime must be charged, as a misdemeanor. I have not taken the time to verify the claim, that sounds too awful to be true, but it will not surprise me, if her assessment is accurate.
I love it when "progressives" bleat about "the science" to justify their climate b.s., but deny the biological fact that homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, as are all mammals and almost all other animals.
And no one should retort by citing the intersexed. No one chooses to be a hemaphrodite, and in any case it has nothing to do with the autogynephilia by which (overwhelmingly) men take hormones and sometimes get radical cosmetic surgery and then demand to be legally and socially recognized as the women they are not.
The "progressives" will reply that the transgendered are a very small group and therefore we shouldn't care about the women raped in prisons by "transgendered" men, and so on. In so doing, they entirely miss the point.
The Democratic Party is effectively ordering the proles to call 2 plus 2 a 5, and then they are surprised and outraged when anyone stands up and says, "No, 2+2 = 4." The more the Democrats shout 5 and call people Nazis, the more ridiculous they are among the people who they routinely mock for their lack of "critical thinking."
To quote a text yesterday from good friend who is a farmer with a measured I.Q. of 164 and who drives a truckful of his potatoes to a food bank in Minneapolis every fall: "Men: Stay the fck out of my wife's, daughter's, and granddaughter's bathrooms, etc. What is so fcking hard about that to understand????"
Another point to make about this. Remember the Bud Light boycott in reaction to Dylan Mulvaney? Sales of Bud Light have not rebounded. As of October, they were down 29% year over year, and more than 50% since Bud Light decided to use a transvestite to promote its beer. (Bud Light's market share went from 13.24% in 2022 to 6.5% in October 2024. It was the #1 beer in the U.S., and is now #3.)
InBev, the owner of Budweiser and a big chunk of the other macro brews, has inched back up on the strength of price increases and its other brands, but the Democratic Party doesn't have anything even remotely close to that breadth in its marketing portfolio. There are scores of beer labels, but only two relevant political parties. Keep it up, Democrats and see what happens, or "FAFO" as the acronym goes.
This issue is in some ways a nothingburger, but it has an iconic feel. Unlike, say, "fascism" or "preservation of democracy" or tariffs or even illegal immigration, this one is as simple as it gets. It embodies the most outrageous of an entire array of progressive crap that has rubbed large segments of the public, not just fang-dripping wingnuts, the wrong way.
So, Democrats, this was quite a gift the progressives gave you a few Christmases ago. Now tell me: Just how long do you want to wear the ugly sweater you were given, just so you can keep your eccentric Uncle Rick/Aunt Rachel from kicking and screaming? Is that really the label you want to wear for the rest of the decade? Really?
Please, please verify BEFORE posting such an unfounded claim or one based on hearsay. A simple Web search suffices to debunk: No, sexual assault is generally a felony under California law. Age differences may come into play but not as specifically proscribed by law as your "friend" suggests. In this day and age, we all have to be on guard against misinformation -- no matter what the source.
I was not sure , hence the the "I have not verified the claim". However it appears to me Title 9 Section 269 of the CA Penal code requires felony charges, only if the child victim is under the age of 14, and the accused is more than 7 years older, than the victim. Otherwise, the crime may be a misdemeanor.
I was in law school, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and have no experience in criminal law, so my reading may be off, but please read the statue before tossing around "misinformation" claims. Misinformation has often come to mean, any statement , with which, someone may disagree.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The Democratic Party was my Party because it was my father's Party, but I have been disillusioned with the Democrats for almost 20 years because of all of the details that you cite. I, like you and Ronald Reagan, believe that the Party left me. I am very pessimistic that the Democrats will change for the better within the next 4 years, or ever.
The most the Democrats will do now is channel a cat in its litter box, covering up what it just deposited there. The party's "progressives" fully captured it more than a decade ago, and they control the commanding heights. They need to be defeated again in '26 and '28 so we can see the fear in their eyes.
The way to discipline politicians is to dis-elect them, and in so doing scare the living hell out of the survivors. I see no signs that the '24 elections have seriously even begun to accomplish that. They need to lose a whole string of elections before they begin to wake up.
I think that you are correct. Losing one election will not change the Democratic Party. The Democrats will have to lose a few more before a reckoning occurs.
It took three straight losses in the 1980s until the Ds tacked toward the center. If it takes that long now, the Supreme Court will be at least 7-2 conservative and maybe 8-1 by 2036. That's too far to one side for my taste, but if the Ds keep it up with their smugness, their arrogance, and their condescending hatred, they will have it coming.
I really want them to get the message and be scared shitless about what's coming if they don't shape up. The real question there is whether or not they actually care about anything other than an overpaid congressional staff job or a slot at some failing media outlet or non-profit. The day is coming. Kids, the NYT and WaPo only have so many slots for opinion writers.
Joe, Joe you are being emotional here. Snap out of it! As Cher would say. Let’s assume everything you say is true, and I believe most of it is. Throwing the baby out with the bath water in a fit of pique is not your style. In the NYT today there is a great piece by Michele Goldberg about Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, (D) recently reelected to Congress in Eastern Washington, in a district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. She is the counter to your argument to leave the Democratic party . She joined it to change not just the Party but the country by sitting at the table and bringing her auto mechanic perspective (“we fix things”) to bear on policy decisions made too often by staffers who have no idea how the words in bills affect the real world. She joined the Party to fix it and implement her District’s concerns. She didn’t walk away in an emotional tantrum. Neither should you!
One final point in this weighty matter: the two candidates most likely to become the new Chairman of the Democratic Party are : Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of Chicago and aid to Bill Clinton and Joseph O’Malley former Governor of Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore. NEITHER OF THESE MEN are what you would consider lefties, progressives et.al. So the Democratic National Committee has rapidly moved to the middle. Lesson learned. They heard you Joe.
She will get nowhere in the D Party except as a phony symbol of their "moderation." Once these people get to Washington, they are swallowed whole but trotted out when the New York Times needs a pet from flyover country.
Joe, the teacher unions are hardly the Democratic Party. Since there are only two functioning Parties, you are forced to make a choice or become irrelevant like the “no labels “. To say you are no longer a Democrat is just blowing off steam, or repudiating all the policies developed by the Democrats since FDR. I don’t think you are doing the latter. Better to use your acute mind to discuss problems and options . Come back Joe!
In fact, I've often voted for Republicans in local elections, especially when the Dem was a tool of the teachers unions who opposed charter schools. And as for "controlling" the Democratic Party, I repeat: When was the last time you heard an elected Democrat criticize the teachers unions? Barack Obama was the only recent Dem president willing to push back with Arne Duncan as DOE Secy.
Joe, what a terrific analysis. I’ve stated Democrat so I can vote against progressives in the primaries. It may not be a good enough reason anymore. It was wonderful to read of Sam and Alison’s anniversary. I had the great privilege of working for Sam and the Washington headquarters of the Vietnam moratorium in 1969. It will always be the highlight of my working life.
Keep on writing. We missed you during your time away and it’s a great joy to be able to read you again.
Am a fan and reader of Ruy Texiera. The cold water plunge of the election seems to have awakened you to what is going on and why. If you want a possible candidate, Rahm Emanuel would be mine. He would be effective, straight talking, has run Chicago, worked with Clinton and Obama, and above all, he knows what needs to happen.
Your article is one that can totally agree with. Patrick Moynihan was a gem, as were many others in his time. Good luck at regaining some sanity for your party.
"I could not be a member of a party that is run by these self-interest-obsessed factions any more than I could join a party that coddles the Proud Boys."
What utter crap. The Rs don't "coddle the Proud Boys." You are still lost in the "progressive" tank, and you will be right back in there in '26 and '28. It's pathetic and amusing. I cast my third straight write-in vote this year, but I have been laughing HARD at the screams, squeals, and whines of Democrats this month, along with your stupid, false, overwrought assertion about the Proud Boys. Grow up.
Whew. That diatribe was a slog. But I read it all the way through -- and appreciated the insights. I support unions, too. But you ask the right question: If unions are meant to counter the excesses of capital, then what are public employee unions opposing -- the public? That's the seed of a major aha.
That comment was indeed brilliant!
Nicely written… bet you a beer that by July 4th, 2026 you’ll be saying the lord really must works in mysterious ways - Trump, warts and all, and these MAGA people are the salt of the earth. All they want is a government of, by,and for the people… imagine that.
I hope that you are right!
Joe—Brilliant, prescient and fearless. Good luck to you in your Sisyphean task of taking on lawyers and public sector unions (yes I expanded the category a bit), and I say this as less a Republican than an American.
The real loser this year wasn't the Democrats. They will delay, deflect, and deny. But the legacy media are another story. At last count, Joe Rogan got 55 million hits with his interviews of Trump and Vance. Not only did his audience utterly dwarf the broadcast and cable networks, but those shows were infinitely more informative than the two debates and the softball interviews of Harris on television.
In August, Warner Discovery wrote down the value of CNN to zero on its books. MSNBC is said to be on the auction block. The Washington Post awaits the day when Jeff Bezos says, "Enough with this b.s." and radically shrinks it. ABC, CBS, and NBC are financed entirely by pharmaceutical advertising, which explains why their "news" divisions never lay a glove on the drug companies. NPR and PBS are self parodies.
What's both galling and amusing is that the legacy media act as if this is still 1973 and they are information gatekeepers, when in fact their outright lying is now so easily checked. The public sees it, as evidenced by a long string of polling showing their trust ratings continuing to fall through the floorboards. All but Fox completely prostituted themselves for Harris, while Fox was for Team Trump. No one trusts ANY of them.
The Democrats should be worried, but the legacy media owners should be outright scared, and I bet they are.
Thucydides the historian, writing in democratic Athens 2,400 years ago, warned his readers against pursuing already-defeated politicians through the law courts—it created dangerous polarization.
Perhaps it was lawyers and unions, but it may have been the notion of CA lunacy, being nationalized. Roughly a decade ago, our son was playing in a Silicon Valley community basketball league. A commotion in the stands, drew everyone's attention, to 2 well-dressed women, on the verge of blows. One mother held a petition, banning boys from girl's bathrooms, locker rooms and athletic teams, in a San Jose school district. Her 12 year old daughter was an athletic stand out. She was mortified at undressing in front of a boy, that had recently joined her basketball team, after deciding he was a girl.
The other mother was screaming, at the petition holder, to get over her idiotic, religious views. My husband and I watched in amazement, sure the idea was just more Silicon Valley insanity, the rest of the country would find mortifying. Soon thereafter, a CA law was passed, allowing public school children, to determine their own gender, for the purposes of school bathrooms and athletic teams.
A decade later, there are similar laws in every Blue State, and an industry exists in removing children's healthy body parts. The lunacy, does not stop there. A friend who recently left the state, claims the sexual abuse of a child, is no longer a felony, under CA law, if the offender is within 10 years of the age, of the victim. Under those circumstances, the crime must be charged, as a misdemeanor. I have not taken the time to verify the claim, that sounds too awful to be true, but it will not surprise me, if her assessment is accurate.
I love it when "progressives" bleat about "the science" to justify their climate b.s., but deny the biological fact that homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, as are all mammals and almost all other animals.
And no one should retort by citing the intersexed. No one chooses to be a hemaphrodite, and in any case it has nothing to do with the autogynephilia by which (overwhelmingly) men take hormones and sometimes get radical cosmetic surgery and then demand to be legally and socially recognized as the women they are not.
The "progressives" will reply that the transgendered are a very small group and therefore we shouldn't care about the women raped in prisons by "transgendered" men, and so on. In so doing, they entirely miss the point.
The Democratic Party is effectively ordering the proles to call 2 plus 2 a 5, and then they are surprised and outraged when anyone stands up and says, "No, 2+2 = 4." The more the Democrats shout 5 and call people Nazis, the more ridiculous they are among the people who they routinely mock for their lack of "critical thinking."
To quote a text yesterday from good friend who is a farmer with a measured I.Q. of 164 and who drives a truckful of his potatoes to a food bank in Minneapolis every fall: "Men: Stay the fck out of my wife's, daughter's, and granddaughter's bathrooms, etc. What is so fcking hard about that to understand????"
Another point to make about this. Remember the Bud Light boycott in reaction to Dylan Mulvaney? Sales of Bud Light have not rebounded. As of October, they were down 29% year over year, and more than 50% since Bud Light decided to use a transvestite to promote its beer. (Bud Light's market share went from 13.24% in 2022 to 6.5% in October 2024. It was the #1 beer in the U.S., and is now #3.)
InBev, the owner of Budweiser and a big chunk of the other macro brews, has inched back up on the strength of price increases and its other brands, but the Democratic Party doesn't have anything even remotely close to that breadth in its marketing portfolio. There are scores of beer labels, but only two relevant political parties. Keep it up, Democrats and see what happens, or "FAFO" as the acronym goes.
This issue is in some ways a nothingburger, but it has an iconic feel. Unlike, say, "fascism" or "preservation of democracy" or tariffs or even illegal immigration, this one is as simple as it gets. It embodies the most outrageous of an entire array of progressive crap that has rubbed large segments of the public, not just fang-dripping wingnuts, the wrong way.
So, Democrats, this was quite a gift the progressives gave you a few Christmases ago. Now tell me: Just how long do you want to wear the ugly sweater you were given, just so you can keep your eccentric Uncle Rick/Aunt Rachel from kicking and screaming? Is that really the label you want to wear for the rest of the decade? Really?
Please, please verify BEFORE posting such an unfounded claim or one based on hearsay. A simple Web search suffices to debunk: No, sexual assault is generally a felony under California law. Age differences may come into play but not as specifically proscribed by law as your "friend" suggests. In this day and age, we all have to be on guard against misinformation -- no matter what the source.
I was not sure , hence the the "I have not verified the claim". However it appears to me Title 9 Section 269 of the CA Penal code requires felony charges, only if the child victim is under the age of 14, and the accused is more than 7 years older, than the victim. Otherwise, the crime may be a misdemeanor.
I was in law school, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and have no experience in criminal law, so my reading may be off, but please read the statue before tossing around "misinformation" claims. Misinformation has often come to mean, any statement , with which, someone may disagree.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. The Democratic Party was my Party because it was my father's Party, but I have been disillusioned with the Democrats for almost 20 years because of all of the details that you cite. I, like you and Ronald Reagan, believe that the Party left me. I am very pessimistic that the Democrats will change for the better within the next 4 years, or ever.
The most the Democrats will do now is channel a cat in its litter box, covering up what it just deposited there. The party's "progressives" fully captured it more than a decade ago, and they control the commanding heights. They need to be defeated again in '26 and '28 so we can see the fear in their eyes.
The way to discipline politicians is to dis-elect them, and in so doing scare the living hell out of the survivors. I see no signs that the '24 elections have seriously even begun to accomplish that. They need to lose a whole string of elections before they begin to wake up.
I think that you are correct. Losing one election will not change the Democratic Party. The Democrats will have to lose a few more before a reckoning occurs.
It took three straight losses in the 1980s until the Ds tacked toward the center. If it takes that long now, the Supreme Court will be at least 7-2 conservative and maybe 8-1 by 2036. That's too far to one side for my taste, but if the Ds keep it up with their smugness, their arrogance, and their condescending hatred, they will have it coming.
I really want them to get the message and be scared shitless about what's coming if they don't shape up. The real question there is whether or not they actually care about anything other than an overpaid congressional staff job or a slot at some failing media outlet or non-profit. The day is coming. Kids, the NYT and WaPo only have so many slots for opinion writers.
Wonderful column. For millions of middle-of-the roaders, moderately left or right, both parties have said bye-bye to us.
Joe, Joe you are being emotional here. Snap out of it! As Cher would say. Let’s assume everything you say is true, and I believe most of it is. Throwing the baby out with the bath water in a fit of pique is not your style. In the NYT today there is a great piece by Michele Goldberg about Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, (D) recently reelected to Congress in Eastern Washington, in a district that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. She is the counter to your argument to leave the Democratic party . She joined it to change not just the Party but the country by sitting at the table and bringing her auto mechanic perspective (“we fix things”) to bear on policy decisions made too often by staffers who have no idea how the words in bills affect the real world. She joined the Party to fix it and implement her District’s concerns. She didn’t walk away in an emotional tantrum. Neither should you!
She is one member. There are many others I admire....But when was the last time you heard a Democratic politician criticize the teachers union?
One final point in this weighty matter: the two candidates most likely to become the new Chairman of the Democratic Party are : Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of Chicago and aid to Bill Clinton and Joseph O’Malley former Governor of Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore. NEITHER OF THESE MEN are what you would consider lefties, progressives et.al. So the Democratic National Committee has rapidly moved to the middle. Lesson learned. They heard you Joe.
Bring on the re-treads. Oh yeah, that'll work.
She will get nowhere in the D Party except as a phony symbol of their "moderation." Once these people get to Washington, they are swallowed whole but trotted out when the New York Times needs a pet from flyover country.
Joe, the teacher unions are hardly the Democratic Party. Since there are only two functioning Parties, you are forced to make a choice or become irrelevant like the “no labels “. To say you are no longer a Democrat is just blowing off steam, or repudiating all the policies developed by the Democrats since FDR. I don’t think you are doing the latter. Better to use your acute mind to discuss problems and options . Come back Joe!
In fact, I've often voted for Republicans in local elections, especially when the Dem was a tool of the teachers unions who opposed charter schools. And as for "controlling" the Democratic Party, I repeat: When was the last time you heard an elected Democrat criticize the teachers unions? Barack Obama was the only recent Dem president willing to push back with Arne Duncan as DOE Secy.
Yep, I concur: She's an exemplar and needs to be studied.
Joe, what a terrific analysis. I’ve stated Democrat so I can vote against progressives in the primaries. It may not be a good enough reason anymore. It was wonderful to read of Sam and Alison’s anniversary. I had the great privilege of working for Sam and the Washington headquarters of the Vietnam moratorium in 1969. It will always be the highlight of my working life.
Keep on writing. We missed you during your time away and it’s a great joy to be able to read you again.
Trenchant, masterful and brave
It would have been "brave" six months ago.
I agree and wish that I had described it as such!
I'm with you on the political analysis. Spot on. But I'm still a Democrat.
Am a fan and reader of Ruy Texiera. The cold water plunge of the election seems to have awakened you to what is going on and why. If you want a possible candidate, Rahm Emanuel would be mine. He would be effective, straight talking, has run Chicago, worked with Clinton and Obama, and above all, he knows what needs to happen.
Your article is one that can totally agree with. Patrick Moynihan was a gem, as were many others in his time. Good luck at regaining some sanity for your party.
Rahm Emanuel would be a better figurehead if Chicago weren't circling the drain.
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind . . . and it’s blowin’ faster and farther away every year from the looks of it!
"I could not be a member of a party that is run by these self-interest-obsessed factions any more than I could join a party that coddles the Proud Boys."
What utter crap. The Rs don't "coddle the Proud Boys." You are still lost in the "progressive" tank, and you will be right back in there in '26 and '28. It's pathetic and amusing. I cast my third straight write-in vote this year, but I have been laughing HARD at the screams, squeals, and whines of Democrats this month, along with your stupid, false, overwrought assertion about the Proud Boys. Grow up.
I've been following your work ever since your delightful appearance on Dishcast last December. This is the most l've appreciated one of your posts.