“Last year, progressive ballot measures thrived even as Democratic candidates struggled. Voters across the country approved minimum wage increases, paid leave expansions, and other progressive economic policies, with red states embracing progressive measures even while supporting Trump, like Missouri where voters passed a $15 minimum wage and paid sick leave, or Nebraska where voters approved guaranteed paid time off. A July 2025 poll by the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake for progressive network Way to Win found that Democratic voters who skipped 2024 want candidates more like the independent Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York member of congress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggesting the party’s problem may be insufficient progressivism rather than too much.”
“He is not bright. He has no hidden dimensions. He quite obviously has dementia. His family has all but abandoned him for their own self-preservation; now that Ivanka is a billionaire in her own right, thanks to Saudi generosity, she has no particular need to be the interventionist keeping daddy’s worst delusions from being acted on. Trump wants an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because he believes people will praise him for achieving it, and by “people” he means the ones he sees on Fox News, not the ones dying in trenches or to Russian bombs. He wanted a military parade because that is what the people he admires have; he wants the military to confront protesters because that is what his favorite dictators would do and he thinks, not without reason, that the power to mold the world entirely to his liking can be reached by following the steps that Putin and others have mapped out for him. But there is no grand conspiracy behind any of it. He is just a stupid and venal man, one who has risen to power because stupid and venal men have been all the rage in American power circles for some time now.”
