Democrats just won what could be their largest House majority in decades but some battle-tested centrists are already warning their party not to lose it in 2028.
Those now-emboldened Democrats, who have long competed in battleground districts, are now urging party leaders to stick to this fall’s core promises on affordability — or risk a backlash in the next election.
Privately and publicly, these Democrats are urging leaders to focus on kitchen-table issues and avoid culture-war fights they believe could divide the party and invite Republican attacks, according to nearly a dozen lawmakers and aides.
For many, that means steering clear of transgender issues and policing reform bills they fear Republicans would weaponize. They also want to avoid left-wing priorities such as ending US support for Israel or abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Several Democrats also called for restraint in the party’s oversight agenda, warning that talk of impeaching President Donald Trump or his Cabinet should not overshadow that focus.
And thus the donor-class MAGA-lite Dems like Schumer and Jeffries reveal themselves.
I heard a historian give their opinion the other day that accountability – openly and justly holding individuals responsible for their crimes in government – was the reason that West Germany was able to create a thriving democracy after WWII and East Germany was not. I don’t know how valid that is, but it’s a possibility, and worth thinking about.
On the other hand, I DO know that all we got from not prosecuting J6 was a kick of the can down the road and a far worse situation domestically and internationally than anyone ever saw coming. Trump has literally destroyed the last eighty years of world order and the peace and stability and prosperity that order created. Like bin Laden, Trump was only empowered to do far more evil and in far worse ways for not being held accountable for his known crimes.
And the idea that it’s either one or the other, the economy OR accountability, is a false dichotomy. The US federal government has been in operation for 250 years now, in one iteration or another, and has always done a great many things effectively and simultaneously with ease, including Congress. It’s not even hard. It only takes political will to set that machinery in motion.
Only a fool believes we can’t do both, and only a liar says we shouldn’t even try.
Just a quick correction. West Germany didn’t prosecute and restored or kept numerous high ranking Nazis in high positions because of their anti-communism. Judges in particular are one position I’ve seen cited.
East Germany, the USSR on the other hand executed and imprisoned a lot of Nazis and those they didn’t were not given power generally.
There’s a reason Nazis fled west to surrender to American forces and it was because they were terrified of the “sub-human” Russians who they’d murdered so many of and knew they’d get better conditions with the west rather than the vengeful Soviets.
Indeed operation paperclip spirited a number of Nazis to the US and hid them from justice in exchange for their knowledge so the Nazis were not wrong on that count.