Hello,
I try to avoid reacting to events in the heat of the moment. It often ends poorly… for me. Forming opinions about important matters or significant events requires time. An opportunity to research, consider opposing views, reflect, and arrive at a balanced judgment. Sounds like a good idea, one I seldom follow. Please accept the following anyway.
TJ (Paul Tolejko)
Leadership, the kind I am willing to support, must include a moral component, a commitment to something beyond self-interest. A willingness to do the right thing, to take the high road, when those around are losing their heads. When the going gets tough, the fight is dirty, and the outcome uncertain. In short, when it matters. You know what I mean. Someone willing to place all their cards on the table for all to see. Risk their career, their future, and possibly their life, in order to do what is best for those they serve and for their country. A hero of sorts, if you will.
Here are a few that come to mind. Abraham Lincoln, Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Martin Luther King Jr., Vladimir Zelensky, Rosa Parks, and Eleanor Roosevelt to name a few.
It is with these principled individuals in mind that I read a NYT’s piece the other day. Click on Bernie Presses Democrats below to read it without leaving this page.
The article is on Bernie Sanders, the consummate progressive from Vermont. Ugh, as you know I dislike using that pretentious adjective. Anyway. I’m not a Bernie fan and probably disagree with much of his agenda. I do, however, respect his consistency, as well as his willingness to put his money where his mouth is. To lead by example.
Bernie is urging top democrats to require candidates to reject super PAC support, i.e. money, in upcoming primaries, or lose access to party resources. “If the Democrats are going to be honest and consistent in terms of their concerns about money and politics, they’ve got to clean up their own house’. Hear, Hear. What better way to continue the battle against the corrupting influence of money in politics than by setting an example, taking the long view. My hat is off to the Senator.
I am reminded that when someone steps forward with a good idea heading us in the right direction, we should not be dismissive because of his age or political persuasion. Bernie is demonstrating true leadership…Leading by example. Putting principle above party. Setting a much higher standard than- “win at all costs”.
The independent senator from Vermont says top Democrats should tell candidates they will otherwise lose access to party resources.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont, is pressing top Democrats to require candidates to reject super PAC support in primaries or face punishment from the national party and its affiliates.
Mr. Sanders said party leaders, starting with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, must tell candidates to forswear super PAC support or lose access to party resources.
“If the Democrats are going to be honest and consistent in terms of their concerns about money and politics, they’ve got to clean up, in my view, their own house immediately,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview on Saturday. “That means getting super PACs out of Democratic primaries, congressional as well as presidential.”
Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums in elections but are banned from direct coordination with campaigns, have played an influential role in many high-stakes contests. Such groups flooded last month’s Democratic primary in Illinois with more than $50 million, making the candidates seem almost ancillary to their own races.
Mr. Sanders’s demand comes as he has endorsed candidates in Senate primaries against Schumer-backed contenders in Maine, Michigan and Minnesota. The most heated rivalry is in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills, whom Mr. Schumer recruited, trails far behind Graham Platner, a first-time candidate for whom Mr. Sanders has held rallies.
Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC tied to Mr. Schumer, is not at the moment spending money on Senate primaries. The group’s spokeswoman declined to comment.
Mr. Schumer, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Mr. Sanders, who has twice placed second for the Democratic presidential nomination, remains one of the most popular and influential figures in the party. His rallies attract large and enthusiastic crowds, and his endorsement is coveted by fellow progressives. A longtime independent, he tends to refer to Democrats as “they” and not “we.” He has made similar requests of party leaders in recent years.
Mr. Martin said he “couldn’t agree more” with Mr. Sanders and the senators who signed his letter but said it would require commitments from across the party to ban super PACs and dark money from primaries. Under Mr. Martin, the D.N.C. has passed resolutions aimed at eliminating dark money from the midterm primaries and from the 2028 presidential primary.
“Real, permanent, pervasive change will require all of our partners — across the legislative branch and the entire Democratic ecosystem — to join together in this work,” he said.
The pressure from Mr. Sanders highlights the tension in Democratic politics over how campaigns are funded. In recent years, Democrats have come to embrace dark-money organizations that are not required to disclose their donors. Mr. Sanders is not taking issue with Democrats’ reliance on super PACs in general elections.
Five Democratic senators signed Mr. Sanders’s letter to Mr. Schumer and Mr. Martin: Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Peter Welch of Vermont. Ms. Warren swore off super PACs when she ran for president in 2020 but eventually accepted help from one.
Each of the signatories to the letter except for Mr. Welch is part of a group of Senate Democrats who call themselves the “Fight Club,” which is working to defeat Mr. Schumer’s picks in contested Senate primaries this year.
A torrent of spending from super PACs funded by artificial intelligence, the cryptocurrency industry, sports gambling interests and AIPAC are expected to spend record sums on the midterm elections.
In last month’s primary contests in Illinois, super PACs spent more than $32 million on four competitive House contests and another $22 million on the Senate primary.
One recent forecast from Kinetiq Political Insights, an ad tracking firm, predicted $10 billion will be spent on advertising in the midterms — with $1 billion in Michigan alone. The vast majority of that sum is likely to come from super PACs and dark money groups.
While campaign finance laws ban super PACs from coordinating with candidates, they have found workarounds, including campaigns posting pleas on their websites for help from outside groups.
After his 2016 campaign, Mr. Sanders inspired Our Revolution, a dark money group that does not regularly reveal its donors. Mr. Sanders has not called on Our Revolution to do so, as it endorses candidates in Democratic primaries.
Mr. Sanders said that state parties have “strong leverage” to discourage candidates from blessing super PAC support, such as by prohibiting them from using state party lists or by withholding volunteer support. But he conceded: “We’ve got to work out the details.”
Much in the same way David Brooks walks the walk. David, a former New York Times columnist for 22 years, is now a staff writer for the Atlantic. Also, a senior fellow at Yale and a regular on PBS.
David has taken a firm, consistent stand against gerrymandering on the part of both the Democrats and Republicans. “If it is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone. If it is unjust, then one cannot embrace it.”
David’s “two wrongs do not make a right philosophy is clear even if difficult to embrace.
He understands why Democrats are tempted to respond to President Trump and Governor Abbott of Texas and their effort in Texas to redistrict their way to winning elections. They may have started the fight (this time), and the two sides may not be morally equivalent, but both sides “are helping destroy the very democracy they claim to be defending.” Engaging in a race to the bottom.
“Gerrymandering disenfranchises us all. Carefully drawn districts make our votes matter less, as elections are for all intents and purposes pre-determined”. Politicians are in effect selecting the voters rather than the other way around. Brooks, a former Republican, said there used to be a shame in gerrymandering, “Parties might tilt maps a bit, but they did not openly try to rig the game completely. Once shame disappears, both the Democrats and Republicans will openly put their parties above democracy”.
In one of his articles, “The Rot Creeping into Our Minds”. Click on David Brooks below to read this article. David argues that in a healthy democracy a party should go to the voters and say: “Their policies are terrible, vote for us. But today, in a disease democracy, politicians instead try to amass power by any means necessary”.
Needless to say, Brooks is not in agreement with Gavin Newsome and California Democrats in their tit for tat maneuvering. As difficult as it is, Democrats should say, yes, Republican gerrymandering is dangerous. Yes, Democrats may lose seats now because of it. But if Democrats copy this tactic, they confirm that democracy is just power warfare. In short, one party should not answer anti-democratic behavior with their own version of it, creating yet another moral stain. This only teaches voters that elections are rigged, principles are fake, and and only raw power matters. This is how democracy rots from the inside.
This is why America needs real leaders, ones with moral principles, a willingness, and an ability to- take the high road. There, now I feel better.
TJ
Opinion Columnist
In 2020, Democrats won a convincing election victory. They proceeded to do what all victorious parties do. They passed legislation in accord with their priorities, including raising health insurance subsidies to families making above 400 percent of the poverty line. They wrote the law so that the subsidies would expire in 2025.
In 2024, the Republicans won a convincing election victory. They proceeded to do what all victorious parties do. They passed legislation in accord with their priorities, including letting the Democrats’ insurance subsidies expire as planned.
If the Democrats were a normal party that believed in democratic principles, they would have planned to go to the voters in the next elections and said: These Republican policies are terrible! You should vote for us!
But of course that’s not what the Democrats decided to do. Instead, they shut down the government. Why did they do that? Because we don’t live in a healthy democracy. We live in a country in which the norms, beliefs and practices that hold up a democracy are dying even in the minds of many of the people who profess to oppose Donald Trump.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan once wrote an essay called “Defining Deviancy Down.” His core point was that when the amount of deviant behavior rises, people begin to redefine deviant behavior as normal. This is a column about that.
In a functioning democracy, a politician’s first instinct is to go to the voters and let the voters decide. In a diseased democracy a politician’s first instinct is to amass power by any means necessary. In a healthy democracy politicians abide by a series of formal and informal restraints because those restraints are good for the nation as a whole. In a diseased democracy like ours, all the decent rules and arrangements are destroyed. Anything goes.
Trump is destroying democratic norms. Democrats have decided to follow him into the basement. When both parties cooperate to degrade public morality, then nobody even notices as it’s happening.
Government shutdowns became a thing during the Carter administration. The first few shutdowns during the Reagan administration lasted a day or two. Leaders in both parties did not want to face the wrath of voters who would be offended by this level of gridlock and incompetence. Now we’re in our 20th shutdown (depending on how you count them) and nobody cares. Neither political party is paying much of a price because the public has been rendered utterly cynical about government. Nothing is shocking anymore because there are no moral norms left standing.
Let me try to illustrate how deeply this cynicism has penetrated the American mind. When Democrats did decide to shut down the government, they could have done it to protest Trump’s historically unprecedented assault on democracy. But instead the Democrats decided to organize their messaging around the expiring health insurance subsidies. Why did they do that? Because they calculated that the American public doesn’t care about democracy’s degradation. It’s been going on so long voters are simply inured to it. So better to talk about Obamacare.
And in fact there are good reasons to think that Americans simply don’t care about their democratic rights. For example, several states are redrawing congressional district maps to come as close as possible to eliminating competitive races. If you live in Texas or California, then you probably will not have to vote in November 2026. The district maps will have been redrawn in a way that makes House elections largely predetermined. By then you will probably have been effectively disenfranchised.
You might think that proud Texans and Californians would be outraged, or that the ruling parties in those states would be destroyed for doing this. Didn’t our ancestors at Valley Forge and on the beaches of Normandy die to preserve our democracy? But do you hear an outcry? No. It’s just crickets. People are used to the idea that the game is already rigged. So what is there left to get upset about so long as your party is ruthless enough to do the rigging?
I don’t think I appreciated how much a democracy depends upon regular people standing up to defend their rights and their powers against the elites who try to usurp them. These days people are happy to give up their rights and power if they can find some strongman or strongwoman willing to take it. This is a much larger part of human nature than I thought.
For example, when I first started covering Congress, in the 1990s, backbench members could pass legislation if they had a good idea and some entrepreneurial mojo. Back then, congressional committees and their chairmen were still powerful. Power was dispersed, in true democratic fashion.
But for at least 30 years members of Congress have been content to give away their power. First, they gave the power to leadership, so that today four people basically run the legislative branch. Then they gave power to executive branch agencies, letting more and more key decisions get made by the unelected civil service.
Today if you are a Republican you have basically given away all your power to Trump. You are a duly elected representative of your constituents, yet you’ve turned yourself into a Trump bobblehead figure who gets to go on Fox News from time to time.
The blunt truth is that a lot of Americans don’t find our founding ideals sacred, so they don’t get upset when the Constitution is trampled, so long as it is their side doing the trampling.
Let me try to describe something that may seem trivial but which I believe is at the core of our rot. It is politicians’ tendency to use the word “fight” in their campaign rhetoric. I noticed this trope when Hillary Clinton ran for president. She was continually promising to “fight” for middle-class Americans. It didn’t bother me then. She was a woman running for an office that had been held entirely by men, so she had to prove she was tough.
But now the “fighting” rhetoric is ubiquitous. MAGA Republicans claim that the old Bush-era Republicans were squishes who didn’t really know how to fight. Democrats are upset with their party leaders because they don’t fight hard enough. Political analysts casually use phrases like “he brought a knife to a gunfight.” I hear “fighting” references constantly in political discourse, and every time I do alarm bells go off.
This is no longer just a metaphor. It’s a mind-set. We now have a lot of people in this country who do not believe that democracy is about trying to persuade people, it’s about fighting, crushing and destroying people. I don’t agree with the philosopher Michel Foucault on much, but he had a point when he observed that a lot of life is about trying to repress the little fascist in each one of us. When people start describing politics as a fight, they are unleashing their inner fascist. Fighting is for fascists.
Democracy is about persuasion. Our Constitution is a vast machine that is supposed to increase the amount of deliberation, conversation and persuasion in society. Our elections are supposed to be raw, rollicking persuasion contests.
Trump’s idiotic rhetoric is not about persuasion. The Democrats’ mind-numbingly repetitive talking points are not about persuasion. The people who want their leaders to “fight” harder just want them to shout their side’s orthodoxies at higher and higher volume. They just want their leaders to ramp up the bellicosity of their rhetoric so that the extremists on their side feel good.
What defines extremists these days? It’s not that they hold ideological extreme positions. It is that they treat politics as if it were war. They use the language, mental habits and practices of warfare. They are letting their inner Mussolini out for a romp.
Let me give you one quick example of how widely this corruption has pervaded our society. Universities were once about persuasion, truth-seeking and the life of the mind. But over the past half century an ideology has spread through them that holds that persuasion is naïve. Ideas are about power. Thus many professors decided their job was indoctrination, not truth-seeking. To impose power so that students think just like they do.
Jon A. Shields, Yuval Avnur and Stephanie Muravchik recently published a study in the magazine Persuasion looking at college syllabuses. As you’d expect, professors assign a lot of left-wing books like Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow,” about the criminal justice system and race, that align with the official orthodoxy of academia. But there are a lot of other books that dispute the historical claims of books like “The New Jim Crow.” You might think that some professors would assign books on both sides of the issue so students would learn how to weigh evidence and be persuaded. But the researchers estimated that “less than 10 percent of professors assigning Alexander’s book actually teach the controversy surrounding it.”
Students are completely aware that they are not being educated; they are simply players in a cynical indoctrination game. At Northwestern and the University of Michigan, 88 percent of students told researchers that they pretend to be more progressive than they are because they think it will help them succeed academically or socially. I saw exactly this kind of performative dishonesty while covering the Soviet Union years ago.
Yes, Trump is launching an assault on democracy. But what worries me more is what has happened over the last few decades to the rest of us. There has been a slow moral, emotional and intellectual degradation — the loss of the convictions, norms and habits of mind that undergird democracy. What worries me most is the rot creeping into your mind, and into my own.
I left my home in the small Western New York city of Batavia in March 1977 vowing never to shovel snow again. Never say never. Settling for 38 years in what was for me the "promised land" of Santa Barbara, California. I married, helped raise a family, started a business, traveled and live a wonderful life. We spent the last 10 years of our west coast journey in the small, quiet, picturesque town of Ojai. My oldest friends call me TJ.
My wife Deborah and I moved to Colorado in 2015 to be near our daughter, her husband and 2 growing grand-boys. Add 2 bulldogs (French & English) to the mix and our hands and hearts are full. We all reside in Niwot, a small quaint town 15 minutes north of Boulder. The mighty Rocky Mountains are at our doorstep.
I am a man, son, brother, cousin, friend, husband, father, uncle, grand father, in-law and mostly retired Coloradan. You can read more about me on the About Page. If you are curious about my professional life you can visit my Career at Venture Horizon.
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