So far the Democrats are winning the battle for public opinion. And that is critical in this election year. The accepted wisdom not that long ago was the Trump would come out of the Senate trial with a head of steam, much like he did at the conclusion of the Mueller investigation. But there is reason to doubt that. He’s not getting the bounce in public opinion polls that he had hoped. If they are trending in any direction, it is against him.

Moreover, even if he isn’t removed from office, thanks to his supine Republican supporters in the Senate, his declaration of victory will ring somewhat hollow for many. To make matters worse for Trump, his culpability and organizing role in the “drug deal” will continue to drip out in the coming months.

Thus, the conclusion of the Senate trial this week isn’t the final curtain of this legal and political clash. The real verdict will turn on how this trial is digested and understood across the country in the months ahead and on election day. Adam Schiff and the other House mangers did their part, we should do ours.

I think that we should retire the term neoliberal. It becomes a poor substitute for a concrete analysis of existing conditions and trends. In too many instances, it leads to narrowly constructed politics, something that we don’t need at this moment.

What often goes underappreciated is MLK’s unusual strategic depth, tactical flexibility, and sense of political realism. All of which are needed today!

To say that Elizabeth Warren is a capitalist strips the word of its meaning; in a similar vein, to criticize her for her attachment to “markets” is something that many socialists could be criticized for as well.

I found this article discussing the clash of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders insightful. Here is an excerpt:

“What has been exposed here are some of the complicated, painful, difficult dynamics that have kept women from the presidency for the country’s entire history. Among those dynamics is the chilling fact that talking in any kind of honest way about marginalization becomes a trap for the marginalized. To acknowledge the realities of running as a woman — the double standards, the higher bars, the demands for likability and relatability in a nation that mostly only relates to and likes dudes; the need to be authoritative but not hectoring; to be smart but not a know-it-all; to be cool but not fake; to be warm but not a mommy; to be maternal but not too soft; to have the contours of your life, from your breasts to your skin-care routines to your maternity leaves, treated as foreign and weird and maybe counterfeit by a political media that’s never had to take this stuff seriously before; to be honest but not actually tell the truth about any of this stuff because you’ll sound like a whiner — is a trap. You will be understood as trying to leverage the bleak unfairness of it all to your benefit: as if you are the one to enter the arena with the advantage of getting to cry “Sexism!” and not with the multiple disadvantages of … sexism.” (The Third Rail of Sexism, Rebecca Traister)