 With how poorly Donald Trump and the Republicans have been mishandling this pandemic and ongoing economic crisis, any functioning and competent political party who's supposed to be an opposition party would use this opportunity to not just bludgeon them, but also propose an alternative. And given that we are facing an election this year, you'd think that Democrats would just be screaming from the rooftops how much better they are than Republicans. But even given this scenario, given how theoretically easy this should be for them to prove that they're just more capable and competent at governing than Republicans, they keep face planting. And it's genuinely baffling. I know that some of them don't actually care about winning in November and beating Republicans. But the level of incompetence that we're seeing here is genuinely embarrassing. So take Lori Lightfoot, for example. She is the mayor of Chicago, and when Trump announced that he'd be deploying his secret police to more cities across the country, and specifically named Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot was unequivocal in saying, no, that's not going to happen in my city. As the mayor of Chicago, I am not going to allow Trump to send his goons into our city and terrorize our citizens. I've been very clear. Not happening in Chicago. We don't need federal troops. We don't need unnamed secret federal agents roaming around the streets of Chicago, taking off our residents without cause and violating their basic constitutional rights. I'm glad to see that the president got the message. Yeah, about that. All it took to get her to change her mind was one phone call with Donald Trump. And then all of a sudden, she is apparently okay with him allowing his secret police to come in and terrorize the city that she runs. I mean, imagine being gullible enough to be convinced by someone like Donald Trump, but to have it just take one phone call. I mean, that is embarrassing. I mean, I can't even imagine how that conversation went. Mayor Lightfoot, it's going to be tremendous, terrific. We're going to be winning in your city. Like, what did he say to get you to change your tune? Like, you did a 180 like that. How do you flip on something like this, this important when you see the way that his federal goons are terrorizing peaceful protesters in Portland? It makes no sense to me. But, you know, expanding this to the national level because, you know, mayors, maybe she felt intimidated because this is the president who she's talking to. I don't know, right? But nationally, we need congressional Democrats to step up right now. If there's ever been a time in their careers to step up, now is that time. And so what needs to be done is in the event Donald Trump does, in fact, win reelection, you have to make sure that you reign in his powers. And as commander-in-chief, you can reign in his ability to wage war unilaterally by cutting the military budget. So when Barbara Lee and Mark Pocone in the House and Bernie in the Senate proposed a measly 10 percent cut to the Pentagon budget, I thought, I mean, Jesus, you couldn't have at least gone for 15 percent, like anything higher. I figured, OK, this is probably just, you know, some crumbs that they're throwing to us to get us to see that they're actually representing us. OK, great. Except they couldn't even do that because Democrats sided with Republicans in the Senate overwhelmingly and voted against a 10 percent cut to the military's 2021 budget. And this is especially puzzling because they've been critical of Donald Trump and his harshness towards protesters. So, I mean, after he literally threatened to deploy the military to quash protests violently, you think that they want to reign in his power to do these types of things. You think that they wouldn't want to give someone who they claim is tyrannical the power to do more wars by giving him more money. But they did just that. I mean, Tammy Duckworth, who is someone that Joe Biden was vending to be VP, she blasts Donald Trump all the time, like she's a veteran. And she says, oh, he's Cadet Bonesburg. She accuses him of being a fake and, you know, a phony. And he's not really patriotic, but you just gave this person who you accuse as being tyrannical more money to wage wars. So, I mean, what are we doing here? Kamala Harris, she is supposed to be progressive. She voted to give Donald Trump more money or voted against this 10 percent cut. Sherrod Brown, who's supposed to be progressive. I don't even think he's pretending anymore, also voted against a cut to the military. Yeah. And you're not going to be surprised to find out that the individuals who voted against this and also the same applies to individuals in the house that are democratic, that sided with Republicans are also being bankrolled by the military industrial complex and defense contractors. Not shocking. OK, well, you know, some mayors aren't doing a great job at standing up to Donald Trump, congressional Democrats. I mean, OK, this one issue, maybe it's just a nonstarter for them. They're not going to consider cuts to the military, but maybe they can be a little bit more progressive, you know, in other areas where it's not going to hurt them politically. In fact, it'll benefit them if they adopt a policy that's extremely progressive. So maybe they'll give us a legal cannabis. Actually, no, because the DNC's Platform Committee voted against this overwhelmingly with 106 people voting against an amendment that would endorse the legalization of POT and 50 supporting it. That's it. OK, well, I mean, that's extremely disappointing. But maybe they'll be progressive in a different area if they're not going to give us this symbolic victory on the platform that is nonbinding that they don't even have to follow. Maybe they'll give us Medicare for all. Actually, no, because the DNC Platform Committee also voted against that in an even larger margin with 125 votes against it and only 36 votes for it. OK, well, I mean, at the end of the day, the platform doesn't necessarily matter that much. What matters the most is that right now, during a pandemic, when people need economic relief immediately, they are the ones, not Republicans who are fighting for the people. So this $600 federal benefit that people who are currently receiving unemployment insurance are getting, it's going to be the Democrats who are going to fight to renew that. It's not the Republicans who are going to do this. They only want to give us $200 extra, right, until they reform the system. But Democrats are the ones who are going to hold strong and they're going to fight for this, right? Two hours later. OK, never mind. They've already caved on that. Yeah, Steny Hoyer made it very clear that they're not willing to stand strong on this one key thing to help people who desperately need money currently. But I mean, hey, when it comes to the eviction crisis, that seems imminent, that may be upon us in October as more and more people miss their housing payment. It's Democrats who are the ones who will stand strong on this issue, right? Because in their next stimulus package, what they want is to extend that moratorium on all evictions until March. So there's no indication that they're going to water down the support that they're offering to people who are facing eviction, right? Except maybe not, because some Democrats are proposing legal assistance for those facing eviction. OK, so legal assistance for those facing eviction. So does that mean that this is in addition to the extension of the moratorium on all evictions to March? Like, are you still holding strong on that or is this an indication that we should temper our expectations? Because like the $600 unemployment benefit, you're going to cave on this as well. I mean, what do we expect with Democrats? If you've been following politics for a while, you know to expect the worst but hope for the best. So the party is lost. You know, they're lost as Republicans just sit idly by apathetically, not really caring about what people are going through, not caring about evictions. Democrats, they show that they care by signaling to us that if at least, you know, you get evicted, they're going to give you a lawyer. So you have a lawyer while you're sleeping out on the streets to fight that eviction. I mean, look, this is deeply frustrating. The party is lost. They keep claiming that, you know, this is a big 10 party, but a big 10 party means that you have no direction, right? You're ideologically incoherent and there's too many chefs in the kitchen like we need a cohesive message. What are you guys going to do? Which is why we need strong leadership. So I mean, at least the Democratic Party is lost as they may be at the local level and congressional level, at least they have a leader who is really going to guide them in the correct direction. Oh, wait, Bernie Sanders lost and Democrats opted for Joe Biden, someone who is basically a moderate Republican who arguably has dementia, who literally has to be hidden away until November. So he turns off as few voters as possible. I mean, the situation is so grim. Oh, and Joe Biden doesn't necessarily disagree with everything that Donald Trump does entirely in a statement to Bo Erickson of CBS like Trump, Joe Biden also hates quote unquote arsonists and anarchists, but doesn't think secret police should be used to protect federal property. So it's like gut punch after gut punch after gut punch. Even the alternative to Donald Trump is joining him to demonize anarchists and arsonists. They're the ones causing all of the violence. It's not the police and federal goons that Trump deployed to Portland who are escalating violence when these protests have been going on for weeks and remained mostly peaceful. It's the anarchists. And as Lee Carter pointed out, he's demonizing the same people that Trump demonizes, and he's implying that anarchists should be arrested for simply being anarchists because, you know, based on what he says about anarchists, we should just automatically assume that they're also going to do violence. I mean, we need Democrats. We need them to step up. We need an opposition party. The Republican Party is going further and further to the right. We now have Donald Trump carrying out what appears to be the first stages of a fascistic government and Democrats are failing to meet the moment. They are face planting. They are completely lost and half the time they decide with Republicans and they're absolutely extreme, cruel agenda. It's just deeply frustrating. And look, I don't want to create this false equivalence where I tell you that there's no differences between Democrats and Republicans because there is real meaningful differences between the two parties. But the problem is that Democrats aren't stepping up when we need them the most. The differences between them and Republicans is really a matter of degree with which they're extreme and neoliberal and pro free market and just don't actually care about the people and only work to service their donors. It's extremely frustrating. And as we keep going towards this path of more and more late stage capitalism, letting people suffer, not giving them enough relief, things are going to get worse in this country. So, you know, I would be a little bit more optimistic if we had at least a semi competent opposition party, but when you have a fascistic, far right government and an opposition party that is just extremely incompetent, you get a situation where you kind of devolve into an illiberal authoritarian regime, as we see with Turkey and Erdogan was able to turn that country, a democracy into an authoritarian regime, functionally speaking, in a little over a decade. So I mean, this is what we will continue to get if we don't actually hold Democrats accountable and fight them and not just support them because they're not Trump or not Republicans. We have to hold them accountable. And because they know that so long as they're just a little bit better than Republicans, you'll continue to give them a pass. They're going to continue to do things like this and disappoint you.