I am not happy with the comments here today. If you disagree with Lauren's thesis, or think her reporting is missing something, please explain your views. That's great. I love that.
But stamping around and calling people names or demanding that someone be fired is unacceptable.
Comments sections at The Bulwark are spaces for thoughtful conversations. If you want to be Mad Online, there's an entire internet for that sort of thing. Don't do it here, or I will pull this car over.
A reminder that comments should strive to have three characteristics: Be kind, be necessary, be true. The best comments embody all three of these ideals. Every comment at The Bulwark should have at least two of them.
So be intentional. Be productive. And do better.
And if you decide that what we do at The Bulwark isn't for you—that's okay. Cancel your subscription and spend your time in ways that create more value for you. I promise there's no hard feelings on our end.
JVL. Hmmm. In your Triad piece, you basically said that since the odds are low that Platner probably will not be the deciding Senate vote, he can be thrown under the bus. Well, at the risk of getting bounced, WTAF is that?
What it is, is typical purity testing by people who self-righteously believe that they may judge people's past since the beginning of time, jump into the middle of a couple's marriage, and who are quick to place their own definition of "morality" over the "reality" of today's American landscape. A downward glidepath to authoritarianism.
Well, unless you and most of the people here went to war, VOLUNTARILY, four times and experienced losing brothers and sisters being torn apart by an IED, I believe that your judgment of that man best be held within the recesses of your minds, without comment.
There's a small mob of vocal commenters who seem to viscerally dislike Lauren. They are just shooting the messenger in my opinion. But the personal attacks on Lauren remind me of the mean girls in high school, who sniped at each other for reasons that I never understood.
Good on you for supporting your colleagues. I don’t happen to agree always with Lauren, but she’s proven to be a very insightful writer that shows me a perspective i dont get much of as a lefty. Thats *why* i go to the Bulwark. I dont wanna look in a mirror
I think the source of the anger is coming from Democrats online who are screaming that Platner must be rejected because he hasn’t passed the purity test. I’ve maintained that this is something that only occurs on the fringe liberal online space but I’ve been shocked at how many I’ve actually argued with me that it’s better to seed control of the Senate to the Republicans then vote for a guy who was flirting with his phone. As I’ve said previously, you don’t ask for references when the fire department shows up at your burning house. So I think there’s a backlash and that this was inappropriately redirected at Lauren. Having skimmed many of the comments I don’t believe these people think Lauren isn’t a huge asset to the Bulwark. I think we’re all terrified living through the reign of the mad King from Queens and things can easily get out of hand. So I’ll apologize on behalf of the traumatized readership. Lauren is great.
But can Dems not vote for someone else other than Platner? I guess many top Dems are running for governor instead as they somehow see Collins as always counted out but then comes through as she "bring home the bacon."
A vote for anyone but Platner is a vote for Collins. I don’t understand the controversy. There is a greater good here as well as there is a greater evil. We just had a decade plus lesson of what you do if you don’t come out and support your candidate. (HClinton)
Can we at least consider that Platner may lose if each week more controversies about him come out? Or since he seems unstable, does this not make him a greater risk of doing a John Fetterman? I would still vote for Platner over Collins but worry he may not actually win now.
No, because there’s no viable alternative. Not voting for platinum automatically makes Collins a sixth term senator and puts democratic Senate takeover in serious Jeopardy. It’s not clear to me what happened with Fetterman. It’s possible that his stroke has had a profound effect on his cognition. But it would be better to have Fetterman in Maine than Susan Collins.
While Platner is no choir boy, Collins is still largely responsible for supporting the T. Rump criminal enterprise. It is for the good people of Maine to decide. Here in Oklahoma the Republicrat primary is about two weeks away and the various Republicrat hopefuls are doing everything they can to out-Trump each other- a classic slug fest and entertaining to say the least. No worries, however, Oklahoma is solidly republicrat with a gerrymandered election which guarantees the outcome in November. Lowest educational attainment in the nation and it shows.
For the 2026 cycle, Schumer's "vanilla" strategy appears to be working (e.g. take no position other than "Trump is bad, we are not Trump"). However, in 2028, the dems better have a platform or they will not be able to push through meaningful economic and governmental reforms. The voters will get frustrated and vote in Republican majorities in 2030. So the Senators that Dems elect in 2026 better be ready for serious economic and governmental reforms. Platner is committed to serious reforms. If Maine voters want someone other than Platner, they need to find someone that not only can beat Collins but is also committed to serious reform. I am not convinced that Janet Millis is.
I disagree with the many operatives that think Platner is going to lose in November. Platner is the Dems only chance of wining that seat and I think will likely win. Mills has no chance of winning. I subscribe to the Bulwark, The Atlantic and the Times and all 3 are flooding the zone with negative Platner pieces which makes me wonder whats going on or I'm just misreading the room.
Maine has been betrayed by the Democratic Party, by over eager Progressive operatives, and by our own shortsightedness. Too many of us have decided that fighting economic injustice means shouting and blame casting, cliche and central casting “ authenticity “. That fighting for workers means justifying behaviors those very workers reject. As Mainers we have been driven into a blind alley of bad and worse. And, are once again being told to shelve our values for the good of the Party.
Well, I am one Mainer who is done with that. Let the Democratic Party flip another state’s seat. I refuse to vote for the current flavor of the month regardless of whether he has shown any ability to govern ANY thing, including himself! No more votes for guys you’ve been avoiding your whole adult life because they think they’re all that and a bag of chips. No more ick votes for short term gains, “just till…”. If we want more from our Congress we need to send better people to Congress. If that means skilled, thoughtful vanilla so be it. If you need sprinkles well central casting has just your guy.
Platner should more totally OWN his immature mistakes but acknowledge that no salacious texts come even close to cheating on his taxes, or ordering the murder of over 200 fishermen, or ordering attacks on sovereign nations that cost this regime billions per week that could go to education , child care for working families, or INcreasing medicaid payments to rural hospitals. And he should say that his past text early in his marriage when he was young and full of himself were nothing compared to a woman who supports a man who wants to put only brown skinned people in prisons with no way out, and that once as a Senator, he would not sanction paying billionaire private prison owners huge amounts of money daily just to keep those people sick, tired, and fed fried baloney sandwiches. He should pound the fact that he has matured and when confronted with new facts or situations that he has changed. As reasonable people should. While past behavior usually dictates future behavior, normally older people don't keep getting tattoos or jeopardize their marriages with racey texts. Well, some do but he isn't one of them, just ask his wife of 17 years.
Platner should also bring up that the amount of his youthful transgressions pale when compared with those of Paxton, trump and swalwell, not to mention the actual sex trafficking rings and victims of jeffrey epstein. And that Susan Collins has and will consistently support the man who was impeached--twice--for doing illegal acts. And done far more than send a few sexy texts.
I can see many people don't like this column because most of the comments come from very online progressives who like most too online people bristle at the notion that Tiktok, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram aren't real life and being popular on social media doesn't translate into winning local races in Purple or Red States. Egan also commits the online sin of not completing hating Schumer. No fan of his, but if your goal is to win Senate races, and the online Left seems to not care as much about that, then you want candidates who know their states and are liked by the voters in those states. Egan and others she quotes in the article are just trying to avoid the Dems blowing it in Maine by supporting a candidate who seems to struggle in making good choices and comes with a lot of baggage that may just send Collins back to the Senate for another six years.
I just don't understand the desire to try and draw parallels between Platner's warts and those of the ENTIRE GOP.
He got a dumb tattoo when he was a young dumb guy, did a lot of s--tposting on social media like MILLIONS of others and had a non-physical dalliance outside his marriage. None of this even comes CLOSE to the litany of sins and creepy scandals guys like Paxton, Trump et al possess.
Way too much handwringing over this flawed yet infinitely better-than-the-alternative candidate.
We really going to Al Franken ANOTHER Democrat? Talk about a circular firing squad!
If I hear one more "Democrat operative" I'm going to scream. These guys, for the most part, are out of touch and using the same-o, same-o approaches to elections. While the vanilla candidates are making headway, the operatives are still doing focus group testing and forget that, like it or not, these races are about the attention economy. Having a vanilla platform without the strategy of going viral ignores a great swath of the electorate. And as to Schumer's picks, good on him, but please, please step down and let a new generation, one attuned to the politics of now, step into your shoes. He's tone deaf on all manner of legislative challenges, has completely dropped the ball on hundreds of opportunities to use power to thwart trump's and the regimes' many offenses. The ads practically write themselves and should be blasting throughout the info-sphere, every day. They should be up on all platforms, including access media. If they would show some real fight, the media would cover them. As it is now, it's just a big yawn while Chuck muddles his way.
Lauren is insightful as always. (Thank you Lauren.) My question is this (and now I'm a little afraid to ask it): Has anyone considered asking Susan Collins to run as an independent and agree to caucus with the Democrats? Or maybe is it too late for that? I apologize in advance if this has already been asked, debated, and answered.
Here's my main concern about taking too much solace in the success of "Vanilla Democrats": this is the natural result of "whipsaw politics" (i.e. anti-incumbent sentiment). When people are unhappy, they blame the party in charge and bolt in the other direction. It happened in 2024, and it's happening now.
The bottom line is Trump - more than any other president in history - owns his party lock, stock, and barrel. Now that Trump is less popular than ever due to the economic sh%$storm he's whipped up, the fact that a lot of median voters are abandoning the GOP doesn't mean they prefer the Dem's policies, it means they hate Trump (and by extension, the GOP).
Thus, I sincerely hope the Dems aren't operating under the delusion that victory at the midterms translates into a durable Dem majority, because it doesn't. If things are still bleak the next time the Dems are in charge, it's going to be their turn in the barrel once again.
I appreciate Lauren sharing her perspective - the questions she raises about the Democratic party are salient ones it will have to answer - these are questions that well-meaning independents and Republicans might ask about us, if they're seeking clarity.
I found it encouraging that political operatives are realizing the value of having state representatives who grew up in those places and would be easily relatable to the people in their state, at a more local personal level. That feels right.
I like the idea of the Democratic party hosting vibrant different strands, born of the traditions and cultures of each state, covering the progressive and moderate wings, vs. a bland national-level overbaked mish-mash platform formed by committee and compromise that each candidate would then parrot. Retaining the localized variety at this stage gives us more opportunity to pick the direction the nation needs most when we get to November, and later on in 2028.
The qualities or bases I would want the party candidates to cover at this moment are competency, voice, and fighting spirit, since I trust most of the messengers are fairly secure in their message already. The party's time spent in the wilderness has hopefully purified it to some extent, to enable it to stand up for its core populist principles more, and lessen the corporate wing's grip on power. I would want the special interest and corporate level of influence over the party to continue to wane, to rely on small donors and grassroots messengers more prominently in the base.
The competency matters for ongoing stability, to deal with all the disruption coming our way caused by Trump. The voice matters for reaching a larger share of the voters, for the Democratic party to gain in people power, if it has any hope of overcoming the hurdles Republicans are setting up to rig the elections. The fighting spirit matters for Democrats to compete at the national level, in order to push back against all the slander sent our way by Trump.
I don't know what other voters would be weighing in their minds, but I don't think it's a contradiction to be open to progressive voices like Platner, but also to vote for more vanilla Democrats in other states for the sake of overall stability.
The main thing I would dislike in a candidate would be if they believed we could go back to the old way of doing things, in this moment, before Trumpism has been fully discredited - I feel inclined to reject any vanilla candidate who gives off that impression of being cut from that old cloth.
I feel Trump has introduced a rupture in our politics that we must face. To act as though we can return to the old order, and bind ourselves by the old rules that rested on a foundation Trump has exploded, would be to live in a fantasy and deny reality. To use a metaphor I like, I think it requires everyone to adapt now, similar to a new wineskin that can stretch in order to hold new wine that is being poured out into us.
Just because the old order is gone doesn't mean that the foundational principles of that order are gone - we still must uphold liberal principles I believe, but the task is to build new rules and institutions to uphold them. I have a sense people in many walks of life have already started building up the foundations for what will be needed, thru anticipation, at their local level.
To build that structure to be coherent all the way up at the national level will require a lot of trial and error, time and energy, I expect, so I am moreso open to younger candidates who can show fighting spirit. But I also like Bernie Sanders - he has fighting spirit and toughness I admire along with solid principles and is open to passing on his message and example to the younger generation. Maybe it is that openness and visibility that I care about - the willingness to spread the message.
An ability to establish their presence thru online forums of communication seems like an important quality for all candidates these days to possess - the ability to go viral would be a nice benefit maybe but isn't something to optimize for, from my view.
One interesting thing though is it seems that vanilla candidates can still work with more traditional forms of communication to get their message out and succeed, at least in the primary. That was one takeaway I had from Lauren's article. Maybe the online communication ability becomes more important for the general election or the national elections, when you need your message to reach and be heard by a wider audience - that is an open question I have.
“What Iowa, North Carolina, Alaska are telling us is that the recipe is actually pretty simple: You find candidates with long, deep relationships in those states who understand those states, and then you let them run campaigns that are focused on those states rather than trying to nationalize everything …”
Hey fam:
I am not happy with the comments here today. If you disagree with Lauren's thesis, or think her reporting is missing something, please explain your views. That's great. I love that.
But stamping around and calling people names or demanding that someone be fired is unacceptable.
Comments sections at The Bulwark are spaces for thoughtful conversations. If you want to be Mad Online, there's an entire internet for that sort of thing. Don't do it here, or I will pull this car over.
A reminder that comments should strive to have three characteristics: Be kind, be necessary, be true. The best comments embody all three of these ideals. Every comment at The Bulwark should have at least two of them.
So be intentional. Be productive. And do better.
And if you decide that what we do at The Bulwark isn't for you—that's okay. Cancel your subscription and spend your time in ways that create more value for you. I promise there's no hard feelings on our end.
You did the right thing, JVL
JVL. Hmmm. In your Triad piece, you basically said that since the odds are low that Platner probably will not be the deciding Senate vote, he can be thrown under the bus. Well, at the risk of getting bounced, WTAF is that?
What it is, is typical purity testing by people who self-righteously believe that they may judge people's past since the beginning of time, jump into the middle of a couple's marriage, and who are quick to place their own definition of "morality" over the "reality" of today's American landscape. A downward glidepath to authoritarianism.
Well, unless you and most of the people here went to war, VOLUNTARILY, four times and experienced losing brothers and sisters being torn apart by an IED, I believe that your judgment of that man best be held within the recesses of your minds, without comment.
Mainers got this!
There's a small mob of vocal commenters who seem to viscerally dislike Lauren. They are just shooting the messenger in my opinion. But the personal attacks on Lauren remind me of the mean girls in high school, who sniped at each other for reasons that I never understood.
Good on you for supporting your colleagues. I don’t happen to agree always with Lauren, but she’s proven to be a very insightful writer that shows me a perspective i dont get much of as a lefty. Thats *why* i go to the Bulwark. I dont wanna look in a mirror
Hear, hear!
I think the source of the anger is coming from Democrats online who are screaming that Platner must be rejected because he hasn’t passed the purity test. I’ve maintained that this is something that only occurs on the fringe liberal online space but I’ve been shocked at how many I’ve actually argued with me that it’s better to seed control of the Senate to the Republicans then vote for a guy who was flirting with his phone. As I’ve said previously, you don’t ask for references when the fire department shows up at your burning house. So I think there’s a backlash and that this was inappropriately redirected at Lauren. Having skimmed many of the comments I don’t believe these people think Lauren isn’t a huge asset to the Bulwark. I think we’re all terrified living through the reign of the mad King from Queens and things can easily get out of hand. So I’ll apologize on behalf of the traumatized readership. Lauren is great.
But can Dems not vote for someone else other than Platner? I guess many top Dems are running for governor instead as they somehow see Collins as always counted out but then comes through as she "bring home the bacon."
A vote for anyone but Platner is a vote for Collins. I don’t understand the controversy. There is a greater good here as well as there is a greater evil. We just had a decade plus lesson of what you do if you don’t come out and support your candidate. (HClinton)
Can we at least consider that Platner may lose if each week more controversies about him come out? Or since he seems unstable, does this not make him a greater risk of doing a John Fetterman? I would still vote for Platner over Collins but worry he may not actually win now.
No, because there’s no viable alternative. Not voting for platinum automatically makes Collins a sixth term senator and puts democratic Senate takeover in serious Jeopardy. It’s not clear to me what happened with Fetterman. It’s possible that his stroke has had a profound effect on his cognition. But it would be better to have Fetterman in Maine than Susan Collins.
So it looks like we need to be prepared for six more years of Susan Collins then. Dem voters blew it.
While Platner is no choir boy, Collins is still largely responsible for supporting the T. Rump criminal enterprise. It is for the good people of Maine to decide. Here in Oklahoma the Republicrat primary is about two weeks away and the various Republicrat hopefuls are doing everything they can to out-Trump each other- a classic slug fest and entertaining to say the least. No worries, however, Oklahoma is solidly republicrat with a gerrymandered election which guarantees the outcome in November. Lowest educational attainment in the nation and it shows.
For the 2026 cycle, Schumer's "vanilla" strategy appears to be working (e.g. take no position other than "Trump is bad, we are not Trump"). However, in 2028, the dems better have a platform or they will not be able to push through meaningful economic and governmental reforms. The voters will get frustrated and vote in Republican majorities in 2030. So the Senators that Dems elect in 2026 better be ready for serious economic and governmental reforms. Platner is committed to serious reforms. If Maine voters want someone other than Platner, they need to find someone that not only can beat Collins but is also committed to serious reform. I am not convinced that Janet Millis is.
I disagree with the many operatives that think Platner is going to lose in November. Platner is the Dems only chance of wining that seat and I think will likely win. Mills has no chance of winning. I subscribe to the Bulwark, The Atlantic and the Times and all 3 are flooding the zone with negative Platner pieces which makes me wonder whats going on or I'm just misreading the room.
The image of Schumer as a big-headed doofus scooping out vanilla ice cream for the masses is perfect. Bravo to the graphic designer. Enough said.
Maine has been betrayed by the Democratic Party, by over eager Progressive operatives, and by our own shortsightedness. Too many of us have decided that fighting economic injustice means shouting and blame casting, cliche and central casting “ authenticity “. That fighting for workers means justifying behaviors those very workers reject. As Mainers we have been driven into a blind alley of bad and worse. And, are once again being told to shelve our values for the good of the Party.
Well, I am one Mainer who is done with that. Let the Democratic Party flip another state’s seat. I refuse to vote for the current flavor of the month regardless of whether he has shown any ability to govern ANY thing, including himself! No more votes for guys you’ve been avoiding your whole adult life because they think they’re all that and a bag of chips. No more ick votes for short term gains, “just till…”. If we want more from our Congress we need to send better people to Congress. If that means skilled, thoughtful vanilla so be it. If you need sprinkles well central casting has just your guy.
Excellent article. I live in NC, and I am so grateful that Schumer recruited Roy Cooper.
Platner should more totally OWN his immature mistakes but acknowledge that no salacious texts come even close to cheating on his taxes, or ordering the murder of over 200 fishermen, or ordering attacks on sovereign nations that cost this regime billions per week that could go to education , child care for working families, or INcreasing medicaid payments to rural hospitals. And he should say that his past text early in his marriage when he was young and full of himself were nothing compared to a woman who supports a man who wants to put only brown skinned people in prisons with no way out, and that once as a Senator, he would not sanction paying billionaire private prison owners huge amounts of money daily just to keep those people sick, tired, and fed fried baloney sandwiches. He should pound the fact that he has matured and when confronted with new facts or situations that he has changed. As reasonable people should. While past behavior usually dictates future behavior, normally older people don't keep getting tattoos or jeopardize their marriages with racey texts. Well, some do but he isn't one of them, just ask his wife of 17 years.
Platner should also bring up that the amount of his youthful transgressions pale when compared with those of Paxton, trump and swalwell, not to mention the actual sex trafficking rings and victims of jeffrey epstein. And that Susan Collins has and will consistently support the man who was impeached--twice--for doing illegal acts. And done far more than send a few sexy texts.
I can see many people don't like this column because most of the comments come from very online progressives who like most too online people bristle at the notion that Tiktok, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram aren't real life and being popular on social media doesn't translate into winning local races in Purple or Red States. Egan also commits the online sin of not completing hating Schumer. No fan of his, but if your goal is to win Senate races, and the online Left seems to not care as much about that, then you want candidates who know their states and are liked by the voters in those states. Egan and others she quotes in the article are just trying to avoid the Dems blowing it in Maine by supporting a candidate who seems to struggle in making good choices and comes with a lot of baggage that may just send Collins back to the Senate for another six years.
I just don't understand the desire to try and draw parallels between Platner's warts and those of the ENTIRE GOP.
He got a dumb tattoo when he was a young dumb guy, did a lot of s--tposting on social media like MILLIONS of others and had a non-physical dalliance outside his marriage. None of this even comes CLOSE to the litany of sins and creepy scandals guys like Paxton, Trump et al possess.
Way too much handwringing over this flawed yet infinitely better-than-the-alternative candidate.
We really going to Al Franken ANOTHER Democrat? Talk about a circular firing squad!
If I hear one more "Democrat operative" I'm going to scream. These guys, for the most part, are out of touch and using the same-o, same-o approaches to elections. While the vanilla candidates are making headway, the operatives are still doing focus group testing and forget that, like it or not, these races are about the attention economy. Having a vanilla platform without the strategy of going viral ignores a great swath of the electorate. And as to Schumer's picks, good on him, but please, please step down and let a new generation, one attuned to the politics of now, step into your shoes. He's tone deaf on all manner of legislative challenges, has completely dropped the ball on hundreds of opportunities to use power to thwart trump's and the regimes' many offenses. The ads practically write themselves and should be blasting throughout the info-sphere, every day. They should be up on all platforms, including access media. If they would show some real fight, the media would cover them. As it is now, it's just a big yawn while Chuck muddles his way.
Lauren is insightful as always. (Thank you Lauren.) My question is this (and now I'm a little afraid to ask it): Has anyone considered asking Susan Collins to run as an independent and agree to caucus with the Democrats? Or maybe is it too late for that? I apologize in advance if this has already been asked, debated, and answered.
Here's my main concern about taking too much solace in the success of "Vanilla Democrats": this is the natural result of "whipsaw politics" (i.e. anti-incumbent sentiment). When people are unhappy, they blame the party in charge and bolt in the other direction. It happened in 2024, and it's happening now.
The bottom line is Trump - more than any other president in history - owns his party lock, stock, and barrel. Now that Trump is less popular than ever due to the economic sh%$storm he's whipped up, the fact that a lot of median voters are abandoning the GOP doesn't mean they prefer the Dem's policies, it means they hate Trump (and by extension, the GOP).
Thus, I sincerely hope the Dems aren't operating under the delusion that victory at the midterms translates into a durable Dem majority, because it doesn't. If things are still bleak the next time the Dems are in charge, it's going to be their turn in the barrel once again.
I appreciate Lauren sharing her perspective - the questions she raises about the Democratic party are salient ones it will have to answer - these are questions that well-meaning independents and Republicans might ask about us, if they're seeking clarity.
I found it encouraging that political operatives are realizing the value of having state representatives who grew up in those places and would be easily relatable to the people in their state, at a more local personal level. That feels right.
I like the idea of the Democratic party hosting vibrant different strands, born of the traditions and cultures of each state, covering the progressive and moderate wings, vs. a bland national-level overbaked mish-mash platform formed by committee and compromise that each candidate would then parrot. Retaining the localized variety at this stage gives us more opportunity to pick the direction the nation needs most when we get to November, and later on in 2028.
The qualities or bases I would want the party candidates to cover at this moment are competency, voice, and fighting spirit, since I trust most of the messengers are fairly secure in their message already. The party's time spent in the wilderness has hopefully purified it to some extent, to enable it to stand up for its core populist principles more, and lessen the corporate wing's grip on power. I would want the special interest and corporate level of influence over the party to continue to wane, to rely on small donors and grassroots messengers more prominently in the base.
The competency matters for ongoing stability, to deal with all the disruption coming our way caused by Trump. The voice matters for reaching a larger share of the voters, for the Democratic party to gain in people power, if it has any hope of overcoming the hurdles Republicans are setting up to rig the elections. The fighting spirit matters for Democrats to compete at the national level, in order to push back against all the slander sent our way by Trump.
I don't know what other voters would be weighing in their minds, but I don't think it's a contradiction to be open to progressive voices like Platner, but also to vote for more vanilla Democrats in other states for the sake of overall stability.
The main thing I would dislike in a candidate would be if they believed we could go back to the old way of doing things, in this moment, before Trumpism has been fully discredited - I feel inclined to reject any vanilla candidate who gives off that impression of being cut from that old cloth.
I feel Trump has introduced a rupture in our politics that we must face. To act as though we can return to the old order, and bind ourselves by the old rules that rested on a foundation Trump has exploded, would be to live in a fantasy and deny reality. To use a metaphor I like, I think it requires everyone to adapt now, similar to a new wineskin that can stretch in order to hold new wine that is being poured out into us.
Just because the old order is gone doesn't mean that the foundational principles of that order are gone - we still must uphold liberal principles I believe, but the task is to build new rules and institutions to uphold them. I have a sense people in many walks of life have already started building up the foundations for what will be needed, thru anticipation, at their local level.
To build that structure to be coherent all the way up at the national level will require a lot of trial and error, time and energy, I expect, so I am moreso open to younger candidates who can show fighting spirit. But I also like Bernie Sanders - he has fighting spirit and toughness I admire along with solid principles and is open to passing on his message and example to the younger generation. Maybe it is that openness and visibility that I care about - the willingness to spread the message.
An ability to establish their presence thru online forums of communication seems like an important quality for all candidates these days to possess - the ability to go viral would be a nice benefit maybe but isn't something to optimize for, from my view.
One interesting thing though is it seems that vanilla candidates can still work with more traditional forms of communication to get their message out and succeed, at least in the primary. That was one takeaway I had from Lauren's article. Maybe the online communication ability becomes more important for the general election or the national elections, when you need your message to reach and be heard by a wider audience - that is an open question I have.
Dang, the knives are out. I learn a lot everyday from the comments, not to mention the posts and videos.
Thank the Lord Lauren didn't mention Hassan Piker one way or another.
“What Iowa, North Carolina, Alaska are telling us is that the recipe is actually pretty simple: You find candidates with long, deep relationships in those states who understand those states, and then you let them run campaigns that are focused on those states rather than trying to nationalize everything …”
Amen!