2 Civil Wars— The Democrats Fight Over Ideas & The Republicans Fight Over Who Can Get Away With More
- Howie Klein
- 4 hours ago
- 9 min read
Basically, A Civil War The Dems Need & One The GOP Deserves
Last week, David Sirota had some suggestions about how the Democrats could end the civil war between progressives and the corporate conservatives who dominate the party establishment and just want to talk about their GOP-lite “abundance” program while progressives hammer the oligarchy. Sirota has a long list of things the two sides should be able to agree on. “Is there a place in Democratic politics,” asked Sirota, “for criticism of oligarchs and concentrated corporate power? Or is abundance’s true goal to crowd that analysis out and only allow conservative-coded attacks on ‘the left’? Part of what makes this latter query difficult to answer is the deliberate vagueness of ‘abundance’— a term that seems more like the gauzy name of a gated subdivision than a precise description of a political agenda. Abundance is a word describing plentiful supply and affluence, but it is also a book written by a pair of pundits, a constellation of think tanks funded by wealth-hoarding billionaires, and a congressional caucus full of corporate-friendly lawmakers. The result: ‘abundance’ is somehow both everything and nothing— which serves to deliberately camouflage its intentions. Indeed, whenever there is criticism of any particularly odious piece of abundance agitprop or policy, another part of the shape-shifting cabal jumps in to insist that hey, it’s just about mom, apple pie, and giving people the good life. What, then, is abundance’s real goal? When pressed, criticized, or held to account on the details, suddenly nobody can really say — other than to tell you to pay no attention to the abundance of oligarchs behind the curtain.”
In New York City, Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s has surged into contention on a promise for something big, simple, and entirely doable in the world’s richest city: fare-free city buses.
In response, the global financial capital’s elite have thrown a temper tantrum: New York Times editorialists insisted that Mamdani’s populism proves he “lacks the political savvy” for high office; The Atlantic deemed the idea “impractical” and a sign that the end of democracy is nigh; a Wall Street kingpin wrote that despite New York being the world’s richest city, the plan is “impossible to fund” and would lead to municipal bankruptcy; and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is now preemptively promising to veto his agenda. All of this, even though free public transit exists in other cities, and even as Mamdani notes that an analogue already exists in New York in its free Staten Island ferry.
The anti-oligarchy movement is firmly behind Mamdani, who has campaigned with its leaders, such as former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan and antitrust crusader Zephyr Teachout. He has also smartly appropriated the abundance vernacular for his own brand of corporate-challenging populism infused with the zeitgeist of AOC’s original abundance video (before its themes were appropriated by the Abundance book’s intro).
So where are abundists as this crossover candidate tries to bridge the abundance/anti-oligarchy divide? Some are subtweeting Mamdani with complaints that “it’s way too easy to co-opt the (abundance) slogan without assimilating the substance” of what their movement actually wants. Some like Klein are equivocating— he is touting a more traditional liberal candidate, while labeling Mamdani “smart” for offering “tight memetic packages,” but also “a high-risk bet.” And other abundists are calling Mamdani’s free-bus proposal a gateway to a violent crime spree.
Beyond that, abundance has offered mostly silence and no real financial or political support as Mamdani faces oligarchs’ multimillion-dollar negative TV ad campaign ahead of the June 24 Democratic primary.
What explains abundists’ reluctance to get involved? Perhaps they don’t like the core pledge of the upstart candidate’s campaign— the promise to be “a mayor who doesn’t bow down to corporate interests (and) doesn’t take his orders from billionaires.” It is a commitment to combat the oligarchy problem that the abundance movement and its sponsors want Democrats to downplay, ignore, or avoid.
Why? A skeptic might suspect a Trumpy ulterior motive.
The MAGA president sees popular anger and tries to deflect it away from his oligarch donors by scapegoating immigrants, Ivy League elites, and media snobs. Abundists see the same rage and so often attempt to divert it away from their oligarch sponsors by demonizing unions, environmentalists, and “the left.”
… Deflecting attention from corporate power or attacking it head-on— this remains the persistent dispute between abundance and anti-oligarchy.
One side believes in the old adage: power concedes nothing without a demand.
The other side insists that asking power to concede anything could destroy the republic. Their catechism was recently summarized by abundance marketer Matt Yglesias when he admonished critics of Democratic senators who ignored consumer advocates’ warnings and voted to help their sponsors deregulate cryptocurrency. “Wouldn’t it be a mistake to alienate an influential group of donors over an unimportant issue and thereby jeopardize abortion rights, Medicaid, energy innovation, the stability of American democracy, etc?” he asked.
Clearly, this dispute is no mere left-right skirmish. This is a quarrel over the nature of power itself— a clash of visions that will continue roiling the Democratic Party in the lead-up to the 2028 presidential election.
Sure, on paper, there are ways the tiny-but-well-funded handful of abundance groups can work with the huge grassroots anti-oligarchy movement on policies that spread prosperity, reform government, combat complexity, and make things easier in the real world.
But a constructive collaboration would need an abundance movement that isn’t just another business front, billionaire ploy, or bookselling grift with a buzzy name but no coherent ideology other than plutocracy.
Seems unbridgeable? It’s nothing compared to what Republicans are looking at it the raging battle between old line conservatives and neo-fascist MAGAts. And though that battle is playing out all over the country, nowhere is it more virulent than in the heart of Republicanism: Texas. Yesterday, three Wall Street Journal writers introduced their readers to why the nasty Texas Senate primary is causing GOP panic. Elizabeth Findell, Lindsay Wise and Mark Maremont began by reporting that “When deciding whether to seek re-election next year, Texas Sen. John Cornyn said one consideration rose above all: A desire to thwart the other Republican hopeful, state Attorney General Ken Paxton. ‘I refuse to let someone of his character— or lack of character— represent Texas in the Senate,’ Cornyn said in an interview. ‘I consider this to be drawing a line in the sand.’ Texans are gearing up for an ugly primary between Cornyn, a two-decade senator arguably associated with the GOP of another era, and Paxton, a MAGA combatant who has prevailed in Texas politics despite repeated accusations of legal and ethical wrongdoing. Republican leaders fear that nominating Paxton, who has an edge with the farthest-right voters active in primaries, could hand Democrats their best opportunity for a win in Texas in decades. A competitive Texas senate race in the general election, they warn, could cost Republicans upward of $250 million, forcing the party to put resources into a red-leaning state that could go elsewhere and potentially threatening their Senate majority. With that in mind, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Tim Scott (R-SC), chair of Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, both asked President Trump to endorse Cornyn before Paxton announced his campaign. Cornyn himself asked, too. But Trump has so far refused to endorse either Cornyn or Paxton, saying he’s friendly with both men. ‘They’re both friends of mine,’ Trump said in April. ‘I’ll make a determination at the right time.’”
There are no moderates in this race. “Cornyn, a onetime Texas supreme court justice,” they wrote, “has a staunchly right-wing voting record but has grappled with the Trump-era perception that he isn’t MAGA enough. He was booed at the state party convention in 2022, after helping negotiate a bipartisan gun safety bill in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Paxton, who has been helped by Christian oil billionaires, is known for filing dozens of lawsuits against the Biden administration. In 2020, he sought to block the electoral votes of four other states in an effort to overturn the presidential race for Trump… Paxton’s political career has withstood numerous claims of misconduct. He was re-elected twice while under indictment on securities fraud charges. (Prosecutors dropped the charges last year in exchange for Paxton paying $271,000 in restitution to the alleged victims.) Eight of his top-ranking deputies reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Paxton was illegally using his office to benefit a donor. (Paxton denied the allegations and they didn’t result in charges.) In 2023, Paxton became the third official in Texas history to be impeached. The Republican-majority state House voted to charge him with conspiracy, misapplication of public resources, unfitness for office, bribery and obstruction of justice. (The state Senate acquitted and reinstated him.) Earlier this year, a judge found that Paxton had improperly fired four of the aides who reported him to the FBI and awarded them $6.6 million in damages. Cornyn has said he intends to make a campaign issue of Paxton’s history, including a property-buying spree he and his wife, a state senator, underwent in the years after the pandemic. The couple now own at least 10 residential properties, most purchased since he was elected attorney general in 2014. Paxton’s required state and federal financial disclosures have at times been late or omitted the properties. ‘He just operates as though the rules don’t apply to him,’ Cornyn said.” Republicans have been very clear, in Texas and across the country, that that doesn’t matter to them one bit.
Most recently, documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal indicate that Paxton and his wife represented on mortgage documents that at least one of the homes they own in the state capital of Austin was their principal residence, even as they lived, voted and held office in the Dallas area from a house on which they receive a homestead tax break. Misrepresenting the Austin property as a principal residence, which typically results in a lower interest rate on the loan, could constitute mortgage fraud, real-estate experts said.
… Paxton’s campaign wouldn’t comment on the property.
In Texas, Paxton’s legal problems have only bolstered his reputation among the most conservative Republican base voters. They equate his woes with the indictments Trump faced, said Bobby Eberle, a right-wing commentator and GOP chairman in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston.
“It’s like, oh, they’re going after Trump and now they’re going after one of our top conservatives,” he said.
Cornyn, meanwhile, has come to be seen as exactly the kind of establishment Washington insider distrusted by the grassroots, Eberle said.
Polls have shown Cornyn behind among primary voters, in some estimates by double digits. One survey in May by Texas Southern University found Paxton leading both Cornyn and Hunt, but with the narrowest margins in hypothetical matchups with Democrats.
A survey earlier in the month by the Senate Leadership Fund showed Cornyn 16 points down in the Republican primary, but Paxton likely to lose to Democrat Colin Allred in the general election. Allred, a Dallas-area former congressman who challenged Sen. Ted Cruz last year, hasn’t said whether he will run for the seat.
One Republican strategist who works on Senate races said panic is starting to set in. Party insiders are comparing the race to Alabama’s 2017 Senate race, when Roy Moore, a jurist with a history of misconduct, prevailed over an establishment-supported candidate in the Republican primary only to lose to Democrat Doug Jones in the general election. Pressure will quickly grow on Cornyn to improve his poll numbers— a challenge, given the cost of advertising in Texas, strategists said.
The contrast between these two civil wars is pretty stark. On the Democratic side, we’re witnessing a clash of visions about how to fix America: a grassroots anti-oligarchy movement demanding public goods, economic justice and a politics that names names vs. a consultant class clinging to abstraction, afraid that real populism might scare the donors. The fight is about whether Democrats should take on concentrated wealth and corporate capture— or politely look away and hope to win on vibes, word clouds and being perceived as the lesser lesser of two evils when the GOP screws up.
The GOP’s internal war, by contrast, isn’t about ideas at all. It’s about how much corruption the party is willing to tolerate so long as it’s cloaked in MAGA grievance. Paxton is not proposing a new direction or policy vision. He’s simply offering more impunity, more rule-breaking, more authoritarianism— packaged as martyrdom for the frustrated moron base. The establishment’s main argument against him isn’t even moral; it’s financial. Cornyn’s allies are panicking not because Paxton is a crook, but because his nomination might cost them a Senate seat.
Both parties are in the midst of reckonings. But while Democrats are struggling to define a forward-looking agenda that can mobilize majorities without selling out to billionaires, Republicans are fighting over how brazenly they can serve authoritarian power while pretending to hate elites. One side is debating the terms of justice and redistribution in a deeply unequal country. The other is debating how many indictments are too many for a Senate nominee. If the abundance-vs.-anti-oligarchy feud feels existential, at least it's a fight over principle. The GOP’s civil war is just another gross nihilistic grudge match between the ethics-challenged and the ethics-indifferent— fought in the shadow of Trump’s golden idol.