Bombs, Egos And Billionaires: Why Both Parties Are Failing Us

Neither Party Deserves the Working Class… And What If They Are The Real 3rd Rail?

Untitled by Nancy Ohanian

A few days ago, Trump’s niece, Mary, published a piece on her substack, The Worst Person at the Worst Time. Anybody could have but, Mary is not just a relative but also a psychologist who always has worthwhile insights into how her uncle’s diseased brain works. “[W]e are at war,” she wrote, “and the man who led us into this war is a corrupt, degraded, ignorant know-nothing who acted illegally to plunge us into a potentially catastrophic situation without the consent of Congress because, despite the fact that he is president of the United States of America and arguably the most recognized figure on the planet, he wasn’t getting enough attention. It is long past time that we stop imputing some deeper or reasonable motives to Donald Trump. Despite being depraved and cruel, much like his cohort Benjamin Netanyahu, he is driven by the most primitive impulses that center almost solely around protecting his fragile ego from humiliation (about which he has a pathological terror) and himself from the reality that he is a complete fraud.”

Donald is still no doubt stinging from the acronym recently coined to mock his inability to follow through on anything—TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out. In the wake of Israeli strikes against Iran, Donald spent a few days saber-rattling only to back off (chicken out, if you will) in the wake of searing criticism by some of the most reliably sycophantic members of his cult— e.g. Rep. Marjorie Green (R-GA), Alex Jones, and Steve Bannon). He announced at a bizarre press conference that his decision to address the ostensibly urgent crisis regarding Iran would be put off for two weeks.

Only two days later, he ordered the attack on Iran. His allies would have us believe that Donald, a brilliant strategist, was faking us out. Sure. An infinitely more plausible explanation is that, on the one hand, he hates being challenged or contradicted, especially from those who almost always fall in line; therefore, he felt the need to double-down on his threats by carrying them out. On the other hand, Donald is a desperate black hole of need— by changing the narrative, he could make sure the spotlight turned back on him… It’s worth reminding ourselves that the United States is currently in thrall to an insane person. Also, you do not engage in unilateral, unprovoked bombings of another country, declare victory, and then just walk away. J.D. Vance can claim as much as he wants that the United States is ‘at war with Iran’s nuclear program,’ but I’m fairly certain Iranians won’t see it that way.”

…In a press conference announcing the strikes, Donald claimed that Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities were “completely and totally obliterated” by American strikes, but that is far from clear. During a joint press conference this morning, neither Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth nor Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could make that determination. In other words, Iran may continue to have the ability to produce nuclear weapons.

When you consider that Fordow, one of the three nuclear sites targeted, was built inside a mountain and that, according to the New York Times, experts have determined “the enrichment facilities were impervious to all but a repeated assault from American ‘bunker buster’ bombs,” it is highly unlikely Iran’s program has been “obliterated.”

As to the degree to which Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons was imminent, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote on social media, “Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon. The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success.” Murphy says he was briefed last week by our own intelligence agencies and, according to them, “Iran posed no imminent threat of attack to the United States.” Donald disagreed, claiming that our intelligence is “wrong.” After Tulsi Gabbard, his own Director of National Intelligence, testified to Congress that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, Donald’s response was, “I don’t care what she said.”

…There are four potential outcomes here that are not mutually exclusive: the political rehabilitation of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu; attacks on American soldiers in close proximity to Iran; terrorist attacks on American soil; and increased executive power as the Republican Congress cedes yet more of its Constitutional authority to Donald fucking Trump.

A few days ago, Jared Abbott and Les Leopold made the point that rust belt voters are sick of both parties. More than other parts of the country? And… as bad as the Democratic Party is— and they are BAD— they’ve never had anything remotely like Trump. I mean even Rahm Emanuel and Kyrsten Sinema aren’t that bad. “Support for America’s two major political parties has been on the decline— and it’s only getting worse. Today political independents by far outnumber the ranks of either Democrats or Republicans. Up to two-thirds of Americans have reported in surveys that they think both parties do such a bad job that a third major party is needed... The Democratic brand is now simply too tarnished and polarization too strong among working-class voters in many purple and especially red states. Today most Democrats simply can’t win— and there is increasingly little that can be done about it. As Bernie Sanders has recently argued, it is ‘highly unlikely’ that the Democratic high command will ‘learn the lessons of their defeat and create a party that stands with the working class and is prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests that dominate our economy, our media, and our political life.’ But could independent economic populist candidates break through to the voters that Democrats have lost? How much electoral support might there be for independent candidates who run on a strictly pro-worker agenda independent of both major parties?”

They note that “The Democratic Party’s brand is tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. If progressives don’t build something new, the odds are high that Republicans like Steve Bannon, Josh Hawley, and J. D. Vance will find ways to offer enough for Republicans to continue to win elections behind a platform that favors deregulation, rolling back health, safety, and environmental protections, all while rewarding workers on the margins. Progressives can use independent politics to tap into the economic populist energy that Democrats have consistently squandered. And they should understand that what voters say they want is not just some mirage nor is it manipulative polling. It’s concrete economic proposals.”

The question is not whether this energy exists, but how to build a political force capable of channeling it. Working people and their allies need a political home— one that fights for job security, decent wages, and universal health care, while speaking credibly to the economic frustrations the Democratic Party has too often failed to address.

Building this kind of movement requires a foundation: an anchor like a major labor union or coalition of unions that can back progressive economic ballot initiatives and support independent candidates— especially in one-party districts where the spoiler argument doesn’t apply. The build-out can and should be modest at first, with room to experiment and adapt. With success, it can grow.

Dan Osborn, a union leader in Nebraska, showed what’s possible. Running as an independent in a race where Democrats didn’t field a candidate, he campaigned on a populist economic message and came within 6.7 percent of unseating a Republican senator— drawing 66,500 more votes than Kamala Harris did in the same state. That kind of campaign speaks to the potential of tapping into disaffection with both major parties.

Instead of rehashing reasons why we can’t build outside the Democratic Party, it’s time to help working-class voters get what they actually want: candidates who represent their interests and are free from corporate and billionaire influence. Yes, this will be hard. And no, it won’t happen overnight. But that’s not an argument for waiting. It’s a reason to get started now.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans truly fight for working people— working people deserve a political formation that puts their interests first.

Here’s the current bottom line we can filter all the day's and the week's and the month's news through: a country led by a psychologically broken man propped up by a bankrupt, authoritarian party is not going to heal itself. Trump may be the most obvious symptom, but the deeper disease is a political system too rigged, too ossified, and too corrupted by money to deliver for anyone but oligarchs and warmongers. If we don’t build something new— something rooted in solidarity, democracy, and material security— we will keep lurching between despair and disaster, choosing between parties that either betray us slowly or blow everything up for attention. The time for pleading with the Democratic Party to change is coming to an end. The time for building power not beholden to it is already in full swing. Let’s treat that as the urgent national project it is... before the next TACO tantrum starts another war that can’t be choreographed out of so easily.