Everything I’m Thinking About This Week
From the DNC’s “ugly f^ck” tweet to exploding rockets
My Angry Democrats! How are we doing this week?
This is going to be a different kind of post than I usually make. I got inspired by D.J. Byrnes to put a lot of different topics into one newsletter instead of bombarding you with emails throughout the week. So let’s see how this does. We can stew on this for the next week and see where the conversations go.
A lot of you are not on my Facebook page, but a lot of the discussions I have been having lately are happening there. I have been testing ideas, asking questions, reading comments, and trying to gauge where people actually are, not where consultants, party insiders, or talking heads tell us we are supposed to be.
And honestly, it has been useful.
This week touched everything from the @DNC’s “ugly fuck” tweet, to Democratic Party leadership in Cuyahoga County, to AI and data centers, to establishment liberals acting like conservatives, to the Ohio Democratic Party chair race, California politics, Graham Platner, and even Blue Origin blowing up on the launch pad.
So let’s get into it.
The “Ugly Fuck” Tweet: What Did People Think
The official Democrats account replied to Stephen Miller with, “Shut up, you ugly fuck.”
Yes, a lot of people thought it was a parody account. It was not.
So I asked people what they thought.
I wanted to understand whether Democrats liked this, hated it, or thought it was just dumb. And after going through the comments, the answer was pretty clear.
Most people were not clutching their pearls over the F-bomb. Out of 131 unique commenters, 104 were strongly in favor of Democrats punching back. Another 15 were mildly in favor but wanted sharper strategy.
People are angry. They want Democrats to fight. They are tired of being told to be polite while Republicans light the house on fire.
This is my opinion of the “Ugly Fuck” comment:
Trump is the most corrupt president we know of. It is blatant. And I think you make a lot of good points.
I do not think people are actually upset about someone saying, “shut up, you ugly fuck.” I do not think this is really about people clutching their pearls over an F-bomb.
To me, the issue is the lack of direction, leadership, and clarity around why it happened and what it was supposed to accomplish.
It feels like Democrats keep avoiding the bigger work (actual work and political work). We say we want to fight for certain things. We say we want to stand for certain values. We say we want to actually do the work. But then something like this happens, and suddenly we are supposed to treat it as this great moment of leadership, anger, unity, and change.
But it is not that.
It is not a great unifier. It is not a strategic step in the right direction. It is not some heroic social media warrior moment from behind the keyboard.
It still looks like confusion. It looks like frustration. It looks like a lack of clarity and a lack of leadership.
And that is what we are seeing from the DNC under Ken Martin.
The autopsy report was a complete waste. It was inaccurate, seemingly written by AI, hidden, released, incoherent, criticized, and then discarded.
That is not leadership.
So when the same DNC now puts something like this out, yes, some people respond with, “Finally, they are showing anger.” I get that. People are angry. They should be angry.
But to me, the tweet looks more like a release of frustration than an actual strategy. It does not look like a rallying cry. It does not look like organization. It looks like a representation of what people want emotionally, but with no direction behind it
The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chair
That brings me to Northeast Ohio.
David Brock, chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, put out a reelection video. I reposted it and asked a very basic question to crowdsource people’s thoughts on whether he should remain chair.
Apparently, that was too much.
He blocked me.
And to me, that says a lot.
This is exactly the kind of thing I have been criticizing inside the Democratic Party. Not allowing conversation. Shutting out opponents. Shutting out criticism. Shutting out primary challengers. Shutting out anyone who questions in an open forum.
What I asked was:
Does he deserve another 4 years?
Is the county party better now than 4 years ago?
If so, is he the person to lead for the next 4 years?
Who else is running against him?
I can admit there are pros to Brock’s candidacy. I can acknowledge that there are arguments in his favor.
But if the response to basic public discussion is to cut off access, then the biggest criticism proves itself.
And after that happened, multiple anonymous people reached out to me.
One person claimed the party put its thumb on the scale and pushed them out of a race (which happened more than people would like to admit), basically warning them not to run or they would “in no uncertain terms that they'd do everything in their power to smash me to death.”
That should bother people.
Please follow the The Angry Ohioan for additional commentary.
The Data Center Debate Needs More Nuance
Another big conversation this week was around AI and data centers.
The comment section leaned strongly skeptical. Out of 37 commenters, 27 had major concerns about the current AI and data center model. Their concerns were not simplistic.
Most people were not just saying “AI is evil.”
They were talking about water, electricity, land use, tax breaks, public subsidy, few permanent jobs, worker displacement, and the concentration of wealth and power.
If the problem is water discharge, then let’s talk about retention ponds, discharge standards, cooling systems, and local environmental requirements.
If the problem is electricity costs, then let’s talk about who pays for grid expansion, whether companies should build or fund their own generation, and how we stop residents from subsidizing corporate power demand.
If the problem is jobs, then let’s be honest about that too. Data centers may create construction jobs, but they usually do not create a massive number of permanent jobs. That means communities should demand more than a ribbon cutting and a tax break.
If AI really is going to displace workers in ways we have not seen before, then the answer has to include serious conversations about shorter workweeks, stronger worker protections, universal basic income, retraining, public ownership models, or other ways to make sure the benefits are not captured entirely by billionaires and corporations.
The deeper issue may not be AI itself. The cat is out of the bag.
Or, screw it! Do we just ban AI and Data centers all together? Thoughts?
Establishment Liberal Democrats Are the New Conservatives
I think we need to be honest about something.
This week also brought up an argument from last week: establishment Democratic liberals are actually conservatives.
Not MAGA conservatives. Not evangelical conservatives. Institutional conservatives.
They protect the existing order. They defend the process. They defend the party structure. They defend incumbents. They defend zoning. They defend local veto points. They defend the donor class. They defend whatever already exists, then call it pragmatism.
I asked people about this too, and the response was pretty overwhelming. Out of 43 unique commenters, 30 strongly agreed that establishment Democrats are conservative, corporate, or status quo defenders.
That does not mean people are suddenly voting Republican.
It means people are frustrated with a Democratic Party that keeps presenting itself as the party of change while protecting the systems that block change.
p.s. I know that some of these are small samples and the data is biased. But, it is still interesting. Take what you will from it.
The Ohio Democratic Party Chair Race
Speaking of leadership, Mamawsporchnpolitics put out a list of central committee members by district so people can contact them about the Ohio Democratic Party chair race.
Kathleen Clyde came into the chair race with Sherrod Brown’s backing. That is why, from what I gather, other candidates dropped out. Nobody wanted to politically hurt themselves by getting in the way of Sherrod Brown’s preferred choice.
Now it looks like there may actually be a race. From what I am hearing, Bill DeMora is running to give the party a choice.
Whether you like DeMora or not is not really the point. That is what voting is for.
Make sure you call those central committee members Today!
California Is Going to Be Interesting
Another thing I am watching is California. Tuesday Primary!
The governor’s race is starting to take shape, and depending on which numbers you believe, Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, Steve Hilton, and Chad Bianco are all names to watch. I do not put blind faith in polls, but as races get closer, markets and polling sometimes start giving us a sense of who is actually viable.
The race I am more interested in, though, is the Los Angeles mayoral race.
Karen Bass is the long-term establishment Democrat with the institutional backing. Nithya Raman is more in the DSA lane. Spencer Pratt, believe it or not, is the wild card.
If Pratt somehow gets through to the general election, that would be remarkable. If he wins outright with 51%, it would be a complete earthquake.
My thoughts on that race will come Wednesday.
Graham Platner: Vibes OR Substance
Graham Platner has also been facing a lot of criticism.
There has been criticism over the Nazi tattoo, questions about his one disclosed customer (his mom’s restaurant) oyster farm, and now attention around a dating profile while he is married.
Maybe he has an open relationship. To be perfectly honest, I do not care much about people’s private sexual arrangements if everyone involved is consenting.
However, his candidacy feels like vibes over substance. It feels like another attempt to rebrand Democrats to win back white working-class men after years of them leaving to MAGA.
Oyster farmer. Tough guy. Working-class aesthetic. Rugged authenticity.
Maybe it works. *shrug emoji*
Maybe it does not. *sad emoji*
But if the strategy is just to manufacture an identity instead of building a real politics around working people, then people are going to see through it.
Democrats cannot cosplay demographics back.
Blue Origin Blew Up: And It Was Epic
Something I wish I saw in person: the Blue Origin launch explosion.
Nobody died. That is the most important thing.
There was a shit ton of property damage. Like $3.5B or like 1% Jeffery’s net worth (dude is insanely rich).
And honestly, what a magnificent sight.
One of the biggest explosions ever caught on film. I saw estimates that it released 20% of the energy of the Hiroshima bomb, which is absolutely astounding if true.
But beyond the explosion, I like the fact that they failed big.
That is part of innovation. That is part of the creative process. That is part of trying to build something new. Reusable rockets, commercial spaceflight, and the idea that one day going to space could become as normal as getting on a plane and flying across the country, all of that requires failure.
They will get this.
It will get safer. It will get more reliable. And one day, it may become accessible in a way that sounds insane right now.
That is the kind of future thinking I wish we had more of.
Not fear. But…
Building.
Trying.
Failing.
Learning.
Then building again.
That Is What Is on My Radar
That is what is on my radar this week.
The DNC’s anger without strategy. Cuyahoga County’s leadership and chair race. AI and data centers. Establishment liberals are actually conservatives. The Ohio Democratic Party chair race. California. Graham Platner. Blue Origin. All of it connects more than people think.
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Did i miss the Angry Dem outrage and focus on dramatically growing legal immigration and path to citizenship? I rarely see Dems articulating and prioritizing this: without immigrants what are we? A shrinking nation with low birth rate, half the entrepreneurial, scientific, artistic, medical, tech talent, and tuition-paying university students we now have, and not enough service workers.
Stopping ICE is extremely important. But wholly insufficient.