man, cut this bullshyt out. you don't want to vote for shapiro because he's a jewyou aren't fooling anyone
or could be because he's a corporate democrat that has the same politics as your typical blue dog senator.
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or could be because he's a corporate democrat that has the same politics as your typical blue dog senator.
the cac mamba
Veteran
so why were you playing stupid about why shapiro is perceived as moderate, but kamala isn't? you just answered your own question
and LOL at you denying the fact that shapiro being jewish is a problem for progressives. admit it. it's a total problem, because of your Hamas allegiance and simping
im confused why you think i think different of Kamala
. She'd be one of my last choices if their was a democrat primary. Some of the biggest Israel simps is non Jewish people like Richie Torres and Fetterman,and LOL at you denying the fact that shapiro being jewish is a problem for progressives. admit it. it's a total problem, because of your Hamas allegiance and simping
at you thinking his religion has anything to do with why I would rank him last with kamala.
the cac mamba
Veteran
a meaningless statement, given the fact that you can't even name a single person you want to run in 2028im confused why you think i think different of Kamala
we all know that there's a sizeable group of progressives who will find the idea of nominating a jew, to be an affront to the palestine movement
stop lying
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
Young Katie babay@dora_da_destroyer katie or kamala in the primary
I've named several
Jew =/= zionist not all jews are Israel lap dogs
Opinion | The Trump resistance should start with governors, attorneys…
Summarize
Perry Bacon Jr.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) speaks during a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 2 in Pittsburgh. (Jeff Swensen/For The Washington Post)
Many rank-and-file Democrats are furious with party leaders in Washington for their lackluster response to the Trump administration. But they might be complaining about the wrong Democrats.
Governors, attorneys general and other state-level Democratic officials should play leading roles in the fight against President Donald Trump because they have more formal powers than congressional Democrats to restrain him and can implement alternative policies that will help the party win elections over the long term. That’s the argument of Democratic strategists Arkadi Gerney and Sarah Knight — and they are correct.
Last May, Gerney and Knight sent a 178-page report to Democratic politicians, operatives and donors that laid out ways officials in blue states can most aggressively use their powers. It was modeled after the tactics of red-state Republican governors and attorneys general when Joe Biden was president. This approach would have been useful even if Kamala Harris had been elected, but it’s particularly relevant in a second Trump administration. (The full report is not public, but the two strategists summarized its outlines in an American Prospect essay.)
Now, Knight and Gerney are among those urging Democratic leaders to take a more confrontational stance against Trump. But they are focused on the 23 Democratic governors, 22 Democratic state attorneys general and the 15 states where the party controls both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.
They are excited that Democratic attorneys general are meeting regularly and have joined in numerous lawsuits against the administration, most notably one that resulted in a ruling invalidating Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. They say some governors, such as Illinois’s JB Pritzker, who recently likened the new administration to the Nazis, are contesting Trump in the way that is needed.
But they argue many state-level Democrats, particularly governors, are too cautious about criticizing the administration and not using their authorities in innovative ways.
“Democrats in Congress, even if they really want to do things, what you can do in the minority is quite limited,” Gerney said in an interview I conducted with the two last week. “But these governors have the opportunity to actually run their states very differently from how the president is running the country.”
Knight, 51, and Gerney, 50, are longtime political operatives. But unlike prominent campaign gurus such as David Axelrod and James Carville, the two have largely stayed behind the scenes and worked on policy issues, not elections. Gerney advised then-New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, served as a senior official at the Center for American Progress and then ran an organization called the Hub Project that works on a variety of liberal causes. Knight has had stints at the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (the liberal equivalent of the Federalist Society) and the Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic group that helps fund the American Civil Liberties Union and numerous other left-leaning groups.
Knight and Gerney of course didn’t discover the concept that states can pursue prerogatives separate from and in some ways in tension with the federal government. That has been a dynamic throughout American history, particularly in the run-up to the Civil War. Democratic attorneys general worked together in Trump’s first term to file lawsuits against him.
But Gerney and Knight are focused on blue-state actions that go beyond lawsuits and the need for state-level Democrats to adopt the aggressive tactics of Republicans.
They cite Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas as a model despite strong disagreements with his policy views. Abbott, frustrated by Biden’s immigration policies, not only deployed Texas National Guard members to patrol the border but also persuaded numerous other red states to send their own troops there, too. Abbott also infamously put undocumented immigrants on buses that went to Chicago, New York and other left-leaning areas.
“The beating heart of the Biden-era, red-state resistance, it wasn’t in Mar-a-Lago,” Gerney said. “It was in Austin.”
Gerney and Knight are trying to prod state-level Democrats privately, so they would not tell me exactly what strategies they want them to adopt. But they referenced the Canadian government as an example. At first, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Mar-a-Lago to appease Trump. But the Canadian government has switched to a combative stance. The Canadians have imposed tariffs on a number of U.S.-made products, matching Trump’s levies against some Canadian products imported into the United States. Trudeau’s Liberal Party has surged in recent polls, showing the political benefits of directly confronting Trump.
“Success for [Andy] Beshear is going to look different than success for [Josh] Shapiro [or] Pritzker,” Knight said, referring to the Democratic governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania, respectively. “That differentiation is important , because it provides us with different models of leadership going forward.”
They emphasized that individual governors must avoid agreements with Trump that tie receiving funds for, say, federal disaster relief with complying with his other demands. Once the precedent is set that states must bow to Trump to receive federal dollars, that will be hard to break.
Knight and Gerney also argue that it’s also critical for blue states to get their houses in order. It will be easier for Democrats to win in 2026 and 2028 if they can run on not just Trump’s foibles but policy successes in areas they control. And if more people move to blue states, that’s an electoral boon for Democrats, eventually giving those states more seats in the House of Representatives and votes in the electoral college.
I agree with Gerney and Knight’s thinking. But there are three pitfalls. First, many governors and other blue-state officials are scared of Trump for good reason. It was shocking how bluntly the president told Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, in a televised session with governors, that he would cut federal funds from her state if she did not follow his executive order limiting the participation of transgender students in sports.
The other 22 Democratic governors standing firmly with Mills would be a useful show of force. But Trump might just cut funding from all of those states!
“He will do any and all policy and fiscal violence that he can to blue states,” Micah Lasher, a New York state representative in New York, told me.
Secondly, many Democratic governors have some electoral incentives that will make them wary of this kind of solidarity. Some, such as Arizona’s Katie Hobbs and Shapiro, are running for reelection next year in states where Trump won in November.
Even more Democratic governors are considering presidential campaigns in 2028. It’s likely that a big debate in the Democratic primary will be over which candidate is best-suited to appeal to swing voters and therefore win the general election. That’s probably why Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, instead of using his platform as the leader of the biggest state to constantly confront Trump, is trying to show his bipartisan side. On his new podcast, Newsom recently interviewed conservative activist Charlie Kirk and distanced himself from progressive stands on some issues, including transgender rights.
When Biden was president, “red state governors in super-majority red states did not say, ‘You know, Biden is right that abortion rights should be protected,’ despite the popularity of abortion rights,” said Jake Grumbach, a political scientist at the University of California-Berkley.
Third, as with congressional Democrats, many Democratic governors are too conflict-averse and insufficiently partisan to fight the right with the intensity and fervor that Republicans such as Trump and Abbott bring to the left.
Knight and Gerney are more optimistic, though.
“We haven’t paid attention to blue states. So I think it’s not totally surprising that it takes some time to develop” a more assertive approach, Knight said.
Yeah. I said Shapiro was to the right of Kamala, and you disagreed for some reason.
the cac mamba
Veteran
no mistake with that use of picture
i can't wait to make these shytheads on the far left vote Shapiro in 2028
assuming that they even vote democrat in '28
That push from the usual suspects starting around summer 2028 about how problematic he is and how we need to vote for Cornell or Jillno mistake with that use of picture
i can't wait to make these shytheads on the far left vote Shapiro in 2028
assuming that they even vote democrat in '28
Lmao cenk may been onto something
Newsome hitting republican districts with Steve bannon to rally never trumpers against trumps unconstitutional third term attempt is gonna be wild
the cac mamba
Veteran
as opposed to watching Tampon Tim mincing around the midwest