Meanwhile, in the Garden State…
Strong disagree for a unified Democratic party.
It used to be said all politics is local. There still is something to it.
The key to gaining Democratic control of Congress is to win in states and congressional districts which Trump won in November 2024. The Democratic party brand is, to say the least, weak there. Candidates need the freedom to show they are a different kind of Democrat. (Yes, “different kind of Democrat” is a horrible trite phrase, but it still is needed in Trumpland advertising.)
Get out the vote? Always needed. The Democrats are good at it..
When I say “unified” I mean everyone in the Party should remember that this is an election about Trump and the future, and not get into the stupid internal battles that cost the Dems key states in 2016 and 2024.
Almost every campaign expert says to make it about the future. I agree there.
As for making it always about Trump, it depends how popular or unpopular Trump is in the district!
Is there some House district I should think about where the Democrats are waging a stupid internal battle and therefore are in danger of losing it?
I got an email from Obama- "The good news is we have the chance to elect leaders like that this year — in both houses of Congress, governorships, state legislatures, and offices up and down the ballot.
But it’s going to take all of us to do it.
It’s up to all of us, as citizens, to stand up for our values. We can’t just leave it to somebody else. We have to fight, even when it’s hard.
Republicans want you to think that a few people in power make all the decisions and the rest of us have to live with the consequences. But when you look at the history of America, real change has always come from the bottom up — from ordinary folks who make it happen.
So yes, we are being tested. But we have the power, as citizens, to change this country.
We’ve just got to use it."
And of course a pitch for a donation- which is okay.
My bold.
Like there’s a chance they won’t do that. 
You could look at California-22, one of the Congressional districts the Democrats gerrymandered in response to Trump. With the popular Republican incumbent retiring, the new boundaries should make it an easy pickup for Dems. Of course there are now nine Democratic candidates running in the primary against the well-funded and highly visible San Diego County Supervisor.
Or California 3, where the moderate incumbent Ami Bera is facing disabled Army veteran Chris Bennett. The two seem pretty interchangeable on most issues, so progressive Democrat Heidi Hall (who was redistricted into Cal 3) is also running to make things interesting. None of them have enough support for the state Democratic party to endorse any of them.
California is a bit of a unique case due the jungle primaries.
I found a good article on the district 22 race at the Cal Matters web site:
National Democrats said they’d stay out of this California race. Then they picked a side
It sounds like there is danger of a Democrat, more suited to a blue district than the purple 22, advancing to the general election. That’s a problem. But moderates and progressives each having their say is not a problem. Isn’t that a big part of the reason that old-time progressives started the primary system?
I like the primary system. What I don’t like is the “sore loser” syndrome where the losing candidate’s supporters stay home in the general election because the winner doesn’t pass a voter’s purity test.
Voters who won’t vote for the lesser of two evils can’t complain when they end up with the greater of two evils.
From today’s Atlantic online (gift link).
This is the paragraph that jumped out at me:
“This is basic political management of a party,” a senior White House adviser said yesterday, before the Kentucky contest. “You have to keep everybody on the reservation. Occasionally you have to shoot a hostage. The next one is Thomas Massie.” Less than two hours after polls closed, Gallrein was projected as the winner.
My bold.
This is why Democrats will never control their party members the way Republicans do: they don’t play dirty.
Gallrein has an illustrious military résumé, but he has never held elected office and barely campaigned for this one, skipping every debate with Massie. What Gallrein did have was Trump’s endorsement, and that was all that mattered.
This decisive outcome underscores what should already have been obvious: Even as Trump’s overall approval rating hits new lows, his hold on the Republican Party—and specifically its MAGA core—remains absolute. Contrary to months of breathless headlines, the president’s base never deserted him and continues to punish those who defy him. That’s because the MAGA movement is united, not by any particular set of ideological commitments but by commitment to a particular person.
Even when brilliant, squeaky-clean, family man Barak Obama was President, he didn’t command (or seek) blind loyalty.
I still can’t figure out why trump does.
He’s demonstrated, time and again, that he can break the political careers of those in his party who won’t blindly worship him. Even among the GOP members of Congress who aren’t true MAGA believers, they largely value their jobs and their power more than they value standing up for themselves.
And, fundamentally, he wants to be a dictator.
And for the voters, he tells them what they want to hear whether it makes any sense or not. For some of them, he gives them permission to release their inner Kluxer.
No one actually knows who is behind Lead Left. The main argument seems to be that they must be a Republican operation because they’re backing insane far-leftists who make Democrats look crazy to normal voters and increase Republican chances of winning elections. Of course, that’s exactly what bona fide “progressives” do anyway, so I have no idea how we’re supposed to tell the difference.
Some more Democrats have come out hard against Galindo and have pledged to expel her from the House if she wins. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, trapped in a hell of her own making, condemned Galindo and endorsed Garcia, then of course was universally pilloried by her DSA base for doing so (read the replies). Expect “AOC tries to appeal to sane people by saying the correct thing, then gets called Genocide Alexandria and denounced by progressives for doing so” to play out 100 more times over the next two years if she’s really trying to position herself for a presidential run.
Bona fide progressives generally don’t run $900,000+ super pacs with the GOP platform WinRed in the metadata of their website. Their one page website states, “Lead Left PAC stands against MAGA extremists who will infect our country with Donald Trump’s agenda,” which doesn’t quite jibe with progressive rhetoric. Nobody prominent is standing up for Galindo: this is a ratfuck.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/21/a-mysterious-gop-linked-super-pac-is-roiling-a-texas-democratic-primary-00930989
According to this article (email req):
Punchbowl News, a D.C.-based politics news outlet, is reporting that metadata on the Lead Left PAC website includes a link to WinRed, which is a Republican political fundraising platform. Specifically, it leads to a donation page for the organization “Standing Tall Action,” which, according to its website, stands for “America first” principles and includes quotes from Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Standing Tall Action is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which are sometimes referred to as “dark money” groups because they are not required to disclose their donors but can contribute money toward electioneering efforts.
They are spending money on swing districts in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Nebraska.
Heh. NYT: Lead Left PAC won’t comment for their article. “The ads the group has run in Nebraska closely mirror the messaging in ads previously paid for by a nonprofit group that is linked to House Republican leadership, called the American Action Network.” The American Action Network refuses to say whether it is behind Lead Left.
Interestingly, " the Congressional Leadership Fund, the official super PAC of House Republicans, reported its first spending of 2026, which included a small sum boosting a more progressive Democrat, Randy Villegas. Mr. Villegas is running in a California race that includes Jasmeet Bains, a moderate Democratic assemblywoman. Both are vying to challenge Representative David Valadao, the Republican incumbent, this fall. The D.C.C.C. has backed Ms. Bains."
Meanwhile, in Arizona’s 5th Congressional District:
Man, if that Lamb situation doesn’t just drill down into the different sexual mores of Republicans and Democrats.
Lamb is likely to lose the president’s endorsement because he and his wife were swingers. When I read that, I was like, who gives a shit? Consenting adults, yadda yadda.
But read further, and someone his wife went swinging with was the spouse of his employee, and when another partner threatened to go public, he pulled strings at the sheriffs department to have her investigated for criminal harassment. No good at all.
The right considers it a sin to have sex outside of marriage. The left considers it a sin to use power as a coercive tool when it comes to sex.
Nice little parable there, Lamb!
Disclaimer: everything is alleged, facts may come out that change how I view the case, this isn’t a court of law, I do not have legal training, maybe Lamb is a lizard-person and hyooman ethics don’t apply, etc.
Insecurity. Mummy and/or Daddy never loved him enough.
Very old-school answer: Because Obama actually paid attention in school and learned the first thing you will learn from all Renaissance-era political thought, which is that the prince must banish flatterers and sycophants and surround himself with people who tell him the plain blunt truth, not only because it is virtuous, but because it is in his best interest.
(BTW, I know for a fact that Hillary Clinton has seen King Lear at least once, because I was in the audience with her. I’m sure Obama has. Trump, not a chance.)
I phrased that badly. I didn’t mean I don’t know why trump seeks loyalty (as you said, that’s pretty obvious). I meant I don’t know why he commands loyalty.