News and commentary for understanding and coping with the years ahead...
Will Democrats decide to fight back? If so, how?
If they want to win, Democrats have nominated their last nice guy candidate for president. Donald Trump went out there on the stump and spent months calling Democrats “enemies,” “evil,” “dangerous,” “radical leftists,” “communists,” “Marxists,” “the enemy within.” He did it over and over and over. Kamala Harris called Trump “increasingly unstable and unhinged,” and told voters that “A second Trump term is a huge risk for America.” That’s about the worst she came up with. I’m not saying Harris should have matched Trump like a couple of kindergartners on the playground calling each other names and saying “I’m rubber and you’re glue.” But if you stand there and let your opponent call you ridiculous shit like “communist” and “Marxist” without at least pointing out how desperate it sounds, you’re just letting him embed those words in the minds of voters using sheer repetition.
This commentary in the National Memo is largely on-point, and appropriately self-critical. The author castigates the Democrats for their weakness in the face of bullying, and confesses his own naivete in believing that the Harris-Walz good-vibes campaign would be enough to win. I agree completely that it's long overdue to stop bringing handshakes to knife fights. But that's just one, albeit vital, tactic for the future. The Democrats' failures are much deeper, and wider.
If you're interested in going deep on what some of the smartest party activists are saying, please read Micah Sifry's latest newsletter post, "The Post-'24 Democratic Tech Reckoning Has Begun" – looking at an upcoming major shift in progressive technology strategy and how the "too woke" versus "too corporate" internal debate is missing the most important point. As Micah writes, "the problem for Democrats and progressives is less one of how they should position themselves to regain support from voters and more the fact that they lack organic connections to voters in the first place." And he points a finger at a revered party elder who has never acknowledged, much less publicly regretted, one of his worst failures: The Obama campaign "organized more than two million volunteers and empowered them, not just entasked them... [But] Obama and his circle didn’t just let that massive muscle wither away—they actively smothered it because it was seen as a threat to party insiders."
Wealthy Americans who have had successful careers in business have long served in government, but watchdog groups say the high concentration of ultra-wealthy picks for roles in Trump’s Cabinet presents distinct conflict-of-interest risks and could work against promises that Trump — a billionaire himself — made on the campaign trail. As he crisscrossed the country to host rallies, Trump repeatedly promised to fight for the rights of working- and middle-class Americans by bringing back manufacturing jobs and limiting inflation.
As this Post article (alternate link here) oh-so-politely observes, the billionaires who will make up the majority of Trump cabinet nominees are walking, talking conflicts of interest. Just like Dear Leader. Which is, of course, one of the reasons they were invited to join. They – and the oligarchs in Trump's orbit – will cash in. As in any gangster-style operation, a cut of the loot will find its way to the boss and his family. Trump's first administration was by far the most corrupt in American history. This one will make 2017-21 look like a model of propriety. The planned, huge tax cuts for the billionaires are merely a down payment. And now that Trump (hat tip to our corrupt Supreme Court) will have total immunity for prosecution, just imagine how it's going to go.
Again, I have to ask: Will Big Journalism notice how prevalent Trump world corruption is already, much less pay attention when it's vastly more broad and deep? Sure, a few media organizations will tell us about some of the rot. Sadly, I feel safe in predicting that like last time, our feckless press corps will ignore the context. They'll spot a few brush fires, but they'll never, ever show and explain that the entire forest is ablaze.
I had a brief crisis of conscience last night. After having looked at the photo of this murdered man in news stories and seeing his eyes so many times in a row I started to wonder if we were all acting too cruelly. But then I remembered that every day companies like this look millions of suffering, injured, sick and dying people pleading with them for help directly in the eye and tell them to go fuck their mother. Actually that's not true. They just press a button or let an algorithm decide our fate. They don't even have the decency to look people in the eye. They leave that up to some other guy. That care part is not their business. Raking in the money is.
As discussed, the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson feels like a turning point. The American public's contempt for him and his company, and for the health insurance industry in general, was given voice by countless online expressions of satisfaction if not grotesque glee. This newsletter post sums up the "conflict" of money versus lives as well as any I've seen, and goes straight to a reality that most people have refused to consider: We live or die, thrive or wither, so often at the whim of faceless corporations run by people whose indifference to our suffering, and deaths, could not be greater. Like his fabulously rich fellow executives who're still around, Thompson led an organization whose fundamental business model was based on all-powerful – but largely unaccountable – death panels. And when it came to approving coverage and/or payment, no company has been more prone to denying both than the one he ran.
A claim file is a collection of the information your insurer used to decide whether it would pay for your medical treatment or services. Most people in the U.S. facing a denial have the right to request their claim file from their insurer. It can include internal correspondence, recordings of phone calls, case notes, medical records and other relevant information. Information in your claim file can be critical when appealing denials. Some patients told us they received case notes showing that their insurer’s decision was the outcome of cost-cutting programs. Others have gotten denials overturned by obtaining recordings of phone calls where company staff introduced errors into their cases.
No American journalism organization has done more to expose the predatory indifference of the health insurance industry than ProPublica. Its "Claim File Helper" (published last year) is a smart and, as far as I know, unique addition to healthcare reporting: an excellent tool for regular folks whose insurers have denied claims. Keep the link handy. I hope you'll never need it, but until our politicians decide to fix the gaping holes in our nation's healthcare system, you might find it valuable someday.
This newsletter is a compendium of the reporting and commentary that best explains the America's political, economic, and social conditions – and, most important, how we can find a way back from the dark days ahead. You will rarely find anything here from the New York Times or Washington Post or any of the other Big Journalism companies that failed us so completely during the 2024 elections and are now sucking up – even more than usual – to Donald Trump, his cult, and corporate oligarchs. My focus will be on smaller, more honorable outlets (and individuals). I hope you'll support them with your attention and your money. For more details, please read my About page.
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Micah L. Sifry
Luke O’Neil
