I wish you were wrong. You are not. Money buys elections, especially big money spent near the day of the election. This is why Trump and company want to ban mail-in voting. They know that last day voters get swayed by last day messaging. If they are loudest on the last day, they win. This does not sway those who have already voted.
I expect that health is the key message. Healthy air, healthy water, healthy food, healthy forests and healthy people are the goals. The irony is that all these, done right are less expensive. A single payer health system saves 30% up front, the amount the bureaucracy of insurance and HMOs syphon off the system. Healthy air, water, food, and forests keeps people from getting sick in the first place. All the actions of MAGA and the right confirm that they care nothing for these. They only care about shareholder value and making sure they control all the shares.
The challenge you set is monumental. We head toward economic depression and ecological collapse. What we need to do is already too late, but still worthwhile to reduce the calamity of collapse. I hate gloom and doom, but foresee it as nearly inevitable, and the outcome worsens the longer we delay.
Please don’t limit the ‘care nothing’ category to MAGA and the right. As Corbin often notes, the corporate Dems are equally culpable, in my mind even more so due to the working class betrayal since 1980.
I share the doom and gloom, but as I. F. Stone noted, will enjoy the fights ahead - “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing — for the sheer fun and joy of it — to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.” - I. F. Stone
You are correct about the Dems. The leadership of the party frustrates to no end. As Bill McDonough said in another context, "Being less bad is no good." It just means you get destroyed after a longer period. What we require is change at scale now, not incremental baby steps. This change is greater than Franklin Roosevelt faced because the damage done to our planet is greater due to higher consumption and more extensive looting of the planet's resource base. The marginalized population is far greater now than it was in 1932, and the problem has globalized.
Yep. Even if we dodge the nuclear holocaust, global pandemic, and wealth inequality bullets, I think climate chaos will ultimately be what causes our downfall.
Yep! No time to wait for elections to deal with the turnaround we need. My advocacy has been to wake everyone up to how threatening our situation is so that all hands would be on deck, looking to what to do! How to get that wake-up to happen is the question I work with.
Keep doing what you’re doing; awareness is always a precursor to meaningful change. The key is finding connection points to open doors, depending on who you happen to be interacting with.
Thank you my friend for saying what is obvious but unconscious. 'murkans need real, visceral threats to activate their nor-epinephrine, and that drug has two edges. It is too late. The worms have turned. The contamination is now too deep into the mitochondria. The cancers rule. But what Corbin implies is really possible. Guerilla warfare begins with a network of once isolated cells who need each other to survive.
Great site, message, and purpose. In alignment. You just need the economics. And that's what I do. Of course, I signed up. Don't have much money, but got time. We should talk.
Thank you, Corbin, for all you are doing to raise awareness and build a movement by, of and for We the People. I have just joined A Fight Worth Having and am donating monthly. It's not a lot but if we all join together, millions of Americans and give of our time, talent and treasures as we can we will take back all the institutions that have been corruptly taken over by the billionaire Epstein class. Thank you!
Corbin, I signed up and am a recurring donor, as I am for Justice Democrats and Our Revolution. But I don’t understand how will your PAC differ from these? Aren’t they supporting candidates with a unified vision?
Great question, and thank you for already supporting Justice Democrats and Our Revolution. Those are real organizations doing real work.
Here's the honest difference. We're not just recruiting candidates from scratch and hoping they win in isolation. We're going to find candidates already running, get them aligned on a core set of ideas, and then get them to actually stand together publicly as a coordinated bloc. Not parallel campaigns doing their own thing in their own districts. A team.
We start with the most obvious thing everybody can agree on: House and Senate Democrats need new leadership. That's the entry point. Then we work down the ladder toward the deeper stuff, Mission for America, public ownership of hospitals, public AI, the whole framework. You build coalition by starting where you can get agreement and expanding from there.
The other thing is I'm not squeamish about the fight. Some of these groups won't run negative ads or go hard at opponents. I will. We're going to be scrappy about it.
I co-founded Justice Democrats. I love what they do. But what I keep watching is good candidates getting picked off one by one because they're isolated. No coordination, no mutual support, no shared plan. That's what I'm trying to fix.
Whether we can pull it off is a fair question. But that's the difference.
We didn't get beat by AIPAC money. In Illinois, progressive Junaid Ahmed lost to Melissa Bean by 5.1% in a race in which another progressive candidate, Yasmeen Bankole, siphoned off the 9.6% of the votes that could have put him over the top. Same thing happened in Kat Abughazaleh's race: she fell 3.6% short of beating the establishment candidate in a race in which another progressive siphoned off 7.3% of her support. We could have won both these races had the less-popular progressive candidates not sacrificed the cause to their own egos. For an appropriately outraged post-mortem on both these races, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjonqYBK96c.
Agree. We either need single candidates or Ranked Choice voting. Would not be surprised if alternate progressive candidates were partly funded by the other side.
Neither the Republicans nor establishment Democrats will give us ranked choice because they know the likely result. What we need now is the discipline and ruthlessness to visit upon ego-driven "progressives" meaningful electoral retribution when their unrestrained ambition produces results like we had in Illinois the other night.
But you buried the lede after long paragraphs of numbers and links. I only kept skimming because I know you.
Would you consider dropping this as the BLUF (bottom line up front), say in a text box? THIS is why I'll donate to your PAC. And then the link to your website.
"Nobody is putting a group of candidates on a stage together around a mission bigger than any one of them. We campaign on Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and a living wage and those are good things worth fighting for. But they’re policies. They’re not a vision. And a vision is what builds a movement big enough to actually scare the people writing those checks."
Go ahead, Corbin! You know the electoral terrain, you know potential candidates, and you know all the progressive organizations participating in the elections. Collaborate with these progressive organizations, and maybe even some moderate, as much as possible even if you don't share exactly the same vision. The first step is to get as many progressive democratic and independent candidates elected as possible even if their economic and political views are somewhat different. Organize a united progressive electoral campaign, a coalition, that works with and for the same candidates across the country. This is the MAGA strategy. Divided we will always lose.
We will never outspend the billionaires, but our power should be people, enthusiasm, volunteers, the right strategy and tactics, skillful use of technology, like in Mamdani's campaign. Cuomo spent a fortune running a smear campaign (antisemitism, terrorism support, security threats, etc.) and failed spectacularly. We simply cannot afford progressive candidates to run against each other, and this has to be articulated strongly enough and agreed upon with as many progressive organizations as possible in advance. They have to be able to negotiate with each other. If they are stubborn and do not listen to rational arguments, they are not worth being supported. The bottom line is: unity and popular support is the key. So far as we still have some remnants of the democracy (at least electoral), money, as important as they are, should not be a decisive factor. And this leaves some room for hope and optimism in this uphill fight that is certainly worth having.
I agree with your content. But please edit more. For me to see this idea, it has to be punchier and clearer quicker. Maybe headings for paragraphs or something that makes it more easily digested and useable in conversation. Thanks.
This is Jeremy Scahill of Dropsite News talking about his interviews of Iranian officials - mainly the fact that Wikoff & Trump are as usual telling us dont believe your eyes and ears - believe us! It's very interesting.
Love your site! I just signed up and donated. You mentioned 4 people that I have been excited about and that got me even more interested. I’ll do what I can to spread the word.
With millions of ordinary Americans, previously MAGA supporters, becoming disillusioned and angry with the government, this is the moment to channel, capture their angry energy into support for a new political entity. They’ll be hard pressed and reluctant or downright unwilling to support the Democratic Party (and I don’t blame them) but could conceivably rally build a new independent political entity that is oriented towards working class people.
But it must be clear that the slate of candidates they are voting for is distinct from the Democratic establishment and will champion legislation that favors working people, urban, suburban and rural, not billionaires, corporations and monopolies that have made their lives a daily struggle. A coalition of disillusioned Republicans and Democrats, along with the 85 million who chose not to vote in 2024 is an electoral force with great power.
I wish you were wrong. You are not. Money buys elections, especially big money spent near the day of the election. This is why Trump and company want to ban mail-in voting. They know that last day voters get swayed by last day messaging. If they are loudest on the last day, they win. This does not sway those who have already voted.
I expect that health is the key message. Healthy air, healthy water, healthy food, healthy forests and healthy people are the goals. The irony is that all these, done right are less expensive. A single payer health system saves 30% up front, the amount the bureaucracy of insurance and HMOs syphon off the system. Healthy air, water, food, and forests keeps people from getting sick in the first place. All the actions of MAGA and the right confirm that they care nothing for these. They only care about shareholder value and making sure they control all the shares.
The challenge you set is monumental. We head toward economic depression and ecological collapse. What we need to do is already too late, but still worthwhile to reduce the calamity of collapse. I hate gloom and doom, but foresee it as nearly inevitable, and the outcome worsens the longer we delay.
Please don’t limit the ‘care nothing’ category to MAGA and the right. As Corbin often notes, the corporate Dems are equally culpable, in my mind even more so due to the working class betrayal since 1980.
I share the doom and gloom, but as I. F. Stone noted, will enjoy the fights ahead - “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing — for the sheer fun and joy of it — to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.” - I. F. Stone
You are correct about the Dems. The leadership of the party frustrates to no end. As Bill McDonough said in another context, "Being less bad is no good." It just means you get destroyed after a longer period. What we require is change at scale now, not incremental baby steps. This change is greater than Franklin Roosevelt faced because the damage done to our planet is greater due to higher consumption and more extensive looting of the planet's resource base. The marginalized population is far greater now than it was in 1932, and the problem has globalized.
Yep. Even if we dodge the nuclear holocaust, global pandemic, and wealth inequality bullets, I think climate chaos will ultimately be what causes our downfall.
Yep! No time to wait for elections to deal with the turnaround we need. My advocacy has been to wake everyone up to how threatening our situation is so that all hands would be on deck, looking to what to do! How to get that wake-up to happen is the question I work with.
Keep doing what you’re doing; awareness is always a precursor to meaningful change. The key is finding connection points to open doors, depending on who you happen to be interacting with.
I was looking for a connecting point this week -- haven't yet:
Open Letter to Heather Delaney Reese
Can we start something?
https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/open-letter-to-heather-delaney-reese
Thank you my friend for saying what is obvious but unconscious. 'murkans need real, visceral threats to activate their nor-epinephrine, and that drug has two edges. It is too late. The worms have turned. The contamination is now too deep into the mitochondria. The cancers rule. But what Corbin implies is really possible. Guerilla warfare begins with a network of once isolated cells who need each other to survive.
Great site, message, and purpose. In alignment. You just need the economics. And that's what I do. Of course, I signed up. Don't have much money, but got time. We should talk.
Thank you, Corbin, for all you are doing to raise awareness and build a movement by, of and for We the People. I have just joined A Fight Worth Having and am donating monthly. It's not a lot but if we all join together, millions of Americans and give of our time, talent and treasures as we can we will take back all the institutions that have been corruptly taken over by the billionaire Epstein class. Thank you!
Corbin, I signed up and am a recurring donor, as I am for Justice Democrats and Our Revolution. But I don’t understand how will your PAC differ from these? Aren’t they supporting candidates with a unified vision?
Hey, Democracy Defender! Thanks for signing up.
Great question, and thank you for already supporting Justice Democrats and Our Revolution. Those are real organizations doing real work.
Here's the honest difference. We're not just recruiting candidates from scratch and hoping they win in isolation. We're going to find candidates already running, get them aligned on a core set of ideas, and then get them to actually stand together publicly as a coordinated bloc. Not parallel campaigns doing their own thing in their own districts. A team.
We start with the most obvious thing everybody can agree on: House and Senate Democrats need new leadership. That's the entry point. Then we work down the ladder toward the deeper stuff, Mission for America, public ownership of hospitals, public AI, the whole framework. You build coalition by starting where you can get agreement and expanding from there.
The other thing is I'm not squeamish about the fight. Some of these groups won't run negative ads or go hard at opponents. I will. We're going to be scrappy about it.
I co-founded Justice Democrats. I love what they do. But what I keep watching is good candidates getting picked off one by one because they're isolated. No coordination, no mutual support, no shared plan. That's what I'm trying to fix.
Whether we can pull it off is a fair question. But that's the difference.
I have a better understanding of your vision and love it!! I’ll try to get my friends to contribute as well
My suggestions for the core set of ideas that the publicly coordinated bloc of candidates would stand for and be laser focused on as Mamdani did:
Release the all the Epstein files (with implied prosecutions at the earliest opportunity)
Medicare for All
Economic Justice through Tax Reform (Patriotic Millionaires provide an excellent framework)
End Forever Wars Immediately
No money from PACS unless the candidates, including incumbents, support these policies.
Exactly my question.
And, by the way, read Heather Cox Richardson’s 18 March post…
We didn't get beat by AIPAC money. In Illinois, progressive Junaid Ahmed lost to Melissa Bean by 5.1% in a race in which another progressive candidate, Yasmeen Bankole, siphoned off the 9.6% of the votes that could have put him over the top. Same thing happened in Kat Abughazaleh's race: she fell 3.6% short of beating the establishment candidate in a race in which another progressive siphoned off 7.3% of her support. We could have won both these races had the less-popular progressive candidates not sacrificed the cause to their own egos. For an appropriately outraged post-mortem on both these races, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjonqYBK96c.
Agree. We either need single candidates or Ranked Choice voting. Would not be surprised if alternate progressive candidates were partly funded by the other side.
Neither the Republicans nor establishment Democrats will give us ranked choice because they know the likely result. What we need now is the discipline and ruthlessness to visit upon ego-driven "progressives" meaningful electoral retribution when their unrestrained ambition produces results like we had in Illinois the other night.
Great video. Says a lot about how not to do politics.
"Trump didn't break America—he’s what a broken America produces."
Thank you.
I've been saying this for a long time--it is the only reason he could be elected twice.
You give me hope!🙏
I just joined America's Undoing as a paid subscriber. Your thoughts and writings are so critical at this point in America's history.
This article is hugely important!
But you buried the lede after long paragraphs of numbers and links. I only kept skimming because I know you.
Would you consider dropping this as the BLUF (bottom line up front), say in a text box? THIS is why I'll donate to your PAC. And then the link to your website.
"Nobody is putting a group of candidates on a stage together around a mission bigger than any one of them. We campaign on Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and a living wage and those are good things worth fighting for. But they’re policies. They’re not a vision. And a vision is what builds a movement big enough to actually scare the people writing those checks."
Go ahead, Corbin! You know the electoral terrain, you know potential candidates, and you know all the progressive organizations participating in the elections. Collaborate with these progressive organizations, and maybe even some moderate, as much as possible even if you don't share exactly the same vision. The first step is to get as many progressive democratic and independent candidates elected as possible even if their economic and political views are somewhat different. Organize a united progressive electoral campaign, a coalition, that works with and for the same candidates across the country. This is the MAGA strategy. Divided we will always lose.
We will never outspend the billionaires, but our power should be people, enthusiasm, volunteers, the right strategy and tactics, skillful use of technology, like in Mamdani's campaign. Cuomo spent a fortune running a smear campaign (antisemitism, terrorism support, security threats, etc.) and failed spectacularly. We simply cannot afford progressive candidates to run against each other, and this has to be articulated strongly enough and agreed upon with as many progressive organizations as possible in advance. They have to be able to negotiate with each other. If they are stubborn and do not listen to rational arguments, they are not worth being supported. The bottom line is: unity and popular support is the key. So far as we still have some remnants of the democracy (at least electoral), money, as important as they are, should not be a decisive factor. And this leaves some room for hope and optimism in this uphill fight that is certainly worth having.
I agree with your content. But please edit more. For me to see this idea, it has to be punchier and clearer quicker. Maybe headings for paragraphs or something that makes it more easily digested and useable in conversation. Thanks.
Here is the other part of it, try this:
https://afightworthhaving.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This is Jeremy Scahill of Dropsite News talking about his interviews of Iranian officials - mainly the fact that Wikoff & Trump are as usual telling us dont believe your eyes and ears - believe us! It's very interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKRgjNimexg
Love your site! I just signed up and donated. You mentioned 4 people that I have been excited about and that got me even more interested. I’ll do what I can to spread the word.
With millions of ordinary Americans, previously MAGA supporters, becoming disillusioned and angry with the government, this is the moment to channel, capture their angry energy into support for a new political entity. They’ll be hard pressed and reluctant or downright unwilling to support the Democratic Party (and I don’t blame them) but could conceivably rally build a new independent political entity that is oriented towards working class people.
But it must be clear that the slate of candidates they are voting for is distinct from the Democratic establishment and will champion legislation that favors working people, urban, suburban and rural, not billionaires, corporations and monopolies that have made their lives a daily struggle. A coalition of disillusioned Republicans and Democrats, along with the 85 million who chose not to vote in 2024 is an electoral force with great power.
Thank you Corbin.