I sold my food trucks for Bernie. Left DC saying "fuck politics." Spent three years as a general contractor in East Tennessee, building houses and staying the hell away from all this nonsense.
Then Trump won again. And here I am, back on Substack, back on these livestreams, back in the fight I thought I was done with.
Mike Nellis and I had never actually talked before this livestream. The Substack folks thought we'd make an interesting pair - the Justice Democrats co-founder who helped get AOC elected meets the self-described "establishment hack" who's been in the trenches for 20 years. They weren't wrong.
What Hit Different
The economy bullshit: Mike and I both see it - Democrats standing up there talking about how great the economy is while people are financing their goddamn groceries. I dropped the numbers on him: the bottom 80% of Americans spend more than 100% of their income on basic necessities. They're drowning in debt, and we're out here citing Nobel laureates.
We've stopped building: This is what drives me crazy. We used to make things in this country. In East Tennessee where I'm from, American Enka BASF employed a third of the county. Now those jobs are gone, and we're told America's future is in "managing intellectual property" or whatever bullshit the Chicago school economists are selling. Mike gets this - he owned a manufacturing company. We need to build again.
The party's become decline management: I told Mike straight up - Democrats have given up on America's future. They think our best days are behind us and they're just trying to manage the decline. That's not leadership. That's not what working people need.
Where We Went At It
On Democratic leadership: I think every single one of these Democrats sitting around twiddling their thumbs needs a primary opponent. Hakeem Jeffries won with 23,000 votes in his primary. That's ripe for the taking. Mike thinks I'm too aggressive here - he sees these people as imperfect tools we need to win.
On winning: Mike pushed me hard on this - where's the evidence that my kind of politics wins? Fair question. My answer? Look at Trump. Take away the racism and criminality, and his economic populism is exactly what Democrats should be doing. We keep trying to moderate on economics when we should be moderating on not sounding like robots.
On Bernie: We both worked for him, but Mike made the point that Bernie's an institutionalist who would've died arguing with some undersecretary. He's not wrong. We need someone with Bernie's politics but Trump's urgency to tear shit apart and rebuild.
The Real Talk
Here's what I realized during this conversation: Mike and I aren't that far apart. We're both pissed about the same things. We both want Democrats to stop talking like lawyers and start talking like humans. We both think the party needs to get off its ass and actually deliver for people.
The difference is tactics. He wants to win with the tools we have. I want to break the tools and build new ones.
Maybe we need both. Maybe that's how we actually fix this mess.
But one thing's for sure - we can't keep doing the same shit and expecting different results. That's why I'm back. That's why I'm writing again. That's why I'm having these conversations.
Because just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.
Watch the full hour if you want to see two Bernie guys figure out they agree more than they thought they would. And if you're as frustrated as we are, maybe it's time you got back in the fight too.
Subscribe to America's Undoing if you want to hear more about how we got here and how we get out.
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