After one of the worst weeks of my life, I woke up yesterday morning in a world I genuinely believed was gone. I woke up to discover that gravity is, in fact, real. I woke up to a country that didn’t fuck up the open book test again, and for the first time in a decade, I think that maybe I see a warm and comforting glow behind a distant horizon. There’s still a whole lot of darkness to cross before we get there, but at least I can see it.
Which is why I want new leadership in Congress, if the speeches the current leadership has given are any indication of how they intend to use the majority we just gave them. With all due respect to Hakeem Jefferies, I’m going to quote Ashley The Baroness on Instagram, explaining why she believes we need a different Speaker: “What was all that fighting for, if when you get into that room, your courage ends?”
And as Amanda Nelson has so eloquently laid out, Chuck Schumer has shown us how he leads, and his leadership is wildly out of step with the base of the party, the mainstream of the party, and (as it turns out this week) the majority of voters in America. We’ve been fed up with his sternly-worded letters and his threats that whatever unconstitutional depravity coming out of the white house will sure make them look bad, and nothing else, for a decade, at least. America does not need, and can not survive, Democratic leaders who don’t have the stomach for the bare-knuckled brawling it will take to deliver consequences to Trump, his cabinet, his family, and the criminal Republicans who have enabled and protected them.
It was very telling that in his first speech after the GOP’s extinction-level event, Jefferies framed our need for accountability as a desire for revenge. He just doesn’t get it, if he truly believes that. He isn’t stupid, and he knows that if we do not hold all of them to account — which includes prison time — all those new Democratic voters who clearly said FUCK THEM UP SO THEY NEVER TRY THIS AGAIN will never come back, and we will be right back where we were last week.
It is astonishingly tone deaf, and not just a little insulting, to suggest that our demand and very real need for accountability and consequences is simply wanting to get even, to exact a petty revenge. I doubt he believes that, and is speaking in dogwhistles to the corporate donors and AIPAC, which would make his position even more craven than it already is.
Schumer is already surrendering in advance, probably locked in a room with The Baileys while he tries to figure out
Think of it like this: voters gave Democrats a loaded canon and said “aim this at the heart of Republican corruption”. We even set it up for them, so all they have to do is light the fuse. And Jefferies and Schumer swung the barrel around and aimed it at their feet.
Yeah. No. We aren’t going to stand for this. We gave you a mandate. Voters who have never and will never vote for a Democrat again gave you a mandate. The mandate is clear: HOLD. THEM. ACCOUNTABLE. FOR. THEIR. CRIMES.
In other words:
There is still time to get these guys on record and force them to commit to the most intense oversight in history. Call your reps and your senators, congratulate them on their historic wave election, and tell them that we expect them to use their majorities to punish these criminals so severely, nobody will even think about trying this again for at least a generation.
Hi, I’m Wil. I write this blog (duh), I host It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton, which drops new episodes every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and in our Patreon. Occasionally I show up on your TV. You can follow me on Instagram and Threads where I am @itswilwheaton. You can get your own adorable Wil Wheaton Bedhead plushie for another 17 or so days, and if you want my posts delivered to your inbox, here is the thingy:
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I’m not American, but watching Schumer and Jefferies fuck this up is beyond frustrating even from half way around the world.
Thanks for stating so clearly what all of us feel. There is hope and there is also a ton of work to do.
Yes yes yes yes and YES!! Thanks Wil, for saying this so beautiful beautifully and succinctly and getting straight to the point. I don’t think they have reckoned for the massive grass root movement that is now in place that will no longer tolerate this namby-pamby concession driven politics. Both these men are woefully out of touch and operating and a system that may have worked 30 years ago but is absolutely ineffective in today’s times. They have a mandate for change and it’s on us to hold them to it..
So. Very. Much. THIS. 🎯
Agree! Just called both my senators and my rep to demand new leadership.
In the words of the great Martin Luther King (probably) – “Amen.” Thanks Wil.
Hi Wil,
I am sending you directly this message here on your blog in response to the message that you sent me directly here on your online blog for me to tell you that I am sorry that I have been profoundly disrespectful of you.
I did not mean for me to come across as me being profoundly disrespectful of you as what actually happened was is that I got so excited when you finally responded to me directly ever in my life on Patreon not very long ago as I was hoping that point that you and I were going to get “a chat in” and when you were not very response to me after that I then got confused so as a result of that exact response of yours it unfortunately lead to me coming off too strongly on you along with me being autistic being a contributor to that issue and another thing that has happened as a result of that issue is that besides me being autistic as part of my mental-handicap as I have Auditory Processing Disorder, APD, so therefore unfortunately that made me not process what you had communicated regarding to your boundaries to me.
However I have since after Wednesday of last week realized that me having trouble processing your boundaries that you have communicated to me due to Auditory Processing Disorder being one of my diagnoses for my mental-handicap is not an excuse for that making it ok for me to be profoundly disrespectful of you on my part.
Per as I have looked back at that after just Wednesday as part of that realization of mine that I am referring to is that I should have just asked during when you have communicated your boundaries to me directly instead of what has happened between you and I something like “Can you please communicate your boundaries to me in a way that I can best process it because of Auditory Processing Disorder being one of the diagnoses that my mental-handicap consists of as I apologize for any inconvenience that this exact request of mine to you that I am submitting may be causing for you Wil?” or something like that.
Again I deeply apologize to you directly for the issue that has gone on between you and I of that I have caused between you and I so far and I look forward to both you and I corresponding directly with each other in the future in a way that is not me coming across as me being profoundly disrespectful of you directly so can you please accept this apology of mine for you directly or no?
Sincerely,
Michael Toschi (Your Fan)
Florida voters, dumb fucks that they are, failed the open book test again. Expected but still disappointing.
I don’t think Florida voters lost the contests there. I think Schumer’s uselessness and the DCCC and DSCC refusing to support very viable candidates there, who ended up losing by one or two points, are entirely to blame. I fully expect Florida to go blue in 28.
So beautifully written . I feel hope at the end of a dark tunnel . As someone who can relate to this , thank you so much .
While appreciate and respect these views but many people are missing one of the main reasons the blue tsunami happened in Iowa, Kansas, Texas and South Carolina – costs. Gas/diesel costs, groceries costs, housing costs, health care costs etc. Yes, there were many voters who expressed their anger in the ballot box but the exit polls were clear that the economy and the war driving it was a key reason the votes went blue. Those issues have to be addressed as much as going after the corruption and criminality of Trump’s administration.
100% agree. All respect to the diplomacy of Jean-Luc, but sometimes we need leaders like Benjamin Sisko who hit Q with a 1-2 punch that sent him packing for the Delta Quadrant. Jeffries and Schumer showed where just talk gets us. I have to wonder if AOC is up for the Speaker job?
The centrist wing of the Dems and their corporate donors would love AOC to run for Speaker… it will be an effective way to waste the name recognition and reach that will make her so effective in her inevitable run for President in ’28.
How does it go? Scratch a liberal… Schumer and Jeffries are ultimately funded by the same corporate that cozy up to the GOP and lobby against the working class to further enrich themselves.
Love ya Wil and don’t worry too much. DNC party leadership is not in sync with the working class and the last couple of years has opened their eyes to this. There’s a whole roster of new fighters getting tagged in, they aren’t here to lie down and give up and the masses are very much behind them. The work is just beginning.
Just to be abundantly clear: The Democrats did NOT “win” this election. There were merely a vote bucket for folks fed up with Republican shenanigans. That’s all. The DNC is a hot mess, rudderless, wandering blindly without focus.
There is SO MUCH work left for both the RNC and DNC to do before the next election. One of them holds the Executive Branch and the Judiciary, the other the Legislative Branch.
The RNC needs to plot its path to a post-Trump existence. Even Trump has acknowledged this in some of his seemingly random babbling. The simple proof is that Trump’s hand-picked candidates lost. Trump’s imprimatur is gone. However, this does NOT apply to the rest of the RNC Platform! All they need is a few tweaks and fresh leadership.
The DNC is not so fortunate. On the ground, the party is all over the place, with individual candidates making it into whatever best suits their needs, just enough for them to run under the Democrat Brand. I very much doubt we’ll ever again see a nationally unified Democratic Party. Meaning the DNC must explicitly embrace the “Big Tent” model, complete with annexes and wings.
Too few remember the Blue Dog Democrats, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Too many are overly concerned by the Democratic Socialists. Talk about a big tent!
The Democratic Party can’t become just a Centrist party, though legislatively they’ll need to be precisely that, at least initially, to keep the wheels from falling off of the juggernaut government wagon.
What will the Democrats become? We must start small, with a minimal core of solid issues that all members can enthusiastically support (even if only symbolically). Then add a layer that “enough” can support without pissing off the rest of the Democrats.
Finally, for the next two years, the Democrats must ensure as much legislation as possible gets passed in a bipartisan manner. Intentionally kept far away from any explicit DNC or RNC platform items. Keep the wheels on the wagon.
Afuckingmen.
YES all of this!! It’s beyond unacceptable to hear anyone say “we need to work together across the aisle” or hearing red voters whine that Dems are “out for revenge.” Fuck that. We’ve watched as republicans have supported MAGA, corruption, murder, crimes against humanity and women, trans people and children, war, not to mention an all out onslaught on human rights, science, public health… anyone who wants to fucking work with that and play moderate can leave now. We need to confront and hold accountable anyone who was complicit in all of this. This isn’t a time to play nice. We’ve literally seen what they are willing to do, and so-called Dems who want to not rock the boat or keep peace to make their corporate billionaire donors happy can leave now.
John Scalzi said something similar over here (and I fully agree with both him and you):
“This election was a rebuke and a repudiation, and I hope to the sweet and merry God above that the Democrats remember that when they’re seated in January. They were not elected to office to play nice with the fascists in the halls of power. They were elected to punch them in the face, repeatedly, the president most of all, but, be assured, not only him. There is to be a lot of punching going on.”
Nuremberg 2: Mar a Lago Edition is going to be great
Could not possibly agree more. Nothing changes if Dems don’t go hard on all fronts, immediately.
Also that meme is one of my all-time favorites 😌
Amen, Wil. I just called my Senators and rep to demand new leadership in both chambers. Let’s do this!!
Amen, Wil. I just called my senators and rep to demand new leadership in both chambers. Let’s do this!!