The rumors of a midterm convention are a harbinger of disaster if it were to come about. There's no standard bearer for the warring divisions of the party to defer to, and then infighting will be turned into fodder for Republican ads possibly enough to buck the trend of incumbent president's party losing seats in the midterm (last occurred in 2002). If the economic populists/progressives/anti-Establishment Dems are going to participate then the Blue Dog/corporate/conservative-moderates/Establishment Dems would need to accept the inferior position to anti-Establishment and I don't think that's plausible.
The Anti-Establishment Dems are going to point to bold policies of universal childcare and taxing billionaires of newly elected Mayor Mamdani as the way to go forward, while the moderates will point to the gradualism and playing defense of newly elected Governor Abigail Spanberger as the way to go forward. These are mutually exclusive approaches and if the moderates take the convention as their Sista Soldier moment and deride the progressives while the progressives decide that they will show that they aren't bought by AIPAC and demand for the party to conform to a stopping of sending any money or military assistance to Israel, then they will come to an impasse and that won't be convincing anyone to pull the lever for Democrats.
Democratic party can't have a contract with America like Gingrich in 1994, because there's no uniformity among the electeds and the candidates, on very core issues there's an irrevocable difference between two (or more) divisions of the party. Being the party against Trump didn't work, and it's not likely that a global catastrophe that will be mismanaged by Trump will happen again so they can't rely on a repeat of those events. Democrats can't have a Kumbaya moment and feign unity when they can't get behind Democratic nominee of the nation's largest city that's bigger than any states other than the 12 most populated states (more populated than the state of Virginia).
The Democrats base is likely becoming increasingly sympathetic to a government shutdown. The messaging is straight forward, the government *used* to be a necessity but has now been weaponized against it's people and is no longer working in service of you but Donald Trump and the oligarchy yadda yadda. the choices are now, have a government filled with authoritarian loyalists that have been tasked with pursuing acts of revenge on the leaders enemies and opposing citizens or have no government at all. Given those options, it's better to shut it down indefinitely and try to force compromise than allow it to continue doing harm. And if there is no compromise to be had, then it's better off shutdown.
Think back to the arguments made earlier this year for not shutting down the government when Trump performed mass layoffs. It was, if Dems shutdown the government then they're just giving trump what he wants. But in the end, he got what he wanted anyway, with mass layoffs being able to proceed. The damage is done and it has now been remade in his image. If everything the Democrats what a government for has already been taken away, then they have nothing left to lose
The rumors of a midterm convention are a harbinger of disaster if it were to come about. There's no standard bearer for the warring divisions of the party to defer to, and then infighting will be turned into fodder for Republican ads possibly enough to buck the trend of incumbent president's party losing seats in the midterm (last occurred in 2002). If the economic populists/progressives/anti-Establishment Dems are going to participate then the Blue Dog/corporate/conservative-moderates/Establishment Dems would need to accept the inferior position to anti-Establishment and I don't think that's plausible.
The Anti-Establishment Dems are going to point to bold policies of universal childcare and taxing billionaires of newly elected Mayor Mamdani as the way to go forward, while the moderates will point to the gradualism and playing defense of newly elected Governor Abigail Spanberger as the way to go forward. These are mutually exclusive approaches and if the moderates take the convention as their Sista Soldier moment and deride the progressives while the progressives decide that they will show that they aren't bought by AIPAC and demand for the party to conform to a stopping of sending any money or military assistance to Israel, then they will come to an impasse and that won't be convincing anyone to pull the lever for Democrats.
Democratic party can't have a contract with America like Gingrich in 1994, because there's no uniformity among the electeds and the candidates, on very core issues there's an irrevocable difference between two (or more) divisions of the party. Being the party against Trump didn't work, and it's not likely that a global catastrophe that will be mismanaged by Trump will happen again so they can't rely on a repeat of those events. Democrats can't have a Kumbaya moment and feign unity when they can't get behind Democratic nominee of the nation's largest city that's bigger than any states other than the 12 most populated states (more populated than the state of Virginia).
The Democrats base is likely becoming increasingly sympathetic to a government shutdown. The messaging is straight forward, the government *used* to be a necessity but has now been weaponized against it's people and is no longer working in service of you but Donald Trump and the oligarchy yadda yadda. the choices are now, have a government filled with authoritarian loyalists that have been tasked with pursuing acts of revenge on the leaders enemies and opposing citizens or have no government at all. Given those options, it's better to shut it down indefinitely and try to force compromise than allow it to continue doing harm. And if there is no compromise to be had, then it's better off shutdown.
Think back to the arguments made earlier this year for not shutting down the government when Trump performed mass layoffs. It was, if Dems shutdown the government then they're just giving trump what he wants. But in the end, he got what he wanted anyway, with mass layoffs being able to proceed. The damage is done and it has now been remade in his image. If everything the Democrats what a government for has already been taken away, then they have nothing left to lose