Dana Bash Nails It On Trump's War Against Free Press

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/24/politics/video/bash-trump-white-house-media-ban-digvid

You oughta read the poop the Faux news viewers are posting, with righteous indignation, about how correct Trump is in his bogus claims against media outlets he doesn't like...it's, as you can imagine, about as bad as it gets:  https://www.foxnews.com/media/federal-judge-orders-trump-administration-restore-white-house-access-cnn-msnow-politico

November can't get here quickly enough and if the country regains its collective sanity, republicans will lose both the senate and the house and remove the orange stain from the WH...

Total SCOTUS-CON HS!   https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/supreme-court-voter-roll-non-citizen-save

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/24/politics/video/bash-trump-white-house-media-ban-digvid

You oughta read the poop the Faux news viewers are posting, with righteous indignation, about how correct Trump is in his bogus claims against media outlets he doesn't like...it's, as you can imagine, about as bad as it gets:  https://www.foxnews.com/media/federal-judge-orders-trump-administration-restore-white-house-access-cnn-msnow-politico

November can't get here quickly enough and if the country regains its collective sanity, republicans will lose both the senate and the house and remove the orange stain from the WH...

Best you can hope for Rod, is that the Ds win both House and Senate.  No way in the world the majority in the Senate would be sizable enough to convict Trump after he is impeached.   So you are stuck with him until January, 2029.  

I do think gridlock is inevitable. 

I see two huge problems for the Ds in 2028, however. 

First, if the new majority in the House spends all of its time and energy impeaching Trump over and over and/or being entirely obstructionist for the next two years the R candidate is likely to win the Presidency in 2028.  The blue-collar base has been abandoned by the D party and these folks are receptive to populist Trump/Vance type rhetoric. 

Second, the socialist/DSA Democratic party candidates are going to do pretty well in 2026 given the coming blue wave.  Most DSA candidates are running in safe seats, and it is indisputable that a very active chunk of the new "elite" base of the Ds, i.e. urban/suburban white collar women and college educated kids love the DSA.  I saw this first hand in my own district when the Ds shockingly threw out a powerful, well-regarded, conventionally liberal 30 year Congresswoman (Diana DeGette) in favor of a socialist newbie.  Talk about shortsighted!  Anyway, if many more D's drink the DSA Kool-Aid after these candidates romp in 2026, then the path forward for any national R in 2028 becomes very very clear.

I can cite many articles and polls supporting the above issues for the D party.  Including everything written by Ruy Teixeira in the past several years.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Best you can hope for Rod, is that the Ds win both House and Senate.  No way in the world the majority in the Senate would be sizable enough to convict Trump after he is impeached.   So you are stuck with him until January, 2029.  

I do think gridlock is inevitable. 

I see two huge problems for the Ds in 2028, however. 

First, if the new majority in the House spends all of its time and energy impeaching Trump over and over and/or being entirely obstructionist for the next two years the R candidate is likely to win the Presidency in 2028.  The blue-collar base has been abandoned by the D party and these folks are receptive to populist Trump/Vance type rhetoric. 

Second, the socialist/DSA Democratic party candidates are going to do pretty well in 2026 given the coming blue wave.  Most DSA candidates are running in safe seats, and it is indisputable that a very active chunk of the new "elite" base of the Ds, i.e. urban/suburban white collar women and college educated kids love the DSA.  I saw this first hand in my own district when the Ds shockingly threw out a powerful, well-regarded, conventionally liberal 30 year Congresswoman (Diana DeGette) in favor of a socialist newbie.  Talk about shortsighted!  Anyway, if many more D's drink the DSA Kool-Aid after these candidates romp in 2026, then the path forward for any national R in 2028 becomes very very clear.

I can cite many articles and polls supporting the above issues for the D party.  Including everything written by Ruy Teixeira in the past several years.

Yeah, you're right, Jim.

While I do think Trump needs to held accountable, if that's all the Dems try to do, assuming they win both the house and the senate, the bread and butter issues, i.e, the economy has to be front and center and if they don't, we'll have another Republican in the WH and quite possibly, "JD".

That said, I think the Dems have to push Trump on the tariffs if they win and if they want to prevail long term. Trump has circumvented the SCOTUS decision in many ways despite the payback to corporations. The obvious example is Canada and there are many others. 

I think the Dems need to pass anti-tariff legislation and let try Trump to veto it so the GOP can answer for it later. People hate the tariffs for the most part, so I think it can be a winning message. 

I also think the Dems need to sharpen their messaging on all the so-called manufacturing plants that he claimed would happen in various states, including another today, that never happened and likely will not because its all Trump made-up BS.

Iran is a wild card and my guess is Trump will be forced into some sort of compromise that is, at best if we're lucky, as good as we already had under Obama but Iran will probably retain control of the strait despite Trump's lies to the contrary. 

Do you agree or do you think the Dems need a different strategy?

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

Yeah, you're right, Jim.

While I do think Trump needs to held accountable, if that's all the Dems try to do, assuming they win both the house and the senate, the bread and butter issues, i.e, the economy has to be front and center and if they don't, we'll have another Republican in the WH and quite possibly, "JD".

That said, I think the Dems have to push Trump on the tariffs if they win and if they want to prevail long term. Trump has circumvented the SCOTUS decision in many ways despite the payback to corporations. The obvious example is Canada and there are many others. 

I think the Dems need to pass anti-tariff legislation and let try Trump to veto it so the GOP can answer for it later. People hate the tariffs for the most part, so I think it can be a winning message. 

I also think the Dems need to sharpen their messaging on all the so-called manufacturing plants that he claimed would happen in various states, including another today, that never happened and likely will not because its all Trump made-up BS.

Iran is a wild card and my guess is Trump will be forced into some sort of compromise that is, at best if we're lucky, as good as we already had under Obama but Iran will probably retain control of the strait despite Trump's lies to the contrary. 

Do you agree or do you think the Dems need a different strategy?

I agree.   If the Ds can focus on the economy, including tariffs, and focus on wars unpopular with the public (Iran and Russia) the sky is the limit in 2028.   If they focus entirely on Trump they lose.   There is a thin line between holding him accountable and “vengeance” The activist base wants vengeance, but the Biden era prosecutors were a large part of the reason Trump is president now.  

Some of the bad ideas of the left, like everything the DSA stands for, need to be curbed right now, or the Ds will lose the crucial center voters big time.  I’m gonna start a thread on that one of these days.   It’s probably gonna be a short one because none of you guys are gonna want to defend the DSA, no matter what our dear friend says.