Thank you for this sharp and sobering piece. You’ve laid out the stakes with clarity and courage…not just the authoritarian threat, but the behavioral blind spots that keep the opposition from mounting a credible response. I deeply appreciate your willingness to name the dysfunction on both sides without falling into false equivalence.
Your line about “people can’t feel statistics” hits especially hard. That’s the behavioral gap—-the place where fear, perception, and narrative override data. And it’s precisely where demagogues thrive.
You’ve articulated something many feel but struggle to name: the behavioral asymmetry between authoritarian spectacle and democratic inertia.
Grateful for your clarity and courage in naming what needs to be named.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics & Applied Cognitive Theory
The "defund the police" noise was a tiny minority of Democrats grossly amplified by the Republican propaganda machine. While the concept makes sense as an endeavor to reduce crime by allocating resources to proactive measures instead of reactive actions, it's not the kind of concept that fits on a bumper sticker or a campaign speech. Nor does it appeal to a voter's guts.
Garry makes a lot of excellent points here. I agree the Democrats need a leadership overhaul and need to lead, rather than push back on the conversation defined by Trump and gang.
But I wish this were more specifically addressed to Democrats leadership tho, as us normal voters have absolutely no control of this. And I wish Garry better recognized the few voices among Democrats that are actually doing a decent job with statements and positions, but not getting a lot of air time. And I wish we might hear from Garry how to combat the consolidated media environment that does not give Democrats anything close to equal airtime and consideration.
John Ossoff has made an excellent stand on corruption. Chris Murphy has lectured his own party with a lot of the same points made here. Gavin Newsome is making waves with his social media presence, actually getting attention. Lets amplify them please. Thats the only way us normal citizens can actually help here.
This right here is the problem! The algorithms don't want anything that doesn't enrage people and that is the linchpin of MAGA. Liberals are going to have to get creative to get people to here anything but the constant drumbeat of lies from the right. If people actually look at charts on who does better on the economy and crime they would find Dems out perform Reps, but my entire life Dems have messaged for shit. Dem leadership is not built for this and are failing miserably.
Ossoff connects trump corruption to impacts to peoples lives.
Dems need to fully use the messaging talent they have in their ranks and in their allies. They are getting better but not there yet. No reason why Jeffries has to be the front man all the time.
The Dem party needs re-branding and a good way to start doing that is for many of the old guard to retire for new people to replace them. We are seeing some of that but not enough. But they won't do it.
Democrats ARE winning in most local contests. These winning strategies need to be adopted at the national level by new, younger and more grounded leaders.
Does electing “Democrats” even do any good though?
Not to my eyes.
What’s the point of voting for “leaders” who refuse to lead, and who just surrender your rights on your behalf?
Seems self-defeating to me.
The hard numbers are catastrophically bad for the Democrats. If they go into the election with a 32% approval rating, even a free and fair election, they’re going to get wiped out, with less than 1/3rd of seats in the House. Due to the Senate’s 6 year rotations, I haven’t done the math on how much they’d lose, but they’ll probably lose the ability to filibuster anything, if the filibuster still exists by then, which it probably won’t.
Yeah, in places that normally vote for Democrats by a 3:1 margin, they’ll probably still vote for Democrats by a 2:1 margin, or a 1.5:1 margin. However, any place that’s remotely competitive, they’ll get wiped out.
Regardless, the system has become irredeemably corrupted. I don’t see what good a few elected officials are going to do against that behemoth of injustice.
The 32% does not hold up in actual results in special elections. It just reflects a general discouragement in the overall population with fighting the seemingly all powerful regime. So it won’t hold up in ‘26 either based on the high quality of the candidates that are coming forward.
I think I just lost a bunch of text - so repeating some: I agree that current Dem leadership is weak and somewhat under the influence of big money. But for me they haven’t crossed the “I give up” line yet, tho I admit that I would welcome a “white knight” like another Ross Perot to shake things up.
I’ll be trying to converse with many of my fellow demonstrators at No Kings about their thoughts about the current Dem Party directions and leadership. And I do hope that you can keep an open mind regarding a possible future revolution in Dem leadership. There are a number of Zoran Mamdani types coming along.
1) Special elections are less correlated with general election results than many would like to portray, due to low turnout overall.
2) In these special elections, have you seriously compared the polling results of the candidates with their performance? If you suggest the polls are inaccurate, do you observe them underperforming in the average poll relative to their success?
3) What is each ‘lean’ of the districts in question for these special elections?
It is possible that I’m biased in seeing this trend as true, because it reflects my own perspective. I voted for Democrats for a number of years. Heck, I even voted for Harris. However, I feel that the Democratic party has utterly betrayed me, and I feel it would be a betrayal of my principles, my duties, and myself, to cast another vote for a Democrat, probably ever again.
It is therefore easy for me to imagine other people feeling the same, and I might be engaging in confirmation bias to a degree, as I look at the data.
However, consider for a moment that you are doing the same.
I would add a final point for you to consider.
4) You can ignore people, disrespect them, treat them badly in a coalition, to an extent, and if they hate the alternative to being in your coalition badly enough, they will remain in your coalition, but only to a certain point. There are limits to this. There are limits to what people will tolerate from those they’re willing to regard as allies. The Democratic party crossed that line, for a great many people. If you can’t see this, if you can’t be honest with yourself about it, then you’re choosing to disregard reality in favor of delusions you find more pleasing. Never underestimate the power of human pride. Never underestimate the powers of anger and hatred at betrayal either.
I agree that current Dem leadership is weak and somewhat under the influence of oligarchs — except for some rising stars. But for me and I think a good many others they haven’t crossed the “I give up” line yet.
I’ll be trying to get as many as possible of my fellow demonstrators in No Kings into conversations about this. I hope you’ll keep an open mind about a possible
From the polls I have seen reported, the people don't actually feel unsafe, they just feel that it is unsafe elsewhere. They don't feel like they are doing badly financially, but other places are. "I'm fine here in My Town, but the people in New York can't ride the subway." Since they don't even live in the places they seem concerned about, how do you convince them otherwise?
Look at Gary Kasparov lecturing the US what a "winning opposition" should do. Remind us how you "won" as opposition to Putin? We are just lucky that our "putin" is way dumber, older and sloppier than yours. But thanks for the advice. Never miss a chance to stomp on the victim here (Democrats).
Thank you for this informative piece, Garry. You expressed my thoughts beautifully and more. I am an old Saul Alinsyite. His model for community organizing was working in the world-as-it-is; not the world-as-it-should-be. This strategy gave him a path into that space between extremes that acknowledged reality and invited opposites to the table. While Alinsky today is still considered the father of community organizing (demonized by the Right while embracing his strategies), his core motivation has long been forgotten and ignored by both sides. I don’t know if it will ever return.
Rep. James Talarico is the queen in this game. He can move in every direction, as far as he wants, and no one seems to be able to fork him, trap him or allude his persistant truth.
I just think we need to really emphasize the word here: “perception.” Republicans have for decades felt like they are the party of law and order and for economic stability, but I strongly believe so much of that is based on that word: “perception.” When news covers more plane crashes, people’s fears of plane crashes rise, even if the actual statistics on plane crashes decrease. I believe the same is true of crime. And economies are super complex and often slow to respond to policy. So if democratic policies lay groundwork for more stable economies, the perception of things being better often goes to the next guy. For some reason, republicans have successfully marketed that they have the best economic policies but when I think of our country’s poorest states, it seems to me that they skew Republican. There is a mismatch on so many things. And then Trump’s lies and propaganda only reinforce and make these “perceptions” go on steroids. Timothy Snyder says “post truth is pre fascism.” I think you are spot on that in order to win, we have to be willing to address these “perceptions,” even if they are often based on lies. Without just saying they are based on lies and shrugging it off as not needing to be addressed. The perceptions matter. If people fear that non citizens are voting, we need to strengthen our checks on that, even though the actual problem is near non existent. We can’t say the economy is fine, even though post covid we did have the strongest economy in the world, people felt it was rough, and we should have acknowledged that more.
I’m not buying this argument wholly. Note that in your cited survey responses, nothing adds up to more than 60%. 40% don’t care about those issues—and the GOP aren’t endearing themselves to those folks.
Gary Kasparov, a genuine champion of freedom, has been deceived by the deranged Bill Kristol. At a time when the Democratic Party has been taken over by America-hating Marxists, the madman Kristol continues to rage against Donald Trump. While Kristol has elevated mental illness to a political position, Gary really needs to take a closer look at American politics.
I keep hoping for an actual move. Shut down or not. Specifics on strategy, actual moves. The social media algorithims combined with politicians caustic rhetoric are killing democrats. Meantime the ignited masses cry for more. We are devolving. But it is not in the core nature of a democrat to be cruel. What is the move against a bully? I say shut down, general strike and go full on Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. But people are dying and its going to get worse. So stop with the pie in the sky and let's get down to middle game and end game.
Trump and members of Project 2025, as well as the DIMs (Democrats), treat politics as a zero-sum game, seeking win-lose or lose-win positions. Reminds me of Greece's politics ,where they fight over percentage of the economic pie, without any realistic plan to increase the size of the pie.
Win-Win scenarios? Game theory is not some mysterious analytical tool, especially since A Beautiful Mind popularized Nash.
Well, that's the forest-for-the-trees. I don't teach anymore and didn't enjoy it when I did. As for DIMs rolling up their shirt sleeves and doing the real work necessary to offer an more attractive alternative, as Gary is suggesting, I don't see it. Evan Barker recently started a Substack site, and her analysis is grassroots and spot on. But she is a young female, so the DIM trolls such as Hillary Clinton and Barack/Michelle Obama and James Carville will never admit Evan is better than they are. Also, I find Sasha Stone's Substack enlightening, with many posts about the sociopaths and psychopaths that are forming a core within the DIM party.
Gary, you are certainly familiar with the repercussions of political assassinations, and I was US Navy Intel before getting my PhD, at a time when Putin was Soviet Navy Intel and in line to be the head of the KGB. No one trusts anything Putin says or does, but he played Trump so easily that The Donald has just woken up to Putin's tricks. So, can you accept that Netanyahu is Israel's Putin? Or are you a Zionist at heart, believing that there is a contract from God in the Ark of the Covenant that confirms Jews as God's chosen?
As an expert, I don't believe anything linking Tyler Robinson to the shooting, unless he was a lookout. Candace Owens and Roger Stone are alone in uncovering the truth. I knew the FBI and Utah police were lying when I saw a video showing the route to the roof. Never would there be a single shooter sitting for minutes in that sniper's nest because it is easily accessible by any one of the 45,000 students that attend Utah Valley State College. Here is the link and watch minutes 7:00 to 8:00. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/watch-independent-journalist-retraces-tyler-robinsons-exact-path/
Also, an enhanced video of the young man running across the roof and dropping to the ground reveals that person was not carrying a rifle.
Thank you for this sharp and sobering piece. You’ve laid out the stakes with clarity and courage…not just the authoritarian threat, but the behavioral blind spots that keep the opposition from mounting a credible response. I deeply appreciate your willingness to name the dysfunction on both sides without falling into false equivalence.
Your line about “people can’t feel statistics” hits especially hard. That’s the behavioral gap—-the place where fear, perception, and narrative override data. And it’s precisely where demagogues thrive.
You’ve articulated something many feel but struggle to name: the behavioral asymmetry between authoritarian spectacle and democratic inertia.
Grateful for your clarity and courage in naming what needs to be named.
— Johan
Professor of Behavioral Economics & Applied Cognitive Theory
Former Foreign Service Officer
The "defund the police" noise was a tiny minority of Democrats grossly amplified by the Republican propaganda machine. While the concept makes sense as an endeavor to reduce crime by allocating resources to proactive measures instead of reactive actions, it's not the kind of concept that fits on a bumper sticker or a campaign speech. Nor does it appeal to a voter's guts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
Garry makes a lot of excellent points here. I agree the Democrats need a leadership overhaul and need to lead, rather than push back on the conversation defined by Trump and gang.
But I wish this were more specifically addressed to Democrats leadership tho, as us normal voters have absolutely no control of this. And I wish Garry better recognized the few voices among Democrats that are actually doing a decent job with statements and positions, but not getting a lot of air time. And I wish we might hear from Garry how to combat the consolidated media environment that does not give Democrats anything close to equal airtime and consideration.
John Ossoff has made an excellent stand on corruption. Chris Murphy has lectured his own party with a lot of the same points made here. Gavin Newsome is making waves with his social media presence, actually getting attention. Lets amplify them please. Thats the only way us normal citizens can actually help here.
This right here is the problem! The algorithms don't want anything that doesn't enrage people and that is the linchpin of MAGA. Liberals are going to have to get creative to get people to here anything but the constant drumbeat of lies from the right. If people actually look at charts on who does better on the economy and crime they would find Dems out perform Reps, but my entire life Dems have messaged for shit. Dem leadership is not built for this and are failing miserably.
Gawd we have all become hostages to the social media gods. See macron's recent speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MggNSjfF6XI
Ossoff connects trump corruption to impacts to peoples lives.
Dems need to fully use the messaging talent they have in their ranks and in their allies. They are getting better but not there yet. No reason why Jeffries has to be the front man all the time.
The Dem party needs re-branding and a good way to start doing that is for many of the old guard to retire for new people to replace them. We are seeing some of that but not enough. But they won't do it.
Democrats ARE winning in most local contests. These winning strategies need to be adopted at the national level by new, younger and more grounded leaders.
Does electing “Democrats” even do any good though?
Not to my eyes.
What’s the point of voting for “leaders” who refuse to lead, and who just surrender your rights on your behalf?
Seems self-defeating to me.
The hard numbers are catastrophically bad for the Democrats. If they go into the election with a 32% approval rating, even a free and fair election, they’re going to get wiped out, with less than 1/3rd of seats in the House. Due to the Senate’s 6 year rotations, I haven’t done the math on how much they’d lose, but they’ll probably lose the ability to filibuster anything, if the filibuster still exists by then, which it probably won’t.
Yeah, in places that normally vote for Democrats by a 3:1 margin, they’ll probably still vote for Democrats by a 2:1 margin, or a 1.5:1 margin. However, any place that’s remotely competitive, they’ll get wiped out.
Regardless, the system has become irredeemably corrupted. I don’t see what good a few elected officials are going to do against that behemoth of injustice.
The 32% does not hold up in actual results in special elections. It just reflects a general discouragement in the overall population with fighting the seemingly all powerful regime. So it won’t hold up in ‘26 either based on the high quality of the candidates that are coming forward.
I think I just lost a bunch of text - so repeating some: I agree that current Dem leadership is weak and somewhat under the influence of big money. But for me they haven’t crossed the “I give up” line yet, tho I admit that I would welcome a “white knight” like another Ross Perot to shake things up.
I’ll be trying to converse with many of my fellow demonstrators at No Kings about their thoughts about the current Dem Party directions and leadership. And I do hope that you can keep an open mind regarding a possible future revolution in Dem leadership. There are a number of Zoran Mamdani types coming along.
1) Special elections are less correlated with general election results than many would like to portray, due to low turnout overall.
2) In these special elections, have you seriously compared the polling results of the candidates with their performance? If you suggest the polls are inaccurate, do you observe them underperforming in the average poll relative to their success?
3) What is each ‘lean’ of the districts in question for these special elections?
It is possible that I’m biased in seeing this trend as true, because it reflects my own perspective. I voted for Democrats for a number of years. Heck, I even voted for Harris. However, I feel that the Democratic party has utterly betrayed me, and I feel it would be a betrayal of my principles, my duties, and myself, to cast another vote for a Democrat, probably ever again.
It is therefore easy for me to imagine other people feeling the same, and I might be engaging in confirmation bias to a degree, as I look at the data.
However, consider for a moment that you are doing the same.
I would add a final point for you to consider.
4) You can ignore people, disrespect them, treat them badly in a coalition, to an extent, and if they hate the alternative to being in your coalition badly enough, they will remain in your coalition, but only to a certain point. There are limits to this. There are limits to what people will tolerate from those they’re willing to regard as allies. The Democratic party crossed that line, for a great many people. If you can’t see this, if you can’t be honest with yourself about it, then you’re choosing to disregard reality in favor of delusions you find more pleasing. Never underestimate the power of human pride. Never underestimate the powers of anger and hatred at betrayal either.
I agree that current Dem leadership is weak and somewhat under the influence of oligarchs — except for some rising stars. But for me and I think a good many others they haven’t crossed the “I give up” line yet.
I’ll be trying to get as many as possible of my fellow demonstrators in No Kings into conversations about this. I hope you’ll keep an open mind about a possible
From the polls I have seen reported, the people don't actually feel unsafe, they just feel that it is unsafe elsewhere. They don't feel like they are doing badly financially, but other places are. "I'm fine here in My Town, but the people in New York can't ride the subway." Since they don't even live in the places they seem concerned about, how do you convince them otherwise?
Look at Gary Kasparov lecturing the US what a "winning opposition" should do. Remind us how you "won" as opposition to Putin? We are just lucky that our "putin" is way dumber, older and sloppier than yours. But thanks for the advice. Never miss a chance to stomp on the victim here (Democrats).
Thank you for this informative piece, Garry. You expressed my thoughts beautifully and more. I am an old Saul Alinsyite. His model for community organizing was working in the world-as-it-is; not the world-as-it-should-be. This strategy gave him a path into that space between extremes that acknowledged reality and invited opposites to the table. While Alinsky today is still considered the father of community organizing (demonized by the Right while embracing his strategies), his core motivation has long been forgotten and ignored by both sides. I don’t know if it will ever return.
Rep. James Talarico is the queen in this game. He can move in every direction, as far as he wants, and no one seems to be able to fork him, trap him or allude his persistant truth.
I just think we need to really emphasize the word here: “perception.” Republicans have for decades felt like they are the party of law and order and for economic stability, but I strongly believe so much of that is based on that word: “perception.” When news covers more plane crashes, people’s fears of plane crashes rise, even if the actual statistics on plane crashes decrease. I believe the same is true of crime. And economies are super complex and often slow to respond to policy. So if democratic policies lay groundwork for more stable economies, the perception of things being better often goes to the next guy. For some reason, republicans have successfully marketed that they have the best economic policies but when I think of our country’s poorest states, it seems to me that they skew Republican. There is a mismatch on so many things. And then Trump’s lies and propaganda only reinforce and make these “perceptions” go on steroids. Timothy Snyder says “post truth is pre fascism.” I think you are spot on that in order to win, we have to be willing to address these “perceptions,” even if they are often based on lies. Without just saying they are based on lies and shrugging it off as not needing to be addressed. The perceptions matter. If people fear that non citizens are voting, we need to strengthen our checks on that, even though the actual problem is near non existent. We can’t say the economy is fine, even though post covid we did have the strongest economy in the world, people felt it was rough, and we should have acknowledged that more.
“the sense of fear and uncertainty that drives millions of Americans to support Trump”
Is rooted in stupidity. And that isn’t going to get fixed just because Dems start pretending to have emotions.
I’m not buying this argument wholly. Note that in your cited survey responses, nothing adds up to more than 60%. 40% don’t care about those issues—and the GOP aren’t endearing themselves to those folks.
Gary Kasparov, a genuine champion of freedom, has been deceived by the deranged Bill Kristol. At a time when the Democratic Party has been taken over by America-hating Marxists, the madman Kristol continues to rage against Donald Trump. While Kristol has elevated mental illness to a political position, Gary really needs to take a closer look at American politics.
“I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”—Will Rogers
not useful
I keep hoping for an actual move. Shut down or not. Specifics on strategy, actual moves. The social media algorithims combined with politicians caustic rhetoric are killing democrats. Meantime the ignited masses cry for more. We are devolving. But it is not in the core nature of a democrat to be cruel. What is the move against a bully? I say shut down, general strike and go full on Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. But people are dying and its going to get worse. So stop with the pie in the sky and let's get down to middle game and end game.
Trump and members of Project 2025, as well as the DIMs (Democrats), treat politics as a zero-sum game, seeking win-lose or lose-win positions. Reminds me of Greece's politics ,where they fight over percentage of the economic pie, without any realistic plan to increase the size of the pie.
Win-Win scenarios? Game theory is not some mysterious analytical tool, especially since A Beautiful Mind popularized Nash.
Well, that's the forest-for-the-trees. I don't teach anymore and didn't enjoy it when I did. As for DIMs rolling up their shirt sleeves and doing the real work necessary to offer an more attractive alternative, as Gary is suggesting, I don't see it. Evan Barker recently started a Substack site, and her analysis is grassroots and spot on. But she is a young female, so the DIM trolls such as Hillary Clinton and Barack/Michelle Obama and James Carville will never admit Evan is better than they are. Also, I find Sasha Stone's Substack enlightening, with many posts about the sociopaths and psychopaths that are forming a core within the DIM party.
Gary, you are certainly familiar with the repercussions of political assassinations, and I was US Navy Intel before getting my PhD, at a time when Putin was Soviet Navy Intel and in line to be the head of the KGB. No one trusts anything Putin says or does, but he played Trump so easily that The Donald has just woken up to Putin's tricks. So, can you accept that Netanyahu is Israel's Putin? Or are you a Zionist at heart, believing that there is a contract from God in the Ark of the Covenant that confirms Jews as God's chosen?
As an expert, I don't believe anything linking Tyler Robinson to the shooting, unless he was a lookout. Candace Owens and Roger Stone are alone in uncovering the truth. I knew the FBI and Utah police were lying when I saw a video showing the route to the roof. Never would there be a single shooter sitting for minutes in that sniper's nest because it is easily accessible by any one of the 45,000 students that attend Utah Valley State College. Here is the link and watch minutes 7:00 to 8:00. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/watch-independent-journalist-retraces-tyler-robinsons-exact-path/
Also, an enhanced video of the young man running across the roof and dropping to the ground reveals that person was not carrying a rifle.
Garry, read Paul Waldman’s substack from today. It explains the rhetorical traps you’ve fallen into.