Thank you for your reporting, Tom, and for so thoughtfully expressing your anger and frustration and channeling it so productively. Sadly, your critique rings very true. It's simply not enough for Evanston's leaders to espouse progressive ideals and launch progressive programs. If those programs are not implemented in a careful, sustainable way, then the result becomes self-defeating. Worst of all, the most vulnerable in our community -- often the ones these programs are claiming to try to help -- are the ones who will be hurt the most when they fail.
In my view, there are far too many signs that local leaders are using talking points to bolster their own ambitions or sense of self instead of seeing things through. When their inattentiveness and cronyism leads to predictably messy consequences, these leaders then distance themselves for fear of public criticism and political fallout. Which might partly explain the absence of Biss as any kind of reliable on-the-ground presence in the Bessie Rhodes travesty -- he can co-sign a letter, but it seems he doesn't want to actually get near the situation for fear of damage to his public standing. (Disclosure: I have had personal disappointment with his sporadic engagement on another community issue.)
When talk isn't enough, because IT IS NOT ENOUGH . . .
When government transparency is all too limited . . .
When community feedback is more often used to bolster an agenda rather than to build on it or re-work it . . .
And when progressive programs and initiatives falter due to lack of sustainable implementation . . .
...then those who oppose these measures and ideals, locally and nationally, will try to claim that they don't and cannot work. They can work, and they must. It's not the intention at fault here, it's the implementation.
It is time for a genuine reconsideration and reckoning to ensure that our government is actually working for the people who need it most, not just the people who are running it.
In no world is this comparison real, this comparing Evanston's school elections in 2017/2018 and this election really lets me know you didn't get enough data from Wisconsin or Michigan or even from GOP voters in Illinois.
Lots of people are annoyed that Democrats nationally didn't do what we promised (student loans, reverse anti-choice moves, protect the environment) and we look feckless and silly. However, years of political organizing and working campaigns has also taught me to never try to broad strokes any of this because you cannot be correct.
I can tell you locally that not only has the state and county and even parts of the city done a TON since 2016 and Trump 45, but that Evanston's schools screwups don't need a larger analogy. Jan Schakowsky cares a ton about D65, Robyn Gabel's granddaughter is about to enter next year with my kid too, D65 is all everyone has ever talked about when we got past the national race (a thing about Evanston Democrats that everyone around the county and state know is that we are utterly pillar to post, we go from hyperlocal to national and we have a hard time thinking about much in between.)
We had (have? had) terrible governance because we had terrible governance. We aren't going to get our spending down by more than 8% by analogizing to a national political movement. We aren't going to close our achievement gap with just Evanston and the President either.
Nobody got hosed Tuesday, the DCCC/DSCC/DNC didn't do their jobs nationwide, and DPI was focused elsewhere, JB was running pro-choice amendments in 10 states, and then (I know this sounds dumb) but we'll have a bunch of mail-in ballots, something like over 360,000 that will come in 4:1 blue in Illinois and then it rained in the afternoon/evening of election day in a state and region that everyone "knew" it was already going one way.
Looking forward, a major part of our state-level education agenda is expanding preK. The state will also be dealing with a $3.1 billion-ish budget deficit and a transit reform package that needs funding. There was talk of a statewide school infrastructure bill, a la Build Illinois Bond style, but thats likely delayed. Clearly we can expect little to no help from a Trump DoE (if they keep one). We'll have to dig us out ourselves and thats gonna take the better part of a decade.
D65's current situation is way more analogous to digging out of Blago/Rauner budget holes than it is to Democratic politics of the 2024 cycle. We let charisma and an incomplete vision that most of the body politic agreed with become the north star. It happened, now it is time to dig out. Pretending that anyone could have stopped this from happening that wasn't in the room at the time is not anywhere near close to reality.
If Jan Schakowsky cares a ton about D65, where has she been? I haven't heard a peep from her as the District falls apart - surely there is federal money available for things like Bessie Rhodes under a Biden Administration.
Dude, we got absolutely hosed. Worse than 2016. The numbers speak for themselves. I don't think there is a single person reading this blog besides you that feels otherwise.
You elected the Congresswoman to go to Congress. You also voted for school board members. It is wildly unfair to assume Congresswoman has to micromanage one of dozens of school boards in her district.
I think when you say "hosed" it sounds like there is something unfair about it. I am saying we got our ass kicked nationally but thats not as true locally. Our local numbers will keep getting better. We won here. The GOP flipped nothing in Illinois.
You are correct in that Congresswoman Schakowsky isn’t responsible for D65. I do believe that she does “care.”
It’s a complicated problem, but it may boil down to the feeling many of her constituents have (probably more than you realize) that the quality of their lives are deteriorating. Yes, we care about democracy, women’s rights, equity and being a welcoming community. But it’s
the daily indignities that grind down the quality of life here. Below I offer two examples of many.
Public transportation in Evanston and the region is a mess. Have you been on the Red Line lately? When you sit among the urine, pot smokers and trash hoping not to be mugged just to get to work, you wonder if the leaders rallying you to “protect democracy” could just get the friggin’ train you take to work halfway decent, too? Not to mention that the poor rely on public transportation more than other economic groups. When you used to take your kids to the neighborhood Grey Park to play but don’t anymore because of the drug dealing, harassment, and public safety fears, it doesn’t feel like restoring DEI preferences is at the top of your wish list.
You can say for each of these situations, it’s not entirely the fault of the Congresswoman. It’s not entirely the fault of Representative Gabel, Senator Fine or Mayor Biss. But they are collectively our leaders. Who does have the responsibility to improve nagging everyday quality of life problems if not the people we elect? And why should we believe they’ll fix the big problems when the “little” ones just seem to get bigger?
I am a lifelong Democrat. I’ll continue to be a Democrat. But I increasingly feel that my party is out of touch with how people actually feel. And when they express those feelings, they are shamed about not seeing the “big picture.” Or, that’s “another office.”
One final tangent. I can’t escape the nagging suspicion that if Bessie Rhodes was closed by a group of white Republicans, the Congresswoman would have been out marching with Bessie Rhodes families.
I wish I could pin this comment. Thank you for saying this, I couldn't agree more. We have City Council elections coming up and I think this needs to be part of the theme of my conversations with them.
And as far as federal money, there is the accountability and competence questions - I was just at a ribbon cutting for the new health center for CCSD21 in Wheeling where they got over a million in federal funds thanks to Cong. Schneider. Did they count on Schneider to just do that for them, or did they ask, follow up, and do what they were elected to do and advocate strategically for the district?
It will be, I can promise that. Board members and staff need to be asking for that money. I worked with her team when it was at 820 Davis, they all know me and know I am going to do the right thing. I also know when to ask.
But that's the way it works when you're working with a congressperson's office - it is only in our hometown and its because Jan lives in town that you would suggest she just takes care of our problems for us like a parent to a wayward child - we need a board that can do what boards are supposed to do.
I get it, I don't think I am asking her to swoop in and provide a deus ex machina ending. But I do think there needs to be vastly more collaboration between the city, the schools, and the state and federal governments. We missed a good opportunity during the Biden years and the next four could be a real mess depending on what Trump does to the Dept of Ed.
I agree with that, I just will draw a big bright line on getting close to "we elected 7 people to do a job, they didn't do that job well, let's be frustrated that this other person in a different elected job didn't do it for them"
You are certainly not the first person to get close to that line, this isn't my first time through this counterargument. Part of the motivation for running - I know how much all of those name brand politicians care, I know what it looks like when local school board members build the relationships that lead to success, I can do this for my kids and the district I grew up in. And boy do we effing need it.
I don't want to get into a fight over this - I hear what you're saying, I do and after January when you're running for Board we can talk more about this (I'm thinking about doing a podcast)
The Suburban Cook county results alone show that sure we won but lost more ground. In an election like this, with Donald Trump on the ballot, I find this incomprehensible. How are we losing ground to a guy we're calling a fascist. I think this alone is worth some navel gazing by the party.
Lost more ground yes, but I point to mail and rain again. In the few bellweathers that had to be really worked, like the state house races against Grant and McLaughlin, we might even be gaining seats.
We all locally spent as many hours and resources in WI and MI as we could because we are over 50%+1 and wanted to get the White House. Don't conflate that with the national failure is my point.
I'm a D65 parent, lifelong Democrat, blah blah blah. I am not at all surprised that Trump won. The writing was on the wall for anyone who bothered to read it.
I know that you're running for the school board, so perhaps you're open to feedback. I commend you for running - it's a hard job right now, and we need smart people to do it.
Respectfully, the vibe you're giving off in the comments is, IMO, not the vibe that Evanstonians want to hear right now from a potential board member. You sound like an angry incumbent defending himself against...well, it's kind of unclear...and blaming the weather to boot.
We want a board who will actually listen to us, not yell, hide, or make excuses. As Ezra Klein recently said, if Dems want to get out this (shit)hole they dug themselves into, they need to show curiosity, not contempt.
The issue is Fetterman & Klein think that when volunteers go to a door and they talk to someone who is an undecided voter, we get to fill in the blanks and promote policy, etc., and hopefully persuade them. Instead, we are going to the door of someone who just watched a six part TikTok series about Kamala & Diddy with Biden as a supporting character and wants to educate us.
Not sure if you are joking but I think that Ezra Klein and John Fetterman are a core part of what they need to win going forward. And before this election, I would wager about 20% of Dem party's most progressive members were ready to boot Fetterman out if they could.
I tend to like Governors because they get things done, so I'll go for Whitmer/Evers/Pritzker et al. Not a fan of the pundit class, I always think its hyper reactive and I can't imagine them having their conversations at actual canvasses with real people and real problems.
Yes, any future D65 candidates who bill themselves as progressives need to admit the terrible mistakes of their predecessors and tell how they would operate differently (such as valuing the quality of Supt candidate experience over a candidate's ethnicity, recognizing that valuing education fundamentals is needed even for progressives, pledging open search processes and town halls to actually seek out feedback rather than just holding forums to push decisions down the pike, valuing fiscal responsibility, etc.).
Thanks for speaking up on this. We've had plenty of smart people on the board in recent years who might seem to have relevant experience, but look where it's gotten us. I don't even know how much they can claim credit for getting Foster School over the line as a key accomplishment, other than a suggestion of "we took a by-any-means-necessary approach". Good luck getting people to trust you if you're pointing at circumventing democracy and the people you volunteered to serve as a win.
I hope more of the community who is starting to pay attention appreciates the nuances you touched on: curiosity, intent to listen, a desire to (re)build a connection with the community, and absorbing the collective ideas to shape the vision vs. coming in convinced yours is "right".
Hey Megan, I have no contempt! But I was at the point where the election was won or lost, both here and out of state. I am expressing what just happened - not what I think happened nationally, but what just actually happened on the ground.
I am angry we just lost nationally! But certainly trying to draw a realistic line on what is a growing narrative that somehow Illinois is on watch for rising Trumpism or something - we aren't, we won't be, we won lots of local races. I think Tom made a political analogy which is heading into my profession (note I do far more listening than posting on his many other posts) so I gave a qualified personal opinion and defense of what I see as an unnecessary analogy.
I have plenty of national curiosity, but there isn't enough data to start drawing quantitative solutions yet. If we are dealing in qualitative analysis, I can count mine as pretty solid.
I'm certainly not yelling about education policy! Just the politics I sweat and bled for is all. I am a yeller though (a hearing defect in my right ear leaves me at 60% so I have always been loud) so I often apologize for being loud and I certainly apologize for any contempt vibes - I'm frustrated too and I'm in about eight places helping get a legislative agenda together.
I also find Ezra Klein usually contemptibly smug and often out of touch with the solutions he advocates for directly, my hope for the direction of the party hasn't emerged yet. I'm reading The Black Book by Adlai Stevenson to see if I can get some help there, and if I find something I'll bring it up.
Your second paragraph is pure spewing of media talking-points and relying on the magic "stroke of the pen fallacy"
- Biden still got a ton of debt-relief done but the biggest proposals were killed by GOP lawsuits and the Supreme Court
- Many major climate initiatives were also undone by lawsuits and the Supremes who went way beyond what they were supposedly ruling on to basically remove any environmental liabilities from corporations
- Codifying Roe is only accomplished through electing a Democratic House
but this is why people didnt trust us - it doesnt matter at the end of the day that there were legit technicalities, there was a big public scoreboard and we lost.
Retired65, I don't know how many people you have ever tried to persuade to change their vote from A to B, but in my experience (and I think I qualify as an expert) persuasion is much more closely tied to perception than reality and if the reality goes my way but the perception goes against then I have to go uphill to win that vote.
Voters are allowed to have fallacies! Most have lots, some break our way at doors some break the other.
I think it's natural, given the national political whiplash of the last few days and the last eight years, and the roiling local issues we've been experiencing, to look for patterns on the local, state, and national level. Some conclusions might be overly simplistic or even demonstrably wrong, while others might point to legitimate reasons we're seeing more disaffected voters. We're seeing seismic activity on a local level, and on a national level, and a lack of trust. (This will always unfairly benefit Republicans, who throw wrenches into the system only to claim that the system can't work.) While it's unfair to equate the local and national realities, I think it's natural to look for throughlines, especially at a fraught moment like this. And if that searching leads to engagement like we're seeing on this page, messy as it may sometimes be, then it brings me hope for where we go from here.
I don't have experience in politics other than volunteering and some recent efforts trying to advocate for specific local and state reform, but your comment about perception rings very true. And it seems there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Democrats, locally and beyond, are losing ground on voters' perceptions of their effectiveness. There are many reasons for this, as you've noted; some, like media narratives, probably shouldn't be primarily attributed to the politicians themselves. But I think voters see, in the lurchings of our various levels of government, that there's often a very big gap between voters' sense of urgency about day-to-day issues and the willingness of politicians to spend political capital to address those issues. This doesn't discount things you personally know and experience -- the care and hard work of our reps, that their hearts are in the right place, the fact that many of them are doing good and valuable work every day in an imperfect system. But the perception is there, and it has basis in genuine experience and concern.
There will always be practical limitations, but the more responsiveness we can foster in our government -- local, state, national -- the better able we'll be to channel voter engagement to effect real change. Otherwise, I fear we'll continue to lose ground at every level.
I’ve been a dem my entire life and a HS social studies teacher for 25 years. Here’s what I would say to your points.
- What did Biden and the Dems do about a packed court hijacked by republicans? Nothing.
- Again, what did Biden and the Dems do in response? Nothing.
- Did the Dems codify Roe when they had the chance? They did not.
Could they have done these things? They had unified control in 2020. No, Roe had not been overturned yet. But codifying it did not need to wait for that. Yes, I know, Manchin and Sinema. Yes, I know, the filibuster.
I’ve been hearing those kinds of excuses my whole life from Dems. In 2008 it was Lieberman and Baucus. In 2000 it was the Supreme Court (Again). The Dem Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas in 1991, with Biden heading the judiciary committee and chairing the hearings.
I’m sick of them. I want results. I want policies I believe in enacted. I’m tired of waiting.
We may get to see if the filibuster stops republicans from passing a nationwide abortion ban. My guess is the republicans won’t hesitate to eliminate the filibuster to pass one.
The Biden Administration didn't even close the open Dept of Education cases against District 65 for the DEI training! First day the Trump admin shows up, they've got a hot live case against District 65. They can start right where they left off in January 2021. What exactly were they doing over there in DC to protect our interests?
He didn't close it, it was just put on hold because he passed some EO about DEI stuff early in his administration. The last time I looked the OCR case was still open.
I might make a post on this, because someone has to close this before Jan 21 or its gonna cost taxpayer pile of money to litigate over dumb culture war fights.
I have been saying this all along. The things that are happening that you've outlined in Evanston and
Chicago are a part of the problem in the Democratic Party. As a life long democrat, I abhor the outcome of this election. And I'm disgusted by what I'm seeing in Evanston. I canvassed for the referendum in 2017. I believed that the district would close the achievement gap and act in good faith. What has happened in D65 is a huge betrayal of the public trust. And on top of it, to be silenced and accused of being racist because we don't agree is a step too far. It further marginalizes people who want to work together to make things right for the most vulnerable.
How’s everyone holding up? Election aftermath hit hard in my house—felt like getting blindsided in a parking lot. I mean, what the hell just happened? And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: we, the Democrats, set ourselves up for this. Trade deals, policies, bureaucracy taking over private land…those chickens have come home to roost.
I’m a 50-year-old straight white guy, no college degree, and I live in southeast Evanston, close to the lake. This is a community where everyone knows each other—a kind of “family” vibe, even if at first, I didn’t exactly feel like one of the family. I’ve spent most of my life being looked down on for not having a fancy diploma or a big city job, and I know that story all too well.
I grew up in the backwoods of Oregon with a dad who went from ranching to logging and a mom who scraped by. We lived off the land, hunted our food, and didn’t give a damn if we looked “uncultured.” Yet, moving to a place like Evanston, I still feel the sting of judgment. I’m not a unicorn; I’m an American like anyone else, and I’ve seen what happens when our party makes choices that leave people like my family in the dust.
In the ‘90s, Clinton signed NAFTA, shipping jobs overseas and gutting towns like mine. Mills shut down, people lost work, families lost everything. Then, fast-forward to now—Trump gets a free pass on federal crimes while in office, thanks to policies and memos our side reinforced. Doesn’t exactly paint the party in a great light, does it?
After years on this journey, I’ve learned one thing: it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from—everyone deserves respect. Love who you want, be who you want, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But here’s the kicker: our party can be overbearing, coming off as elitist, telling people how to think, speak, and live. And when they don’t comply, we label them ignorant or worse. Sound like a winning strategy? I didn’t think so.
This election, we got a classic, no-nonsense beatdown. No conspiracies, no voter fraud—just straight-up rejection. Why? Because the folks in charge of our party forgot about the people they’re supposed to represent. They’ve been so busy dictating everyone’s life choices, they lost sight of the real struggles of real people, like the ones I grew up with.
Want to change that? Stop the finger-pointing. No more coastal elites looking down their noses at folks who don’t have a degree or don’t share the same worldview. Go to any small town, talk to the people, and actually listen. They don’t need pity—they need respect. They need to be seen as equals, not as ignorant caricatures.
If we don’t figure this out, the Democrats are going to keep losing. So let’s stop being condescending, start embracing people with all their flaws, and actually practice the acceptance we preach. It’s time to make this party truly representative again.
Great points. One thing: telling people how to think, speak, and live clearly IS a winning strategy. And I'm terrified about how this administration is planning to tell us how to think, speak, and live going forward.
I hear you. What was told to those voters played into their fears. Folks who are not exposed to certain ideas and, for lack of a better phrase, lifestyles don’t understand when they are told they need to accept them. We all fear what we don’t understand. Many don’t understand why someone would vote for Trump and that scares them. It’s a different side to the same coin. That’s what I hope to convey. I was afraid of the government as a kid. They took so much from my family and it was a Democratic leader who did it for reasons that were never clearly explained. This happened all over the country. Folks were pissed and afraid of the government. That was 30 years ago. 3 generations. They need to be heard and understood. His vulgar approach cut through. Why? He is different. What else did they have to lose. And he’s not a Democrat. He will turn on them. And when he does we need to be available or it will only get worse.
Also to your point, leaders have always told people how to live their lives. It’s not unique to Trump. He’s awful and he’s our leader. Anger doesn’t work. We need a different approach.
Tim, you got it sort of right. I do think the issues you stated directly relate to why so many are leaving the democratic party - and you are the first person I have read to list something concrete. I applaud your vision. But, you are wrong to say the republicans are ignoring the issues you think the democrats now need to open their eyes to. My husband and I - Evanstonians - left the party during covid. We tried to bring a different awareness to the Evanston community that the school closures were mostly hurting the people D202 and D65 were trying to protect. I wrote letters and spoke at school board meetings. I was shunned and called a murdering racist, including being publicly shamed on FB from our community. All my democratic friends remained silent. In Evanston it is very dangerous to think differently and to speak these thoughts. This is not a welcome tribe.
Some additional perspective of my experience is that the people who were curious and concerned alongside us were republicans. They were republicans and we could discuss these issues with curiosity and data. With every false accusation to what your neighbors (call them Barrington) are doing or not doing, you only drive a bigger divide. Almost half of our state has left the democratic party. My recommendation is stop thinking it's about Trump and maybe for a moment think that we too want a strong and healthy black, brown and white community. I know we can get there.
I don't think Jan Schakowsky has done much to earn her seat for the past 6 years. She's just coasting in an easy district. I would love to see someone challenge her in a primary. I was particularly shocked that she did not put out a statement or say anything after the Highland Park 4th of July mass shooting in 2022.
I actually think she does quite a bit behind the scenes for constituents. She has a pretty responsive office for a variety of administrative issues (passports, social security, etc).
Also like it or not as far as how congress works for democrats, but she’s had a long tenure (she’s in the 30s out of 434 members?) and that gets seniority for committees and leadership.
As someone who sits in a politically safe district, I would expect her to go out on a limb more and be a stronger voice for progressive values. Especially because she represents one of the most progressive areas of the country. Instead, she's a background player at best and it seems that she has adopted senior citizen's issues as the only cause that she is focused on. To your point about her long tenure – with the election results behind us, I believe the democratic party needs to find new voices and new energy.
I was a campaign volunteer in the ATL area where we were one of the few places that actually swung left. It is terrible.
I think there is never one answer. I do think there is truth to the local governance disgust turning people away from identifying as a Democrat. But for this election, all we heard about was the gender gap during early voting, with women being dominant, but in Election Day, it shrunk thanks to low propensity young male voters turning out after their media networks convinced them Trump was what we needed.
Every time I spoke to a GenX or GenZ (parents and their kids) Trump voter this cycle, they were spouting information to me from sources I never knew existed. The number of people who mentioned Peanut the Squirrel the last week. All those 2021-2022 “unearthed podcast clips” of JD Vance from places no one heard of, but are actually super popular among young men. People constantly asking me how I could volunteer for a dumb woman who slept her way to the top and had never done anything worthwhile in her life.
It is hard for smart people to really grasp this, but this was a vibes election and perhaps presidential elections always are. People wanted the Trump vibe. No matter what Harris policies were, most of those people would never heard of them in their corner of TikTok and Discord. How do we operate in a functioning democracy like this?
As a parent of a boy, it really gives me pause about the future. Last week, my sweet eight year old asked my dog if he was gay. I sat him down to find out what that was about and with enough info, eventually tied it to a meme from a TikTok creator. My son does not have TikTok. Content that threatens are decency is just everywhere. I wonder if in the reflections on what went wrong and where we go next, we will miss the bigger picture.
Yes! Please have a chapter explaining why District 65 gives my 8 year old a frickin iPad which he only seems to use to watch youtube shorts. And an appendix with the email from the principal of his school that asked parents to tell their kids not to use their iPads on the playground before school because they were getting dirty and we would have to pay for their replacement if they broke!
This is driving me and my wife insane. Our second grader has been able, during the school day, to successfully google "Riz lines wallpaper" (he has no idea what this means). Some of the search results were unbelievably inappropriate.
I'm a public educator at the high school level and began my career long before student iPads (or laptops). I find very little of educational value in them, even for my juniors. Why we are using them to teach elementary students is beyond me. In fact, I think it borders on educational malpractice.
Saw this post from a reader on Talking Points Memo that recounted how their 20-something male kid commented on the machinations of the YouTube algorithm. You start off looking at a Minecraft video and a couple of videos in you get offered up Joe Rogan.
So when an equity grifter con-artist like Biz chides the community for bringing "toxic masculinity" into the schools, she should look in the mirror and ask why the district is actively enabling this through their choices in instructional materials.
Whenever I've seen a critique of the District's shoving iPads down kids throats on the Equity Army's Facebook page, their response is that it is improving equity since richer families have access to technology.
It is a dumb argument and---like everything that the Board and Administration pushes--it is wholly separated from the task that should be at the center of their concern: what is the best way to educate the kids?
I think I am going to take on this cause - YouTube on the tablets. As a parent, it is a constant whack a mole with that thing - even if you impose strict parental controls, there are so many ways around it. Youtube Kids with whitelists are the best way to go but even then, they find workarounds - I caught him watching unregulated Youtube on his Oculus the other day - something I didn’t even think was possible.
I think the issue goes beyond YouTube. What is the evidence that iPads are superior to using actual books, worksheets, notebooks etc?
Of course the Board is so clueless about this. We should remember that they have signed on to actually sue YouTube while they are distributing devices that can access the platform. Good luck with that.
When dealing with a populist, it doesn’t help to label his supporters as racist, women-hating unintelligent, low information voters. It actually does the opposite and plays right into the populist wants. It makes us the enemy trump needs us to be.
I read this article 8 years ago and I just read it again yesterday. I wish someone from the Harris campaign had read it. I hope we learn this time around so we don’t have president Vance in 4 years or lose the house.
I also think the way they look at the Latino population is flawed to begin with. Same with middle eastern and north African voters. People treat these groups like they’re some sort of monolith, not understanding that they’re broad terms for vastly different groups with different experiences and needs in America.
I’m too emotional about this to be objective. A day before the election my 11 year old son said he wished it weren’t true but a lot of adults thought a woman couldn’t be president. He called it. I realized we will never have a female president in my lifetime (I’m late late 40s with a current normal life expectancy).
In the past, when I was collecting signatures for a friend and female judicial candidate at the Skokie Skatium I was politely turned down to my face by a group of men refusing to sign because they would not vote for a female judge. Normally I’m pretty volatile but this was not my campaign to blow up so I thanked them for their time……
The Democrats made huge mistakes. Unpopular opinion I know but people can’t live in tents. It’s not sustainable. People can’t have babies in bad weather asking for money. The resources come from somewhere. Democrats brushed over immigration but it’s a huge issue. If a group of girls from another country comes to Evanston and in their country the girls were not allowed to go to school, they are going to be very very behind in our public schools. Where do resources for all of this come from? It’s not free. People are generous until resources get diverted from their kids. That’s just how it works. Is it morally right? Probably not. But it’s how it works.
Grocery bills have gone up astronomically but every Dem was bragging about how great their investments were doing. Families can’t afford this. Moral choices are luxery choices and not choices to be made when you are in survival mode. If I can’t feed my existing kids your daughter’s potential sepsis due to lack of care from a miscarriage isn’t first on my
The best thing I did this cycle was listen to focus groups of swing voters, especially people who voted for Trump then Biden. In 2024, normal people don't like ANY politicians. They think politicians are all liars, speaking in fancy speech but saying nothing. The absolute worst insult they can make is that that person "sounds like a typical politician." The best compliment is that someone is not a typical politician.
Biden has been a politican for more than 50 years. His approval now is lower than Trump's ever was. For 3 years, Biden has declined to the point that he can't communicate at all. And even when inflation came down and unemployment stayed low, he couldn't speak coherently about what was good about the economy and what still needed to be done, and the actual prices that were high. Harris's "opportunity economy" didn't address this well enough.
On immigration, Democrats have been terrified to say anything at all for years. They speak only about Dreamers, the magical less than 1% of immigrants who were 2 years old when their parents crossed the border and who are perfect in every way. Neglecting the very real harmful situation we saw in 2021-2023 in Texas and across the country. Silence, occasionally interspersed with politician speak.
In lieu of any meaningful communication, the baseline argument was easy to make:
1. Biden's economy sucks
2. Biden failed on the border
The trans stuff is nasty, and I don't know if it is effective at all.
Look at North Carolina where they overwhelmingly elected a Jewish governor, and voted for Trump. It doesn't really go much deeper than the one and only thing that Kamala Harris and Mark Robinson have in common. I place a ton of blame on the media; starting with the constant drumbeat of "Biden is old", crapping on the economy when every piece of evidence shows that we are doing better after Covid than any other country. We have entire networks devoted to financial news and nobody could figure out that we did not have monetary inflation but rather supply shock? Why did these "experts" spend the last three years pretending that 2020 never happened?? Yes, gas was $1.87 in 2020 because NOBODY WAS DRIVING ANYWHERE, eggs prices went up due to two separate bird flu outbreaks. Covid blew a 20 TRILLION dollar hole in the US economy which was filled with only 9 trillion in stimulus so there were no money printers working overtime flooding us with cash. Inflation came down from 9% to nearly 2% without a recession and without widespread unemployment and Biden/Harris got zero credit for the soft-landing which is now very much in danger.
I also believe that there are many Dems out there who were angry about the way Biden was pushed aside and may have stayed home because of it; I think the process was shameful. The debate performance was visually bad but, if you remember, there was a focus group of Latino voters that only heard the translation and overwhelmingly said that he had won the debate.
Inflation is such a tricky beast - there were so many influxes to the money supply during the COVID and post-COVID era. PPP, the three COVID relief bills, and then the ARP and the infrastructure bill. Both Trump and Biden introduced a many trillion dollar increase in the money supply, which had to be tamped down with high interest rates. I think it sucks that democrats took the hit for that, but that's how the cookie crumbles, I guess.
Biden's Fed did not overprint money; if they had, there wouldn't be a shortage of dollars in relation to world demand for them. Again, 2020 happened and people pretending it didn't helped lead to where we are now.
I mean a $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill is going to add to the money supply. I'm not opposed to it, we desperately needed that infrastructure but surely it's responsible for a non-zero amount of inflation?
If I am understanding your points correctly, I think your comment regarding the money supply is incorrect. Putting aside any judgement on whether it was the right thing to do or not, the government (both parties) added roughly $6 trillion to the money supply during and post covid. Just look up the M2 money supply and you can see the trends over time. COVID did not somehow reduce the money supply as you suggest.
Can you explain why it’s relevant to point out the NC winner is Jewish? I’m not understanding what the connection is and would rather have you explain it than make an assumption. Sometimes things get lost in translation online.
The original poster missed a shocking and essential feature of Mark Robinson's failed campaign, the allegations were pretty raunchy unless you love knowing about your politician's porn preferences.
Also the original poster's language about the Jewish governor who won gives me a total case of the ick. Its a big leap to exclude the vast amount of non-white Jews. who are Sephardic, African, Asian, Indian, and so on. There are literally millions of non-white Jews. Ick.
Rocky, I appreciate you calling out the not-so-latent antisemitism in OPs comment. I would like to point out that, to many Jews, distinguishing between "white Jews" and "Jews of color" is problematic at best and offensive at worst. I'm not sure how I "present" to others, but the Nazis didn't beat, starve and torture my grandparents and murder their families because of their "whiteness."
In connection with the larger theme of the thread, I've heard plenty of theorizing in the media about how Kamala's supposed lack of support for Gaza cost her votes. It's interesting, though, that I've seen far fewer wondering if the overt antisemitism both propagated and tolerated by many on the extreme left might have cost the dems votes? I mean, maybe ask Richie Torres or George Latimer.
Sorry I misunderstood your point. You provide economic statistics for Europe and North America, plus Japan. I had thought you meant the world in general, including mainland Asia, Africa, Latin America. And I thought you meant health and life expectancy.
Real coalition building does not include screaming down the smallest skepticism. And all the lecturing screamers should be embarrassed, given it resulted in negative outcomes for kids.
Representative leadership also doesn’t equal only showing up based on the political impact of the showing. Jan and Biss are craven politicians incapable of really rising to the moment. Their failure to throw their political capital into D65 when it was clear the district was setting itself on fire is disqualifying imo.
I agree with a lot of your analysis but there's still the fact that -- again -- a large part of our country was not willing to show up/vote for a woman over the atrocity that is Trump. I don't think there's anything equatable with that in Evanston.
Let alone a woman of color. We can analyze this to death, but the bottom line is this country showed us what they think of women - which is less than a fascist atrocity.
I don’t race or gender played as much into this as the fact that this candidate embodied progressive San Francisco political perspectives, along with not being so great an impromptu public speaker. The old-school Dem strategists that have had past winners would surely have told us that if the Dem candidate has to be a woman, that woman should be from the south or midwest, someone who can speak impressively on the stump, and who was a former fighter pilot, etc., or just a natural bad-ass.
Next time let’s have the strategists pick, unless someone has organically risen up above the crowd as Obama arguably did.
The weird thing is, like if you view old videos of Harris talking, like the coconut tree video - she can be a very genuine and relatable speaker. But we rarely saw that person on the campaign trail and I have no idea why. We saw a little bit of that in the debate, but that's about it.
Did you not see the videos of her responding to women crying about how happy they were to see her as the candidate? Also she was a high level prosecutor and successful politician, she can speak to a crowd just fine. I think she probably was told to be less herself in that respect so as to not come off as an angry black woman.
I didn't see those videos but I believe it - there was a good one where she was talking to younger girls about public speaking, where she was very good. I think you're right.
Accidentally deleted my first response. Basically, I think its problematic to say: " if the Dem candidate has to be a woman, that woman should be from the south or midwest, someone who can speak impressively on the stump, and who was a former fighter pilot, etc., or just a natural bad-ass"
I saw Harris as "a natural bad-ass". And I often heard less of her policies being attacked than of it being said she slept her way to the top, that she wasn't a mother, and she was "unlikeable".
Also, explain how Harris did not organically rise above the crowd given than she was elected the Vice President!
Joe Biden declared he was going to pick a Black woman for VP, so the pool of talent was limited to that small group, rather than to all possible Dem VP candidates, and then she was chosen by one man to be VP (as opposed to being voted in as candidate through a proper full primary). Obama rose organically over all possible candidates in a great wave of popularity and was nominated by the Dem party because he was regarded by the Dem party constituents (the people) as truly exceptional as a political candidate.
Biden unsuccessfully tried to get the Dem nomination in 1988 and 2008. Arguably he was picked by Obama because he was a white man, not the most exceptional political candidate. Then he was VP. Then ran successfully for the presidency. He did not rise organically by any means. Harris was one of two senators from our largest state - a pretty hard office to win. She basically had a lot quicker, but the same trajectory and a much harder one than Joe Biden. But you've reduced her to a DEI hire that wasn't good enough.
Thank you for your reporting, Tom, and for so thoughtfully expressing your anger and frustration and channeling it so productively. Sadly, your critique rings very true. It's simply not enough for Evanston's leaders to espouse progressive ideals and launch progressive programs. If those programs are not implemented in a careful, sustainable way, then the result becomes self-defeating. Worst of all, the most vulnerable in our community -- often the ones these programs are claiming to try to help -- are the ones who will be hurt the most when they fail.
In my view, there are far too many signs that local leaders are using talking points to bolster their own ambitions or sense of self instead of seeing things through. When their inattentiveness and cronyism leads to predictably messy consequences, these leaders then distance themselves for fear of public criticism and political fallout. Which might partly explain the absence of Biss as any kind of reliable on-the-ground presence in the Bessie Rhodes travesty -- he can co-sign a letter, but it seems he doesn't want to actually get near the situation for fear of damage to his public standing. (Disclosure: I have had personal disappointment with his sporadic engagement on another community issue.)
When talk isn't enough, because IT IS NOT ENOUGH . . .
When government transparency is all too limited . . .
When community feedback is more often used to bolster an agenda rather than to build on it or re-work it . . .
And when progressive programs and initiatives falter due to lack of sustainable implementation . . .
...then those who oppose these measures and ideals, locally and nationally, will try to claim that they don't and cannot work. They can work, and they must. It's not the intention at fault here, it's the implementation.
It is time for a genuine reconsideration and reckoning to ensure that our government is actually working for the people who need it most, not just the people who are running it.
Tom, thank you for the bait.
In no world is this comparison real, this comparing Evanston's school elections in 2017/2018 and this election really lets me know you didn't get enough data from Wisconsin or Michigan or even from GOP voters in Illinois.
Lots of people are annoyed that Democrats nationally didn't do what we promised (student loans, reverse anti-choice moves, protect the environment) and we look feckless and silly. However, years of political organizing and working campaigns has also taught me to never try to broad strokes any of this because you cannot be correct.
I can tell you locally that not only has the state and county and even parts of the city done a TON since 2016 and Trump 45, but that Evanston's schools screwups don't need a larger analogy. Jan Schakowsky cares a ton about D65, Robyn Gabel's granddaughter is about to enter next year with my kid too, D65 is all everyone has ever talked about when we got past the national race (a thing about Evanston Democrats that everyone around the county and state know is that we are utterly pillar to post, we go from hyperlocal to national and we have a hard time thinking about much in between.)
We had (have? had) terrible governance because we had terrible governance. We aren't going to get our spending down by more than 8% by analogizing to a national political movement. We aren't going to close our achievement gap with just Evanston and the President either.
Nobody got hosed Tuesday, the DCCC/DSCC/DNC didn't do their jobs nationwide, and DPI was focused elsewhere, JB was running pro-choice amendments in 10 states, and then (I know this sounds dumb) but we'll have a bunch of mail-in ballots, something like over 360,000 that will come in 4:1 blue in Illinois and then it rained in the afternoon/evening of election day in a state and region that everyone "knew" it was already going one way.
Looking forward, a major part of our state-level education agenda is expanding preK. The state will also be dealing with a $3.1 billion-ish budget deficit and a transit reform package that needs funding. There was talk of a statewide school infrastructure bill, a la Build Illinois Bond style, but thats likely delayed. Clearly we can expect little to no help from a Trump DoE (if they keep one). We'll have to dig us out ourselves and thats gonna take the better part of a decade.
D65's current situation is way more analogous to digging out of Blago/Rauner budget holes than it is to Democratic politics of the 2024 cycle. We let charisma and an incomplete vision that most of the body politic agreed with become the north star. It happened, now it is time to dig out. Pretending that anyone could have stopped this from happening that wasn't in the room at the time is not anywhere near close to reality.
If Jan Schakowsky cares a ton about D65, where has she been? I haven't heard a peep from her as the District falls apart - surely there is federal money available for things like Bessie Rhodes under a Biden Administration.
Dude, we got absolutely hosed. Worse than 2016. The numbers speak for themselves. I don't think there is a single person reading this blog besides you that feels otherwise.
You elected the Congresswoman to go to Congress. You also voted for school board members. It is wildly unfair to assume Congresswoman has to micromanage one of dozens of school boards in her district.
I think when you say "hosed" it sounds like there is something unfair about it. I am saying we got our ass kicked nationally but thats not as true locally. Our local numbers will keep getting better. We won here. The GOP flipped nothing in Illinois.
Christian,
You are correct in that Congresswoman Schakowsky isn’t responsible for D65. I do believe that she does “care.”
It’s a complicated problem, but it may boil down to the feeling many of her constituents have (probably more than you realize) that the quality of their lives are deteriorating. Yes, we care about democracy, women’s rights, equity and being a welcoming community. But it’s
the daily indignities that grind down the quality of life here. Below I offer two examples of many.
Public transportation in Evanston and the region is a mess. Have you been on the Red Line lately? When you sit among the urine, pot smokers and trash hoping not to be mugged just to get to work, you wonder if the leaders rallying you to “protect democracy” could just get the friggin’ train you take to work halfway decent, too? Not to mention that the poor rely on public transportation more than other economic groups. When you used to take your kids to the neighborhood Grey Park to play but don’t anymore because of the drug dealing, harassment, and public safety fears, it doesn’t feel like restoring DEI preferences is at the top of your wish list.
You can say for each of these situations, it’s not entirely the fault of the Congresswoman. It’s not entirely the fault of Representative Gabel, Senator Fine or Mayor Biss. But they are collectively our leaders. Who does have the responsibility to improve nagging everyday quality of life problems if not the people we elect? And why should we believe they’ll fix the big problems when the “little” ones just seem to get bigger?
I am a lifelong Democrat. I’ll continue to be a Democrat. But I increasingly feel that my party is out of touch with how people actually feel. And when they express those feelings, they are shamed about not seeing the “big picture.” Or, that’s “another office.”
One final tangent. I can’t escape the nagging suspicion that if Bessie Rhodes was closed by a group of white Republicans, the Congresswoman would have been out marching with Bessie Rhodes families.
I wish I could pin this comment. Thank you for saying this, I couldn't agree more. We have City Council elections coming up and I think this needs to be part of the theme of my conversations with them.
And as far as federal money, there is the accountability and competence questions - I was just at a ribbon cutting for the new health center for CCSD21 in Wheeling where they got over a million in federal funds thanks to Cong. Schneider. Did they count on Schneider to just do that for them, or did they ask, follow up, and do what they were elected to do and advocate strategically for the district?
Jan had no problem getting D65 money for Horton's failed teacher residency program:
https://www.foiagras.com/p/district-65-teacher-residency-program
There was almost no accountability for this money - over $300k just went out the door to one of Horton's pals.
These things need to work together. They are currently not working together. I hope this can be part of your Board campaign.
It will be, I can promise that. Board members and staff need to be asking for that money. I worked with her team when it was at 820 Davis, they all know me and know I am going to do the right thing. I also know when to ask.
But that's the way it works when you're working with a congressperson's office - it is only in our hometown and its because Jan lives in town that you would suggest she just takes care of our problems for us like a parent to a wayward child - we need a board that can do what boards are supposed to do.
I get it, I don't think I am asking her to swoop in and provide a deus ex machina ending. But I do think there needs to be vastly more collaboration between the city, the schools, and the state and federal governments. We missed a good opportunity during the Biden years and the next four could be a real mess depending on what Trump does to the Dept of Ed.
I agree with that, I just will draw a big bright line on getting close to "we elected 7 people to do a job, they didn't do that job well, let's be frustrated that this other person in a different elected job didn't do it for them"
You are certainly not the first person to get close to that line, this isn't my first time through this counterargument. Part of the motivation for running - I know how much all of those name brand politicians care, I know what it looks like when local school board members build the relationships that lead to success, I can do this for my kids and the district I grew up in. And boy do we effing need it.
We won around here and everyone I know is running around like Democrats are losers. We won because we work at this all the time, this isn't a hobby.
I don't want to get into a fight over this - I hear what you're saying, I do and after January when you're running for Board we can talk more about this (I'm thinking about doing a podcast)
The Suburban Cook county results alone show that sure we won but lost more ground. In an election like this, with Donald Trump on the ballot, I find this incomprehensible. How are we losing ground to a guy we're calling a fascist. I think this alone is worth some navel gazing by the party.
Lost more ground yes, but I point to mail and rain again. In the few bellweathers that had to be really worked, like the state house races against Grant and McLaughlin, we might even be gaining seats.
We all locally spent as many hours and resources in WI and MI as we could because we are over 50%+1 and wanted to get the White House. Don't conflate that with the national failure is my point.
Hi Christian,
I'm a D65 parent, lifelong Democrat, blah blah blah. I am not at all surprised that Trump won. The writing was on the wall for anyone who bothered to read it.
I know that you're running for the school board, so perhaps you're open to feedback. I commend you for running - it's a hard job right now, and we need smart people to do it.
Respectfully, the vibe you're giving off in the comments is, IMO, not the vibe that Evanstonians want to hear right now from a potential board member. You sound like an angry incumbent defending himself against...well, it's kind of unclear...and blaming the weather to boot.
We want a board who will actually listen to us, not yell, hide, or make excuses. As Ezra Klein recently said, if Dems want to get out this (shit)hole they dug themselves into, they need to show curiosity, not contempt.
Thank you, for listening.
From now on, I declare the party to be run by Ezra Klein and John Fetterman
The issue is Fetterman & Klein think that when volunteers go to a door and they talk to someone who is an undecided voter, we get to fill in the blanks and promote policy, etc., and hopefully persuade them. Instead, we are going to the door of someone who just watched a six part TikTok series about Kamala & Diddy with Biden as a supporting character and wants to educate us.
Okay maybe the party should be run by Ezra Klein, John Fetterman, and the dude that makes Skibiti toilet analysis vidoes
Not sure if you are joking but I think that Ezra Klein and John Fetterman are a core part of what they need to win going forward. And before this election, I would wager about 20% of Dem party's most progressive members were ready to boot Fetterman out if they could.
I think (hope) he’s being serious…?
I was 100% being serious
I tend to like Governors because they get things done, so I'll go for Whitmer/Evers/Pritzker et al. Not a fan of the pundit class, I always think its hyper reactive and I can't imagine them having their conversations at actual canvasses with real people and real problems.
Yes, any future D65 candidates who bill themselves as progressives need to admit the terrible mistakes of their predecessors and tell how they would operate differently (such as valuing the quality of Supt candidate experience over a candidate's ethnicity, recognizing that valuing education fundamentals is needed even for progressives, pledging open search processes and town halls to actually seek out feedback rather than just holding forums to push decisions down the pike, valuing fiscal responsibility, etc.).
Thanks for speaking up on this. We've had plenty of smart people on the board in recent years who might seem to have relevant experience, but look where it's gotten us. I don't even know how much they can claim credit for getting Foster School over the line as a key accomplishment, other than a suggestion of "we took a by-any-means-necessary approach". Good luck getting people to trust you if you're pointing at circumventing democracy and the people you volunteered to serve as a win.
I hope more of the community who is starting to pay attention appreciates the nuances you touched on: curiosity, intent to listen, a desire to (re)build a connection with the community, and absorbing the collective ideas to shape the vision vs. coming in convinced yours is "right".
Hey Megan, I have no contempt! But I was at the point where the election was won or lost, both here and out of state. I am expressing what just happened - not what I think happened nationally, but what just actually happened on the ground.
I am angry we just lost nationally! But certainly trying to draw a realistic line on what is a growing narrative that somehow Illinois is on watch for rising Trumpism or something - we aren't, we won't be, we won lots of local races. I think Tom made a political analogy which is heading into my profession (note I do far more listening than posting on his many other posts) so I gave a qualified personal opinion and defense of what I see as an unnecessary analogy.
I have plenty of national curiosity, but there isn't enough data to start drawing quantitative solutions yet. If we are dealing in qualitative analysis, I can count mine as pretty solid.
I'm certainly not yelling about education policy! Just the politics I sweat and bled for is all. I am a yeller though (a hearing defect in my right ear leaves me at 60% so I have always been loud) so I often apologize for being loud and I certainly apologize for any contempt vibes - I'm frustrated too and I'm in about eight places helping get a legislative agenda together.
I also find Ezra Klein usually contemptibly smug and often out of touch with the solutions he advocates for directly, my hope for the direction of the party hasn't emerged yet. I'm reading The Black Book by Adlai Stevenson to see if I can get some help there, and if I find something I'll bring it up.
Your second paragraph is pure spewing of media talking-points and relying on the magic "stroke of the pen fallacy"
- Biden still got a ton of debt-relief done but the biggest proposals were killed by GOP lawsuits and the Supreme Court
- Many major climate initiatives were also undone by lawsuits and the Supremes who went way beyond what they were supposedly ruling on to basically remove any environmental liabilities from corporations
- Codifying Roe is only accomplished through electing a Democratic House
but this is why people didnt trust us - it doesnt matter at the end of the day that there were legit technicalities, there was a big public scoreboard and we lost.
Retired65, I don't know how many people you have ever tried to persuade to change their vote from A to B, but in my experience (and I think I qualify as an expert) persuasion is much more closely tied to perception than reality and if the reality goes my way but the perception goes against then I have to go uphill to win that vote.
Voters are allowed to have fallacies! Most have lots, some break our way at doors some break the other.
I think it's natural, given the national political whiplash of the last few days and the last eight years, and the roiling local issues we've been experiencing, to look for patterns on the local, state, and national level. Some conclusions might be overly simplistic or even demonstrably wrong, while others might point to legitimate reasons we're seeing more disaffected voters. We're seeing seismic activity on a local level, and on a national level, and a lack of trust. (This will always unfairly benefit Republicans, who throw wrenches into the system only to claim that the system can't work.) While it's unfair to equate the local and national realities, I think it's natural to look for throughlines, especially at a fraught moment like this. And if that searching leads to engagement like we're seeing on this page, messy as it may sometimes be, then it brings me hope for where we go from here.
I don't have experience in politics other than volunteering and some recent efforts trying to advocate for specific local and state reform, but your comment about perception rings very true. And it seems there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Democrats, locally and beyond, are losing ground on voters' perceptions of their effectiveness. There are many reasons for this, as you've noted; some, like media narratives, probably shouldn't be primarily attributed to the politicians themselves. But I think voters see, in the lurchings of our various levels of government, that there's often a very big gap between voters' sense of urgency about day-to-day issues and the willingness of politicians to spend political capital to address those issues. This doesn't discount things you personally know and experience -- the care and hard work of our reps, that their hearts are in the right place, the fact that many of them are doing good and valuable work every day in an imperfect system. But the perception is there, and it has basis in genuine experience and concern.
There will always be practical limitations, but the more responsiveness we can foster in our government -- local, state, national -- the better able we'll be to channel voter engagement to effect real change. Otherwise, I fear we'll continue to lose ground at every level.
I happily cosign this sentiment.
I’ve been a dem my entire life and a HS social studies teacher for 25 years. Here’s what I would say to your points.
- What did Biden and the Dems do about a packed court hijacked by republicans? Nothing.
- Again, what did Biden and the Dems do in response? Nothing.
- Did the Dems codify Roe when they had the chance? They did not.
Could they have done these things? They had unified control in 2020. No, Roe had not been overturned yet. But codifying it did not need to wait for that. Yes, I know, Manchin and Sinema. Yes, I know, the filibuster.
I’ve been hearing those kinds of excuses my whole life from Dems. In 2008 it was Lieberman and Baucus. In 2000 it was the Supreme Court (Again). The Dem Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas in 1991, with Biden heading the judiciary committee and chairing the hearings.
I’m sick of them. I want results. I want policies I believe in enacted. I’m tired of waiting.
We may get to see if the filibuster stops republicans from passing a nationwide abortion ban. My guess is the republicans won’t hesitate to eliminate the filibuster to pass one.
The Biden Administration didn't even close the open Dept of Education cases against District 65 for the DEI training! First day the Trump admin shows up, they've got a hot live case against District 65. They can start right where they left off in January 2021. What exactly were they doing over there in DC to protect our interests?
I just remembered this. I thought Biden closed it but I guess it was moved to the back burner. How will we find out if this will be pursued?
Update: I just looked it up and the case is closed now. I'd like to take credit for it but who knows.
He didn't close it, it was just put on hold because he passed some EO about DEI stuff early in his administration. The last time I looked the OCR case was still open.
I might make a post on this, because someone has to close this before Jan 21 or its gonna cost taxpayer pile of money to litigate over dumb culture war fights.
Yep, Hispanic family here.... One of the main reasons we moved to Evanston four years ago was how appealing the TWI instruction at Bessie Rhodes was.
You can get an idea of how that's working out for us.
Thank you for commenting - I feel like an asshole speaking on behalf of other people
I have been saying this all along. The things that are happening that you've outlined in Evanston and
Chicago are a part of the problem in the Democratic Party. As a life long democrat, I abhor the outcome of this election. And I'm disgusted by what I'm seeing in Evanston. I canvassed for the referendum in 2017. I believed that the district would close the achievement gap and act in good faith. What has happened in D65 is a huge betrayal of the public trust. And on top of it, to be silenced and accused of being racist because we don't agree is a step too far. It further marginalizes people who want to work together to make things right for the most vulnerable.
Hey there, Fellow Evanstonians,
How’s everyone holding up? Election aftermath hit hard in my house—felt like getting blindsided in a parking lot. I mean, what the hell just happened? And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: we, the Democrats, set ourselves up for this. Trade deals, policies, bureaucracy taking over private land…those chickens have come home to roost.
I’m a 50-year-old straight white guy, no college degree, and I live in southeast Evanston, close to the lake. This is a community where everyone knows each other—a kind of “family” vibe, even if at first, I didn’t exactly feel like one of the family. I’ve spent most of my life being looked down on for not having a fancy diploma or a big city job, and I know that story all too well.
I grew up in the backwoods of Oregon with a dad who went from ranching to logging and a mom who scraped by. We lived off the land, hunted our food, and didn’t give a damn if we looked “uncultured.” Yet, moving to a place like Evanston, I still feel the sting of judgment. I’m not a unicorn; I’m an American like anyone else, and I’ve seen what happens when our party makes choices that leave people like my family in the dust.
In the ‘90s, Clinton signed NAFTA, shipping jobs overseas and gutting towns like mine. Mills shut down, people lost work, families lost everything. Then, fast-forward to now—Trump gets a free pass on federal crimes while in office, thanks to policies and memos our side reinforced. Doesn’t exactly paint the party in a great light, does it?
After years on this journey, I’ve learned one thing: it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from—everyone deserves respect. Love who you want, be who you want, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But here’s the kicker: our party can be overbearing, coming off as elitist, telling people how to think, speak, and live. And when they don’t comply, we label them ignorant or worse. Sound like a winning strategy? I didn’t think so.
This election, we got a classic, no-nonsense beatdown. No conspiracies, no voter fraud—just straight-up rejection. Why? Because the folks in charge of our party forgot about the people they’re supposed to represent. They’ve been so busy dictating everyone’s life choices, they lost sight of the real struggles of real people, like the ones I grew up with.
Want to change that? Stop the finger-pointing. No more coastal elites looking down their noses at folks who don’t have a degree or don’t share the same worldview. Go to any small town, talk to the people, and actually listen. They don’t need pity—they need respect. They need to be seen as equals, not as ignorant caricatures.
If we don’t figure this out, the Democrats are going to keep losing. So let’s stop being condescending, start embracing people with all their flaws, and actually practice the acceptance we preach. It’s time to make this party truly representative again.
Best,
The Hillbilly Democrat
Great points. One thing: telling people how to think, speak, and live clearly IS a winning strategy. And I'm terrified about how this administration is planning to tell us how to think, speak, and live going forward.
I hear you. What was told to those voters played into their fears. Folks who are not exposed to certain ideas and, for lack of a better phrase, lifestyles don’t understand when they are told they need to accept them. We all fear what we don’t understand. Many don’t understand why someone would vote for Trump and that scares them. It’s a different side to the same coin. That’s what I hope to convey. I was afraid of the government as a kid. They took so much from my family and it was a Democratic leader who did it for reasons that were never clearly explained. This happened all over the country. Folks were pissed and afraid of the government. That was 30 years ago. 3 generations. They need to be heard and understood. His vulgar approach cut through. Why? He is different. What else did they have to lose. And he’s not a Democrat. He will turn on them. And when he does we need to be available or it will only get worse.
Also to your point, leaders have always told people how to live their lives. It’s not unique to Trump. He’s awful and he’s our leader. Anger doesn’t work. We need a different approach.
I think he was replying to KO
Disappointing that you didn't include a 4th category: misogynists. Of course, there are clearly plenty of them within the Democratic party as well.
My original name for the "Racists" category was "Stupid people" so I probably should've included that!
Tim, you got it sort of right. I do think the issues you stated directly relate to why so many are leaving the democratic party - and you are the first person I have read to list something concrete. I applaud your vision. But, you are wrong to say the republicans are ignoring the issues you think the democrats now need to open their eyes to. My husband and I - Evanstonians - left the party during covid. We tried to bring a different awareness to the Evanston community that the school closures were mostly hurting the people D202 and D65 were trying to protect. I wrote letters and spoke at school board meetings. I was shunned and called a murdering racist, including being publicly shamed on FB from our community. All my democratic friends remained silent. In Evanston it is very dangerous to think differently and to speak these thoughts. This is not a welcome tribe.
Some additional perspective of my experience is that the people who were curious and concerned alongside us were republicans. They were republicans and we could discuss these issues with curiosity and data. With every false accusation to what your neighbors (call them Barrington) are doing or not doing, you only drive a bigger divide. Almost half of our state has left the democratic party. My recommendation is stop thinking it's about Trump and maybe for a moment think that we too want a strong and healthy black, brown and white community. I know we can get there.
My name is Tom :)
Tom! :)
I don't think Jan Schakowsky has done much to earn her seat for the past 6 years. She's just coasting in an easy district. I would love to see someone challenge her in a primary. I was particularly shocked that she did not put out a statement or say anything after the Highland Park 4th of July mass shooting in 2022.
I actually think she does quite a bit behind the scenes for constituents. She has a pretty responsive office for a variety of administrative issues (passports, social security, etc).
Also like it or not as far as how congress works for democrats, but she’s had a long tenure (she’s in the 30s out of 434 members?) and that gets seniority for committees and leadership.
As someone who sits in a politically safe district, I would expect her to go out on a limb more and be a stronger voice for progressive values. Especially because she represents one of the most progressive areas of the country. Instead, she's a background player at best and it seems that she has adopted senior citizen's issues as the only cause that she is focused on. To your point about her long tenure – with the election results behind us, I believe the democratic party needs to find new voices and new energy.
I was a campaign volunteer in the ATL area where we were one of the few places that actually swung left. It is terrible.
I think there is never one answer. I do think there is truth to the local governance disgust turning people away from identifying as a Democrat. But for this election, all we heard about was the gender gap during early voting, with women being dominant, but in Election Day, it shrunk thanks to low propensity young male voters turning out after their media networks convinced them Trump was what we needed.
Every time I spoke to a GenX or GenZ (parents and their kids) Trump voter this cycle, they were spouting information to me from sources I never knew existed. The number of people who mentioned Peanut the Squirrel the last week. All those 2021-2022 “unearthed podcast clips” of JD Vance from places no one heard of, but are actually super popular among young men. People constantly asking me how I could volunteer for a dumb woman who slept her way to the top and had never done anything worthwhile in her life.
It is hard for smart people to really grasp this, but this was a vibes election and perhaps presidential elections always are. People wanted the Trump vibe. No matter what Harris policies were, most of those people would never heard of them in their corner of TikTok and Discord. How do we operate in a functioning democracy like this?
As a parent of a boy, it really gives me pause about the future. Last week, my sweet eight year old asked my dog if he was gay. I sat him down to find out what that was about and with enough info, eventually tied it to a meme from a TikTok creator. My son does not have TikTok. Content that threatens are decency is just everywhere. I wonder if in the reflections on what went wrong and where we go next, we will miss the bigger picture.
As a parent of a 9 year old boy, I could write a book about Youtube and their insufficient parental controls.
Yes! Please have a chapter explaining why District 65 gives my 8 year old a frickin iPad which he only seems to use to watch youtube shorts. And an appendix with the email from the principal of his school that asked parents to tell their kids not to use their iPads on the playground before school because they were getting dirty and we would have to pay for their replacement if they broke!
This is driving me and my wife insane. Our second grader has been able, during the school day, to successfully google "Riz lines wallpaper" (he has no idea what this means). Some of the search results were unbelievably inappropriate.
I'm a public educator at the high school level and began my career long before student iPads (or laptops). I find very little of educational value in them, even for my juniors. Why we are using them to teach elementary students is beyond me. In fact, I think it borders on educational malpractice.
Saw this post from a reader on Talking Points Memo that recounted how their 20-something male kid commented on the machinations of the YouTube algorithm. You start off looking at a Minecraft video and a couple of videos in you get offered up Joe Rogan.
So when an equity grifter con-artist like Biz chides the community for bringing "toxic masculinity" into the schools, she should look in the mirror and ask why the district is actively enabling this through their choices in instructional materials.
Whenever I've seen a critique of the District's shoving iPads down kids throats on the Equity Army's Facebook page, their response is that it is improving equity since richer families have access to technology.
It is a dumb argument and---like everything that the Board and Administration pushes--it is wholly separated from the task that should be at the center of their concern: what is the best way to educate the kids?
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/your-reactions-14
I think I am going to take on this cause - YouTube on the tablets. As a parent, it is a constant whack a mole with that thing - even if you impose strict parental controls, there are so many ways around it. Youtube Kids with whitelists are the best way to go but even then, they find workarounds - I caught him watching unregulated Youtube on his Oculus the other day - something I didn’t even think was possible.
I think the issue goes beyond YouTube. What is the evidence that iPads are superior to using actual books, worksheets, notebooks etc?
Of course the Board is so clueless about this. We should remember that they have signed on to actually sue YouTube while they are distributing devices that can access the platform. Good luck with that.
https://meetings.boardbook.org/Documents/CustomMinutesForMeeting/1247?meeting=586519
When dealing with a populist, it doesn’t help to label his supporters as racist, women-hating unintelligent, low information voters. It actually does the opposite and plays right into the populist wants. It makes us the enemy trump needs us to be.
I read this article 8 years ago and I just read it again yesterday. I wish someone from the Harris campaign had read it. I hope we learn this time around so we don’t have president Vance in 4 years or lose the house.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/in-venezuela-we-couldnt-stop-chavez-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-we-did/
Original article/no paywall: https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/
I also think the way they look at the Latino population is flawed to begin with. Same with middle eastern and north African voters. People treat these groups like they’re some sort of monolith, not understanding that they’re broad terms for vastly different groups with different experiences and needs in America.
I’m too emotional about this to be objective. A day before the election my 11 year old son said he wished it weren’t true but a lot of adults thought a woman couldn’t be president. He called it. I realized we will never have a female president in my lifetime (I’m late late 40s with a current normal life expectancy).
In the past, when I was collecting signatures for a friend and female judicial candidate at the Skokie Skatium I was politely turned down to my face by a group of men refusing to sign because they would not vote for a female judge. Normally I’m pretty volatile but this was not my campaign to blow up so I thanked them for their time……
The Democrats made huge mistakes. Unpopular opinion I know but people can’t live in tents. It’s not sustainable. People can’t have babies in bad weather asking for money. The resources come from somewhere. Democrats brushed over immigration but it’s a huge issue. If a group of girls from another country comes to Evanston and in their country the girls were not allowed to go to school, they are going to be very very behind in our public schools. Where do resources for all of this come from? It’s not free. People are generous until resources get diverted from their kids. That’s just how it works. Is it morally right? Probably not. But it’s how it works.
Grocery bills have gone up astronomically but every Dem was bragging about how great their investments were doing. Families can’t afford this. Moral choices are luxery choices and not choices to be made when you are in survival mode. If I can’t feed my existing kids your daughter’s potential sepsis due to lack of care from a miscarriage isn’t first on my
mind.
Well said, Tom.
Communication is leadership.
The best thing I did this cycle was listen to focus groups of swing voters, especially people who voted for Trump then Biden. In 2024, normal people don't like ANY politicians. They think politicians are all liars, speaking in fancy speech but saying nothing. The absolute worst insult they can make is that that person "sounds like a typical politician." The best compliment is that someone is not a typical politician.
Biden has been a politican for more than 50 years. His approval now is lower than Trump's ever was. For 3 years, Biden has declined to the point that he can't communicate at all. And even when inflation came down and unemployment stayed low, he couldn't speak coherently about what was good about the economy and what still needed to be done, and the actual prices that were high. Harris's "opportunity economy" didn't address this well enough.
On immigration, Democrats have been terrified to say anything at all for years. They speak only about Dreamers, the magical less than 1% of immigrants who were 2 years old when their parents crossed the border and who are perfect in every way. Neglecting the very real harmful situation we saw in 2021-2023 in Texas and across the country. Silence, occasionally interspersed with politician speak.
In lieu of any meaningful communication, the baseline argument was easy to make:
1. Biden's economy sucks
2. Biden failed on the border
The trans stuff is nasty, and I don't know if it is effective at all.
Look at North Carolina where they overwhelmingly elected a Jewish governor, and voted for Trump. It doesn't really go much deeper than the one and only thing that Kamala Harris and Mark Robinson have in common. I place a ton of blame on the media; starting with the constant drumbeat of "Biden is old", crapping on the economy when every piece of evidence shows that we are doing better after Covid than any other country. We have entire networks devoted to financial news and nobody could figure out that we did not have monetary inflation but rather supply shock? Why did these "experts" spend the last three years pretending that 2020 never happened?? Yes, gas was $1.87 in 2020 because NOBODY WAS DRIVING ANYWHERE, eggs prices went up due to two separate bird flu outbreaks. Covid blew a 20 TRILLION dollar hole in the US economy which was filled with only 9 trillion in stimulus so there were no money printers working overtime flooding us with cash. Inflation came down from 9% to nearly 2% without a recession and without widespread unemployment and Biden/Harris got zero credit for the soft-landing which is now very much in danger.
I also believe that there are many Dems out there who were angry about the way Biden was pushed aside and may have stayed home because of it; I think the process was shameful. The debate performance was visually bad but, if you remember, there was a focus group of Latino voters that only heard the translation and overwhelmingly said that he had won the debate.
Inflation is such a tricky beast - there were so many influxes to the money supply during the COVID and post-COVID era. PPP, the three COVID relief bills, and then the ARP and the infrastructure bill. Both Trump and Biden introduced a many trillion dollar increase in the money supply, which had to be tamped down with high interest rates. I think it sucks that democrats took the hit for that, but that's how the cookie crumbles, I guess.
Biden's Fed did not overprint money; if they had, there wouldn't be a shortage of dollars in relation to world demand for them. Again, 2020 happened and people pretending it didn't helped lead to where we are now.
I mean a $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill is going to add to the money supply. I'm not opposed to it, we desperately needed that infrastructure but surely it's responsible for a non-zero amount of inflation?
If I am understanding your points correctly, I think your comment regarding the money supply is incorrect. Putting aside any judgement on whether it was the right thing to do or not, the government (both parties) added roughly $6 trillion to the money supply during and post covid. Just look up the M2 money supply and you can see the trends over time. COVID did not somehow reduce the money supply as you suggest.
Can you explain why it’s relevant to point out the NC winner is Jewish? I’m not understanding what the connection is and would rather have you explain it than make an assumption. Sometimes things get lost in translation online.
> than the one and only thing that Kamala Harris and Mark Robinson
Cool, where's Kamala's account on nude africa dot com?
The original poster missed a shocking and essential feature of Mark Robinson's failed campaign, the allegations were pretty raunchy unless you love knowing about your politician's porn preferences.
Also the original poster's language about the Jewish governor who won gives me a total case of the ick. Its a big leap to exclude the vast amount of non-white Jews. who are Sephardic, African, Asian, Indian, and so on. There are literally millions of non-white Jews. Ick.
Rocky, I appreciate you calling out the not-so-latent antisemitism in OPs comment. I would like to point out that, to many Jews, distinguishing between "white Jews" and "Jews of color" is problematic at best and offensive at worst. I'm not sure how I "present" to others, but the Nazis didn't beat, starve and torture my grandparents and murder their families because of their "whiteness."
In connection with the larger theme of the thread, I've heard plenty of theorizing in the media about how Kamala's supposed lack of support for Gaza cost her votes. It's interesting, though, that I've seen far fewer wondering if the overt antisemitism both propagated and tolerated by many on the extreme left might have cost the dems votes? I mean, maybe ask Richie Torres or George Latimer.
"every piece of evidence shows that we are doing better after Covid than any other country. "
Please provide some evidence.
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/31/us-economy-2024-gdp-g7-nations
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-recovery-from-covid-19-in-international-comparison/#:~:text=A%20combination%20of%20unprecedented%20fiscal,now%20entering%20its%20fourth%20year.
We were also entering a recession at the beginning of 2020 with the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs; that was masked by Covid.
Sorry I misunderstood your point. You provide economic statistics for Europe and North America, plus Japan. I had thought you meant the world in general, including mainland Asia, Africa, Latin America. And I thought you meant health and life expectancy.
Real coalition building does not include screaming down the smallest skepticism. And all the lecturing screamers should be embarrassed, given it resulted in negative outcomes for kids.
Representative leadership also doesn’t equal only showing up based on the political impact of the showing. Jan and Biss are craven politicians incapable of really rising to the moment. Their failure to throw their political capital into D65 when it was clear the district was setting itself on fire is disqualifying imo.
I agree with a lot of your analysis but there's still the fact that -- again -- a large part of our country was not willing to show up/vote for a woman over the atrocity that is Trump. I don't think there's anything equatable with that in Evanston.
I don't disagree with this
Let alone a woman of color. We can analyze this to death, but the bottom line is this country showed us what they think of women - which is less than a fascist atrocity.
I don’t race or gender played as much into this as the fact that this candidate embodied progressive San Francisco political perspectives, along with not being so great an impromptu public speaker. The old-school Dem strategists that have had past winners would surely have told us that if the Dem candidate has to be a woman, that woman should be from the south or midwest, someone who can speak impressively on the stump, and who was a former fighter pilot, etc., or just a natural bad-ass.
Next time let’s have the strategists pick, unless someone has organically risen up above the crowd as Obama arguably did.
The weird thing is, like if you view old videos of Harris talking, like the coconut tree video - she can be a very genuine and relatable speaker. But we rarely saw that person on the campaign trail and I have no idea why. We saw a little bit of that in the debate, but that's about it.
Did you not see the videos of her responding to women crying about how happy they were to see her as the candidate? Also she was a high level prosecutor and successful politician, she can speak to a crowd just fine. I think she probably was told to be less herself in that respect so as to not come off as an angry black woman.
I didn't see those videos but I believe it - there was a good one where she was talking to younger girls about public speaking, where she was very good. I think you're right.
Accidentally deleted my first response. Basically, I think its problematic to say: " if the Dem candidate has to be a woman, that woman should be from the south or midwest, someone who can speak impressively on the stump, and who was a former fighter pilot, etc., or just a natural bad-ass"
I saw Harris as "a natural bad-ass". And I often heard less of her policies being attacked than of it being said she slept her way to the top, that she wasn't a mother, and she was "unlikeable".
Also, explain how Harris did not organically rise above the crowd given than she was elected the Vice President!
Joe Biden declared he was going to pick a Black woman for VP, so the pool of talent was limited to that small group, rather than to all possible Dem VP candidates, and then she was chosen by one man to be VP (as opposed to being voted in as candidate through a proper full primary). Obama rose organically over all possible candidates in a great wave of popularity and was nominated by the Dem party because he was regarded by the Dem party constituents (the people) as truly exceptional as a political candidate.
Biden unsuccessfully tried to get the Dem nomination in 1988 and 2008. Arguably he was picked by Obama because he was a white man, not the most exceptional political candidate. Then he was VP. Then ran successfully for the presidency. He did not rise organically by any means. Harris was one of two senators from our largest state - a pretty hard office to win. She basically had a lot quicker, but the same trajectory and a much harder one than Joe Biden. But you've reduced her to a DEI hire that wasn't good enough.