Splitsville COURAGE!

The Young--Indeed, Infantile--Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

What makes the Hottentot so hot?
Who put the ape in apricot?
Whatta they all got that I ain’t got?

One of the nice things about our Splitsville conceit—that the US currently consists of two separate nations occupying the same geo-political “space”—is, not only does it afford us the opportunity to make grandiose (indeed, pretentious) statements about our no-longer-great country, it’s also very flexible. We can use it to come up with, and bang on about, pretty much any dichotomy of qualities, values, personality types, or what-all that we like.

So for this week’s two-nations-in-one binary about The Land of the Free, we’re going to talk about The Home of the Brave and The Home of the Not-Brave. (It’s also The Home of Everybody Else, but never mind them for the moment.)

First, everyone should go here and read Radley Balko’s magisterial Substack about what the Democrats are doing to meet this horrific moment in US history—which is essentially nothing. The essay is a bit long, but you’ll literally eat it with a figurative spoon. With every sentence you’ll think, “Oh, God, he’s right.” His description of Democratic fecklessness is then followed by a series of suggestions that we think are brilliant, mainly because they’re exactly the things we’ve been screaming about for two months, either to our significant others or in the Comments sections of other (significant!) Substacks and blogs.

Is this the Home of anyone we can call Brave? Yes. As Balko rightly points out at the top, Texas Congressman Al Green did himself and his constituents proud when he interrupted you-know-who’s joint address to Congress last week, thundering about the pathological liar’s lack of a mandate and brandishing his cane like an Old Testament prophet. He was ejected from the premises by baby-faced ultra-Christian worm-man Speaker Mike Johnson.

And then other courageous Democrats followed Green’s lead, interrupting and thundering and brandishing. Right?

Sadly, no. Not one, in fact. Some people sang “We Shall Overcome.” Some held up signs, or little round plaques with messages (“FALSE”; “LIE”) that seemed like nothing so much as a series of silent auction paddles inscribed with the kind of ultra-short declarations you find on crappy Valentine’s Day candy hearts (“LOVE”; “BE MINE”). The scene was a parody of politely-expressed outrage—or, rather, of politely-expressed discontent—or, no, more like politely-expressed pique. And even they were reprimanded by the (so-called) party leadership. Balko:

…the party made clear that Green was on his own. No one followed up when he was removed from the floor. No one backed up him. He was later censured with a majority vote that included an embarrassing number of Democrats.

In the days that followed, the Democratic leadership scolded Green. They also scolded the handful of members who quietly walked out of Trump’s speech. They even scolded those who “protested” by merely wearing pink and meekly holding up signs.

The pink was for…we don’t know. Maybe International Women’s Day, or National Bubble Gum Awareness Month, or something. Of course, pink is a milder, diluted form of red. So maybe the women wearing it were proclaiming a kind of qualified, half-hearted sympathy with the Republicans. WE’RE KIDDING.

Or are we? The point is, the Democratic response to this utter nightmare of an administration has been frustrating at best, and enraging at worst, because it’s been almost non-existent. Indeed, once-respected (in the Bill Clinton era) campaign strategist James Carville has suggested the Dems “roll over and play dead.” YES, HE LITERALLY WROTE THAT.

With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead. Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat.

This, to us, is like advising someone watching their home being destroyed by a maniac with a sledge hammer, “Don’t worry. Sooner or later he’ll get tired and stop.”

Granted, there are a few individuals sounding the alarm and calling a spade a spade and so forth—AOC (who we think of as our girlfriend, who declined to attend the address), Texas Rep Jasmine Crockett (our other girlfriend—don’t tell AOC--who also stayed away), Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, Maryland Rep Jamie Raskin, and—who else?—Bernie. And even if Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries (mocked and derided in these very pages a few weeks ago) now shows signs of fighting back, the same cannot be said for the leader of the Senate Dems, the almost comically useless Charles “Chuck” Schumer, who reacts to Trump’s and Musk’s depredations with the distracted (but stern!) disapproval of a high school vice-principal frowning at rowdy senior class hijinks.

Meanwhile, as Balko says:

It’s hard to even convey how dire things are without sounding like a loon. Here’s just one example: Last week the Washington Post reported that Jack Posobiec has been advising Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. In fact, both invited him on recent overseas trips. Posobiec is a key propagator of the insane Pizzagate conspiracy. He’s a former Alex Jones protege who is fond of sneaking the white supremacist code “1488” into his social medial posts (it means “Heil Hitler”). Earlier this year he told a gathering of conservatives that it was time to put an end to American democracy. He’s also the author of a recent book about how Trump’s political opponents are “unhuman.” JD Vance wrote the forward.

We could go on. Some smart person on Bluesky said, “The Dems think they’re in a Wes Anderson movie when they’re really in a Quentin Tarantino movie.” Or, as Balko says:

…it’s also time to end the asymmetrical decency. You don’t owe any deference or reverence to “the office” of the presidency when the man occupying it is a vulgar thug who’s exploiting the office to enrich himself and smite his enemies and whose administration is provoking a constitutional crisis by openly defying the federal courts. You needn’t respect “decorum” during a speech in which the president is blood-libeling immigrants, threatening allies, promising to wreck the economy, and telling lies that everyone knows are lies as a raw display of power. And it is especially craven to scold one of your own for a modest act of defiance against an administration that has threatened to arrest and imprison you over protected speech.

So yeah, welcome to The Home of the Not-Brave. We’re particularly…not mad at; just very disappointed in…Jared Moscowitz of Florida, who was so sharp and funny while razzing the moron Jamie Comer in one of the latter’s absurd hearings, only to be among those Dems who voted to censure Al Green.

And even if some Dems are doing something, here’s a brilliant insight we haven’t read anywhere else: If we think the Dems aren’t doing anything, then even if they are, they aren’t. The fact that we think this, by definition means that they are failing in their duty to reassure and inspire us. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not nearly enough.

What should they be doing? Balko presents three ideas which—coincidence? Or the inevitable concurrence of like minds?—we ourselves have been urging, in order to treat this reality like the five-alarm emergency that it is:

1. Hold town halls in red districts. The Republicans, demonstrating their own brand of cowardice, have instructed their reps to avoid angry constituents by simply not showing up. So Dems should show up, listen to Republican (and MAGA!) complaints, and explain who is screwing them over, why it’s just going to get worse, and what can be done about it. Bernie himself is doing this, but he is merely one man, and he is 700 years old. You can read about his “whistle-stop tour,” and what Dems can learn from it, in this piece by the always-great Jason Linkins at the New Republic.

2. Daily briefings. So much is happening, so fast, and it’s all terrible. That is by Trump/Musk design and with GOP complicity. So Dems should implement a regular (maybe even daily) series of briefings, explaining what’s going on, why it’s hideous, and who is opposing it. Balko thinks these should be “informative, serious, and sober.” We think they should maybe be a little less sober and a little more geared toward making their audience angry, indignant, and disgusted. (That’s how conservative media brainwash voters in red states, with lies and demagogy. We have the advantage of having truth on our side.) Use good writers, talented presenters, graphics, and humor. This is all the more urgently needed because everything Trump and the Republicans say are lies, and everything in the mainstream media is, at best, both-sides-ist obfuscation.

3. Form a shadow cabinet. Convene an array of experts to directly critique, department by department, what Trump’s Crew of Idiots does every day. As Balko puts it, “Picture a technocrat like Pete Buttigieg explaining why you can’t mandate that every air traffic controller have an MIT degree, or why Transportation Secretary and ex-reality TV guy Sean Duffy shouldn’t hand control of U.S. airspace over to a company that blows up a rocket every few months.”

Granted, none of this will get Trump to resign, or get the Republicans to impeach him, or get Musk to retreat in shame back to the fake town in Texas where Space X is headquartered. That’s not the point. The point is, first, to make us glad we’re Democrats and provide us with leaders we will willingly follow; second, to alert that vast middle (in the aforementioned Home of Everybody Else) to the existential dangers posed by Trumpian fascism; and third, to rally us, and them, to oppose it.

It’s not enough to say, “Just hold tight, play dead, and by the mid-term election in 2026 there will be so much opposition to this vandalism, corruption, and criminality that the Dems will return to power.” You don’t have to be a political scientist, or a cynic, to suggest that there may not be a mid-term election in 2026 (or one that isn’t rigged). Certainly Trump, Vance, Musk, and the GOP will do everything they can to prevent a real election. And yes, they have state power.

But their leader is a deteriorating lunatic mob boss, his Bond-villain henchman (who quite possibly is not his henchman but his owner) is a drug-addled sociopath, and his party consists of the stupid, the soulless, and the religiously insane. Carville may be right in suggesting that their ignorance, recklessness, and power-drunk greed can lead to their undoing. But what if their undoing is so long in coming that it includes our undoing?

So we should help them get there. We should cultivate, focus, and lead an opposition so widespread and ferocious that Republicans will not only fear showing up to town halls, but fear walking down the street. After all, we stand for truth, justice, and the American way. Like Superman! There’s no telling what we could accomplish if only the Democratic party would stop sighing and start fucking leading.

Psst! Buddy! Wanna get a nice non-digital copy of THE SPLIT that will look like an actual book because that’s what it is? It’s coming. Yeah, no kidding. Tell everybody. And watch this space. Sure, don’t mention it.