Frederick Bartol
@leftontheprairie.com
I write about politics, particularly the politics of urban transit, from a standpoint grounded in midwestern American progressivism. And "there isn't a train I wouldn't take, / No matter where it's going."*
*Edna St. Vincent Millay
*Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pinned
Frederick Bartol
@leftontheprairie.com
· Nov 17
Yeah, the scene at the moment is bleak, with late autumn in Wisconsin taking on an even more somber cast than usual. But blue skies can be found if one looks hard enough, and silver linings in some of the clouds. This seems a promising platform from which to launch a search for them. So off we go!
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
-A living wage
-Guaranteed healthcare
-The right to join a union
-The right to vote
-The right to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family
-The right for you and your family to live free from gun violence
These are the foundations of real freedom.
-Guaranteed healthcare
-The right to join a union
-The right to vote
-The right to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family
-The right for you and your family to live free from gun violence
These are the foundations of real freedom.
July 4, 2025 at 9:01 PM
-A living wage
-Guaranteed healthcare
-The right to join a union
-The right to vote
-The right to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family
-The right for you and your family to live free from gun violence
These are the foundations of real freedom.
-Guaranteed healthcare
-The right to join a union
-The right to vote
-The right to choose when, how, and with whom you start a family
-The right for you and your family to live free from gun violence
These are the foundations of real freedom.
Hear, hear.
America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished. I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better, to protect and deepen our democracy, to fulfill its promise for each and every person who calls it home.
Happy Independence Day. No Kings in America.
Happy Independence Day. No Kings in America.
July 5, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Hear, hear.
This by @jasonfurman.bsky.social seems less "A Road Map for Undoing the Damage" than a warning about how long and hard that road will be. Fair enough. But: "ideas matter" as a lesson of the bill's passage? What "ideas"? Raw partisanship and power would seem to be what mainly mattered here.
Opinion | A Road Map for Undoing the Damage of the Big, Awful Bill
www.nytimes.com
July 5, 2025 at 9:18 PM
This by @jasonfurman.bsky.social seems less "A Road Map for Undoing the Damage" than a warning about how long and hard that road will be. Fair enough. But: "ideas matter" as a lesson of the bill's passage? What "ideas"? Raw partisanship and power would seem to be what mainly mattered here.
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
@stinadale.bsky.social writes a worker-centered critique of our top-heavy institutions.
"It’s much harder for an institution to provide quality public services when the bulk of their money is going to bloat at the top instead of the people doing the actual work."
tonemadison.com/articles/a-l...
"It’s much harder for an institution to provide quality public services when the bulk of their money is going to bloat at the top instead of the people doing the actual work."
tonemadison.com/articles/a-l...
A leftist critique of top-heavy public institutions
More investment in the actual laborers will better serve everyone.
tonemadison.com
June 6, 2025 at 3:35 PM
@stinadale.bsky.social writes a worker-centered critique of our top-heavy institutions.
"It’s much harder for an institution to provide quality public services when the bulk of their money is going to bloat at the top instead of the people doing the actual work."
tonemadison.com/articles/a-l...
"It’s much harder for an institution to provide quality public services when the bulk of their money is going to bloat at the top instead of the people doing the actual work."
tonemadison.com/articles/a-l...
We transit advocates are eternal optimists, or at least I try to be. But with all due respect to the advocates quoted here, any notion that the current tariff turmoil will usher in a golden age of public transportation seems borderline delusional, especially given the political moment we are in.
Car prices will go up. Taking the train or a bus looks like a bargain | CNN Business
President Donald Trump’s auto tariffs are expected to lift car prices by thousands of dollars. That’s an opportunity for America’s trains and buses.
www.cnn.com
April 12, 2025 at 3:09 AM
We transit advocates are eternal optimists, or at least I try to be. But with all due respect to the advocates quoted here, any notion that the current tariff turmoil will usher in a golden age of public transportation seems borderline delusional, especially given the political moment we are in.
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
"I'm a comfortable, complacent, conservative pseudo-'center-leftist.'" There. Fixed it.
Explaining myself
I’m a moderate, center-left, nonpartisan Democrat.
isthmus.com
April 10, 2025 at 7:19 PM
"I'm a comfortable, complacent, conservative pseudo-'center-leftist.'" There. Fixed it.
Thank you for highlighting one particularly grotesque aspect of this intellectually vacuous paean to sprawl.
Not a single time in this article glorifying the need for sprawl to address the US's affordable housing crisis is there a mention of the vast transportation costs of sprawling living patterns. Nor is there mention of the fact that sprawl is directly linked to disinvestment in urban cores.
America Needs More Sprawl to Fix Its Housing Crisis
The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth — but to fix the housing crisis, the country needs more of it.
www.nytimes.com
April 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Thank you for highlighting one particularly grotesque aspect of this intellectually vacuous paean to sprawl.
Sigh. Longing to visit someday...but also to see if we can't translate at least some of this into the American vernacular.
I am dropping this on Bluesky first since I think this is the place to be.
This is my 1,111th Streetfilm so it's a cool numerical milestone! But even better this is a great 15 minute film and definitely consider one of my Top Ten.
For my birthday give it a play! #Urbanism
youtu.be/VSN1BR6es6E
This is my 1,111th Streetfilm so it's a cool numerical milestone! But even better this is a great 15 minute film and definitely consider one of my Top Ten.
For my birthday give it a play! #Urbanism
youtu.be/VSN1BR6es6E
Ghent Kicked Out the Cars So You Can Walk, Bike, Live & Thrive in the City (Velo-City 2024)
YouTube video by Streetfilms®
youtu.be
March 28, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Sigh. Longing to visit someday...but also to see if we can't translate at least some of this into the American vernacular.
Fair point. Still ambivalent about the overall concept, which is why I, too, would like more robust and thoroughgoing follow up to the experiment.
March 28, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Fair point. Still ambivalent about the overall concept, which is why I, too, would like more robust and thoroughgoing follow up to the experiment.
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
"It’s only been eight weeks. I cannot imagine what this country will look like in a year." And neither can you.
This Is the Land of Wolves Now
Masked agents snatching people off the street. Government officials using caged prisoners for propaganda videos. We are the villains.
www.thebulwark.com
March 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM
"It’s only been eight weeks. I cannot imagine what this country will look like in a year." And neither can you.
Great essay driving home this critical point: "This is an extraordinary moment and it requires extraordinary vision and actions. We must stop viewing political life through the lens of American politics as we have known it, and adopt the viewpoint of dissident movements in autocratic states."
How to Think (and Act) Like a Dissident Movement
AOC, solidarity, and people power.
www.thebulwark.com
March 28, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Great essay driving home this critical point: "This is an extraordinary moment and it requires extraordinary vision and actions. We must stop viewing political life through the lens of American politics as we have known it, and adopt the viewpoint of dissident movements in autocratic states."
Can't say it better than this: "I would demand they shut down DOGE. Undo the damage that’s already done. Period. If I were in Congress I’d say no talking about anything until that happens."
A few of you have asked me what to tell members of Congress if you call them. I don't know how to write scripts. But this is my best stab at explaining how I see the situation and what Democrats need to do. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-...
What To Tell Your Member of Congress
In response to last night’s “Alert” post a number of TPM Readers...
talkingpointsmemo.com
February 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Can't say it better than this: "I would demand they shut down DOGE. Undo the damage that’s already done. Period. If I were in Congress I’d say no talking about anything until that happens."
Thought-provoking analysis. But one can agree on the risks of a shutdown yet also believe expressing too much eagerness to reach a bipartisan budget deal doesn't meet the moment either. Don't negotiate (or offer to negotiate) in advance.
The Shutdown Fight That Could Play Right Into Trump’s Hands
There isn’t one neat trick to defeating Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s war on the federal government.
www.politico.com
February 11, 2025 at 4:42 AM
Thought-provoking analysis. But one can agree on the risks of a shutdown yet also believe expressing too much eagerness to reach a bipartisan budget deal doesn't meet the moment either. Don't negotiate (or offer to negotiate) in advance.
Too much conventional establishment-Democrat verbiage, too little sense of urgency about the crisis unfolding before our eyes. Forget about bipartisanship; we need effective partisanship on behalf of democracy.
Schumer warns GOP against a 'Trump shutdown'
The Senate minority leader also detailed ways he plans to counter the new administration.
www.politico.com
February 10, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Too much conventional establishment-Democrat verbiage, too little sense of urgency about the crisis unfolding before our eyes. Forget about bipartisanship; we need effective partisanship on behalf of democracy.
Note the call for a politics "less about making demands on those in power than building new power from below...millions of people acting as architects of a social order that endows them with the freedom to cultivate their broadest selves, a commonwealth of the grown." An old idea new again?
A little ditty from me for @nybooks.com on the apocalyptic childishness of the American ruling class, and why there's never been a better time to be a Big Baby www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...
More Babies! | Ben Tarnoff
The week I became a father, two things happened. Fires engulfed the Amazon, and a man who made his living as a columnist for the largest newspaper in the
www.nybooks.com
February 9, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Note the call for a politics "less about making demands on those in power than building new power from below...millions of people acting as architects of a social order that endows them with the freedom to cultivate their broadest selves, a commonwealth of the grown." An old idea new again?
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
I'd like an actual opposition party showing how they're opposing things, not texts from people I've barely heard about talking about their plans for 2026.
February 9, 2025 at 7:11 PM
I'd like an actual opposition party showing how they're opposing things, not texts from people I've barely heard about talking about their plans for 2026.
Yes, indeed, "a lot of what once passed for strategy is useless now. Democrats cannot pretend that business-as-usual behavior is appropriate to this moment. They cannot 'choose their battles' because what’s at stake is not just this or that policy but whether we will endure as a free republic..."
Opinion | Democrats, Trump has given you a mission. Accept all of it.
The republic is under siege. What can be done?
www.washingtonpost.com
February 9, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Yes, indeed, "a lot of what once passed for strategy is useless now. Democrats cannot pretend that business-as-usual behavior is appropriate to this moment. They cannot 'choose their battles' because what’s at stake is not just this or that policy but whether we will endure as a free republic..."
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...
snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...
The Logic of Destruction
And how to resist it
snyder.substack.com
February 2, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Sometimes self-government just means elections. And sometimes it means recognizing the deeper dignity and meaning of what it means to be a people. That means speaking up, standing out, and protesting. We can only be free together.
snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...
snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-...
Reading this provided a moment of calm amid the chaos. Grateful for it.
Here is a gift link to my piece in today’s Washington Post on where we are vis a vis the resistance. You don’t need to be a subscriber, although you do need to give them your email:
wapo.st/4aEGlP3
wapo.st/4aEGlP3
Opinion | The resistance will not be rushed
Resting up to join a peaceful, nonviolent, colorful and multigenerational opposition.
wapo.st
February 2, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Reading this provided a moment of calm amid the chaos. Grateful for it.
Let's put it this way: it's hard for anyone yearning for a coherent opposition to Trump to be encouraged by a party leader who claims “Anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong,” he said. “We got the right message.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u... Am I right in thinking that this is a big victory for Democratic incumbents who want the DNC to adopt what are winning strategies form them locally, even if they are losing strategies for Democrats nationally.
Democrats Choose a Political Operator From Minnesota as Their New Leader
www.nytimes.com
February 2, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Let's put it this way: it's hard for anyone yearning for a coherent opposition to Trump to be encouraged by a party leader who claims “Anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong,” he said. “We got the right message.”
"Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work." But the destruction, alas, is the point, and, tragically, so much easier than building. This should make all of us, even if not yet directly affected, sick--and righteously angry.
Health Programs Shutter Around the World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid
www.nytimes.com
February 2, 2025 at 2:35 AM
"Many of those interviewed broke down in tears as they described the rapid destruction of decades of work." But the destruction, alas, is the point, and, tragically, so much easier than building. This should make all of us, even if not yet directly affected, sick--and righteously angry.
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
A Few Thoughts on Messages and Morale talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few...
A Few Thoughts on Messages and Morale
Over the last few days, as I’ve struggled with everyone else to...
talkingpointsmemo.com
February 1, 2025 at 8:38 PM
A Few Thoughts on Messages and Morale talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few...
Reposted by Frederick Bartol
TOMORROW: Let’s talk about how we can take action against Trump’s illegal power grab. We’re teaming up with @moveon.org and @workingfamilies.org for a conversation on fighting back. RSVP now: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...
February 2, 2025 at 12:14 AM
TOMORROW: Let’s talk about how we can take action against Trump’s illegal power grab. We’re teaming up with @moveon.org and @workingfamilies.org for a conversation on fighting back. RSVP now: www.mobilize.us/indivisible/...
Yes. And this: www.vox.com/politics/394...
February 2, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Yes. And this: www.vox.com/politics/394...