Robert Schloss
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robertschloss.bsky.social
Robert Schloss
@robertschloss.bsky.social
Living in San Francisco. Progressive Boomer.
+ Tomas Young reading his letter to Cheney & Bush starting on minute 36.

youtube.com/watch?v=Gtpl...
Dick Cheney's Legacy Is Mass Murder (w/ Adam McKay)
YouTube video by Current Affairs
youtube.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:54 AM
“Our polity completely fails at elite accountability, and so here we are, on the doorstep of full-on fascism.” 💯🎯

👍🏽🧵
Your regular reminder that the reason all of the awful & illegal things keep happening in 🇺🇸 politics - from Trump to GWB/torture to Iran-Contra to Watergate, back to 1865 - is that there are never any actual legal or personal consequences for all of the awful & illegal things happening in 🇺🇸 politics
This, from 2016, feels very quaint now. www.propublica.org/article/trum...
November 21, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Instead of folding like cheap chairs, Democrats should have forced the GOP to end the shutdown by killing the filibuster. Holding onto the archaic, antidemocratic tradition doesn't help them stop fascism, it makes them complicit to it.
My latest in @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/poli...
Democrats Should Have Let Republicans Kill the Filibuster
Instead of caving on the shutdown, Democrats should have waited for the GOP to cave on Trump’s demand to scotch this antidemocratic tactic.
www.thenation.com
November 11, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
“Hopefully the Republicans may hear us” may be the dumbest sentence I’ve heard uttered since her colleague from Maine said Trump “learned his lesson” after his first impeachment.
Democratic Senator Shaheen says "Hopefully the Republicans may hear us."
November 10, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
What is the point of preserving the filibuster to use it to prevent GOP excesses if they always fold to preserve the filibuster rather than use it to prevent GOP excesses?
November 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM
“Is there a more feckless, spineless opposition party anywhere in the democratic world? A more self-defeating, self-destructive force anywhere in the political world?
Why do they insist on repeatedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?”

open.substack.com/pub/zeteo/p/...
🏳️ BREAKING: Democrats Surrender. Again
Mehdi's Monday morning update on the senators voting to reopen the government without a guarantee on heathcare; the BBC rolling over for Donald Trump; and Kathy Hochul's clash with Zohran Mamdani.
open.substack.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
This is the message of a failed, feckless, and leaderless party. We need a party with backbone, and the only path to it is through a cleansing primary season. If your Dem is up for reelection, and you aren't damn sure they're fighting the fascists with everything they've got, primary the bastard.
Sen. Angus King: "Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work"
November 10, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Dick Durbin can room with Merrick Garland in the Neville Chamberlain Retirement Home.
November 10, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Tonight was a very bad night.
November 10, 2025 at 3:09 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?
November 10, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
We tried to show them after the last surrender. There's no sense in trying to convince them anymore. Primaries are the only path to a fighting opposition party now.
November 10, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Schumer is spreading the word he was against the deal. But he is the leader. So he either tacitly let it happen or he failed as a leader. No excuse works for him. This is a fail.
November 10, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Important to understand this. There's a reasonable chance that your Dem Senator who voted against it and is acting mad now was in on the play. It's the same reason why they scheduled the surrender for AFTER the election this week. They didn't want people pissed at Dems right before an election.
The caucus meeting was just to orchestrate who would fall on the sword but not be up for a vote in 2026.
so currently defectors are:

Kaine (2030)
Shaheen (Retiring)
Hasan (2028)
Fetterman (2028)
Durbin (Retiring)
CCM (2028)
Rosen (2030)
King (2030)
November 10, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
This right here.
Chris Murphy: "There will be pretty substantial damage to a Dem brand that has been rehabilitated if on the heels of an election in which the people told us to keep fighting, we immediately stop... if we surrender without having gotten anything, I worry it'll be hard to get them back up off the mat"
November 10, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.
If the Dems blink after all of this, for a deal that all but ensures no ACA subsidies in 2026 anyway, then what was the purpose of letting the shutdown go for 40 days in the first place?
November 10, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Dems backed Trump into a corner where he’s advocating for starving Americans and hemorrhaging support. If they vote to let him off the hook in exchange for nothing it’s a cataclysmic failure. I know people are in pain but insulating Republicans from political consequences is not the answer.
November 9, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Seriously.
agreeing to make a terrible deal while your main opponent is quite literally being boo'd on live tv by an entire stadium of people is the kind of political instinct you'd normally only find in a 3 week old dead goldfish
November 10, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
Chuck Schumer and the corporate Dems aren’t just not up for this fight, they have no intention whatsoever of doing anything that will actually address the material conditions that gave rise to fascism.

More people are waking up to this and that’s hopeful, but that recognition is everything.
November 9, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
This perfectly encapsulates how I feel living in the US. The republican party is an insane death cult, the democratic party is 3 corporations in a trench coat, and the "socialists" are just the completely normal left-wing capitalists you'd find in any of 2 dozen European nations.
Europeans recognize Zohran Mamdani’s supposedly radical policies as ‘normal’
Critics of New York City’s mayor-elect have said his pledges of free bus service and universal childcare are unrealistic, but in Europe it’s a given
www.theguardian.com
November 8, 2025 at 5:18 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
It is just totally unacceptable that the law has been interpreted to say no federal worker is allowed to get paid despite doing their jobs but that members of Congress can get paid just fine despite not doing anything.
November 8, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
It’s time political commentators set aside their blinders and accept and try to understand that one of the reasons Mamdani won is because he is democratic socialist. It was a feature not a bug or a quirk for many New Yorkers. Why? Because American capitalism is badly broken. Badly broken.
November 6, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Robert Schloss
The New York Times quickly sending out Douthat to argue that Mamdani’s victory doesn’t really matter is so predictable it borders on self-parody.

Remember, folks: Every time the Right wins an election, it’s an undeniable expression of the will of the people. If a lefty wins, it’s just a blip.
Opinion | Mamdani’s Victory Is Less Significant Than You Think
www.nytimes.com
November 5, 2025 at 5:27 PM