Conflicting reporting on Schumer's role behind-the-scenes though it was also reported that both he and Gillibrand were open to the deal. Their names appeared on earlier lists of 10 likely defectors from party discipline that later became the 8 who voted with Republicans.

At least without the DNC, folks would be organizing to create an opposition party instead of relying on one that won't act in the best interests of the people. They're not as cruel as the RNC, but inaction in the face of opportunity, directed by the Minority Leader, is still complicity.

In one sense, an opposition party with no will to oppose in high pressure situations is worse than no opposition party at all bc it allows some folks to say, "These folks are the answer" when we've seen over and over again that they are not and, it often seems, don't even want to be.

I've essentially lost faith over more than a decade of decline that there's even the will in the party to embrace liberalism anymore, much less the talent or infrastructure to do it. So I politely reject the "come on, baby. stay, we're the best you can do" argument for staying in a rudderless party.

When the message of our actions is repeatedly "we'll pay lip service, but we don't actually want the same things" that's a bad relationship and it doesn't serve anyone well to stay engaged in a bad relationship. The party wants to be more center-right. I don't want to support the center-right.

Clearly those actions aren't being taken to win elections, and even if they were I won't support exclusionary politics. With the exception of a handful of individual legislators, party-led resistance has been MIA for most of the last year. The party no longer acts in my interests, even broadly.

Okay. I laid out my reasoning in a three message response to Andy O earlier in this thread. In brief, the surrender on healthcare was more of a last straw event for me. The party has been moving noticably right and becoming more willing to narrow the coalition for at least the last 10-12 years.

I don't follow your logic there. Feel free to expand on that if you'd like.

The "mostly lacks an evil agenda" thing still makes the party preferable to the GOP, but we've lost our way on multiple fronts and all the defeat in the 2024 general seems to have done is convince the party establishment that we need to move to the right. I don't think I can stomach it.

Add likely primary candidates suggesting we should leave trans rights to local school boards (bc they have a stellar record of making morally defensible decisions, right?) and a powerful push by centrists to ice out anyone who dares to primary a sitting congressperson no matter their voting record.

This was done by a small minority of Dems BUT it was both blessed and coordinated by the Minority Leader's office. Add this final failure of leadership to almost a year now of underplaying resistance efforts to such a great degree that it becomes increasingly difficult not to see it as complicity.

It was early days. We weren't bold enough to experiment with seance at our events until several years later.

Closing the loop: My agent was helpful without being prescriptive. He likes both ideas and thinks we could sell both, but pointed out when I write about things that really light me up, it's obvious in the prose.

I can get back there with one, but not the other so it goes into manuscript purgatory.

In my head, when you see a post of mine, it's like you opened the door to the room I'm in and caught a sentence or two before you were like, "Yeah, sorry. Wrong room," and shut the door.

And then that just happens over and over again with all seventy jillion of you.