It’s crazy to me that Republicans are expecting Byron Donalds to win-over Black voters. I referred to him as a coon across my socials the other day. Because he is. Hear me out…

Coon: sometimes used within Black communities as an insult directed at a Black person perceived as acting subservient to, or betraying, the interests of Black people.

If you want to understand why I, and others, have such a problem with Byron Donalds, look at his record. This isn’t about him being a Black Republican. It’s about what he has repeatedly supported, opposed and defended as a Black man.

DONALDS’ COMMENTS ABOUT BLACK FAMILIES UNDER JIM CROW

Donalds actually said:

“During Jim Crow, the Black family was together. During Jim Crow, more Black people were, not just conservative because Black people have always always been conservative-minded, but more Black people voted conservatively. And then H.E.W., Lyndon Johnson, and then you go down that road, and now we are where we are.”

“Black people voted conservatively.” But the reality is, during Jim Crow, Black people couldn’t vote. He romanticized a time when we were legally segregated, shut out of schools, jobs, housing and economic opportunity. Black men could be arrested and forced into labor. Black families were terrorized by the KKK, homes were burned, and Black men were lynched for daring to challenge the racial order. Black fathers weren’t simply “protecting their families.” They were trying to protect their families in a country where the law refused to protect THEM.

VOTING RIGHTS

Donalds voted AGAINST the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, legislation intended to restore federal protections against racially discriminatory voting laws after the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act.

For a country with a long history of suppressing the Black vote, especially in the South, it was still needed. And we are seeing exactly why today. As soon as John Roberts and the Supreme Court’s conservative majority weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais, White Republican supermajorities in Southern states made quick work of redrawing maps and weakening Black voting power.

Louisiana moved to eliminate a majority-Black congressional district. Alabama and Tennessee pursued similar efforts. Ink barely dry.

POLICE REFORM

Donalds voted AGAINST the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

That desperately needed legislation was to bring national policing reforms, including greater accountability for police misconduct, restrictions on chokeholds and changes to policing standards.

Since George Floyd’s murder, we’ve watched Black men and women brutalized and killed by police across this country: Daniel Prude, Casey Goodson Jr, Andrew Brown Jr, Amir Locke, Patrick Lyoya, Jayland Walker, Tyre Nichols, Sonya Massey. And those are just some of the names we know.

When the video of Tyre Nichols was released, I broke down at Starbucks. It was too much to think about. Another Black man with his life ended by a cop.

As a father of a Black son, I know what it’s like to have “the talk” at the kitchen table. To explain to your son, who the white world sees as a man even though he is only 15, how he must behave when pulled over by police if he ever wants to live to see another day. A son who will never get the same pass or benefit of the doubt that white teens would get.

My wife knows what it’s like to wait up late for her son to come home safely. Not from fear of gang violence, but from fear of him being pulled over and brutalized by cop.

In 2024 alone, police killed 345 Black Americans. Another 302 were killed in 2025. And Black folks were still 2.6 times more likely than white people to be killed by police. George Floyd’s murder sparked a national reckoning. And when Congress had the opportunity to actually DO something about it, Byron Donalds voted NO.

ANOTHER VOTE AGAINST EXPANDING VOTING ACCESS

Donalds voted NO when it came to the For the People Act, which would have expanded voter registration and ballot access, protected early and mail voting, restored voting rights after felony sentences, addressed partisan gerrymandering and strengthened protections against voter suppression.

But here’s the question: WHY?

Why would you want states to retain the power to restrict voting when we know the history of what states, particularly Southern states, have done with that power, or oppose national protections that make it easier for eligible Americans to vote? Or protections against partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression?

And as a Black man representing Florida, how do you look at the history of Black Americans being deliberately denied the ballot and decide the bigger threat is the federal government protecting access to it?

FLORIDA RESTORED VOTING RIGHTS. THEN CAME THE RESTRICTIONS.

In 2018, an overwhelming majority of Florida voters approved Amendment 4, restoring voting rights to most people with felony convictions after completing their sentences.

Then the Republican-controlled legislature stepped in. Byron Donalds voted for legislation defining completion of a sentence to include paying court-ordered fines, fees, and restitution before voting rights could be restored. This meant you could serve your prison sentence, complete probation, return to your community, and STILL be denied your vote because you owed money.

And figuring out whether you were even eligible became a nightmare. People with felony convictions registered, received voter ID cards from the state, and voted, only to later be arrested for allegedly voting illegally.

The bodycam videos made national news when police arrested Tony Patterson. He was stunned: “Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t able to vote?” Romona Oliver was equally confused. She had registered and had been issued a voter ID card by Florida. When police showed up to arrest her for voter fraud, her response was basically: I voted, but I didn’t commit fraud.

Even some of the police arresting them couldn’t explain what had happened. Florida, with Byron Donald’s help, created a voting-restoration system so confusing that people could be registered by the state, receive voter cards, cast ballots, and later find themselves in handcuffs.

TRUMP QUESTIONED KAMALA HARRIS’S BLACKNESS. DONALD’S DEFENDED HIM.

Trump falsely suggested Kamala Harris had suddenly decided to “turn Black.”

Harris is biracial and has publicly identified with both her Black/Jamaican and Indian heritage throughout her life.Instead of condemning Trump’s attack, Donalds defended the broader argument, claiming Harris had recently emphasized her Black identity for political purposes. So when Trump went there, Donalds provided cover for bigotry.

THIS ONE REALLY GETS ME: BYRON DONALDS GOT A SECOND CHANCE HE DENIES TO OTHERS.

At 18, Donalds was arrested on a marijuana distribution charge. He received pretrial diversion, paid a $150 fine, and wasn’t incarcerated. At 20, he pleaded no contest to felony larceny. He received two years of probation, and his record was later expunged.

These second chances helped make his future as a United States congressman possible.

THE DENYING OTHERS PART: DONALDS WANTS LESS LENIENCY FOR OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE.

Donalds championed the DC CRIMES Act, targeting DC’s Youth Rehabilitation Act, which can provide sentencing flexibility for offenders up to age 24. His bill would restrict judges’ ability to sentence below mandatory minimums AND eliminate the possibility of certain young offenders having convictions “set aside” after completing their sentences.

Donalds benefited from having his own felony record EXPUNGED. He received mercy, rehabilitation and a second chance, then championed legislation making similar opportunities harder for somebody else to receive. He benefited from a second chance. Then supported taking second chances away.

So a Black man as governor in the “Stop WOKE” state is not a step forward for Black Floridians, and they know that because they’ve been paying attention. I broke down his record, and that’s why I call Byron Donalds’ actions “cooning.” You can call it whatever you want.

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I appreciate it when a candidate says they support Medicare for All, single-payer healthcare, or a public option. I really do. We need to do something big when it comes to shaking up our healthcare system. Healthcare in this country is outrageously expensive, increasingly unaffordable and, for millions of Americans, simply broken.

But here is the part that bothers me: too many voters hear a candidate say, “I support Medicare for All,” check the box and stop asking questions. Medicare for all has become a talking point and there isn’t an honest conversation from politicians on how we get there. Being for something is not the same as knowing how or having the ability to make it happen. And when we’re talking about restructuring a healthcare system that moves hundreds of billions of dollars every year, covers tens of millions of people and is intertwined with federal law, state law, Medicare, Medicaid, employer-sponsored insurance and private insurers, the details matter.

Healthcare costs aren’t some policy paper to me. Like millions of other folks, they’re sitting on my kitchen table. Between November and December 2025, the cost of health insurance for my wife, my daughter and me nearly doubled. My son is too old to remain on our family plan. So when politicians talk about healthcare affordability, I’m listening as somebody actually paying these bills. That lived experience is one reason I want universal healthcare. It’s also why I want politicians to tell me the truth about what it would take to get there.

Before we go any further, we should probably define what we’re actually talking about, because these terms get thrown around interchangeably when they don’t mean the same thing:

Universal healthcare: A system where everyone has access to healthcare without facing financial hardship.

Medicare for All: A national single-payer system that would expand Medicare to cover everyone.

Single-payer: A system where one public entity finances and pays for covered healthcare services.

Public option: A government-backed health insurance plan that competes alongside private insurance.

There’s an important distinction here, too. A public option generally means creating a government-run insurance plan that competes alongside private insurance. Single-payer goes much further. Under proposals such as California’s CalCare, the state would ultimately establish one comprehensive public system, eliminating premiums, deductibles and other cost-sharing for covered services. Those are very different undertakings. And saying you support either one is the beginning of the conversation, not the end.

California is the perfect example. The state currently has another CalCare proposal, AB 1900, that would establish a universal single-payer system. On paper, there is a lot to like. Every California resident would be eligible. There would be no premiums, deductibles, copays or coinsurance for covered benefits.

But here’s the part politicians don’t put on the campaign graphic: California cannot simply flip a switch and do it. The legislation itself acknowledges that California would need federal waivers and approvals involving Medicare, Medi-Cal, the Affordable Care Act and other federal programs so that federal healthcare dollars could flow into the new California system.

Medicare is federal. Medicaid is a federal-state partnership. ACA subsidies involve federal money. California can’t simply announce, “We’re doing single-payer now,” grab all of those federal dollars and put them into a giant CalCare account. Washington has a say. And right now, Donald Trump is in Washington. California’s own Department of Health Care Services makes clear that major Medicaid waivers require approval from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The Trump administration has already changed waiver policy and tightened requirements in several areas.

So when somebody running for governor promises single-payer healthcare, my next question is: How? How are you getting the federal waivers? What happens if the Trump administration says no? What happens to Medicare funding? What happens to Medi-Cal funding? What is your financing mechanism? How much does it cost? What taxes replace premiums and employer contributions? What happens to people with employer-sponsored insurance? What is the transition plan?

Those are governing questions. Then there’s the money. California’s Medi-Cal program alone is projected at roughly $222 billion in total spending for 2026-27, according to the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. California’s current single-payer legislation recognizes the financial challenge explicitly. CalCare would not become operational until state officials determine that its trust fund has enough revenue to pay for the program. Think about what that means. We aren’t talking about creating another state agency with a few billion dollars. We’re talking about fundamentally restructuring how healthcare is financed in the largest state in America. Sure, people could potentially stop paying premiums, deductibles and copays under single-payer. But the healthcare system doesn’t suddenly become free.

Instead of collecting the payments through premiums and out-of-pocket costs, government has to collect enough revenue to finance the system. Which could still be a better deal for millions of us. It could be more efficient. It could eliminate enormous administrative costs and give government greater bargaining power over prices. Those are legitimate arguments for single-payer. But voters deserve to know what taxes would replace today’s premiums, who would pay them, how much revenue they would generate and whether the numbers actually work. “Medicare for All” is a slogan. Governing requires a spreadsheet.

This is where I appreciate Xavier Becerra’s approach. Whatever you think of Xavier Becerra as a candidate for California governor, his healthcare background means he understands how complicated this actually is. He served as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Before that, as California Attorney General, he helped lead the legal defense of the Affordable Care Act. And he hasn’t abandoned the goal of Medicare for All. In May, Becerra said: “Medicare-for-all is probably the most efficient way that we can do health care.”

His campaign says California should protect and strengthen Medi-Cal, expand affordable care and build toward a universal single-payer system. That phrase matters to me: build toward it. Because there is a difference between saying where you want to go and pretending you can get there tomorrow. Becerra also confronted the federal reality surrounding California healthcare. With the Trump administration attacking Medicaid and ACA coverage, California has to protect what it already has while trying to expand it. I wish more politicians talked about healthcare this way. Tell us your goal. Then tell us what’s standing in the way.

Then tell us what you can actually accomplish on Day One, what requires the Legislature, what requires federal approval, what requires new taxes and what may have to wait for a different Congress or president. That’s not abandoning progressive policy. That’s explaining how government actually works. We should demand more from candidates, and from ourselves.

So this isn’t just about California. The same basic problem follows state-level single-payer proposals around the country. The details change depending on the state, its tax base, its existing healthcare programs, its employers and its politics. But Medicare is still federal. Medicaid still involves federal funding. Employer-sponsored insurance still implicates federal law.

So I want candidates to support universal healthcare. But I also want voters to stop treating support for Medicare for All as some kind of ideological purity test. Ask the second question. And the third. If a candidate says, “I support Medicare for All,” great. Now tell us how you’re going to pass it. Tell us how you’re going to pay for it. Tell us what authority you actually have. Tell us what happens when Washington says no. Tell us what families pay during the transition. Tell us how you protect people who have coverage today while building something better tomorrow. And if there are obstacles you cannot overcome right now, tell us that too.

Healthcare is too important for bullshit. My family’s insurance nearly doubled in a month. Millions of other Americans are dealing with their own version of that story. We don’t need candidates who can simply repeat the right healthcare slogan. We need people who understand the machinery well enough to actually change it. And for God sake, be honest about it.

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Let me be clear about something before anyone tries to put me in a box. I do not support AIPAC. I also believe Netanyahu is a war criminal. None of that should be conflated with my support for the Jewish community.

I feel a sense of solidarity with the Jewish community because both of our communities have experienced hatred, discrimination, and the consequences of extremism. Criticizing a lobbying organization or the policies of a foreign government is not the same as criticizing Jewish people.

It’s also worth remembering that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans vote for Democratic candidates. As do Black folks.

None of that changes what I’m about to say. This conversation isn’t about Jewish Americans. It’s about campaign finance, transparency, and how Democrats communicate with voters.

Dems have a serious political problem, and pretending it doesn’t exist is costing us good candidates.

Too many Democratic candidates are being defined by the AIPAC debate before they ever define themselves. They get hit with attacks, accusations, and viral graphics, and instead of responding, they stay silent.

Silence is not a strategy.

Plainly put: Democrats need to learn how to talk about AIPAC.

If you take money connected to AIPAC or any other powerful interest, voters deserve an explanation. Why did you take it? What does it buy? Does it change your positions? If not, say so. Explain your reasoning and defend it.

Instead, many candidates act as though the issue will simply disappear if they ignore it. It doesn’t.

The vacuum gets filled by activists, influencers, and organizations that have their own political agenda.

That brings me to Track AIPAC. I’ve spent too much time digging into their claims, and they are misleading at best. But mostly just plain false. The organization presents itself as a watchdog group fighting for transparency. It isn’t.

It’s tied to its own fundraising PAC, Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption. According to federal filings, the PAC and Track AIPAC share leadership through co-founder Casey Kennedy, who serves as the PAC’s treasurer. That creates an obvious conflict of interest. They benefit financially from the campaigns they promote while attacking others.

Even more troubling are their graphics.

Track AIPAC regularly publishes giant dollar figures that are often impossible for outside researchers to reproduce using publicly available FEC data alone. The methodology behind each graphic isn’t explained. The calculations aren’t shown. The receipts aren’t provided.

I’ve said this many times: I challenge anyone to match their published numbers using the FEC filings. No one has. Not even Track AIPAC itself.

Track AIPAC is the exact opposite of transparency.

That’s asking people to trust their numbers that they cannot independently verify. Yet thousands of Democrats share those graphics on social media as though they’re established fact.

Since when did progressives decide that unsupported financial claims were acceptable simply because they confirmed what we already wanted to believe? If you’re going to accuse someone of being bought, you’d better be able to show your work.

The irony is that many of the candidates being attacked never even attempt to fact check or counter the claims themselves. They allow misleading claims to circulate for weeks or months. If they respond at all, it’s usually after the political damage is done.

Good candidates are losing races because they never bothered to stand up for themselves. It’s a failure of messaging.

Here’s the crazy part. AIPAC accounts for only about 2% of all PAC and super PAC candidate-related spending nationwide. Yet Democrats let it dominate the conversation because they refuse to explain themselves. Yes, the money matters. Their silence matters even more.

There’s another problem that has been bothering me. Voters aren’t thinking strategically either.

During California’s governor’s race, I saw online activists demanding that candidates denounce Israel or pledge to cut off military aid.

Why?

Governors don’t appropriate military aid. They don’t conduct foreign policy. Or negotiate with Israel. A governor’s job is to run California.

If you’re running for governor, I want to know your plan for housing, wildfire prevention, healthcare, schools, infrastructure, insurance, public safety, the cost of living, water, transportation, homelessness, and the state budget.

Demanding that every gubernatorial candidate pass a foreign policy purity test is political theater. It’s a distraction from the job they’re actually seeking.

Now, if you’re running for the U.S. Senate or for president, that’s completely different. Those offices absolutely vote on foreign aid, military assistance, and America’s relationship with Israel.

In those races, questions about Israel, Gaza, military funding, and AIPAC are entirely fair game. They’re relevant. The same is true for every other issue where elected officials exercise real power.

Voters should ask candidates where they stand on climate change, healthcare, reproductive rights, voting rights, immigration, gun violence, campaign finance, labor rights, taxes, economic inequality, housing affordability, LGBTQ+ rights, education, Social Security, Medicare, and corruption. Disqualifying based on a bogus red graphic is asinine.

Ask hard questions. Demand real answers. That’s how democracy should work.

What I don’t support is assuming corruption simply because someone accepted support from a PAC or advocacy group.

Show me evidence that money changed the candidate’s position. Show me the vote. Show me the policy reversal. Show me the receipts. I’m willing to criticize any politician, Democrat or Republican, when there’s evidence that money bought influence. But evidence matters.

Democrats need to stop pretending this conversation doesn’t exist.

If you take controversial money, explain why. Better yet, don’t take it. If your position hasn’t changed or will not change, defend it.

If an attack against you is misleading, say so immediately. Because if you won’t tell your own story, someone else will.

And lately, they’re winning.

I hope you’ll read this with an open mind.

This isn’t an “I told you so” article. It isn’t about relitigating one campaign, and it certainly isn’t about weakening the progressive movement. It’s about whether Democrats are willing to learn from one of our own failures.

Because if we don’t learn from the rise and fall of Graham Platner’s campaign, we’ll make the same mistake again. Just with a different name on the yard sign.

I’m a progressive. I support progressive candidates. I want more progressives in public office. But I don’t support candidates simply because they identify as progressive. I evaluate every candidate based on the office they’re seeking, their experience, their judgment, their character, and whether they’ve been thoroughly vetted. None of those things are optional. They are the foundation of public trust.

That’s why what happened in Maine should concern every Democrat, not just the people who endorsed Graham Platner.

The issue isn’t simply that his campaign became engulfed in controversy. The issue is that the warning signs kept piling up in public, yet too many influential Democrats kept standing behind him. That deserves an honest conversation.

This Didn’t Happen Overnight

The public record tells the story.

In October 2025, reports surfaced detailing years of offensive Reddit posts attributed to Platner. Those reports included inflammatory comments about race, sexual assault victims, law enforcement, and political violence.

Days later, another controversy emerged when his Totenkopf tattoo became public. The Totenkopf, or “death’s head,” is a symbol historically associated with Nazi SS units. Platner said he was unaware of its history and later had the tattoo covered.

In February 2026, he drew criticism for sharing content originating with an antisemitic commentator before deleting the post and saying he hadn’t recognized the source.

As the campaign continued, reporters also began examining the biography Platner had built his campaign around. He was frequently presented as a working-class outsider who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps to challenge the political establishment. That narrative began to crack under scrutiny.

Investigations revealed that Platner had attended elite private schools, including the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut and John Bapst Memorial High School in Maine. Reporters also challenged claims he had made about why he attended private school, including his assertion that his local public high school had lost its accreditation. His campaign later acknowledged that claim was inaccurate.

None of this meant Platner was disqualified from running for office. Plenty of qualified public servants come from privilege. The problem was his credibility.

Voters deserve an honest account of who a candidate is, where they came from, and how they got there. When the story changes under scrutiny, trust begins to erode.

Then came reports that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with multiple women while married. Soon after, former partners and associates publicly described what they characterized as abusive or toxic behavior.

Finally, a woman came forward publicly under her own name and alleged that Platner sexually assaulted her years earlier. Platner has denied the allegation. This after he publicly stated that there was no more to come out.

Whether people ultimately agree with his denial is not the point of this article.

The point is this: The sexual assault allegation was not the beginning of the story. It was the latest chapter in a long series of public warning signs. This is where I believe Democrats need to ask themselves some difficult questions.

One Timeline. Two Stories.

The most important question Democrats should ask isn’t simply what happened. It’s when it happened. When you place the public red flags and the political endorsements on the same timeline, a pattern emerges that is difficult to ignore.

August 30, 2025

ENDORSEMENT

Sen. Bernie Sanders endorses Graham Platner for the U.S. Senate.

At this point, Platner is viewed nationally as one of the progressive movement’s rising stars.

October 16 to 20, 2025

PUBLIC RED FLAGS

News organizations report on years of offensive Reddit posts attributed to Platner, including comments about race, sexual assault victims, law enforcement, and political violence.

Days later, the public learned about Platner’s Totenkopf tattoo, a “death’s head” symbol historically associated with Nazi SS units. Platner said he did not understand its history and later had the tattoo covered. That explanation was met with skepticism. People who said they knew Platner publicly disputed his account and argued that he was aware of the symbol’s meaning. Whether voters ultimately believed his explanation wasn’t the point. The controversy itself should have prompted far more scrutiny than it did. He got a pass far too easily.

February 2026

PUBLIC RED FLAG

Platner is criticized for sharing content originating from antisemitic commentator Stew Peters before deleting the post and saying he hadn’t recognized the original source.

Before March 2, 2026

ENDORSEMENT

Sen. Martin Heinrich publicly endorses Platner.

March 2, 2026

ENDORSEMENT

Sen. Ruben Gallego endorses Platner.

By now, the Reddit controversy, the Nazi symbol controversy, and the antisemitic social media controversy were all public.

March 19, 2026

ENDORSEMENT

Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorses Platner.

Again, those earlier controversies remained part of the public record.

Spring 2026

PUBLIC RED FLAG

Questions emerge regarding aspects of Platner’s personal narrative and credibility, including claims about his educational background that his campaign later acknowledged were inaccurate.

Late May 2026

PUBLIC RED FLAG

Reports reveal that Platner exchanged sexually explicit text messages with multiple women while married.

May 28, 2026

THE WARNINGS WEREN’T ENOUGH

By late May, Platner’s offensive Reddit history, the Totenkopf tattoo controversy, and the antisemitic social media incident were all part of the public record.

When asked whether those controversies had changed his view of Platner, Sen. Chris Murphy made clear they had not. “I’m supporting him,” Murphy said, adding that Maine voters appreciated that Platner was speaking to the struggles of “regular people.”

June 1, 2026

A DEFINING MOMENT

After reports surfaced that Platner had exchanged sexually explicit text messages with multiple women while married, Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was reconsidering his endorsement.

He wasn’t. Instead, Sanders said the focus should remain on the issues facing working people rather than on Platner’s marriage, making clear he was standing by his candidate.

Looking back, this feels like one of the defining moments of the campaign. Democrats had an opportunity to pause, ask harder questions, and reassess whether this was still the right candidate.

June 4, 2026

PUBLIC RED FLAG

Former partners publicly describe behavior they characterize as abusive and toxic.

June 7, 2026

ANOTHER DECISION POINT

Rep. Ro Khanna publicly stood by Graham Platner after months of mounting controversies, including the explicit text message scandal, the Nazi-linked tattoo, and allegations from a former girlfriend describing abusive behavior.

Khanna condemned Platner’s past conduct, calling it: “misogynistic, … shameful, … wrong.”

But he continued to support him, arguing that Platner had accepted responsibility and deserved redemption. Khanna said: “He took accountability… He himself has said it was shameful, and he had redemption.”

July 6, 2026

PUBLIC RED FLAG

A woman publicly identifies herself and alleges that Platner sexually assaulted her several years earlier. Platner denies the allegation. Following the allegation, several prominent Democrats rescind their endorsements and call on Platner to withdraw from the race.

This timeline should keep Democrats up at night. The sexual assault allegation wasn’t the first warning. It was the latest allegation. The earlier warning signs didn’t stop the endorsements. The final allegation stopped them.

That’s the lesson Democrats need to wrestle with.

Following the sexual assault allegation, several of those endorsements were withdrawn, and some Democratic leaders called on Platner to leave the race.

That raises a question every Democrat should ask. Why did accountability begin only after the final controversy? Why weren’t the earlier warning signs enough to slow the train down?

Marginalized Communities Were Already Speaking

This is the part that frustrates me the most.

Black voices spoke up. Jewish voices spoke up. Women spoke up. Disabled advocates spoke up. Progressive organizers spoke up. These were all loyal Democratic voters. Many of the communities that had reason to be concerned were raising questions months before the latest allegation dominated the headlines.

Those concerns were dismissed. Some people were told they were helping the establishment. Others were accused of trying to divide progressives. Still others were told to stop asking questions because defeating Republicans mattered more. I know, because I experienced some of that myself.

When people from marginalized communities raise concerns about a candidate’s judgment or conduct, Democrats should listen. Not because those communities are always right. But because ignoring them has consequences. Listening shouldn’t begin only after national politicians begin withdrawing endorsements.

Stop Grading on a Republican Curve

One argument has repeatedly surfaced throughout this controversy. “What about Donald Trump?” or “What about Ken Paxton?”

No. Absolutely not. Trump is not the standard. Paxton is not the standard. Republican misconduct cannot become the measuring stick for Democratic accountability. If the best defense of one of our candidates is that Republicans have behaved worse, we’ve already lowered our standards and abandoned our values.

We should demand more from our own candidates than we demand from those we criticize. Anything less is hypocrisy.

My Own Reckoning

Changing your mind about a candidate isn’t easy. I know that firsthand. I supported Eric Swalwell for governor of California. When serious assault allegations and reports of predatory behavior emerged, I had to reassess my support and move on.

It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t politically convenient. But integrity sometimes requires admitting that new information changes your judgment. Supporting a candidate should never mean defending them indefinitely. It should mean following the evidence wherever it leads.

Loyalty Should Never Replace Judgment

One of the most dangerous habits in politics is confusing loyalty with principle. Loyalty says, “Stand by our candidate.” Principle asks, “Should this person still be our candidate?” Those are not the same question.

A healthy political movement welcomes scrutiny because it understands that public office is a public trust. A movement that treats every criticism as betrayal eventually loses the ability to police itself. That’s a dangerous place for any party to be.

This is the hardest truth to confront. We had time. When the tattoo became public, there was still time to rally around another progressive candidate. When questions about his conduct accumulated, there was still time. When more controversies surfaced, there was still time.

Instead, too many influential people doubled down. Every endorsement communicated confidence. Every public defense signaled reassurance. Every dismissal of legitimate concerns made it harder for others to speak up.

Politics is full of moments where leaders have to decide whether protecting a candidate is more important than protecting the values they claim to represent. Those choices matter.

The Lesson

This article isn’t really about Graham Platner. It’s about Democratic accountability. It’s about vetting. It’s about listening. It’s about recognizing patterns before they become crises. And it’s about remembering that the communities raising uncomfortable questions are often the very communities our party says it exists to protect.

If we’re serious about building a stronger Democratic Party, then we need to stop treating accountability as something that only begins after a scandal becomes impossible to ignore.

We need to stop asking whether our candidates are better than Republicans. We need to start asking whether they’re good enough to earn the public’s trust in the first place. Democrats can do better.

The question isn’t whether we can. The question is whether we will.

Weeks ago, I spoke directly with Major Jason Watson regarding his planned act of civil disobedience.

Before anything else, I was very clear with Major Jason Watson about what I would and would not do. I told him I was not there to endorse every tactic, become part of his strategy, or serve as a spokesperson on his behalf. What I could do, and what I promised to do, was provide an honest accounting of his record, his service, and his character.

We have seen time and time again how the right and this administration vilify people, strip away context, and replace truth with lies before the public ever hears the full story. I told him it was important that the record of his service and character be public facing. I would help by focusing on the evidence, the documents, and the truth of who he actually is.

I asked for documentation of his record. He provided his performance evaluations, awards, service history, educational records and report cards, written statements, and explanations regarding his actions and beliefs. I want to be clear, no classified information was exchanged.

My purpose was simple. I wanted to know whether this was a man acting from conscience or someone chasing attention, influence, money, or political power.

I found no evidence of the latter.

What I found was a career Air Force officer with nearly seventeen years of service, deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, NATO leadership experience, command responsibilities, and a long record of trust earned from both peers and superiors. A man who understood exactly what he stood to lose. And he was willing to lose it anyway.

I also do not hear enough people discussing the broader constitutional strategy behind his message. I know this because I asked him directly about his motive, and I think it’s important that people understand what he was actually trying to communicate.

The sign he carried, “Impeach. Convict. Remove.”, was not solely about Donald Trump. His argument extends to the entire executive branch.

In his view, if Democrats regain control of the House, Congress should use the constitutional mechanisms already available to impeach, convict, and remove both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Under the line of succession, that would elevate a Democratic Speaker of the House to the presidency.

People can debate whether that outcome is politically achievable. That’s fair. But dismissing his position as simple anti-Trump protest misses what he is actually proposing. It is a constitutional strategy rooted in succession, accountability, and democratic institutions rather than violence or extra-legal action.

Whether one agrees with it or not, it deserves to be understood on its own terms.

After speaking with him, reviewing our text exchanges, and examining the documentation he provided, I found no evidence of violent ideology, extremist affiliations, threats, hatred, or advocacy of harm. I found no evidence of financial motives, ambitions for political office, or any effort to build a brand, sell a movement, or seek personal enrichment. I found no disciplinary problems, misconduct, or a troubled military record.

His evaluations consistently describe him as a trusted leader, an effective planner, and a high-performing officer recommended for greater responsibility and advanced opportunities. The people who supervised him believed in him. The military entrusted him with increasingly significant assignments.

He served in Alaska, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Arizona, Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, the Netherlands, and Poland. He helped lead large-scale logistics operations supporting both the United States Air Force and NATO.

The central question, of course, remains his decision to engage in civil disobedience. I think it is important to recognize what made that decision extraordinary. Watson intended to do it in uniform. Not anonymously. Not after retirement. Not with nothing left to lose. He made what he understood to be a career-ending choice because he believed his oath to defend the Constitution demanded it.

Military officers carry additional obligations and restrictions. The consequences are serious, and career-ending. Jason Watson knew that. He has never pretended otherwise.

In fact, one of the things that stood out to me most was his transparency. He answered difficult questions directly. He acknowledged the risks. He made no claims of immunity from consequences. He was fully prepared to accept whatever comes next.

There is a profound difference between someone attempting to escape accountability and someone willingly accepting it because they believe conscience demands action.

Officer Watson knew exactly what was ahead. He sacrificed his military career to take what he believes is a necessary stand in defense of democracy and constitutional government. That’s bravery. Authoritarian movements depend on obedience. Democracies survive because some people are willing to risk it all to resist.

People will disagree with his methods. Some already do. Others will attempt to portray him as something he is not.

Major Jason Watson is a public servant who spent nearly two decades serving his country and who believes that same duty requires him to speak and act.

Whether history ultimately judges him as right or wrong is a separate question. But honesty requires us to recognize what the evidence actually shows. And the evidence shows a thoughtful, accomplished, principled officer acting from conscience rather than ambition.

My position remains straightforward: stay informed, keep asking questions, and resist the temptation to endorse every tactic without scrutiny. At the same time, we should be prepared to defend the truth about Major Jason Watson, his service, and his record if others attempt to distort the facts or mischaracterize who he is.

Patriotism that only works with obedience is not patriotism.

Democracy requires citizens, and sometimes public servants, willing to risk something for principles larger than themselves.

Major Jason Watson understood the cost. And he chose to pay it anyway.

“Success is not based solely on achieving this outcome. Success looks like hope. Inspiring hope again. We have so little of it right now. We need everyday heroes and patriots to step up and do their part. Success looks like me being but one of many. An unstoppable wave that refuses to relent until we restore some semblance of a democratic republic again, headed towards improving the lives of Americans and people around the world once more versus our current trajectory into destitution and destruction.” Major Jason Watson

Too often, the far left, particularly organizations like DSA and political figures like Bernie Sanders, frame inequality primarily as an economic issue. For many Black Americans, race and racism are inseparable from that conversation. Economic justice matters, but it has never been the whole story.

As a Black man, I notice something that many on the far left seem unwilling to acknowledge. When they talk about “the working class,” many of us hear “the white working class.” Black workers have always been part of the working class. Yet our unique experiences with systemic racism are too often treated as distractions from the “real” economic struggle instead of being recognized as central to it.

Our communities do not experience struggle in a vacuum. We experience struggle shaped by historic redlining, discrimination in housing and lending, unequal schools, mass incarceration, voter suppression, environmental racism, and policing that has historically targeted Black neighborhoods. You cannot separate class from race because America never has.

That is why the argument that solving economic inequality will automatically solve racial inequality rings as an empty promise to Black Americans. History tells us this. There have been periods of American prosperity where Black families were deliberately excluded from sharing in that prosperity.

This is one reason many Black voters have never fully embraced Bernie Sanders’ political framework. His economic populism speaks to real problems, but it often treats race as a secondary issue instead of recognizing that race has shaped how economic inequality developed in the first place.

Political strategist Basil Smikle captured part of this disconnect when he observed:

“Bernie Sanders came and ran against the Democratic Party in 2016 and 2020. So, if you’re a voter 20, 30, 40 years old, half of your life you’ve really not seen the Democratic Party as the path for political and economic empowerment.”

That speaks to another divide. Many Black voters have viewed the Democratic Party, despite its shortcomings, as the primary vehicle for protecting civil rights, voting rights, and access to government. We often approach politics pragmatically. We know progress is imperfect, but we also understand what is at stake when Democrats lose.

The disconnect becomes even more obvious when it comes to electoral politics.

Increasingly, parts of the far left appear willing to reduce every race, regardless of office, to a litmus test on Israel and Gaza. Candidates for governor, mayor, attorney general, state legislature, and even school board are expected to declare Gaza a genocide or face condemnation, despite having no authority over U.S. foreign policy.

As a Black dude, I recognized and acknowledged long before October 7 that Palestinians in Gaza have experienced marginalization, displacement, and unequal treatment. They are brown people living under extraordinary hardship. I understand why people care.

But I also refuse to discard a candidate who is fighting for affordable healthcare, voting rights, criminal justice reform, reproductive freedom, environmental justice, and economic opportunity in my community simply because they have not used the exact language demanded by activists or because they accepted support from an Israel-aligned organization.

I oppose dark money in politics. I wish Citizens United had never become the law of the land. But we do not live in the political system we wish we had. We live in the system we actually have.

Republicans routinely outraise Democrats through wealthy donors, corporate interests, and super PACs. And it is not held against them by the rank-and-file. In many competitive races, Democrats face enormous financial disadvantages. Ten-dollar donations alone are rarely enough to compete in expensive statewide or congressional campaigns against their Republican opponent.

Politics is not simply about ideological purity. It is about governing. A perfect candidate who loses accomplishes far less than a good candidate who wins and can actually improve people’s lives.

Another problematic issue that Black folks experience is the rhetoric that sometimes emerges from segments of the far left itself.

Black women, the backbone of the party, receive an extraordinary amount of hostility that combines racism and sexism: misogynoir.

We’ve seen Black women leaders subjected to dismissive stereotypes, disproportionate harassment online, accusations that they are insufficiently progressive regardless of their records, and attacks that would rarely be directed at white counterparts in similar positions. Especially white men. Whether directed at members of Congress, mayors, prosecutors, or vice presidents, the pattern is difficult to ignore.

When Black voices disagree with portions of the activist left, they are often told they simply don’t understand their own oppression or are standing in the way of progress. Ironically, this mirrors the very paternalism the left claims to oppose.

Many Black voters like myself are progressive. We support healthcare expansion, voting rights, labor protections, criminal justice reform, environmental justice, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights, and stronger social safety nets.

But we also reject the idea that our priorities should be subordinate to someone else’s movement.

We can care about Gaza while caring about Black maternal mortality. We can oppose civilian deaths overseas while demanding accountability for police violence here at home. We can oppose antisemitism and Islamophobia while fighting anti-Black racism.

There is also a political reality that cannot be ignored. Democrats have not won a majority of White voters in a presidential election for decades. Black voters, particularly Black women, remain the backbone of the Democratic coalition election after election. Yet too often, our priorities are treated as negotiable while others’ become non-negotiable litmus tests.

Progressivism cannot simply be about class. It has to be about all of us.

That means understanding that economic justice without racial justice is incomplete. If you can’t build winning coalitions that include Black Americans as the foundation, you won’t have the votes.

Pandering to the anti-DEI crowd is not the way

As a lifelong Californian, one of the most frustrating things about this election is watching people who spent the last decade warning us about Donald Trump suddenly abandon every lesson they claimed to have learned.

For more than ten years, we’ve talked about billionaire influence in politics. We’ve talked about self-interest. We’ve talked about conflicts of interest. We’ve talked about the danger of powerful people using wealth to buy access, shape public opinion, and elevate themselves above the democratic process.

Then Tom Steyer shows up and spends more than $200 million of his own money trying to buy the governor’s office, nearly three times more than all of the other candidates in the race combined, and suddenly a shocking number of people decide those concerns don’t matter anymore.

The spending didn’t stop with television ads. Social media became saturated with paid influencers, sponsored posts, coordinated messaging, and what many voters believed were bot-driven amplification campaigns.

When enough money is involved, it becomes difficult to tell where genuine public enthusiasm ends and manufactured consensus begins. Voters start believing they’re witnessing a grassroots movement when they’re actually watching a well-funded marketing operation. Democracy is supposed to be a contest of ideas, not a contest to see who can spend the most money flooding people’s screens with fake praises and well-funded lies about their Democratic opponent.

California is not just another state. It’s the largest state economy in America. Fourth largest on Earth. It drives national climate policy. It sets standards for clean air, consumer protections, labor rights, reproductive freedom, environmental regulations, and technology oversight. What happens here often becomes the blueprint for what happens elsewhere.

The governor of California has enormous power over appointments, regulations, budgets, energy policy, water policy, land use, infrastructure, and state contracts.

California’s economy is the fourth largest in the world. Decisions made by the governor can move billions of dollars with the stroke of a pen.

Voters should be deeply skeptical of any billionaire who wants to buy their way into the office. Political power is dangerous enough on its own. Combining it with immense personal wealth and family business interests is how conflicts of interest become public policy.

But there’s a second danger that people aren’t talking about enough.

The danger of teaching every future billionaire that California’s governor’s mansion is for sale. You don’t think they’re paying attention and taking notes? Ready to copy the Steyer model in a state with a massive economy, enormous regulatory power, and the ability to shape entire industries?

If someone can spend hundreds of millions of dollars, overwhelm the airwaves, dominate social media, flood voters with advertising, and simply purchase enough name recognition to become governor, what lesson are we teaching?

We’re teaching that public service is optional. We’re teaching that experience is optional. We’re teaching that grassroots support is optional. We’re teaching that if you’re rich enough, you can skip the line. We’re teaching that if you’re rich enough, you can donate special interest and get their endorsement.

And the question nobody seems interested in asking is simple: What is the real special interest?

For years we’ve heard politicians attacked for taking money from special interests. Tom Steyer doesn’t need special interests. He is the special interest.

When one person can personally spend over $200 million trying to secure political power, voters should be asking harder questions, not fewer. Particularly when that fortune didn’t appear out of thin air.

Steyer wants voters to see him as a climate crusader. But the reality is that his wealth was built through Farallon Capital, a firm whose investments were tied to fossil fuels, coal, mining, global energy infrastructure and prisons. Environmental groups and progressives spent years criticizing those investments.

One of the most controversial examples was Farallon’s connection to the Maules Creek coal project in Australia, a massive coal mine that environmental groups accused of damaging ecosystems, threatening water resources, and encroaching on Indigenous land.

Even if someone later changes their politics, the projects they financed don’t disappear. The mines don’t disappear. The infrastructure doesn’t disappear. The carbon emissions don’t disappear. It’s crazy to me that so many are skipping over that basic fact because he’s is saying what they want to hear.

Those investments helped build systems designed to operate for decades.

Today, the same fortune generated through those investments is funding a campaign that asks voters to view him as a moral authority on climate policy. Voters should be able to ask questions about that without being treated like anti-progressives.

They should also be asking questions about future conflicts.

The Steyer family has significant interests connected to sectors that can be directly influenced by state policy, including agriculture, energy, infrastructure, data systems, and climate-related investment markets.

Maybe everything is perfectly above board. Maybe not. But if Democrats and progressives, more specifically, spent years warning America about wealthy political families benefiting from government power, why would we suddenly stop asking those questions now?

And then there’s the campaign itself.

One of the most disappointing parts of this race has been watching a Democrat spend enormous resources attacking another Democrat while largely leaving Republicans untouched.

California operates under a top-two jungle primary system. Republicans are not some theoretical threat. They are literally competing for a spot in the general election. Yet instead of focusing on defeating Republicans, Steyer’s campaign has spent months targeting Xavier Becerra.

Many voters, myself included, have also been disturbed by campaign materials that appeared to darken the skin tones of candidates of color while presenting them as dangerous or threatening. Whether intentional or not, that kind of imagery should concern everyone.

I’ve said from jump that I’ll support the Democratic nominee in the general election because Republicans are not the answer. But we should be honest about what we’ve witnessed during this primary. Because this election isn’t just about who becomes governor. It’s about whether Democrats actually believe the principles they’ve spent the last decade defending.

Do we believe billionaires should be able to buy elections? Do we believe voters should scrutinize candidates’ financial interests? Do we believe political power should be earned? Do we believe facts matter? Do we believe character matters?

Too many people seem willing to abandon those principles the moment their preferred billionaire shows up. And that’s what worries me most.

Not that Republicans have learned nothing from the Trump era. It’s that many Democrats apparently haven’t either.

Justice Alito “In large part because of the Voting Rights Act, our Nation has made great strides in eliminating racial discrimination in voting,” Alito wrote. “And if, as a result of this progress, it is hard to find pertinent evidence relating to intentional present-day voting discrimination, that is cause for celebration.”

That’s a lie. It’s meant to deceive. It’s meant to give the Court cover for a decision rooted in white nationalism.

If you needed any more proof that the Voting Rights Act is still necessary, just look at what’s happening right now, red states rushing to wipe out Black representation the second SCOTUS gutted it.

What we’re watching isn’t subtle. Protections get stripped, and the response is immediate. Not years later. Not gradual. Immediate. That should tell you exactly why those protections existed in the first place.

And yet… the reaction? Muted.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: a lot of white Americans are not having the conversations they need to be having with each other.

In Black families and communities, these conversations are constant. They aren’t optional. They are passed down. They’re how we survive.

We talk about voting. We compare notes. Who’s on the ballot? What do they actually stand for? What policies affect our lives, our schools, our housing, our safety? Is this proposition on the ballot good or are they playing us for fools? What decisions protect us, and which ones put us more at risk?

That didn’t start with us. That was taught to us.

I vote because my great-grandparents couldn’t. I vote because my great-grandfather sent his children north just to access an integrated education. I vote because my grandfather moved west chasing opportunity and still got locked out of housing he could afford. I vote because I live today in a neighborhood that was redlined, a place my family wouldn’t have been allowed to live in within my mother’s lifetime.

That’s not history to us. That’s muscle memory. It’s instruction.

And it’s why Black voters, more often than not, vote with consistency. Not because we all agree on everything, but because we understand what’s at stake. We don’t have the luxury of being single-issue voters. We literally have skin in the game.

So when something like this week happens, we recognize the pattern immediately.

The question is, does everyone else?

Because if these same conversations were happening consistently in white households, at dinner tables, in group chats, among friends, we would be in a very different place as a country.

If you want to help, start by listening to Black voices, and amplify them. Join us.

And especially if you’re white, talk to each other. Challenge each other. Don’t let “racism is over” narratives slide by in silence, unchallenged.

Call it what it is, racism. And right now, we’re watching the definition of institutionalized racism play out in real time, courtesy of the Supreme Court. The right is loud, organized, and crystal clear about their goals. They are brutal — we need to get brutal too.

Democrats, if your 2026 pitch is “I’m not Trump,” or if you’re thinking that’s your path for 2028, you’ve got a problem. Because when he’s gone, what’s the plan for justice? Actual accountability. And we need you to say it out loud.

We can’t do business as usual. We aren’t turning the other cheek while people who abused power walk off into book deals and cable news gigs. Reconciliation without accountability is fake amnesia.

And let’s be clear about something else, we don’t treat this like politics. We treat it like crime. You don’t “move on” from crimes against your own people. You investigate. You charge. You prosecute. That’s how a functioning democracy works.

So let’s get into it. Start at the top.

Trump and his people have treated government like a weapon and a cash machine. His family has been openly profiting off the presidency, from crypto schemes to pay-for-access deals, while the public is supposed to pretend none of it reeks. Federal power has been used to go after political enemies and protect loyalists, exactly the kind of retribution Trump promised.

Trump’s tariff swings aren’t policy, they’re a weapon.

Case in point, Vietnam. He hits Vietnam with a crushing 46% tariff, a direct threat to an export-driven economy that depends on U.S. access. Suddenly, Vietnam fast-tracks a $1.5 billion Trump golf resort, approvals moving at record speed while negotiations are ongoing, with Eric Trump standing next to their prime minister at the groundbreaking. Weeks later, a deal gets announced and tariffs come down. That’s the sequence. While Trump controls the pressure, his family business gets a green light and a long-term revenue stream in the middle of it. That’s not tough trade policy, it’s a shakedown. A president using U.S. economic power as a personal bargaining chip. Even SCOTUS ruled Trump’s tariffs blew past his legal authority.

Trump’s chaos didn’t just move markets, it created opportunities for insiders.

His erratic policy swings and late-night posts weren’t just noise, they were signals. Tariffs up, tariffs down. Threats, reversals, escalation. Markets moved, fast. So the question is simple, who knew what, and when did they know it? We need full transparency on who traded, who profited, and whether insider information was flowing from the top down.

Trump’s war games have created a pipeline for profiteering.

He launches an unauthorized war with Iran, no clear congressional approval, no defined strategy, just escalation. And right on cue, the money starts moving. Defense stocks surge. Contractors cash in. And suddenly, people connected to power are circling like vultures. People like Pete Hegseth have no business being anywhere near trades tied to defense contracts, period. You don’t get to shape the narrative around war, push escalation, and then profit on the back end while troops and taxpayers carry the risk. War isn’t a portfolio strategy. Every name, every transaction, every connection needs to be dragged into the light.

Elon Musk and DOGE treated the federal government like a system to exploit.

DOGE operatives tried to access sensitive Treasury data, and a federal judge had to step in and shut it down because the abuse risk was that serious. And the lie they sold was, “end the waste fraud and abuse”. DOGE wasn’t staffed with analysts, it was stacked with hackers, moving fast and breaking into systems that were never supposed to be breached. They reached our data, our financial records, our social Security numbers. And there’s credible reporting that sensitive data walked out the door with them. Wasn’t that the plan the entire time?

Musk didn’t just push into government systems, he profited from them. While all of this was happening, he kept cashing checks. No-bid contracts. Sweetheart deals. Billions flowing to SpaceX while he plays anti-government rebel in public. He undermined the government on one hand and collect from it on the other.

Stephen Miller turned immigration enforcement into a quota system, treating human beings like production targets.

Enforcement wasn’t about safety, it was about numbers. Family separations, legal status stripped, people deported who had protections. Human rights violations carried out in our name, with our tax dollars. Courts have already found unlawful actions, and reporting shows lives lost during these crackdowns. We’ve seen this play you before our eyes.

The statute of limitations on murder is never. ICE officers may hide behind masks, but they are not ghosts. There are records, payroll, chains of command, emails, contracts, logs. Trace it. Document it. Hold every last one of them accountable.

Truth. Reconciliation. Justice. Recover.

And if Democrats come back into power and the plan is “heal and move forward,” wrong. We already tried that during the Biden administration. It created space for Trump and extremists to regroup, organize, and come back stronger. With Merrick Garland, we saw what happens when accountability gets slow-walked, when caution replaces courage, when “process” becomes the excuse. The vacuum gets filled with more abuse, more damage, more lives wrecked.

You don’t reconcile abuse of power by pretending it didn’t happen. You treat it like what it is, crime.

So no, we’re not skipping to healing. Truth first. Then justice. Then reconciliation. In that order. Anything else is surrender. And abdication of duty.

🖇️ Receipts

THE HILL: Knowns and unknowns of the Trump family’s financial dealings

REUTERS:Trump Organization breaks ground on $1.5 billion golf club in Vietnam

THE GUARDIAN:Farmers displaced by $1.5bn Trump golf course reportedly being offered rice and cash

SCOTUS BLOG:Supreme Court strikes down tariffs

PBS NEWS:Prediction markets, pardons spark questions over who's profiting from Trump's presidency

Democrats Launch Another Probe Into Pete Hegseth’s Alleged Effort To Buy Up Defense Stocks Before Iran War

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE:Meeks, Moskowitz Call on Rubio to Explain $400 Million in Contracts to Elon Musk’s Tesla

ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE: Corruption in plain sight

Whistleblower: DOGE Siphoned NLRB Case Data

ACLU:Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions at Largest Immigration Detention Center in the U.S.

AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL: ICE’s Expanding and Increasingly Unaccountable Detention System

POLITICO:Trump Got Away With It — Because of the Biden Administration’s Massive Missteps

WAPO: FBI resisted opening probe into Trump’s role in Jan. 6 for more than a year

Scroll social media and you would think some corners of the far left have reduced politics to one purity test: Israel-linked donors. As if that single column decides everything about a candidate’s record. Most voters aren’t living in that bubble. They’re dealing with costs, wages, housing, health care, schools, safety, real life. They want leaders who can manage the full scoreboard, not just one viral issue based on an eye-popping graphic.

If AIPAC is your red line, fine. Draw it. But at least make sure the numbers you’re using are real. Graphics that lump together direct contributions, outside spending, and loosely defined donor networks aren’t transparency. It’s spin. And too many are falling for it.

Their political graphics are designed to travel fast, not to survive audit. Track AIPAC’s viral totals have shaped debate about money and Israel policy, but when you slow down and check the math, a pattern appears. Their biggest claims often mix verifiable categories like PAC money or independent expenditures with privately constructed “lobby donor” buckets. That creates numbers that look precise but can’t be rebuilt from federal records.

Track AIPAC likes to market itself as a neutral watchdog brand, a digital transparency project shining light on campaign finance. But follow the filings and the structure is clear. They have their own fundraising PAC.

The site states it is paid for by Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, an active federal hybrid PAC. The FEC listing shows Casey Kennedy, a cofounder of Track AIPAC, as the committee’s treasurer, with a registered U.S. mailing address and regulated fundraising pipeline. Say it plain: Track AIPAC is a fundraising committee with a website and an agenda.

The ecosystem around that PAC matters too. An action form titled “STOP taking AIPAC Money” lists a sponsor set that includes Rashida Tlaib for Congress, Democracy for America Advocacy Fund, RootsAction, Civic Shout, The Juggernaut Project, HollywoodDemocrats.com, TakeItBack.Org, Rashid for Illinois, and Justice Democrats. That doesn’t prove those groups are funding the PAC. It does show Track AIPAC is operating inside a coordinated activist lane that is explicitly anti-AIPAC and aligned with Palestinian-rights politics. Taken together, filings, fundraising channels, and coalition signals make Track AIPAC look less like an outside referee and more like a campaign-cycle player with a side.

The Pattern Behind the Numbers

Across multiple candidate graphics, objective money categories get blended with subjective donor classifications. The biggest totals are often only partially auditable. Without donor-by-donor disclosure and a clear rulebook, outside observers cannot fully replicate the math. There is no transparency.

The Cofounders

This project was built by identifiable political actors. Cory Archibald, a self-described Marxist, is widely reported to be an American citizen who has spent roughly two decades living abroad, including time in Kuwait, the Philippines, and Germany.

Critics point to account metadata and platform warnings suggesting location signals may be routed through Europe via proxy or VPN connections. This raises obvious questions about deceptive intent and lack of accountability. If you’re trying to shape American elections from overseas, I would ask why, if you don’t have skin in the game.

(Archibald's “about this account” has changed over time) Why?!

Casey Kennedy presents a different profile. Public records consistently describe him as a U.S.-based political activist. Campaign filings list him as treasurer of Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, tied to a San Diego mailing address. He’s said the project was partly inspired by the documentary The Lobby and has acknowledged professional fallout after the campaign gained traction.

Both founders have faced criticism over rhetoric critics say echoes historic tropes about foreign control or delegitimizes Israel’s existence. These remain political disputes and shape how the project is perceived.

J Street Is Not AIPAC

Another distortion shows up in how Track AIPAC treats J Street. The messaging often lumps J Street into the same negative box as AIPAC, encouraging activists to see both as interchangeable. That flattens reality. J Street was founded primarily by Jewish Democrats in 2008 as a pro-Israel, pro-peace advocacy group. Its core agenda supports Israel’s long-term security, a negotiated two-state solution, opposition to settlement expansion, and active U.S. diplomacy.

Unlike AIPAC’s traditional focus on security cooperation and bipartisan alliance building, J Street often publicly challenges Israeli government policies and supports conditioning aid to encourage conflict resolution. Treating the two groups as identical erases real ideological differences and misleads voters about the range of pro-Israel views inside the Democratic coalition. Many supporters see J Street as advancing a diplomacy-first, pro-humanity framework rooted in coexistence and de-escalation.

Candidate Claims Under the Microscope

Raphael Warnock. One viral graphic claims he “received” $928,350 from the pro-Israel lobby, presented as a single lump sum with no cycle, formula, or breakdown. Recent FEC and OpenSecrets data show no direct AIPAC PAC contributions to Warnock in the 2024–2025 period, and he is not on AIPAC’s endorsement lists for that cycle. Track AIPAC’s own later database lists a far larger figure built by combining PAC money, independent expenditures, and “lobby donors,” illustrating how wording like “received” can blur legal distinctions. Warnock’s policy record appears mixed and evolving, not mechanically tied to any single funding stream.

Jasmine Crockett. Another graphic labels her “pro-Israel” but provides no dollar figure. Without a number, there is no math to audit. Current federal data also show no direct AIPAC PAC donations to her campaign in the 2024–2025 cycle. Her fundraising has leaned heavily on small-dollar donors and progressive networks. The graphic reads more like a negative political classification than a financial claim.

Crockett’s public positioning on Israel has generally fallen within the mainstream Democratic range. The available record does not reveal a clear turning point linked to a specific donation flow.

Their tactics do not just target individual lawmakers, they end up weakening the Democratic bench at the exact moments Republicans benefit most. Look at the sequence. They drop an alarmist anti-Jasmine Crockett graphic and the online far left amplifies it into a frenzy, creating internal damage before voters ever get to the general election. Then they go quiet until the primary is over, only to pivot and blast an anti-James Talarico graphic after he has already become the Democratic nominee. At that point there is no intra-party contest left to influence, only a general election to win or lose. That timing doesn’t look like neutral accountability. It looks like strategic sabotage that softens Democratic candidates, depresses unity, and hands Republicans an easier battlefield by suppressing Democratic support.

Juliana Stratton. A graphic lists $8,575 in PAC money and $239,644 from “lobby donors,” totaling $248,219. The arithmetic works. The reconstruction does not. Federal filings show her Senate committee raised about $4.05 million between April 2024 and February 2026, mostly from individual donors, and she publicly positioned herself as rejecting corporate PAC money. Without a disclosed donor roster, the largest subtotal in the graphic remains unverified.

AIPAC Position: During the primary campaign, Stratton was noted as one of the candidates who did not receive AIPAC funds.

Eric Swalwell. He was endorsed by the AIPAC PAC for 2024, and filings confirm direct PAC-linked contributions. The graphic’s math adds up on its face, but the much bigger donor number cannot be independently verified. His positions on Israel have generally aligned with mainstream Democratic perspectives long before the documented PAC contributions appeared. The available evidence suggests continuity rather than a sudden pivot.

Mike Levin. Graphics assign him nearly $2 million in pro-Israel lobby support, yet he has not received direct AIPAC PAC donations in the 2024–2025 cycle and was actually targeted by AIPAC’s Super PAC in 2022, which spent over $4 million trying to defeat him after he introduced the Two State Solution Act. Levin is instead heavily backed by J Street PAC. His record reflects a balancing approach that includes support for Israel alongside humanitarian concerns, not a sudden ideological shift tied to funding.

Lessons Not Learned From 2024

Some of the same voices now pushing purity politics spent months branding Joe Biden and Kamala Harris with genocide slogans. Protest votes and third-party defections followed, and the country is living with the consequences. Politics is not a group chat. When coalitions fracture, outcomes change. If that strategy helped clear a path for Donald Trump, it deserves honest reflection, not denial.

A Matter of Urgency

Democrats who take AIPAC-linked money need to learn how to talk about it. Own the decision. Explain the reasoning. Do not expect activists or commentators like myself to defend it for you. Voters can handle honesty better than silence.

And opposing AIPAC does not mean embracing misinformation. Inflated totals, guilt by association, and meme-level research do not help the public understand influence. They muddy the water and weaken real accountability. We should be better than that.

Sources:

AIPAC PAC - 2024 AIPAC-Endorsed Winners

WARNOCK, RAPHAEL - Candidate overview | FEC

CROCKETT, JASMINE - Candidate overview | FEC

STRATTON, JULIANA - Candidate overview | FEC

LEVIN, MIKE - Candidate overview | FEC

SWALWELL, ERIC - FEC Candidate Overview

My daughter hates AI. Not in the casual “this new thing is weird” kind of way. She hates it with the moral certainty only a college student can bring to a technological argument. And honestly, I get it.

She’s what you might call an analog girl. Vinyl records because real album covers are something you can hold in your hands. She subscribed to the print edition of Vogue, the physical magazine delivered to our house like it was still the late 90s. Glossy pages, perfume samples, the whole experience.

That subscription ended the moment she saw images she believed were AI generated. Her reaction isn’t unusual right now. A lot of people are looking at AI with deep skepticism, and the reasons aren’t hard to understand.

If you’re in college studying writing, photography, design, film, journalism, coding, marketing, music, or almost anything creative, you are watching a machine suddenly learn how to do parts of your future career.

Maybe not perfectly. Maybe not creatively. But fast enough to make people nervous. It’s unsettling when you’re twenty and still trying to figure out what your career will be.

But the fear goes deeper than job loss.

My daughter’s generation genuinely worries AI could lead to catastrophic outcomes if it develops too quickly or falls into the wrong hands. Some of them talk about it in almost apocalyptic terms. Not just lost jobs, but systems running critical infrastructure, weapons, or financial networks in ways humans can no longer fully control.

And to be honest, that concern isn’t crazy. Technology has always carried risk when powerful tools fall into malicious hands. We’ve already seen AI used for scams, deepfakes, cyber attacks, and political disinformation.

Which is exactly why AI needs real oversight.

Congress should regulate it. Not in the performative way where politicians hold a hearing, yell at a few tech CEOs, and then go back to fundraising emails. Real guardrails. Transparent rules about safety, privacy, environmental standards, and accountability.

Because we already ran the experiment of letting powerful technology grow without meaningful oversight. It was called social media.

Congress essentially looked the other way while those platforms grew into global infrastructure with almost no rules. The result is the wild west, where misinformation spreads faster than facts and outrage travels at the speed of WiFi.

We must not repeat that mistake with AI.

At the same time, there’s something ironic about how people talk about AI. Most are already using AI every single day. They just don’t realize it.

When your email filters spam, that’s AI. When your phone suggests the next word in a text message, that’s AI. When your bank flags suspicious charges on your credit card, that’s AI. When a map app reroutes you around traffic, that’s AI. When a streaming service recommends something to watch, that’s AI. Voice assistants. Photo organization on your phone. Language translation. Package delivery logistics. All of it.

AI is not some futuristic robot sitting in a lab plotting the end of humanity. Most of it is quietly helping you get home faster and avoid replying to spam emails from fake princes. I even use it occasionally in my own work to render a color version of a technical sketch I’ve done, saving me hours.

But there’s another reality people don’t talk about enough. AI is already transforming scientific discovery.

In 2020, an AI system called AlphaFold, built by Google DeepMind, solved one of the most stubborn problems in biology: how proteins fold into their three dimensional shapes. Scientists had been working on that problem for fifty years. AlphaFold cracked it in months.

Why does that matter? Because most diseases, including Alzheimer’s, cancer, Parkinson’s, and ALS, are fundamentally protein problems. Understanding how proteins misfold or behave abnormally is one of the keys to treating them.

AlphaFold produced a database of more than 200 million protein structures, covering essentially every known protein in science. That isn’t hype. It’s a Nobel Prize. The researchers behind AlphaFold received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.

And it didn’t stop there.

AI systems are now identifying patterns in brain scans that human radiologists cannot easily see, early signs of Alzheimer’s years before symptoms appear. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have used machine learning models to predict Alzheimer’s progression more accurately than previous approaches.

Think about what that means.

Your grandfather starts forgetting names at sixty three. Maybe an AI assisted scan spots the problem at sixty instead, giving doctors a window to intervene before major damage occurs. That’s not science fiction. Clinical trials using AI guided diagnostics are running right now.

The same transformation is happening in cancer research. Rare cancers are called rare because there isn’t enough data to attract massive research budgets. Patients with those diseases often face a brutal reality: the science simply has not had enough information to move fast.

AI is changing that math. Researchers at MIT used AI to identify an entirely new class of antibiotics capable of killing drug resistant bacteria. A discovery that could have taken years using traditional methods.

AI systems are also helping oncologists analyze the genetics of individual tumors, especially in children with brain cancers like pediatric gliomas. Instead of treating every patient with the same blunt tools, doctors can increasingly tailor treatment to the exact biology of that child’s cancer.

When AI compresses research timelines from fifteen years to a few years, or sometimes months, it changes what diseases are worth studying. Rare cancers. Pediatric diseases. Conditions that were once considered too expensive or too small to justify massive research programs.

Beyond medicine, the record is just as striking. AI systems are modeling climate patterns with unprecedented precision. They’re helping engineers identify structural weaknesses in bridges before those bridges fail. They’re improving solar panel efficiency, battery design, and agricultural systems that use less water and fewer chemicals.

These are not theoretical future possibilities. They’re happening right now.

But AI brings new challenges. One of the biggest is energy.

Data centers require enormous amounts of electricity and cooling. Critics are right to raise questions about the environmental impact. But large technological transitions have forced societies to expand infrastructure before.

I remember traveling to China decades ago during a period of severe power shortages. Factories were ordered to shut down certain days or certain hours just to conserve electricity. This was not a suggestion. It was mandatory.

At the same time, China was expanding its energy infrastructure at a breathtaking pace. Coal was still the dominant source, but they were building solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear power as fast as they could. They were throwing everything they had at the problem.

And because coal dominated their system, they had another crisis to solve. Air pollution. I remember returning to China after not going for a while and being stunned by the air quality. The sky was thick with smog. The air had a heaviness you could almost see in front of your face. Breathing it was not pleasant.

When I travel there now, the difference is dramatic. The air is far cleaner. Massive investments in energy infrastructure and environmental reform changed the trajectory. Humans adapt.

Today, there are even experimental projects exploring AI data center cooling systems placed underwater, using ocean temperatures to reduce the electricity needed to keep servers cool.

That’s what humans do when technology creates a new problem. We engineer our way through it.

None of this means the fears about AI are baseless. Job displacement. Deepfakes. Misinformation. Surveillance. Autonomous weapons. Real concerns.

But regulation and innovation are not opposites. We can build guardrails while still using the tools that are accelerating discovery and saving lives. The question isn’t whether AI has risks. Everything powerful has risks. The real question is whether the risks outweigh the possibility that AI might help find a cure for Alzheimer’s in ten years instead of thirty. Or never.

That’s a hard calculation. And honestly, my daughter is not wrong to wrestle with it. She’s asking exactly the questions her generation should be asking. I just hope she eventually sees the other side of the ledger too.

Because somewhere right now, in a lab she will never visit, a researcher is using AI to analyze protein structures that might unlock an Alzheimer’s treatment. Another researcher is looking at a child’s genetic data, trying to find a pattern that points toward a cure.

And if history is any guide, the panic we are seeing today will probably look funny in retrospect. Technology always goes through this cycle. First confusion. Then fear. Then normalization. Which brings me to one of my favorite TV moments.

In 1994 on the Today Show, Katie Couric looked at her guest and asked a question that now lives forever on the internet:

“Allison, can you explain what Internet is?”

At the time it sounded like a perfectly reasonable question. Today it sounds like a time capsule skit on SNL.

One day my daughter will still be buying vinyl records while quietly using AI tools she once swore she would never touch. Honestly, that would be a pretty human outcome.

Sources:

AlphaFold Protein Structure Database

Archive: Artificial Intelligence Could Vastly Scale Up Alzheimer’s Research

New AI model from UCSF can detect Alzheimer’s 6 years earlier

Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic

Classifying pediatric brain tumors by liquid biopsy using artificial intelligence

GraphCast: AI model for faster and more accurate global weather forecasting

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024

AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology

Something important is being missed in the conversation about the BAFTA awards, the gentleman with Tourette syndrome who blurted out the N-word, and the network that aired it uncensored.

This moment requires more care, honesty, and context than it has been getting.

The fact that the network left the racial slur in the prerecorded broadcast should be a much bigger part of this discussion, along with the historical weight of that word. This wasn’t live television. It was edited. Reviewed. Cleared. Someone made a decision.

BAFTA has since issued an apology. Noted. But what many people are looking for is not just an apology. It’s a visible commitment to better editorial judgment going forward.

Because the edit tells the real story.

In the same broadcast cycle, producers managed to remove a Black award winner’s “Free Palestine” remark, yet n*gger made it cleanly through post-production. That does not read like an oversight. It reads like prioritization. And to be clear, the discomfort and outrage many Black viewers felt should not be surprising.

From where many of us are sitting, the pattern is familiar: political speech gets scrubbed with precision, while the most painful slur in the English language somehow survives the editing room.

That disconnect is the conversation people should actually be having.

Tourette syndrome is real. It’s a neurological condition that can cause people to lose control of words and sounds and presents as a tick. Acknowledging that reality does not erase the historical weight of the word that was broadcast to the world.

N*gger is not just another insult. It’s a word soaked in centuries of documented violence and humiliation.

Slaveholders used n*gger while literally claiming ownership over Black human beings. The word appears in auction records, plantation documents, and slave patrol logs, the official paperwork of armed white citizen groups that roamed the South from the 1700s through the Civil War hunting, capturing, and violently controlling enslaved people. These patrols didn’t just enforce slave codes. They documented surveillance, apprehensions, and brutal punishments in cold bureaucratic detail, and the language in those records tells you exactly how Black life was devalued.

N*gger was screamed by white mobs during lynchings in the late 1800s and early 1900s, often while crowds posed for photographs like it was a social event. During Jim Crow, police, politicians, and everyday citizens used it while Black Americans were beaten, jailed, fire-hosed, and locked out of basic rights.

This is the lineage of the word n*gger. Not abstract. Not ancient history. Documented. Repeated. Deliberate.

N*gger was hurled at Black children integrating schools in the 1950s and 60s. It was spray-painted on homes, carved into desks, and written into hate mail. The FBI has documented its routine use in racial terror threats for decades. Even now, civil rights groups and platform transparency reports show Black users are targeted with it online.

That history did not evaporate. Words carry memory. This one carries bodies.

So when Black people react strongly to hearing n*gger broadcast to millions, that is not oversensitivity. That is historical awareness doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

There are many ugly words in English. None carry this same layered history of sanctioned dehumanization.

And in one moment, three people were put in a position that did not need to happen: Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, and John Davidson himself, who is now facing global backlash that basic editorial judgment could have mitigated.

For Jordan and Lindo, the impact was immediate and public. Two Black actors, standing on a global stage, forced to absorb one of the most historically painful slurs in the English language with dignity in front of a live audience and millions watching at home.

And crucially, this was not an unavoidable live-TV slip. It was a prerecorded broadcast that went through editing, review, and clearance. The moment could have been addressed before it ever reached the screen.

That’s what makes the moment sharper and the failure harder to dismiss. It was preventable. This is why context and care matter.

From lived experience, on platforms like Twitter/X, I’m regularly targeted with the N-word, and I’m far from alone. Many Black users deal with the same pattern. It often spikes when right-leaning media ecosystems spotlight certain Black voices, quote-tweet them into hostile audiences, or frame them as outrage bait.

The result is predictable: coordinated dogpiles filled with racial slurs and degrading visuals.

And the people doing it aren’t sloppy. They adapt. Accounts routinely misspell the word, swap in symbols, or bury the slur inside memes specifically to dodge automated filters. The goal is obvious. The effect is worse: the abuse spreads while enforcement lags behind.

Getting that content removed is extraordinarily difficult. In my case, the two times I succeeded required rallying a wave of people to report it just to trigger basic action. Most of the time, reports go nowhere. So I stopped wasting the energy. In practice, much of this language is allowed to sit in plain view.

That enforcement gap matters. It creates an environment where abuse is low risk for the people doing it and high friction for the people receiving it. Over time, that imbalance sends a clear message about whose dignity is treated as negotiable.

That’s the reality many Black users are living in when moments like this hit the screen.

So the issue isn’t about denying Tourette syndrome. It’s about recognizing preventable harm when it is sitting in the edit room. No one is asking for perfection. But intention matters. Editorial judgment matters. Historical awareness matters.

We are capable of holding compassion for disability and still respecting the documented trauma certain words carry. Those are not competing values. They are the baseline of a society that claims to understand context.

If this moment is going to matter, let it sharpen our awareness. Listen when people tell you a word carries weight. Believe them when they say it lands differently than any other insult or slur.

Because doing better isn’t complicated. It starts with taking history seriously before you press broadcast.

Every few years there is a cultural moment that forces a quiet but unavoidable choice. Not a partisan choice. Not a policy choice. A reality choice. Are we going to acknowledge what we are seeing, or are we going to keep pretending it is normal?

Trump posting a racist monkey video and refusing to apologize feels like one of those moments.

As a Black man, seeing that post felt like a gut punch. Not shocking. Not new. Still a gut punch. Because even when you expect it, even when you have watched the pattern for years, the moment still lands. And you know it will not be the last time. When Trump says “Make America Great Again,” we hear, “make America white again.”

The post itself was disturbing. The reaction afterward was revealing. Even after the backlash, even after people across the political spectrum said it crossed a line, the response was defiance. He said he did not make a mistake. There was no apology. No reflection. Just a slow deletion roughly a day later once the pressure became impossible to ignore.

A decent person confronted with racist imagery starts with “I’m sorry.” The refusal matters because it signals comfort. It signals intention. It signals he knows he has the support of his MAGA base. It signals the line has moved again.

For many Black Americans this moment didn’t feel shocking. It felt familiar. The only thing that feels new is how many people are finally unable to deny what they are seeing. And that’s a good thing.

For years, conversations about Trump’s racism have felt like two parallel realities. One group saw a pattern. Another group saw isolated incidents. But the pattern was visible long before politics entered the picture.

(Video I posted 2023)

In the 1970s, the federal government sued the Trump family real estate business for housing discrimination after evidence showed Black applicants were denied apartments. Former employees later described marking rental applications with a “C” to indicate Black renters. In 1989, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling for the death penalty after the Central Park Five case. The teenagers were later exonerated, yet he continued to defend his stance for years. In the 1990s, he told Congress some Native American casinos should be investigated because they did not “look like Indians.” In a 1991 book by a former casino executive, Trump was quoted saying he preferred Jewish accountants and did not want Black people handling his money.

None of these moments were hidden. They were public. They were reported. Many people simply chose not to see them as part of a larger story.

The imagery in the recent post matters because it carries centuries of history. For generations, racist propaganda compared Black people to apes to strip away humanity and justify discrimination and violence. These images appeared in newspapers, cartoons, and political campaigns. Americans saw echoes of this during the Obama presidency when protest signs repeatedly used monkey imagery. Many dismissed it at the time. Others recognized exactly what it was.

History gives context. Context gives meaning. Meaning makes the moment harder to dismiss.

What feels different now is the reaction. Some conservatives acknowledged the post crossed a line. That shift matters. It signals that the boundaries of what can be publicly defended may be changing, even within Trump’s own coalition.

And then, almost immediately, the cultural battle moved to a different stage.

When Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime performer, the backlash came fast and predictably. He was called un-American. His identity was framed as foreign. Yet Puerto Rico has been part of the United States since 1898. Puerto Ricans are American citizens. They’ve been Americans longer than several current states have even been states. Still, the reaction framed him as an outsider. As the “other”.

The debate was never really about music. It was about who gets to represent America.

The response went further. Turning Point USA created their version of an “All-American Halftime Show” featuring Kid Rock and other artists as counter-programming. The branding leaned heavily on patriotism and Christian identity. The contrast was striking. Kid Rock, whose public persona rarely aligns with traditional Christian values, was elevated as the symbol of “real America.”

But the actual halftime show centered themes conservatives often claim to defend. Family. Marriage. Community. Small business. Generational connection. Hard work. Love. The imagery included weddings, families, elders, young people, and neighborhood business owners. It celebrated the very values often invoked in political rhetoric.

And still, the backlash came.

Step back and the pattern becomes difficult to miss. Racist imagery gets defended. A Latino artist gets labeled un-American. An alternative show is created to reclaim “real America.” Christian branding becomes part of a cultural counterattack. And the values supposedly under threat were present the entire time.

The conflict was never truly about values. It was about identity. About belonging. About who gets to represent the country.

More people are starting to wake up to what has been in front of them all along. That gives me a glimmer of hope.

Bear with me, because you’re going to want to remember this.

You’re clocking this too, right? The cruelty. The overreach. The open hostility dressed up as “law and order.” Republicans think people aren’t paying attention. They’re wrong.

Let me take you back to California in the 1990s.

In 1994, Republicans put Proposition 187 on the ballot. The initiative was introduced by Republican Assemblyman Dick Mountjoy and strongly supported by Republican Governor Pete Wilson, who made it central to his 1994 reelection campaign.

On its face, it was sold as a cost-saving measure. In reality, it scapegoated immigrants, particularly Latinos, for economic woes. The proposition sought to deny undocumented immigrants access to public education, non-emergency healthcare, and other basic services. Teachers and doctors would have been turned into immigration enforcers. Kids would have been singled out. Families terrorized.

Everyone knew what it was really about.

California has a large Latino population, especially in Los Angeles, and this measure landed like an insult and a threat. Prop 187 sparked massive protests. Tens of thousands marched in Los Angeles.

People didn’t forget it. Parents didn’t forget it. Kids who watched their families get targeted grew up and voted.

Prop 187 passed, but it was later struck down in court as unconstitutional. The damage, however, was already done, just not in the way Republicans expected.

That moment didn’t just mobilize Latino voters. It rewired California politics.

Communities organized. Naturalization surged. Turnout rose. And the Republican brand in California became synonymous with cruelty, suspicion, and racial resentment. Sound familiar?

Within a few election cycles, the state flipped. Not temporarily. Not narrowly. Forever. California went from reliably red to solid blue, and Republicans have never recovered statewide power since.

And here’s the part Republicans never seem to learn. Communities remember when you target them. They remember when you threaten their kids. They remember when cruelty is the point.

And there’s a dark irony people miss. “187” is slang for murder and death. It comes from Section 187 of the California Penal Code, which legally defines homicide.

So yes, Proposition 187 was always exactly what it sounded like. A threat. A warning. And a message communities understood immediately.

What we’re seeing out of Texas, Florida, and other states isn’t subtle. Migrants as props. Children in detention. Families torn apart for deterrence theater. Laws designed to intimidate, punish, and dehumanize, all while Republicans cheer it on, fund it, and defend it.

Democrats are over-performing in places they’re “not supposed to.” That’s not an accident. That’s backlash. That’s memory activating.

Republicans think fear is a winning strategy. Self-awareness about how this plays outside their own echo chamber has never been their strong suit. It worked for them once. But fear cuts both ways, and normal people don’t like cruelty. When people feel targeted, they don’t disengage. They organize. They vote. They punish.

California already ran this experiment. We know how it ends. They didn’t think we saw what they were doing then either. We did.

Two white people were killed by ICE in Minneapolis and suddenly White America is outraged. Scared. Demanding answers. Demanding justice.

Welcome to my world.

I understand why you are feeling afraid right now. But I need you to understand something just as clearly: this is what Black America has been living with for generations at the hands of local police.

We need to talk about how policing works in this country for Black people, how the story gets written before the body hits the ground.

Police are trained to yell “stop resisting” while they have someone pinned to the pavement. Knee on the neck. Full body weight crushing the chest. Head being kicked. Anyone who understands the human body knows the reflex is to tense, to coil, to protect yourself. That is not resistance. That is survival. But the words are not for the person on the ground. They are for the witnesses. For the cameras. For the police report that will follow.

“Stop resisting” becomes the alibi.

Because the next line in the narrative is always the same. If he had just complied, he would still be alive. If he hadn’t resisted, he wouldn’t have been strangled. He wouldn’t have been shot.

That script has been perfected over generations.

Now fast forward to Minneapolis. Two white people are dead at the hands of ICE. And suddenly the country feels what fear actually feels like. Suddenly people understand that law enforcement can escalate without warning. That the state can misjudge, overreact, or lie. Suddenly people are asking, why is this happening?

Black America has been asking that question forever.

For generations, Black men and women have been killed by police, not federal agents, not immigration officers, but the people who patrol our neighborhoods every day. And when it happens, the response isn’t shock. It’s explanation. Justification. Excuses.

Hands up, don’t shoot. I can’t breathe.

They were pleas. Folks begging, BEGGING for their life.

There is a conversation Black families have with our sons that most White families never have to think about. “The talk” happens the moment we realize our child is old enough to drive.

It goes like this: Keep your hands visible at all times. No sudden movements. When the officer asks for your ID, tell them exactly what you are about to do. Say it clearly. I am reaching for my wallet. I am opening the glove compartment. I am grabbing the registration. Move slowly. Speak calmly. Do not argue. Do not raise your voice. No matter how scared you may be. And above all else, no matter what they do to you, do not run.

That is “the talk”. Not about responsibility. Not about respect. About survival.

When my son graduated from high school, we bought him a brand new car. Not used. I needed it to be perfect. No broken tail lights. No cracked mirrors. Nothing that could give an officer an excuse to pull him over. In hindsight, that was fear management.

When he came home from college for breaks and went out with friends, my wife couldn’t sleep until he walked through the front door. Not because he was reckless. Because she knew the truth. Out there, our son is always in danger. Not because of who he is, but because of how he is seen. Because of his Black body.

This is our everyday norm. There is no escape from it. No pause button. No whistles to warn us. No neighborhood that makes us immune. Skin color, stereotypes, and long-standing myths can turn ordinary moments into life-or-death encounters.

And then White America elected a man who pours gasoline on all of it.

A man who amplifies fear, legitimizes cruelty, and gives permission to white nationalists to step out of the shadows and be proud. A man who frames immigrants, Black people, and protesters as threats, and law enforcement as unquestionable heroes no matter the evidence.

So when ICE comes to Minneapolis with masks and military gear, when bodies start falling, when chaos erupts, this is not an anomaly. This is an expansion. Federal power adopting the same culture local policing has inflicted on Black communities for decades.

I know many of you are aware of these realities. But many more are not. Why would you be. It doesn’t affect you. Until now.

And yes, we have allies. But not nearly enough. Too often those alliances come wrapped in microaggressions, conditional empathy, and the expectation that our pain stay quiet, polite, and non-disruptive.

To honor the lives lost, we have to say their names. Not as a checklist, but as a reminder that this is not new, and it is not rare.

George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes in 2020, sparking global protest.

Breonna Taylor, unarmed, shot during a no-knock raid in her own home in Louisville.

Ahmaud Arbery, killed while jogging by civilians tied to law enforcement.

Eric Garner, choked by NYPD as he repeated, “I can’t breathe.”

Tamir Rice, 12 years old, shot within seconds of police arriving at a park.

Laquan McDonald, 17, gunned down as video later exposed police lies.

Tyre Nichols, beaten to death during a traffic stop.

Rekia Boyd, killed by an off-duty officer, no conviction.

Leneal Frazier, killed during a reckless Minneapolis police chase.

Donovan Lewis, shot in his bedroom while sleeping.

Sonya Massey, killed after calling 911 for help.

There are so many more.

So when White America feels fear now, when outrage finally breaks through complacency, understand this. This is not new. This is borrowed terror. This is a glimpse into a reality Black families have lived with for generations.

The question is not whether you feel it now. The question is whether you will finally listen and truly understand.

(I first posted this video in 2020. It was produced by a friend of my son. She did not want to be credited)

There is a reason the government keeps trying to discredit them, downplay them, or drown them out with lies doubling as press statements that collapse even under mild scrutiny. These videos are not “contextless clips.” They are evidence. They are the public record when institutions lie.

For months, DHS and ICE have put out statements that don’t hold up. We have watched official narratives unravel in real time. Cars “rammed” by civilians that video shows ICE ramming instead. Guns that turn out to be phones. Claims of danger used to justify brutality against people who posed no threat. This isn’t a one-off. It is a pattern. And patterns require documentation.

That is why bystanders filming matters so much.

These videos are not about spectacle. They’re about accountability. They are the last line of defense when power refuses to tell the truth about itself. When DHS speaks, they expect deference. When people film, they provide receipts. And that difference is everything.

Mainstream media has failed this moment more than it should have. Too many outlets still frame ICE abuse as a “crackdown,” giving equal weight to official statements and lived reality, even when the truth is on video. That isn’t balance. That’s laundering abuse under a tyrannical government.

Too many panels include voices sympathetic to ICE, or committed to “both sides” framing, long after the facts have moved on. Neutrality becomes complicity when one side is armed, masked, and backed by the state, and the other is being dragged out of cars, homes, and neighborhoods.

That’s where citizen footage changes the balance of power.

When a neighbor films an arrest, the story no longer belongs solely to DHS. When a protester captures an ICE raid, the narrative can no longer be laundered through press releases. When a child records what happens to their parent, the truth survives even if institutions try to bury it. These videos force the conversation out of closed rooms and into the open, where lies struggle to survive.

This isn’t new. Bearing witness has always been part of resistance. From lynching photographs that exposed racial terror, to civil rights footage that shattered the myth of “orderly” segregation, to police bodycam and cell phone videos today, the camera has repeatedly done what official channels would not. It’s told the truth when power depended on silence.

Ask yourself, if there had been no video of the murder of George Floyd, would accountability have come?

What is different now is the scale and the federal government immediate endorsement.

ICE operates in communities that already know what it means to be disbelieved. Immigrants. Black and Brown families. Working-class neighborhoods. Disabled people. Elders. Children. These are not groups that benefit from the presumption of innocence. Video becomes the equalizer because it does not care who the subject is. It records what happened, not what authorities wish had happened.

That’s why there is such hostility toward the filming itself. Calls to stop recording. Claims that footage is misleading. Attempts to criminalize documentation. If the videos don’t matter, there would be no effort to suppress them. And that tells you everything you need to know about their power.

Sharing these videos on social media and among family and friends, is not about outrage for its own sake. It is about building a public memory that cannot be erased. It is about ensuring that when DHS lies tomorrow, there is already a record today. It is about protecting people who would otherwise disappear into paperwork, detention, or deportation with no witnesses left behind.

We’re told to trust institutions that have repeatedly shown they can’t be trusted. We’re told to wait for investigations that will not deliver accountability. We’re told to calm down, to stop filming, to let the system work. But the system has been working exactly as designed, and that design depends on darkness.

The videos turn the lights on.

That is why we must keep watching. Keep filming. Keep sharing. Not because it is easy or comfortable, but because history shows us what happens when no one is looking. Bearing witness is not optional in moments like this. It is a responsibility.

Keeping sharing the videos, because if they will not tell the truth, we must.

Republicans love to quote Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech because it’s safe. They won’t quote the parts where he talked about racism, militarism, poverty, or white moderates being a problem.

That’s what it feels like living as a Black man in 2026. Everyone wants the poetry. No one wants the diagnosis.

They want King frozen in amber, eternally polite, eternally patient, eternally asking instead of demanding. They don’t want the King who warned that white moderates were more dangerous than outright racists. They don’t want the King who condemned militarism, capitalism without conscience, and the slow violence of poverty. They want a version of Black history that never makes them uncomfortable and never asks anything of them.

That same instinct is driving the anti-DEI panic right now.

Let’s be clear, because the lies are loud. DEI is not about quotas. It’s not about handing jobs to unqualified people. It’s about opening doors that were deliberately bolted shut for generations. It’s about correcting systems that excluded people before most of us were alive, and then pretending those systems magically fixed themselves.

When Republicans and Trump rail against DEI, what they’re really saying is this: stop correcting the record. Stop naming the history. Stop redistributing opportunity in ways that threaten the old defaults. They don’t want fairness. They want permission to keep winning without competition.

And now they’re coming for the history itself.

Museums are being sanitized. Exhibits are being rewritten. The Smithsonian and other institutions are being pressured to soften language, remove context, and flatten Black history into something palatable. Slavery becomes a footnote. Segregation becomes a misunderstanding. Resistance becomes “divisive.” It’s not subtle. It’s a coordinated effort to whitewash the past so the present doesn’t have to answer for it.

But here’s the problem for them. I know my history. I live it. I stand on shoulders. I wrote about this back in 2023, and it matters even more now.

My grandfather, Osborne Crews, was one of those shoulders. He put himself through school and earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Illinois Institute of Technology in the 1940s. Let that sink in. A Black man, earning an advanced science degree in a country that barely acknowledged his humanity.

He worked as an organic chemist. His team helped lay the foundation for the drug cortisone.

When he went job hunting in the 1950s, one company made him sit in a waiting room all day. When they finally realized the brilliant chemist they were interviewing was Black, they told him to come back tomorrow. He never did. I wish I knew his exact words.

Eventually he was interviewed at Midway Airport because Stanford Research Institute didn’t even want to risk bringing him onsite. He got the job. He moved his family to California. But even then, success didn’t equal access.

White people would not sell or rent to Black families, no matter your income. He could only rent from another successful Black man who took a position overseas. When he tried to buy, the famous architect Joseph Eichler would not build or sell to Black families. Bank of America was the only major lender that would loan to Black people. One option. No competition. No leverage. Imagine being told the market is fair while being locked into a single door.

My grandfather eventually built a home in Palo Alto anyway. Architect John Mackay agreed to build my grandfather a house, but he had to find his own lot, not easy, and it could not be anywhere within the tracts designated for whites only.

In fact, the home I own today would not have been an option for me historically. It was built in an area explicitly shaped by racial redlining, where developers used restrictive covenants to keep it exclusively white, barring Black people except as servants, successfully shutting Black families out of generational wealth.

When my mother was a child in Palo Alto, white parents didn’t want their kids playing with her and her older brother. They tried to get them banned from the playground. The school refused, but the message was clear. You don’t belong.

One of my earliest memories is standing in front of that same house in the 1970s while a white teenager screamed the n-word at me from across the street. I didn’t know what the word meant. I just knew he was being mean and I was scared. I still remember my mother’s face when she scooped me up and took me inside.

I didn’t inherit wealth. I inherited something more dangerous to people who want history erased. I inherited perspective.

Education mattered in my family because it had to. Work ethic mattered because the margin for error was thin. My grandfather’s three children all earned advanced degrees. My mother, a single mom who had me much too young, raised me to believe my skin color was not a ceiling, even when the world tried to make it one.

So when people tell me DEI is unfair, I hear what they’re really saying. They’re mad the ladder is visible now. They’re mad the scaffolding is being acknowledged. They’re mad that success is no longer allowed to pretend it exists in a vacuum.

Living as a Black man in 2026 means watching history be debated as if it’s theoretical, while my family lived it. It means being told to calm down while institutions quietly roll back the few corrective measures that ever existed. It means hearing Martin Luther King Jr. quoted by people who would have despised everything he stood for once he stopped being convenient.

They can try to erase the exhibits. They can ban the language. They can gut DEI and call it “merit.” But they can’t erase the fact that Black history is not a side story. It’s American history.

And if they won’t tell it honestly, we will. We must keep our own lived history alive.

Friends, we need to talk about changing our language we use when we talk about ICE. Hear me out. “Defunding ICE” isn’t the right term anymore. Inside our own party, it keeps getting tangled up with “defund the police,” a phrase Republicans successfully weaponized to paint Democrats as reckless on public safety, and it cost us elections. I’m with y’all on blowing up a broken system, but we have to be smart about how we frame it.

Instead of “defund ICE,” let’s say “cancel and replace ICE”.

Cancel and replace ICE. Because this isn’t a tweakable agency. ICE is morally bankrupt. This isn’t a mismanaged bureaucracy where a few new directives fix everything. This is a system that has shown, over and over again, that it cannot be reformed. It can’t be regulated into compliance. It needs to be canceled and replaced with something built around civil rights, constitutional limits, and real accountability, not fear and impunity. Respect for civil rights should be key with any government agency.

And we need to call out Democrats in Congress who keep going on cable news, lecturing rank-and-file Democrats about how ICE is okay when “following procedures.” That’s gaslighting. That’s damage control at the expense of reality. They are trying to play both sides, and we should see right through that. There is no version of ICE that can be saved when agents shoot people in the face and our own government shields them from transparent investigation, when agents routinely smash car windows and drag innocent people out without cause, when they go door to door without judicial warrants targeting Brown and Black communities.

Let’s also be honest about what they are not doing. They are not going after the so-called worst of the worst. They are not targeting violent criminals. They’re scared of them. Instead, they pepper-ball protesters because their feelings got hurt. They show up looking like masked militia, not immigration enforcement.

No one is saying we don’t need immigration enforcement. We absolutely do. Borders need enforcement. Violent criminals need to be detained, tried, and held accountable. But this is not the way. Ending abuse doesn’t mean fixing ICE from within. It means acknowledging that an agency this corrupt and this violent has no reform path left.

So let’s be clear about what needs to happen:

• Cancel and replace ICE.

• Build a new immigration enforcement framework rooted in constitutional protections, clear oversight, and real accountability.

• Democrats, stop parroting “ICE can be reformed” like it’s a comfort blanket for cable news.

• Stop letting the right twist our language while communities pay the price.

When Democrats go on air saying ICE just needs better training, that’s moral nonsense. That’s enabling an agency that has terrorized communities, violated rights, and operated with impunity.

Friends, we can defend borders and defend civil rights. But you can’t do both by defending an agency that has proven it destroys both.

ICE is funded with our tax dollars, so their lawlessness is happening in our name. Cancel and replace ICE. Build something worth defending.

I understand Venezuelans celebrating that Maduro is no longer in power as a dictator. But Venezuelans here in this country should be cautious about celebrating Trump. He could come for them next.

We know what he’s capable of, and he has never been friendly to immigrants from south of the border.

The Alien Enemies Act is a 1798 wartime law. It gives the president extraordinary power to detain, restrain, and deport non-citizens from a country he declares “hostile.” No due process. No immigration court. Just a proclamation.

Historically, it’s been used only during declared wars: World War I, World War II, and the War of 1812. Think Japanese internment. That’s the precedent.

Connect the dots.

Trump has already framed Venezuela as a criminal state, not just a government he dislikes. He has labeled drug trafficking and gangs as a national security “invasion.” If he declares Venezuela a hostile nation engaged in a so-called “predatory incursion,” he could attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act without Congress ever declaring war.

If he does, Venezuelans in the U.S., especially non-citizens, could be targeted for summary detention or deportation. No hearings. No individual review. Guilt by nationality.

And before anyone says, “he wouldn’t do that,” he already tested this logic. In 2025, he used similar language to justify deportations tied to alleged Venezuelan gangs, calling it an “invasion,” even without a formal declaration of war. That was the dry run.

You don’t have to like Maduro to see the problem. You don’t have to oppose his removal to recognize what’s happening here. Trump is expanding executive war powers in ways that always come back on civilians, immigrants, and dissenters.

This isn’t about Venezuela alone. It’s about normalizing wartime authority in peacetime and trusting a man who openly admires authoritarian tools. Trump wants to rule as a wartime president.

At a moment when Democrats should be drawing the sharpest possible contrast with Donald Trump’s culture of secrecy, deflection, and outright cover ups, the party is choosing opacity. The kind of opacity that looks defensive, self protective, and afraid of its own voters.

I’m talking about the decision to keep the DNC’s 2024 “after action” autopsy report under wraps.

This is the opposite of transparency. And strategically, it’s a terrible move.

We are living through an era where Trump and his allies normalize hiding records, slow walking disclosures, ignoring deadlines, and daring the public to stop them. Democrats are supposed to be the alternative to that. When the party leadership withholds a report explicitly meant to diagnose failure, it blurs the moral contrast and reinforces the worst public assumptions about Democratic institutions.

People already think the party protects itself before it protects the truth. This confirms it.

Let’s be honest about what’s being avoided here.

If the takeaway from 2024 is reduced to “we lost white men,” that’s not analysis, that’s cowardice. That’s the kind of shallow lesson that allows leadership to avoid harder questions about policy, messaging, coalition management, and trust.

Shouldn’t we learn? Shouldn’t all of us learn?

Some argue Democrats haven’t embraced progressivism enough. Others argue the far left is dragging the party down and alienating persuadable voters. You don’t resolve that tension by suppressing evidence. You resolve it by showing your work.

Let people see the answers. Let people argue with them. Let people trust that the party is grown enough to handle internal disagreement without panicking.

What role did the free Palestine movement play, both in turnout and backlash? Did the party misread how foreign policy fractures domestic coalitions? Was the response too cautious, too delayed, too muddled, or too dismissive of younger voters and voters of color who were demanding moral clarity?

These are not fringe questions. They are central questions. And pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them go away.

There is a real, unresolved debate inside the party that voters are acutely aware of, even if leadership prefers not to air it publicly.

Because right now, Democratic approval is in the toilet.

According to a recent Quinnipiac University survey, just 18% of voters approve of how Democrats in Congress are doing their job. 73% disapprove. That’s the lowest number since Quinnipiac started asking the question sixteen years ago.

Yes, Democrats are winning some races. But that’s increasingly despite the DNC, not because of it. Candidates are winning on local credibility, abortion rights, Trump backlash, and Republican extremism. That’s not the same thing as a healthy national party brand.

Which brings us to Ken Martin.

After winning the DNC chair election, Martin told reporters he would release the autopsy report. He explicitly criticized the party for failing to release the 2016 review and promised transparency this time. In his February 1, 2025 post election remarks, he talked about lessons for all “57 state parties” and the need for clear marching orders.

He was right then.

The review itself was serious. Hundreds of interviews across all 50 states. Findings about misallocated resources, shallow metrics obsessed with door knocks instead of real conversations, and the need for relational organizing and year round infrastructure. This is exactly the kind of work voters should know the party is doing.

Now the argument is that releasing it would be a “distraction,” and that leadership is already implementing the lessons internally. That excuse doesn’t fly.

Transparency is not a distraction from winning. It’s a prerequisite for trust. Hiding the report tells voters the party either doesn’t trust them, doesn’t respect them, or doesn’t want to answer to them.

By keeping the report secret, the DNC allows every faction to fill the vacuum with its own worst assumptions. Progressives assume leadership is hiding criticism. Moderates assume the left blew everything up. Swing voters assume Democrats are just another self interested institution.

Nobody benefits from that.

Releasing the report would not weaken the party. It would signal seriousness, humility, and accountability. It would show that Democrats are willing to confront hard truths in public, unlike Trump, unlike MAGA, unlike the administrations that confuse transparency with selective disclosure and cover up.

If Democrats want to win the argument about democracy, they have to practice it within the party.

Sunlight isn’t a liability. Fear of sunlight is. And right now, the party looks like it’s afraid of its own shadow.