There is a strain of thought that no one should say anything negative in a primary campaign. That’s stupid. There will be lots of negatives in a general election, regardless of how badly you don’t like that. It is better that these things reach the public early and are known ahead of nominating someone. If Bob wasn’t a candidate, none of this stuff would be relevant to public discussion. It’s relevant because he, and a few cynical folks who wanted him to run, got himself into this race. That was a mistake, and we need to make sure the public continues to hear about this information and knows it completely.
Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is a time bomb waiting to blow on the Democratic Party, and the Washington and Harrisburg establishments are trying to force him on us. He stiffed his mother-in-law out of tens of thousands of dollars. He hated Barack Obama. He hated Colin Kaepernick. He loves guns and school prayer. You wonder why the guy is a Democrat. It doesn’t look like he was before. His terrible beliefs alone would be worth hiding.
PoliticsPA has learned that prior to the debate, representatives of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) informed the debate’s organizers that it did not want to make the video of the event available online without a disclaimer. The DCCC cited concerns that footage would appear in GOP attack ads against the primary winner in the general campaign.
To others, the suggestion appeared as a tactic to protect Brooks, who has received endorsements from Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, among others.
And right on cue, a noun, a verb, and Josh Shapiro.
“D.C. Republicans and Bob’s political opponents are leveling desperate attacks for a simple reason: Bob is the candidate that Governor Josh Shapiro, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, countless local leaders, and working people agree is the best to take on Donald Trump, flip this seat, and fight for us,” said Brooks campaign manager Jenna Kaufman.
Countless local leaders? Not outside of Allentown. Not really anywhere else in the district either. Bob’s a creation of Beltway creatures and folks out in our Capitol on the banks of the Susquehanna. There’s no other substance with this guy though. Bob really has no idea why he’s running, other than people who benefitted asked him. He probably knows his own union’s issues well at this point, but he’s shown no mastery of anything else. The guy remains incoherent, months into his campaign. He can’t put together a full answer about any policy:
By some accounts, Brooks, the president of the Pennsylvania Professional Firefighters Association, had a difficult evening, barely answering the questions posed by journalist Ryan Gaylor, before returning to his talking points.
He was posed one question by Gaylor about how he would reduce the country’s climate warming carbon emissions and better prepare for the increasingly severe impacts on climate change.
All Brooks could offer was that all the climate cuts that President Trump made need to be “put back into legislation.” He then talked about his time driving a snowplow, before returning to “replacing the cuts that have already been put in place. It’s simply about putting the concept back into the legislature and covering those and getting them back into play because everything we’ve been taken out of, the kind of thing we’re looking at now.”
He was also asked to square the statement that he would ban money from political action committees in politics, yet, he has taken in more from PACs than the other three candidates.
“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” replied Brooks. “I’m not a congressman. I can’t make those rules. The rules are made and you have to play by the rules that are in place.”
When pressed if he is making a distinction between corporate PACs that he opposes and PAC money that have donated to him, Brooks said, “Listen, I’d like to get all money out of politics, but you need to be able to work and be able to fund your campaign. And you can’t fund a campaign on 20 bucks.”
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. An incoherent answer on climate change. This guy would be an embarrassment in Congress. It’s amazing that people think he’s up to this challenge.
They don’t though. He’s just convenient for them. It’s so important for them that they drag him across the line that they’re starting to get aggressive with folks. Make no mistake, when both negative articles about Crooksy went offline yesterday after being published, I’m sure there was pressure involved. I mean, the DCCC asked debate organizers to not put the damn debate online. What does that tell you? They have a rutabaga for a candidate and know they need to hide him. It’s still worth it for their personal aspirations, so they’ll do it. They can’t possibly think this guy is coherent.
Look, it would have been best if this guy didn’t run. On the one hand, if he wins, the Lehigh Valley will be represented by someone who is incapable and personally embarrassing. If he loses the general election we continue to be represented by a Trump rubber stamp. If he loses the primary now, really to anyone, it will leave hard feelings, but better that than the damage he’d do beyond this point. Like anyone else with personal baggage like his, he should have dropped out and dealt with his lawsuit issue that he’s put off for 22 years. Instead he’s compounding that by bumbling through this campaign. People are starting to notice, and that’s sad.
The heat is on Crooksy and his team, and maybe it’s a bit too much. His campaign is calling up people who support other candidates publicly and trying to make them listen to why they’re wrong. Since it wasn’t me, I won’t describe it as attempts at intimidation, but that was certainly my experience with them. One of their wannabe thug endorsers tried to get in my face about writing about their organization on here. When I asked her if I was wrong in what I wrote, all she could reply was “it’s not exactly how it went.” Of course she was probably drunk, which is fine and all, but I found it hilarious she thought she’d intimidate me. Lady, I’ve been to the brink of death, do you think I care?
Then there was the missed interview with Lehigh Valley News. Look, I’ll be fair to the staff people on the race here, every campaign makes some scheduling mistakes and forgets some stuff. Crooksy may have just honestly messed up. Or, he’s hiding away now. According to the commenters he skipped the ROAR candidate forum in Bethlehem. A person who was supposed to be a moderator for the Blue Ridge debate reports that “it sounds like Brooks is pulling out of it.” No shock. Let the commercials talk for them, because the candidate isn’t up to complicated answers. He pulled his shirt up over his face when asked about aid to Israel at one event last year.
Then there was his latest mailer, which sums up his campaign better than anything- zero substance and some endorsements from people using him. Bob is just going to DC for a good time and his endorsers just want him to go so it helps them. Kind of simple.
This guy is a zero. I’d take any of the others first. At least they didn’t stiff family.
I mostly stay out of social media posting about the PA-7 race for Congress. Here is the truth- no one reads it. Now before you say there are dozens of replies on posts about the race, let me just remind you that somewhere around 62,000 or so people are going to vote in this *primary*. Charitably there’s a few hundred total Democratic activists in this district, if you add up all three (I guess technically four) county committees and Lehigh Valley 4 All. In fact, add in the DSA folks and WFP, and we’re still talking a few hundred. The same people are at all the forums and all the debates. The truth is that they’ve been talking among themselves for a few weeks now. Even months. Most voters are only beginning to engage.
Privately though, I’ve had several people ask me why I think Ryan Crosswell is picking up endorsements right now from local folks. What do they like about a guy who was a Republican through the 2024 election, and at least from the records I viewed, failed to return his ballot for the 2024 General Election (so much for the theory that he had converted without converting)? The guy voted in Republican primaries in 2016 and 2020 (I’d love to know who he voted for in 2016). He voted as a Republican in the 2012 primary and general election in swing North Carolina. I mean, let’s be honest, the guy voted for Mitt Romney, then either voted for Trump or some other dipshit in the 2016 primaries (Does it matter if it was Rubio, Cruz, or any other clown in the group?), then probably voted for Trump in the 2016 and 2020 General Elections. He stayed Republican through all of that, through the fall of Roe v. Wade, January 6th, “Grab ’em by the pussy,” and every other Trump embarrassment along the way, until he saw an open Congressional seat in a good Democratic year, that was at least within 30 to 45 minutes of where he grew up. He worked at a union busting law firm. The guy is a moderate Republican. Look, that’s better than being Ryan Mackenzie, or worse yet, being a guy that stiffed his mother-in-law out of tens of thousands of dollars that multiple courts said he owes her. But let’s not lie about who he is.
All of that said, I do think this is an interesting question- why are there Democratic activists running in late in the game to endorse the guy with the least Democratic bona fides in the field? You have three other people who are running, and while Crooksy has been anything but a strong advocate for the party as a union President, Obando-Derstine literally worked for a Democratic U.S. Senator (who voted like a Democrat) and McClure spent his career advocating for steelworkers exposed to asbestos and serving as a solid Democratic elected official. So why not them? Specifically, with the Governor and some socialists running around telling everyone to get behind Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, why are these activists defying them and backing a lifelong Republican? I’ll answer this in two bullets:
Crooksy is not what Democratic activists want. He doesn’t represent the coalition of college educated suburbanites, particularly women, that nominated and elected Susan Wild. The “white blue collar voters” that he claims he can bring back, largely living in the Valley’s boroughs and towns outside of the cities, are Republicans now. They aren’t voting in this race. There is no audience for this among activists. To the extent he has labor support, it’s SEIU and the fire fighters trying to push him through, and unions who largely have no footprint in the Valley, and very few votes in the district. This is why his supporters are trying to win this with endorsements and spending from outside groups. Their sell to Democratic primary voters, let alone activists, is do this because Josh Shapiro/Pete Buttigieg/Bernie Sanders say it’s a good idea. The guy is as impressive as two week old bread on his own.
Crosswell’s story, however made up, mirrors a reality that Democrats want to believe is real. Crosswell is a moderate Republican, highly educated, white collar professional, and veteran who decided Trump went too far and left the Republican Party for the good of the country- at least that’s the made up spin his consultants are selling here. That’s exactly what a lot of Democratic activists have spent the last ten years trying to manifest into existence. Of course this is fictional because Crosswell was planning his run for years (he bought his websites long before Eric Adams was even heading to trial), and because of the reality that Trump actually got more votes and a higher percentage with each run for President that he made. There wasn’t a mass exodus from the GOP, nor will there really be. It’s possible they get killed in 2026, like they did in 2018 (I don’t think it will look exactly the same), but in 2028 the GOP nominee won’t suddenly fall to 42% of the vote or something unless it’s somehow a three way race, and then the Democrat won’t get Kamala’s 48% either. Crosswell is a confirmation bias candidate though, one who tells the story that a lot of activists want to hear.
Now, I know exactly what someone is going to say- but Lehigh Valley 4 All is literally an activist organization and backed Crooksy. Yes. It’s a membership required organization to vote (so the most interested parties you can find) and probably has the highest quantity of Bernie and/or Warren 2020 primary voters of any group (most of the standard committee people followed all the electeds who did endorse to Biden). But this also gets to my main, second point, in this article.
None of this means a damn thing.
Out of the 62k or so voters I estimate will vote, almost none of them will ever go to a forum or debate. In fact, let’s be honest, almost none of them are even going to watch taped debates on TV. I’d venture a guess that like 60k voters will never see these candidates campaign. Probably a similar number are not engaging any of the candidates on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media. They’ll see their mail. They’ll see their TV ads. They’ll read their text messages. They’ll probably see digital ads. Most of them aren’t involved in the “invisible primary” though, and don’t care much about it. This is what gives a dud like Crooksy a shot. A six figure ad buy meant not to necessarily convince you that he’s better than anyone else (he’s not), but to convince you that even though he’s never been on the ballot or served the public, he’s favored because some folks not from here like him. Not that you like him, or have history with him. He solves the imaginary (and unsolvable) problem of bringing voters to the Democratic Party who have been voting Republican for 60 years now. And Pete Buttigieg and Josh Shapiro are telling you that.
The ads may not buy Crooksy this race. Crosswell has money too. My guess is both would still lose to McClure if the primary was held today. That could definitely change with weeks to go, but that’s kind of the point. There’s a maximum of around 300 committee people in Northampton and Lehigh County each (those seats are never filled). The months of outreach to those people is great and all, but not really indicative of anything. Even the door knocking they can do as supporters, it’s good and it’s helpful, but it takes such an overwhelming amount of that to matter. For perspective, we were sending several hundred shifts of door knocking out *a day* in the 2020 Georgia Senate runoff in just Cobb County (Atlanta metro) where I was. Honestly, short of that, you’re leaving stones unturned, and that costs cash.
Well, only a little over a month left now. We’ll see what voters get to see, and what they decide matters. I doubt it will be endorsements, unless they see them a lot.
There’s also major substantive red flags here too. All of the folks endorsing him supported and liked Barack Obama as President, while Crooksy did not. They do not support “guns on demand” or school prayer, while Crooksy does. They’re concerned about political violence, while Crooksy is not. They’re not out posting a Colonial American flag and saying “Colin Kaepernick doesn’t like this flag, so I’m gonna share it,” while Crooksy was. They must not think Crooksy meant them when he said Democrats don’t know how to talk to the middle class anymore, but they were all running as Democrats before Crooksy. All of that is fine though.
Meanwhile there is a pair of high profile primaries going on at the state legislative level within PA-7 where these same folks are taking a different line. Taiba Sultana’s insane primary against Senator Lisa Boscola is no good to some of these folks because said insane things before and was accused of assaulting her son. CeCe Gerlach just could not be the pick to replace Josh Siegel in PA House District 22, so much so that some of the powers that be found a candidate who hadn’t even applied for the opening to be their candidate instead. At least some of them have suggested that Gerlach wouldn’t be trusted to side with the Democrats on key votes in the 102-101 chamber because she’s too extreme. So let me get this straight, the guy who stiffs his mother-in-law out of a court ordered verdict for money he owed her is a good family man, but the lady who was accused of assaulting her son is some violent nutbag. The guy who opposes Black men protesting police brutality, thinks Barack Obama sucked, thinks we need more guns, wants to bring back school prayer, and thinks the Democratic Party sucked before him is a reliable Democratic vote in a narrowly divided Congress, but the progressive lady that doesn’t side with the Republican Party on literally anything is not a reliable vote in the PA House? I think I sort of am starting to understand what’s being said here.
I’m not for Sultana’s challenge and I am for Gerlach’s, but the point remains the double standard is out in the open with a bright red light on it. If you hire John Fetterman’s consultant team, I guess you can literally chase a Black guy down the street with a gun and get away with it, or stiff your family out of money you owe them. It is pretty amazing to watch people attach themselves to this.
A narcissist generally thinks that when they do something bad, it isn’t really that bad, or people will understand, or people are out to get them if they bring it up. They bring up unrelated, totally random things to deflect from the bad things they did. They don’t understand why people are “picking on them,” and call and ask local electeds who are friends with those bringing it up (in this case, me) “why does this guy write this stuff about me?” You see it in Maine, where Mr. Nazi Tattoo was surprised his Nazi tattoo was a problem with people. And you see it here, where Bob “Crooksy” Brooks blames his own decision to stiff his mother-in-law out of money he signed to pay her on his lawyers, on his opponents, and really on anyone but himself.
I can’t blame Crooksy entirely for this mess though. Democratic staffers, consultants, the Governor, and God knows who else told him this was a good idea. Some of them who stood to benefit from him running told him his situation with his former mother-in-law was no big deal. He didn’t think his social media posts about guns, racism, school prayer, or Obama would ever come out, and now folks around him tell him they won’t derail him. National politicians like Pete Buttigieg endorsed him, and told a local Democratic politician from here that he did it because “we had a good phone call,” so even he didn’t vet the guy at all. His consultants that brought us Mamdani and Fetterman are out getting their other clients in Arizona and other far off places to endorse a guy they never met. By the end of this I wouldn’t be shocked if they have Michael Moore endorsing some guy he never met just to convince us that this really is a great idea. Meanwhile locally he’s promising former opponents and fellow members of his union jobs and God knows what else to stick with him. And so, of course, they tell him it’s a great idea. Look, this isn’t like Elizabeth Warren defending Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo, past racist and homophobic posts, and other bad behavior, after she attacked Pete Hegseth for his tattoos last year. She was right about Hegseth. She’s wrong now, and she’s being wrong now because it’s convenient and helpful for what she wants.
Of course, political reality doesn’t change just because Bernie Sanders or anyone else tells you so. If you run for federal office, anything questionable in your life is coming out. Hell, that’s probably true for any state office too. You can make up any excuses for why they happened that you’d like, but eventually someone writes the article. And next thing you know the article gets legs, and then CNN and the Washington Post start to take notice and write more articles, and then suddenly people are finding out stuff about you that even you didn’t know. You may have done fairly normal things wrong, like screwed up your taxes, got a DUI, or defaulted on a debt, things that don’t really make you a bad person, but nevertheless are troublesome in a campaign. Look, I think people are crazy who subject themselves to the kind of vetting that comes with mid-level political appointments or seats in state legislatures or the U.S. House. It’s truly unfair, frankly. However, when you’re running and telling everyone you’re one thing, and your past says you’re something totally different, well, it’s worth a question or ten. Hypocrisy is a sign of trouble to come. If you need a reminder of how red flags work, go look at Crooksy’s consultants other big Pennsylvania client, John Fetterman, where people ignored the signs. Look at Tulsi Gabbard, who has proven herself to be both Putin and Trump’s favorite stooge, after claiming to be a progressive. The signs don’t go away just because you want them to. People aren’t going to not talk about Crooksy’s problems just because the Governor or anyone else ask them to.
So let’s just be honest and cut to the chase. All of these people know they’re full of shit, but they’re enabling him. Ask yourself some rather straight forward, simple answer questions that Crooksy and his enablers would all dance around if asked, and you’ll come to the obvious conclusion.
Crooksy’s ex-wife came out to defend him in the first article and alleged “over the following 12 years, my mother not once approached us to request payment for that land,” after they were gifted it in 2004. If that’s the case, why did the facts of the Superior Court opinion rejecting Crooksy’s appeal clearly state that they had them sign a promissory note to repay the costs in 2008?
Why didn’t Crooksy and his ex ever make any attempt to repay that debt at all? They signed the note, and didn’t contest that in trial. Look, if they just couldn’t make the payments or something, and truly tried to, wouldn’t they have at some point made some kind of payments? Even just a good faith payment? Maybe a month or two somewhere? Even a half payment? According to the court, they paid zero. Their excuses lack any credibility.
Crooksy told some local activists that this was “all a part of a messy divorce.” Fair enough. With who? His ex-wife who is out there defending him, or his ex-mother-in-law that she won’t even talk to. If this whole legal case and corresponding mess was just about the messiness of the divorce, wouldn’t the problem here have been with his ex?
Crooksy’s defense was that the promissory note was void because she waited too long to try and collect on it. So basically, he admitted he made no attempt to pay. Since we know they wanted payment because they had him sign the note, why didn’t he pay them anything?
Moving on to another topic, why did Barack Obama suck, in his opinion, as of September of 2012? Was it because his administration killed Osama Bin Laden? I doubt that. Did Crooksy not like the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, which he now claims he will defend in Congress? Did Crooksy have deep thoughts on Dodd-Frank banking legislation? I’d be very curious to know what Crooksy didn’t like about BARACK OBAMA, given that he’s running in a Democratic Primary where most of us like him.
Has Crooksy changed his mind since August 4th of 2019, when he posted a 3%’er/Oathkeeper meme that stated “The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God, homes without discipline, schools without prayer, and courts without justice?” Does he not think gun violence is a problem in America? I am not an atheist myself, so I’m for hearts with God, but should that be public policy? What does he mean by “homes without discipline,” is he agreeing with Markwayne Mullin, like his buddy Fetterman? Does he think we should bring back school prayer, and if so, in what form? And what does he mean by “courts without justice,” or more importantly, what did he mean in 2019?
Why did he post this just days after the mass shooting at the El Paso Walmart in 2019, which was political violence? Did he not think the guns were a problem in that case? Would school prayer have stopped the fanatic who shot the people? Or does he just not watch the news and totally unrelatedly defended guns?
What made Colin Kaepernick a “douchebag?” What about him was “helping bring people together again on something,” as of his post saying so on July 3rd, 2019? I mean, I don’t kneel during the national anthem, but I was certainly not coming together with far right wing radicals that wanted him banned from the NFL. Was he?
Why did he think Kaepernick didn’t like the 13 Stars flag? The opposition research given to me assumed that was known, and maybe it was, but if Brooks understood why a Black man kneeling for racial justice during the national anthem wouldn’t like that flag, that means he knows what is wrong with it. Calling him a douchebag for this also implies he agrees with that flag and the reasons Kaepernick wouldn’t like it.
If Bob “Crooksy” Brooks was just reposting stuff his friends were posting on social media (another excuse they’ve put out) what kind of people was he friends with back in 2019? I mean, I know who some of his friends were around Nazareth and the Valley, but we’ll leave them out of it for a moment. Just in general, what kind of militant right wing nationalists is this guy conversing with online?
What did Crooksy mean when he said “The party of labor, I believe, is the Democrat Party, but I don’t think the Democrat Party talks about or to the working class people anymore, and I think we need to get back to that. The Republicans, they talked about us, they talk to us, but then they go down to DC and they vote against us?” Did Joe Biden not bail out pension funds, walk picket lines, and try to advance more access to overtime, health insurance, and union membership as President and Vice-President?
Given that Kamala Harris was our last nominee for President and that Crooksy doesn’t think the party talks to or about the working class anymore, why does he think that? Does he disagree with CWA? Does he think PBS coverage of her was incorrect? Does he think she didn’t talk enough about the working class in this Pittsburgh speech? If it wasn’t her substance that he thinks wasn’t good, what was it about that woman?
Crooksy and his union actually initially endorsed Lamont McClure in this race. In fact, he said in a text message for McClure, “this fire is even too big for me.” So what changed?
Look, this clown couldn’t answer one of these questions honestly. He’ll cite his career, he’ll cite his endorsements, but what he won’t do is explain why every bit of tangible evidence says he is a right-wing lunatic, a racist, and a deadbeat. It’s because it’s all true. Some people think that’s fine. They would set every supposed value they have aside for convenience, even if it puts this race in danger. If I’m asking these questions, Ryan Mackenzie has the answers to them. The other three candidates in the race wouldn’t have to spend the millions of dollars that will be available to all of them in the general election explaining why they’re not a deadbeat, or worse. If this guy wasn’t running, I wouldn’t care. He’d just be another guy here in the Valley. He is running though, and frankly he’d be a disgrace in office.
If you want to know where you’re going, you need to know how you got there. The Democratic Party is in a seeming civil war right now. This week it was Illinois, last week it was Texas. On one side, the Biden/Clinton coalition of voters from 2016/2020 and on the other, the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing. The actual policy differences in the two are only marginal, really. Both favor expanding health care access, fighting climate change, funding things like public education, and access to reproductive health care. The disagreement is largely based on details and how far to go, from a policy standpoint. Philosophically they are different though. The Bernie/Warren wing of the party wants to build a Democratic Party that resembles a European Green/Social Democratic Party, or British Labour under Corbyn. The Clinton/Biden voter wants a more center-left party. How did we get here and how do you square the two?
To understand the modern Democratic Party I think you need to go backwards and start at there different dates- 1966, 1992, and 2006. They are actually not similar elections at all. Two are midterms, one a Presidential. Democrats won in 2006, while 1966 and 1992 are a mixed bag in many ways. So why these years? I’ll start with 1966, because to me it’s the beginning of all modern politics (not that nothing mattered before that, but nothing should really be viewed as modern). 1966 was the first election after the passage of LBJ’s Civil Rights agenda in Congress. It was the beginning of Democrats decline among white voters that truly culminates in the Reagan years, then relatively stabilizes with Clinton. Democrats started to see some losses in 1966. Many folks like to attribute Johnson’s fall in popularity with Vietnam, but any honest analysis tells you it was mostly otherwise. In 1968 the nation would move to electing Nixon on such themes as “the silent majority,” “law and order,” and eventually “peace with honor.” White voters began their move in 1966, but accelerated it in 1968 and especially 1972. Watergate did interrupt Republican dominance in 1974 and 1976, but by 1980, 1984, and 1988 Republicans were carrying Catholics, running 60% neighborhood numbers with White voters, and carrying the Midwest. They also began eroding the “Solid South” Democrats had enjoyed since the Civil War, which ultimately culminated in the 1994 takeover of Congress, but really took hold under Reagan. In fact, 1966 was the “canary in the coal mine” that foreshadowed Republicans winning five of the next six Presidential elections. Obviously that takes me to 1992 and Clinton. Clinton was the first Democrat to truly reap the benefits of the growing support the party had from Black voters. He also made gains with “soccer moms” and other “normie” voters who were alarmed by the “Christian Coalition” and other culture warrior conservatives. Bill Clinton pulled in white moderate voters and majorities with most non-white groups. Clinton largely abandoned the ideological left of the 1960’s politically. Clinton’s White House was less progressive dogma than his Democratic predecessors, even if that is a bit embellished by some (see his 1993 budget). Sure, Clinton invested heavily in education, the environment, and “built a cabinet that looks like America,” but he also did welfare reform, balanced the budget, was a free trader, and had “Sista Soulja.” Clinton aimed for broad appeal that made him less popular with left-wing academics, ex-hippies, and ideological leftists. He was really popular too, sitting in the 60’s through the end of his term amidst an economic boom. Clinton was personally problematic though. He had the Lewinsky affair. His Vice-President ran for President and lost a very, very controversial election. And probably most importantly of all, his wife became the first ever First Lady to run for office herself after the White House, winning a U.S. Senate seat in New York, which was of course not Bill’s home state. Of course we know the early 2000’s after Clinton were a tumultuous time as well, with 9/11 and the Iraq War dominating much of the discourse through the 2004 Election. And that pretty much takes us up to modern times.
The third year I put in there was 2006, and 2006 is truly the beginning of what the Democratic Party is now. George W. Bush was deeply unpopular by 2006. Iraq, Katrina, a failed Supreme Court nomination, and an attempt to privatize Social Security had worn him down. The Democratic Party was almost identity-less at that point though. The party’s last two Presidents, Carter (defeated) and Clinton (problematic personally) were memories by then. The last two House Speakers who had been run out of office in defeat (Jim Wright of Texas had been forced to resign and Tom Foley of Washington was defeated in his re-election). Tom Daschle’s brief period as Majority Leader in the Senate was a bad memory (Iraq, the Patriot Act, his own defeat in 2004). The Supreme Court had been narrowly conservative since the Reagan-Bush period. The party had no recognizable national leader really. And yet, the party won, and won a lot. Democrats took both houses of Congress in a wave election. Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to lead Congress as Speaker. Moderate mormon Harry Reid, a marginally pro-life Nevada Senator took over the Senate. Democrats took the House winning in places like Suburban Pittsburgh, took the Senate by flipping states like Missouri, Montana, and Virginia, and won Governorships in places like Ohio. This wave in non-traditionally blue areas set the stage for 2008 and the birth of today’s Democratic divisions, in part because the Democrats basically won Congress without a real ideological direction. They ran talking about the minimum wage, the war, health care, and ending corruption. It wasn’t exactly a far left manifesto.
A lot of people have revised the history of the 2008 primaries to fit their narratives that emerged after 2016. First off, the race was essentially a one-on-one race from New Hampshire on. Barack Obama’s coalition was built largely on Black voters, young voters, and progressive white voters. Hillary Clinton dominated among rural voters, older voters, and Hispanic voters. These coalitions dramatically changed by 2016, and even again by 2020. While Clinton won women on the whole pretty solidly, she lost young women in her 2008 run, and Black women. Obviously that was different in 2016. Obama’s coalition didn’t really crack based on age at all. Hillary continuously won in primaries, Obama won caucuses. Opposition to the Iraq War was a huge selling point for Barack Obama, particularly with lefties and young people. Obama’s coalition more closely actually resembled Bernie Sanders campaigns, and yet he was able to win. That was largely a product of Black voters sticking by him loyally. That’s about the only theme from that primary that holds up moving forward though. The rest of his primary coalition essentially forms the backbone of today’s populist left.
I think it’s fascinating to guess as to why most of the groups in the Obama coalition moved from him in 2008 to a more combative populist by 2016. There’s not really an obvious reason. Barack Obama, even today, polls as the most popular Democratic politician in the country pretty easily, and across most ideological spectrums. Some surmise that he wasn’t tough enough on Wall Street after the 2008 crash, or that he didn’t deliver a “public option” in Obamacare, or that he didn’t get out of Afghanistan and close Guantanamo, or all kinds of other theories of his shortcomings, and yet there’s not an ounce of data in polling that suggests these voters soured on Obama even a bit in his Presidency. Interestingly it does seem that Clinton’s coalition did crack quite a bit on their support of her. The more rural Democratic voters who had supported her in places like West Virginia and South Dakota joined young voters and progressive white voters in backing Bernie Sanders in 2016, while Black voters joined older voters and Hispanic voters in backing Clinton’s 2016 primary campaign. While Obama’s poll numbers stayed strong, something clearly had moved within his original base by 2016. Not only did a lot of his coalition move to Bernie, a fatally sizable portion of progressive whites, young voters, and even Clinton’s 2008 rural base either moved to Donald Trump or didn’t vote for her. While she got virtually the same amount of votes as Obama got in 2012, and won the popular vote, Clinton lost the election. Florida, Ohio, and Iowa moved comfortably right into Trump’s coalition. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin moved towards Trump by the skin of his teeth. Clinton narrowly hung onto Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota. Obama had won all nine of these states both times, and rather convincingly for the most part.
The thing I find interesting about 2016 is that it really wasn’t supposed to happen. The progressive champion of the moment in 2015 was Elizabeth Warren, and she simply missed her moment in time to try and run for President. Joe Biden was probably the most bullet proof candidate the Democrats would have had at that time, and most of official Washington dismissed him as a candidate. There were some dead-ender “normies” that thought Martin O’Malley was a real alternative to Hillary, but basically the Beltway was ready to hand her the nomination. Bernie Sanders had some real people in Iowa and New Hampshire, but his national campaign apparatus didn’t read like a powerhouse. Republican operatives thought they were going to get a battle between Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie, almost all of them thought Trump was a joke. Bernie and Trump were literally no one’s idea in DC. Then our politics turned on it’s head.
Of course 2018 did happen, but it now looks more like an anomaly than a sea change in our politics. Democrats made a real pivot towards nominating women for Congress in the aftermath of Hillary’s defeat and managed to take the House this way. Of course, Democrats had cultivated no new leaders in the time from 2006 until 2018 though, and Pelosi was back in the Speaker’s office. Pelosi is probably the closest thing to middle ground between the left and center in the Democratic national leadership, but even that isn’t neutral. 2018 brought a new majority in the House of Obama/Clinton Democrats, but also brought about “The Squad,” and did little to assuage the oncoming 2020 nomination fight.
The early portion of the 2020 primaries was a mirage. Joe Biden eventually was nominated by dominating with a coalition of Black, Hispanic, rural, and older Democratic primary voters that was both more moderate and yet more broad than Clinton’s. In the early going states of Iowa and New Hampshire though, he struggled while splitting his electorate with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Once he edged them out in Nevada for second though, he consolidated his electorate in South Carolina and ran away with the nomination by the widest margin since Kerry in 2004. Bernie Sanders had some early success before fading, building largely off of a coalition of younger Hispanics, younger voters in general, and progressive white voters. Bernie also faced problems early on with splitting his vote, particularly the progressive female portion of it, with Elizabeth Warren. The other obvious weird part was Covid essentially interrupting the primaries shortly after Super Tuesday and making the primary seem to be over. Even so, Biden had built a substantial lead after Super Tuesday and lead every poll at that point.
Biden went on to win the 2020 election with the broadest coalition in American history, getting 51%, over 81 million votes, and 306 electoral votes. Democrats won the Senate and made Chuck Schumer the Senate Majority Leader along with Pelosi still leading the House. From there, things sort of went down hill. In 2021, Roe v. Wade was overturned, setting off rage within the Democratic ranks. In 2022, despite rising inflation and Biden’s unpopularity, Democrats lost single digit seats in the House, despite losing the popular vote by over 2 million votes and ultimately narrowly losing the House. Frankly, the defeat looked way better than it actually was, and the loss was foreshadowing of what was to come. Biden’s popularity continued to drain over economic concerns and worries about his age. He ended up dropping out in the middle of the 2024 Presidential race, despite what was essentially a margin of error deficit in the polls. He was largely pushed out by major donors, many of whom had been fans of his as Vice-President and even as a Senator. He was replaced by his Vice-President Kamala Harris, who immediately attempted to moderate her image more towards that of what Biden’s had been in 2020. She talked about her time as a Prosecutor, talked about fighting inflation, attacked Trump as an unacceptable, authoritarian figure, and tried to appeal to moderate voters with endorsements from former Republican electeds like Liz Cheney. Harris leaned into the image of a tough prosecutor type, something she had leaned far away from in 2020 when supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren called her a “cop.” Republicans pushed back, seeking to use her 2020 campaign statements to cast her as a far left liberal and continuation of Biden’s policies, which by then they had cast as more liberal than he ran as. They hammered her on support for transgender people, support for a liberal border policy, and support for Biden’s economic policies. Data says it worked. While Harris bled out less votes from her own base than Hillary had in 2016 (it’s true, the left really did vote for her), she lost a lot of moderate Biden voters. Some flipped. More didn’t show up.
All of this brings us to today. The Democratic Party’s “brain trusts” in DC seem to be moving the party in a very different direction suddenly. They seem to think the way to bring back the “missing” Biden voters is to move which voters they are prioritizing with their messaging. Most of the front-runners for the 2028 Presidential race that are being created by DC consultants and the media are white men, many of them Governors. So in this group, think Shapiro, Newsom, Pritzker, Beshear, Gallego, and Murphy. The other group getting attention are non-white populist progressives such Ro Khanna and AOC, and while he’s not a Presidential contender, Zohran Mamdani is a figure they are pushing. Then there is a whole other element of candidate rising amongst the consultant class- the “white masculine man” that is going to bring back appeal to white men. This is a solution in search of a problem. as Kamala Harris actually did better with white men than Biden, Clinton, or Obama, even winning the college educated white men. Even so, we’re seeing the rise of candidates like Graham Platner, Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, and James Talarico. Even worse, the white guy governors seem to be embracing this crap too. Newsom is going to go on human pile of dogshit Hasan Piker’s podcast to talk. Shapiro is endorsing Brooks. Senators such as Gallego, Murphy, Heinrich, and Whitehouse are embracing Platner. The fix is in. They want to go all in on “manly” white men as their path forward. What problem does it solve? I’m not sure. They’re doing it though.
I think the clear thing to understand is this isn’t the party’s top problem, but the party’s lack of appeal to white people is a problem. If states like Ohio, Iowa, and Florida are out of reach, and states like North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada aren’t firmly in the win column, the map tilts conservative. The reality is that further erosion could take Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin out of the Democratic column for good. Even more succinctly, while half the country is going to live in like 8 states that will be more diverse, the other 42 states are going to be decidedly white. The Democratic Party’s decline with white voters largely has stabilized for a quarter century though, and Kamala Harris did better with white guys than one might have guessed. I’m not sure what in our modern history suggests that we need to nominate Neo Nazis, crooked “every” men, and people who go on conspiracy podcasts in order to win? We got more votes than anyone in history in 2020 by running a moderate guy who had solid appeal to Black voters and didn’t seem like an extremist nut to white and rural voters. We’re risking our strongest bases of support- Black voters, Jewish voters, and educated White women to appeal to who exactly? The descendants of people who moved away from the party between 1966 and 1994? The last few Dixiecrats who ran away in 2010? People who came out of nowhere to vote for Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, or 2024? Do we really think going on Hasan Piker’s ridiculous podcast is going to make us look normal? Didn’t we learn our lesson from thinking normal people listened to Charlamagne? What in the last 60 years of the party makes us think we can get votes from people who don’t vote for us by being more like a New York City Mayor who won’t oppose saying “Globalize the Intifada?” Sure, I do think Democrats overreached with trying to normalize and formalize DEI, #MeToo, and other social movements that the country wasn’t ready for at this time, but are we now going to embrace terrorists and Nazis to chase mythical votes we haven’t received in decades? It should be worth noting that the only group to support eversuccessful Presidential candidate in recent times on the Democratic side are Black voters. Jewish voters are the only other group to support every Democratic Presidential nominee in recent history. Wouldn’t any modest gains made with guys with Nazi tattoos chopping wood in the rural South be offset with the losses we’d take with our base? Seems so to me.
Anyone to study recent American political history understands that the ideological left Democratic Party broke up as the electorate included more and more women, and Civil Rights finally let Black voters vote. Race and gender simply trump ideology in the American electorate. One that wants an ideological party could put in the time to organize and build support for their positions, maybe even try to pass some legislation that moves the ball forward towards their position. Instead, some think the right idea is to wholesale try to turn 60 years of political movement around by embracing lunatics and bigots. It’s a horrible strategy. It’s tone deaf. It’s historically ignorant. It’s a path to losing the 2028 Presidential election. Tread wisely, friends.
Bernie O’Hare reports that Ray Lahoud filed the challenge to Sultana, stating that she only has 484 valid signatures amongst her 901 signatures. He also says her statement of financial interests is invalid. They will now go to a hearing.
Sure, I told you he’s a deadbeat. Sure, I told you he’s a religious fanatic and gun nut. I told you he’s for political violence. I told you he likes election deniers. I told you he wasn’t a fan of Barack Obama. I told you he expressed racist views about Colin Kaepernick kneeling. I told you he’s a fake “everyman.” I told you about his awful endorsers. Hell, I even told you he’s the next Fetterman. I not only told you all of this, I showed you. I showed you his screenshots. I showed you the Superior Court opinion against him for stiffing his mother-in-law. This stuff isn’t questionable. This is the verifiable stuff. I didn’t go into the other stuff I heard, about his private business, about how he came into the Presidency of his union, about some of his friends he’s pals with from over the years, about investigations into him, or even that one of his superiors has a lot to say about him (and is giving it to the Republicans). I even stayed out of what he promised other candidates who exited the race for him. In general, I think you only fire verified shots. More so, I don’t think every past misdeed actually really should matter. Of course, that’s if you’re not a candidate for Congress. If you’re going to seek the nomination of your party for the U.S. Congress, you need to understand that the other side will find everything and make you look as awful as humanly possible. Look at the way Susan Wild was savagely attacked in the last election for doing her job as a defense attorney for Lehigh Valley Hospital. Look, you may not approve of what a client does in any given case, but the premise of our legal system is even that the worst scumbags deserve a lawyer to help them navigate the ordeal in the best legal way possible.
I’ll tell you what, I hope Crooksy has a good lawyer.
Let me give you some background. In 2008, his in-laws transferred a residential property to Brooks and his Wife #1. They even fronted the cost of subdividing the property to the tune of $55,000. Everyman Brooks promised to pay the money back but never did. Eventually, he and Wife #1 signed a promissory note for the money, but he never paid a cent. He was sued, and a $130,000 award was entered against him in 2020. In an effort to string things along, he appealed. He lost in a unanimous Pennsylvania Superior Court ruling. In 2022, judgment was entered against him for $130,000.
That judgment remains open of record.
After screwing over his in-laws, he and his wife eventually parted ways, with a divorce being granted in 2018. Then, in the midst of two mortgage foreclosures and lawsuits by two credit card companies, Brooks quitclaimed his interest in the property to a person who I thought was Wife #1 in 2022. But according to the lawsuit filed against Brooks, he actually quitclaimed his interest to Wife #2 in a Quitclaim Deed that both he and Wife #2 executed.
I’ve told you that Wives #1 and #2 have virtually identical names. Wife #1 is Jennifer Lynne Brooks. Wife #2 is Jennifer Lynn Brooks. There is no “e” in “Lynne” in Wife #2’s name. The lawsuit avers that the Quitclaim was a fraudulent attempt to obscure the real identity of Wife #2 in order to avoid paying a $130,000 judgment. As a bonus for Brooks, this alleged subterfuge would have enabled Wife #2 tro obtain a $330,000 mortgage.
According to the lawsuit, the signature in the Quitclaim is different than the Note signed by Wife #1 and Brooks for the cost of subdividing their property.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the mother-in-law, now seeks $160,000 from Brooks and from Wife #2. In addition, punitive damages are sought for “outrageous” and “malicious” subterfuge that “shock the conscience”
He’s no working-class hero. He’s shady. While there might be an innocent explanation to these allegations of forgery, there’s no denying that Brooks has adamantly refused to pay a family loan, not just a bank loan, for the home in which he lives.
I don’t even know what to add to this. The dude married a lady with the same name as his ex, basically, then pretended he was signing away the property he owed money on to his ex-wife? Remember, he was actually given this property in 2004, or 22 years ago, then signed the promissory note in 2008, then still hadn’t paid ten years later when she sued, then lost his appeal about four years ago, and then he did this. His plan is literally to con this woman out of the money that he signed that he would pay back forever.
I’ve had some Democrats say to me that they think he can get past this. I mean maybe, perhaps if Democrats win 40 seats or more and Josh Shapiro wins by 12 points it’s possible that just enough voters will overlook this man’s personal stench. I mean, Ryan Mackenzie has stayed true to his word and completely enabled a President cares not of constitutional rights, human dignity, helping his fellow man, or doing anything to improve life on this planet with his power, only that he protects himself from prosecution, exposure in the Epstein Files, and enriching himself. That may be enough of an albatross to sink Ryan Mackenzie even if we nominate a fraud who stole from his own family. Maybe. Or maybe Mackenzie slimes him up so badly with his personal baggage that 10-15% of Democrats are personally repulsed and either leave it blank or vote for Mackenzie who wouldn’t have against literally any of the other three. And perhaps we haven’t even seen rock bottom yet. No one has got into that divorce yet. No one has dropped all the stuff I just don’t feel is right to drop. One of his former bosses did give negative info about him to a DC Republican, we have no idea what’s in that.
Nominating this man is malpractice. Some folks are not Congressional material, and God knows that applies here. I get it, a lot of people are so partisan at this point that they’ll vote for Ted Cruz or a guy with a Nazi tattoo to vote against the other side. I guarantee you that’s not every last voter. And it won’t take much. Even in the best election imaginable, no candidate is winning by 10%. I guarantee you that 1 in 20 voters will see this stuff and want to puke before they’d consider voting for this guy. I might even know a few.
Apocalypse Vibes 