Democratic delegates approved the party's 2024 platform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago yesterday, including sections lamenting the unfairness of marijuana convictions. However, the platform failed to explicitly call for legalizing or even decriminalizing the drug, a change from its position four years ago.
"No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana," the final 2024 Democratic Party platform reads. "Sending people to prison for possession has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit. Those criminal records impose needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities, disproportionately affecting Black and brown people."
The platform praises President Joe Biden for his moves to reschedule marijuana and his "historic action to end this failed approach by pardoning people convicted federally for using or possessing marijuana." It also promises that Democrats "will take action to expunge federal marijuana-only convictions" and "combat drug trafficking and expand the use of drug courts, interventions, and diversion for people with substance use disorders."
Former Republican President Donald Trump's approach to criminal justice "could not be more different," the platform argues. "His Administration threatened federal prosecution for marijuana cases in states where marijuana was legal."
For opponents of drug prohibition, though, the platform is a step backward from the Democratic Party's 2020 platform, which said it was "past time to end the failed 'War on Drugs' which has imprisoned millions of Americans—disproportionately Black people and Latinos—and hasn't been effective in reducing drug use." That platform also said Democrats supported federal decriminalization and rescheduling of marijuana, and legalization of medical marijuana.
The Democratic Party's official position on marijuana prohibition continues to fall well short of its stated goal of ending the unfairness of the drug war. First, it conflates all recreational drug use with substance abuse and addiction, which is an atypical outcome.
Second, the platform rests on the illogical notion that it shouldn't be a crime to possess and smoke marijuana, but it should remain illegal to sell it to others to smoke. (Notably, Biden's "historic" pardons for marijuana crimes excluded people convicted of growing or distributing the drug.)
Third, while drug courts and involuntary treatment are preferable alternatives to prison, they are still heavy-handed government interventions against adults for their personal choices. Drug courts and diversion programs operate under the threat of incarceration for noncompliance—the metaphorical iron fist in a velvet glove.
Even measures that the Democratic Party no longer explicitly supports in its platform—such as changes to Justice Department policy and decriminalization—would leave the federal prohibition of marijuana dormant but intact for future administrations to revive.
This has already happened. Former President Donald Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, rescinded President Barack Obama-era memos instructing U.S. Attorneys to take a hands-off approach to enforcing federal marijuana laws in states that legalized the drug.
The Democratic Party's position on pot is closer in spirit to creaky old Joe Biden, who could never quite give up his drug warrior ways, than the party's new leading candidates. As Reason's Jacob Sullum recently detailed, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz both support marijuana legalization, although Harris is a Johnny-come-lately to her position. She was laughing off questions about marijuana legalization in 2014, but by 2018 she had come around and cosponsored a bill in the Senate that would have repealed federal prohibition.
According to a Gallup poll published last November, a record 70 percent of Americans, including 87 percent of Democrats, favor legalization. If the Democratic Party's presidential ticket and nearly 90 percent of its voters think marijuana should be fully legalized, how long will it take the party to catch up?
Say what you will about the otherwise calorie-lite first fortnight of the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz campaign, at least it eased for a moment the shrill catastrophizing that has marked Democratic messaging against former President Donald Trump over these past nine years.
"Gone are [President Joe] Biden'ssoberexhortations about the battle for the soul of the nation and a democracy under attack," TheWashington Postobserved earlier this month. "In its place are promises of 'freedom' and 'a brighter future' and, at times, audible giggles and laughter."
Well, the darkness came back with a vengeance in Chicago during Monday's opening night of the Democratic National Convention. Staged as a somewhat awkward and late-running "Thank you Joe" celebration, Day One demonstrated that the party remains in thrall both to the millenarian temptation and its flip side of messianic zeal.
"We're facing inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come," Biden barked, familiarly. "That's not hyperbole. I mean it literally. We're in a battle for the very soul of America."
As puzzling as it may seem to those scores of millions of us who never once voted for the man during his half-century in elected office, we heard serial testimonials during Biden's valedictory night about the president's soulcraft. "He has brought us together, and revived our country, and our country's soul," Convention Chair Minyon Moore claimed, improbably. Sen. Chris Coons (D–Del.) extolled the president's "determination to heal the soul of our nation." Daughter Ashley reassured us that "He never stops thinking about you."
If only these sentiments were merely the good-natured embellishments of retirement banquets. Democrats, as they did massively for former President Barack Obama and are already cranking up for Harris and Walz, positioned Biden as a benevolent, borderline omniscient parental figure, ennobling citizens with meaning through the munificence of their gaze.
"They saw us, they fought for us, they heard us," Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said of Biden and Harris. The 2024 ticket, Harrison continued, "will invest in our hopes, and our dreams, and our futures." Hillary Clinton posited that "We're not just electing a president. We are uplifting our nation." California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis testified of the Democratic nominee that "She cares. She cares so much that if you are lucky enough to be her friend, she called you on her birthday, and sometimes she sings to you."
It was only the Democrats' miserable show-running organization that prevented Biden from being serenaded by James Taylor with a rendition of "You've Got a Friend," a song he also performed for Obama at the 2012 Democratic convention, and that Carole King dedicated to both Clinton and Bernie Sanders in 2016. These politicians seeking access to the nuclear codes are not some distant, calculating power-seekers, but rather neighborly types who just want to lend a hand!
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D–Ga.), a Baptist pastor, was the most effective at tying together the Democratic strands of millenarianism and messianism. After busting Trump's chops for hawking Bibles ("he should try reading it"), and alleging that the GOP nominee "is a clear and present threat to the precious covenant we share with one another," Warnock reached for the stars.
"I'm convinced tonight that we can lift the broken even as we climb," he said. "I'm convinced tonight that we can heal sick bodies. We can heal the wounds that divide us. We can heal a planet in peril, we can heal the land."
George Will produced a memorably relevant metaphor in the 2014 Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. "The presidency," Will mused, "is like a soft leather glove, and it takes the shape of the hand that's put into it. And when a very big hand is put into it and stretches the glove—stretches the office—the glove never quite shrinks back to what it was. So we are all living today with an office enlarged permanently by Franklin Roosevelt."
So too goes the stretching of presidential speechcraft. Obama, with significantly more charisma than Biden or Harris could ever muster, expanded the modern rhetorical template with his 2008 convention speech, delivered against a backdrop of Greek columns in a 76,000-seat stadium, that climaxed with this rapturously hubristic close:
I am absolutely certain that, generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
Just prior to Obama's rise, Gene Healy warned us about executive branch omnipotence in his terrific book (and Reasoncover story) The Cult of the Presidency. "The chief executive of the United States," Healy wrote, "is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with faithful execution of the laws. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise. He 'or she' is the one who answers the phone at 3 a.m. to keep our children safe from harm. The modern president is America's shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He's also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth."
Obama's successor Trump, after having campaigned on a Great Man Theory of politics, continued the modern tradition of playing overpromiser in chief. "Dying industries will come roaring back to life," he predicted in his 2017 speech in front of a Joint Session of Congress. "Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways gleaming across our very, very beautiful land. Our terrible drug epidemic will slow down and ultimately stop. And our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity." Or not.
As Reason Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward remarked at the time, "This weirdly grandiose rhetoric is a reflection of a weirdly grandiose bipartisan conception of the powers of the president….Presidents do not make the earth move. They do not turn back tides. They do not heal the sick, or eliminate vice, or remake the nation. They are humans with human failings, and one of those failings is the inability to resist taking a big slurp of their own Kool-Aid in moments of triumph."
Investing our very souls into the fortunes of politicians is not the habit of a healthy civic culture. The people who compete for the right to control $7 trillion of money extracted from taxpayers upon threat of imprisonment are not your friends. The executives who sit atop the Justice Department, who have control over history's most powerful military, are not responsible for your hopes, your dreams, your healing. Imbuing elected officials with such spiritual potency is a recipe for self-infantilization, disappointment, and terrible executive-branch governance.
Presidential candidates will only stop promising to heal our souls when we stop asking them to. The long, slow climb out of our national sump hole requires not only that we treat pompous pols with the derision they deserve, but that we stop pouring our own aspirations into the career prospects of the politically ambitious.
Democrats will spend these next three days scaring voters both about Trump's legitimately scary behavior, and such Potemkin threats as Project 2025 (or as Sen. Jim Clyburn (D–S.C.) called it last night, "Jim Crow 2.0"). Such darkness is the regrettably typical stuff of politics, on both sides. It's when they imagineer a government headed by Kamala Harris to be an agent of spiritual healing that you should really reach for the gong.
On the first night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC), speakers assembled to make the case for Vice President Kamala Harris to be America's next president and to provide a glimpse of what policies she might pursue. Unfortunately, it's clear that industrial policy is likely to survive and thrive in a Harris administration, despite clear examples that giving public money to private companies carries significant risk.
Some speakers took shots at former President Donald Trump, with Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers (UAW), invoking the closure of a General Motors (G.M.) plant in Lordstown, Ohio. G.M. shuttered the factory in March 2019 amid slowing sales; in July 2017, Trump had told supporters in Youngstown, "Don't move. Don't sell your house," because lost factory jobs would come back.
"Trump lied, and abandoned Lordstown," intoned the announcer of a video that played before Fain took the stage. "The G.M. factory in Lordstown did close, putting thousands of people out of work, because Donald Trump doesn't care about our communities."
"In 2023, who helped bring jobs back to Lordstown, Ohio?" Fain asked during his speech. "Kamala Harris!"
But it's worth noting that G.M. closed the factory just a decade after it received $60 million from the state of Ohio to operate the facility until at least 2039. When G.M. reneged on the deal barely 10 years later, Ohio chose to let the company keep $20 million.
Then between 2019 and 2023, the factory had another occupant: Lordstown Motors, an automaker that planned to build electric pickup trucks. The brand new company purchased the factory for $20 million after borrowing $40 million from G.M. Ohio officials, having not learned a lesson from the experience with G.M., gave Lordstown Motors $24.5 million in grants and tax credits.
And yet despite all the financial assistance, Lordstown Motors entered bankruptcy in June 2023.
"Today, tens of thousands of auto jobs are returning to the United States, thanks to the policies of the Biden-Harris administration," Fain said in a UAW video released last week. "That includes jobs in Lordstown, Ohio, where auto workers at Ultium Cells are now building batteries for General Motors."
Ultium is G.M.'s electric vehicle battery cell technology. "Ultium's Lordstown plant could qualify for tax credits worth more than $1 billion a year," according to a 2023 UAW report. And in 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it would loan the company $2.5 billion to build three factories, including the one in Ohio.
Ultium is also building a $2.6-billion factory in nearby Michigan, for which that state's government agreed to give the company $666 million. And Ultium was not the only company singled out at the convention.
"Trump talked big about bringing back manufacturing jobs, but you know who actually did it? President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, moments after Fain spoke. "Look no further than the city of Syracuse, where a company called Micron is building a $100-billion microchip factory with union labor."
In October 2022, Micron pledged to spend $20 billion by the end of the decade to build what it deemed "the largest semiconductor fabrication facility in the history of the United States," signifying "the largest private investment in New York state history." The company further noted that it "intends to invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years."
But the Biden administration agreed to award that company $6.1 billion in federal handouts for its Syracuse factory and one near Boise, Idaho. New York promised another $5.5 billion in state incentives.
Of course, it's entirely likely that these deals will be every bit as lucrative as promised: Micron alone promises that its Syracuse factory will "create nearly 50,000 New York jobs, including approximately 9,000 high paying Micron jobs." But at the time of this writing, Micron has a market cap of $118 billion, suggesting that it could've made the initial $20-billion investment without state and federal taxpayers picking up so much of the tab. Similarly, even though G.M. currently has a market cap of $52 billion and it has reneged on an economic development deal in the very recent past, it still continues to benefit from public cash.
With three more nights to go, the DNC will likely feature more policy proposals for a potential Harris administration. Unfortunately, the first night indicated that industrial policy is alive and well in the Democratic Party.
After all the talk of abortion rights, protecting democracy, and how "fun" Vice President Kamala Harris apparently is, the first night of the Democratic National Convention culminated with a celebration of President Joe Biden's four years in office.
Biden "recoveredallthosemillionsofjobsthat [Donald] Trumpwatchedslipaway," Sen. Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) declared. Biden "rebuilt the economy" after the pandemic put it "flat on its back," intoned Sen. Chris Coons (D–Conn.), a longtime Biden stan.
Biden himself put the cherry on top. "We'vehadone of the mostextraordinaryfouryearsofprogressever," the president said. "We gone from economic crisis to the strongest economy in the entire world," he claimed, pointing to job creation figures, economic growth, higher wages, and "inflation down, way down, and continuing to go down."
If so, someone should probably tell Vice President Kamala Harris about all that.
Just four days ago, Harris outlined plans for gigantic government interventions in the economy, including price controls. In what was billed as the first major policy speech of her hastily assembled campaign, Harris promised to implement the "first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries" and to take other actions to empower the federal government to "bring down costs." (There's been some debate in the days since her speech about whether it is fair to say Harris has called for price controls, but economist Brian Albretch has laid out clearly why she in fact did, writing that "any policy that gives the government the power to decide what price increases are 'fair' or 'unfair' is effectively a price control system. It doesn't matter if you call it 'anti-gouging,' 'fair pricing,' or 'consumer protection'—the effect is the same. When bureaucrats, not markets, determine acceptable prices, we're dealing with price controls.")
There has been a lot written already about why price controls are a terrible idea, and more will be written in the days ahead. For now, let's take a moment to appreciate the head-spinning logic that Biden and Harris are asking voters to accept: that America's economy is stronger than ever—but is also in need of radical government action to substitute the wisdom of bureaucrats for the market's power to determine prices.
Price controls are not a policy people reach for when things are going great. Governors don't go around threatening businesses with prosecution for price gouging when there's not a hurricane or other natural disaster happening. The Soviet Union didn't implement price controls because everyone was wealthy and well-fed. Neither did Venezuela.
But that's what Harris doing. On Friday, she promised "harsh penalties" on businesses that engage in whatever she (or her administration) determines to be "price gouging" or the collection of "excessive" profits—even though her campaign has yet to explain how she would determine those things.
Harris' promise to combat high grocery prices was made just hours after the White House Chief Economic Advisor Jared Bernstein was standing in front of reporters and touting how low grocery price inflation has been: "This morning, it was about 1 percent year over year," he said at a press briefing on Wednesday. "And there are a number of items within there where we actually have deflation, falling prices of some groceries."
Did someone tell Harris?
In part, this confusion probably stems from the unusual situation that Harris' campaign finds itself. She is, for all intents and purposes, the incumbent candidate in the race, despite not being the sitting president. And she's running against another quasi-incumbent in former President Donald Trump. Typically, incumbents try to push the message that everything is going well, or at least getting better, while challengers say everything sucks and promise to make it better.
With voters discontented with the state of the economy, both Trump and Harris are trying to distance themselves from the mess they each had a hand in creating. But Democrats can't go all-in on "everything sucks" for the obvious reason that Biden, the actual incumbent, is a Democrat.
The actual economic signals are a mixed bag right now. Unemployment has ticked up, raising fears of a possible recession on the horizon. High interest rates have replaced high inflation, which means many Americans are still feeling a squeeze on their personal finances. Biden doesn't deserve the applause he's getting, but there's also not a crisis that would demand the sort of radical actions Harris is proposing, even if the actions she's proposing really worked.
And of course, those high prices are largely the fault of government overspending (backed by heavy borrowing) during and after the pandemic. If Harris wants to put controls on something that would actually provide relief to Americans, she should aim to restrict government borrowing rather than grocery store prices.
Instead, it looks like Democrats have settled on the idea that Biden saved the economy and now Harris is here to clean up the mess—and they're just hoping no one thinks too hard about it.
By the way, you don't have to break your brain trying to make sense of this. It's far easier simply to remember that presidents don't run the economy and shouldn't get credit and/or blame for every single economic indicator. (Though they can certainly influence events, as we'll see if Harris gets her way and implements some form of federal price controls.)
But if nothing else, this Democratic cognitive dissonance creates a fun game for the next three nights of the convention: Will the speakers keep telling us that America's economy is stronger than ever, or that the country is in a crisis and Harris needs to be our price-setter-in-chief?
Full disclosure: I got into a little physical altercation yesterday with the Chicago police and lost my notepad in the scuffle. We'll get to that, but for now please forgive any errors in the timeline.
The first march organized by the March for the Democratic National Convention was set to take off from Chicago's Union Park at 1 p.m. Reporters were invited to get there at 7 a.m; I have no idea if any did, but at 10:30 a.m. a friend texted to say, "Union Park right now is very underwhelming." This seemed to be the consensus going in; that the anticipated 30,000 marchers would come nowhere near, and that the press would be overrepresented, which turned out to be the case—while reporting I ran into seven journalists in I know, when the average is about zero. But some of the protesters were also following the trend of pasting "PRESS" across their chests. A young woman I met on the bus around noon did the same. When I asked who she was reporting for, she looked confused; it was just a shirt. Okay, but why?
(Nancy Rommelmann)
Those entering Union Park were handed a gazillion pamphlets with slogans like "NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR SMASH IMPERIALISM WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION," "12 ESSENTIAL FACTS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT," "WORKERS STRIKE BACK, WHEN WE FIGHT—WE CAN WIN," and "NEITHER PARTY REPRESENTS THE WORKING CLASS—CLASS WAR 2024,"—the all-cap emphasis conveying the commitment of the pamphlet distributors. Nearly everyone at the rally turned out to be in their 20s, dressed in today's radical chic—keffiyeh as cape, keffiyeh as neck scarf, keffiyeh as headwrap. There were a few women in full Handmaid's Tale regalia, many young people in pro-Socialist red, and one dude wearing, refreshingly, an old Star Wars t-shirt. There was no police presence inside the park proper, but just outside there were at least 100 officers, half of them on bicycles, all of them waiting in the shade for something to happen. When I asked whether they'd be accompanying the marchers on their 1.1-mile city-approved route, I was given two short nods. (Nancy Rommelmann)
Before any marching began, there were speeches from the stage—speeches about genocide in Palestine, abortion, student debt, colonial settlers, Black Lives Matter, and cops being bastards. On and on it went, past 1 p.m.; the chanting the speakers requested was rarely very chanty. It was hot and people were thirsty and the line for the porta-potties stretched over 200 people long.
"Can someone help me spread this out so it can be seen by the helicopter?" asked a young man, unfurling a 50-foot sheet painted with the words, "LOOK UP 'NAKBA.'"
(Nancy Rommelmann)
"Would you like to carry a sign?" asked another young man, trying to offload one of the 400 or so signs strewn across the field. The sign-makers had been industrious, affixing emphatic messages like "STOP THE CRIME—FREE THEM ALL" and "GENOCIDE JOE'S LEGACY: BUTCHER OF GAZA" to wooden stakes. The problem was, there weren't nearly enough takers. How many people did the guy next to me estimate were actually here?
"Five hundred," he said, after a beat, just before someone on stage shouted into the microphone how great it was to see 15,000 people in attendance. The guy adjusted his estimate to 1,500, which I'd say was about right.
(Nancy Rommelmann)
What they lacked in numbers they made up for in enthusiasm, waving Palestinian flags, communist flags, anarchist flags, "land back" flags, and a flag whose exact origin the person holding it said he did not really know. Someone mentioned they'd seen some Israeli flags earlier but I didn't see any. As for American flags, I saw exactly one, carried by a veteran named Shawn, who said he had not liked seeing American flags burned during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Congress.
"I think that's greatly deplorable," he said, as several young men with their faces covered moved close to him. But when they noticed that several members of the press also wanted to talk with the one dude carrying an American flag, they backed off.
"Earlier they were saying derogatory things towards me like, 'get that shit out of here. What the fuck's wrong with you?'" he said. "But at the end of the day, nobody's going to intimidate me. Nobody's going to prevent me from voicing my opinion."
(Nancy Rommelmann)
If there was a similarity in the way the crowd looked and behaved, their many and multiple demands were perhaps what gave the gathering a lack of cohesion and group energy. That changed at 2:02 p.m., when it was announced that there was a special guest speaker.
However you feel about independent presidential candidate Cornel West, you would have been as energized by his 5-minute speech. He roared and he cooed, talking about "our profound love for our Palestinian brothers and sisters" and how we must extend that profound love to all our brothers and sisters. It was the adrenaline shot everyone needed to get through the next hour. With the bike police edging closer, the marchers funneled out of the park and into the streets. Messages were shouted into bullhorns, girls danced, boys drummed— they were on the move to Park 578 a mile away. The sun was still shining and the press—there must have been one for every three marchers—walked on the sidewalks. Between them and the marchers were the bike police, pushing their bikes in formation, and astride yellow-vested "safety team" members, who kept themselves between the marchers and the police. It was all very choreographed, and one would not be faulted for thinking that this whole thing would go off without a hitch.
But of course, there would be a hitch, and it came in the form of young men with their heads and faces covered. Though they may have had no affiliation with them, they marched beneath an Anarcho-brat flag and a People's Defense Units (YPG) flag, representing the Kurdish militant group in Syria. A colleague mentioned he'd seen maybe eight of the men trying to start something earlier but they had not gained purchase, the other marchers not wanting to be part of whatever mayhem they might want to commit. But now we were at the mouth of Park 578, the turnaround spot for marchers and the closest point to the United Center, where the DNC was taking place.
"That way!" one of the young men shouted, pointing toward the United Center, trying to get the group, which had grown to maybe 15 men, to make a break for the tall barrier fences. It was not going to happen—not with the cops forming a triple-line barrier of bikes and other marchers yelling for the YPG brats to stop, shouting that the march had been planned for nearly a year! It was supposed to be peaceful! Stop fucking it up! At least that's what I imagined the girl in the keffiyeh was yelling at the young men, her voice so hoarse with emotion I could not make out the words.
My colleague and I tried to interview the young men, but they had the same response to every question: "We don't talk to media." It's a catchall phrase common among young protesters, the eyes above their masks growing not bolder but shakier with each iteration. You could see them thinking it was better to stonewall than risk having one's responses scrutinized and memorialized.
But this is not always the case! As I would find ten minutes later, when some of the protesters had had enough of longingly looking at the United Center and decided to breach an exterior fence. Pop pop clang, down went the barriers, in went maybe 75 protesters. Busting shit down was an exciting change, if entirely predictable, meanwhile, a gentler strain of protesters, mostly women, were shouting from the other side, "Come back!" It was time to march back to Union Park, they said. They did not like the risks people were taking, and they were not going to do their many causes any good.
I followed the protesters over the fence.
"Come on everybody! Come on!" shouted a tall lanky guy all in black, with a garbage can lid painted with the anarchist A strapped to his back. What was he wanting everyone to do?
(Nancy Rommelmann)
"I want to get all the way inside the DNC!" he said, pointing toward the United Center. "I mean what are we doing here? Isn't this what we came here to do?"
Maybe not everybody; maybe not the 70-year-old lady peace activist who I'd watch gasp as the fence came down. Maybe this kind of bravado was not for her.
"I've seen 70-year-olds do it!" he said. "We can do it if we do it together. If we can dream it, we can do it!"
He was clanging his garbage can lid when someone shouted, "Cops on all sides!" We turned toward the phalanx of blue uniforms, in the jubilation no one had seen them form a walking line, or I hadn't seen it. Shouts of "Nazi motherfuckers" and "Fuck you!" lasted maybe 30 seconds before the cops were on us. I did my best to duck into a little alcove in the fencing. Yeah, that didn't work.
"Move it! Move it!" cops shouted, as people fell down or were grabbed; when they were variously combative or trying to flee.
"You're in a restricted area!" an officer shouted at me. Another prodded me with her nightstick.
"Don't hurt her!" a protester shouted, which I thought was kind of adorable and which I caught on video, just before finding a small egress to the other side. Two men pulled me through—thanks guys—and into the waiting path of another journalist pal calmly taking in the proceedings.
"Hello Nancy," he said, adding that he thought things were about to calm down—and they did. The bulk of protesters marched back to Union Park, perhaps unaware of the side streets lined with hundreds of waiting officers, who (I'm told) were instructed to pull down their face shields, in case they needed them. On this night, they did not.
I cannot get enough of the Democratic National Convention vasectomy van: Imagine, in an election where, thus far, one party has positioned itself as pro-family—to the point where "childless cat ladies" have become a focal point, brought to the fore by vice-presidential contender J.D. Vance's catty, mean-spirited cable news comments—the other party is parking vasectomy and abortion vans outside of the convention.
Technically, it's Planned Parenthood Great Rivers doing it, making reproductive rights—and the Republican Party's attack on them—a focal point of this convention. But Democrats are, more broadly, all over the place this first night of the DNC, as if they can't quite figure out what they're all about or where they want to go, whether they're the party of joyor a party that just dealt with a succession crisis, or a party that's riven by the Israel-Hamas conflict or a party that stands in defiance of purported Republican attacks on essential freedoms.
Consider the new ad, unveiled by Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign:
But such an ad assumes Americans have short memories. Ones that forget all the regulations Democrats have imposed that have driven up housing costs. Ones that forget how people were not enjoying freedom when they were shut inside their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, or forced to stay home from school and church, by blue-staters. Ones that forget the last decade of (Democrat-enforced) culture war language policing and hypersensitivity to all manner of grievance. Democrats aren't really the party of freedom, they're the party of dictating, in ways big and small, how you live, either for your own good or the greater good, as they define it.
What exactly are they for? The first night of the DNC was a good reminder of the party's schizophrenia. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D–N.Y.) speech was excellent, proving that they have at least one promising young talent waiting in the wings. Formerly an outsider given a paltry 90-second speaking slot, Ocasio-Cortez has earned her spot as a Democratic Party mainstay, a primetime speaker whose name is chanted by an adoring arena. (This undeniable charisma is bad for the rest of us, mind you, as Ocasio-Cortez is economically illiterate and embraces Bernie Sanders-style socialism.)
At times, they veered away from light-touch diversity—a raft of speakers from all different backgrounds—and toward more explicit identity politics. Hillary Clinton's speech was all about shattering the glass ceiling. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison emphasized that a "black convention chair and a black D.N.C. chair lead us in nominating a black and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] woman to be the next president," saying that "this election is about every little boy inspired by a party chair who looks like them, and every little girl who will finally see a president who looks like her." (I highly doubt young children are paying attention to the party chair.)
This emphasis—on being a candidate of firsts, on the "I'm with her" mentality—is especially interesting because it's one Harris has steered away from, ostensibly learning from the mistakes of Clinton's failed 2016 run. Ocasio-Cortez directly inverted this emphasis in her speech, shifting from voters being with the candidate to the candidate being with the voters. "If you are a working parent trying to afford rent and childcare, Kamala is for you," said Ocasio-Cortez. "If you are a senior who has to go back to work because your retirement didn't stretch far enough, Kamala is for you. If you're an immigrant family just starting your American story, Kamala is for you."
Everyone who covered 2016 will overthink that race forever, but AOC's "Kamala is for you" sounds like the inversion of "I'm with her."
Oh, and President Joe Biden also spoke. He didn't really say much of note. It was fine. But the fanfare was…aggressive, thanking Biden constantly for his service, for his leadership, for everything. Also, implicitly, for stepping aside and putting the presidency back in play.
The shenanigans also turned destructive: Outside of the security perimeter, protesters—a smaller turnout than was expected—succeeded at tearing down gates and fencing.
Last vid of the day. Two funny things: the protesters saying to the cops, "Don't hurt her!" and, once I wriggled out of the fencing (with the help of two dudes pulling me), who is standing there cool as a cucumber saying, "Hello Nancy" but @mcmoynihan. Hello from Chicago! pic.twitter.com/vjhFdnREj9
Group of protesters with their backs turned to Biden and hands over their mouths. They're quiet. So far unmolested by officials or security. pic.twitter.com/VuKcwc1Kzc
It remains to be seen how much trouble the protesters will cause, and how the situation in Gaza will be discussed on the main stage, but the protests outside were a decidedly inauspicious start.
Scenes from New York: Why does 3.5 grams of weed, purchased legally, cost $60 in New York, while unlicensed bodegas are selling for $40? Some of it also has to do with the federal, state, and local taxes (including 13 percent sales tax upon purchase) that must be forked over by dispensaries, as well as the security systems they must put in place to keep their wares safe. They're also trying to recoup the costs of legal fees and securing expensive licenses to operate legally.
Basically, everywhere a legit entrepreneur turns, the state has made it quite expensive for them to simply open up a cannabis business. And a big chunk of that cost gets passed down to the consumer.
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"Democrats begin their four-day national convention Monday in the city that perhaps best exemplifies the chasm between their party's dreamy policy rhetoric and grim real-world results," writesReason's Matt Welch. "As a direct result of one-party misrule (there are zero Republicans on the 50-seat City Council), Chicago's tax base is decreasing, not increasing. The population has declined for nine consecutive years, is shrinking by an annual rate of 1 percent, and is at its lowest point in more than a century."
"US job growth in the year through March was likely far less robust than initially estimated, which risks fueling concerns that the Federal Reserve is falling further behind the curve to lower interest rates," reportsBloomberg.
Protests are still happening in Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro has wrongly declared himself victorious in the latest presidential election (and refused to release results corroborating the outcome).
On Friday, The San Francisco Standard published a piece titled "How ex-liberal billionaires Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a MAGA U-turn," which essentially spends a lot of words grappling with the idea that Felicia, a black woman, could not possibly authentically support former President Donald Trump, and that there must be some kind of mental derangement at play:
Donald Trump oversaw some scary moments in international politics. The former president seriously escalated tensions with North Korea and Iran, leading to several war scares. But he pulled back from the brink, sometimes against the wishes of his more hawkish advisers. He avoided a direct U.S.-Iranian war and opened a direct line of communication with North Korea.
Democrats seem to wish he'd gone to war instead. The Democratic National Committee's 2024 platform, approved in a symbolic vote on Monday night, tries to outhawk Trump, denouncing his "fecklessness" on Iran and his "love letters" to North Korea. Although the platform condemns Trump for pulling out of diplomacy with Iran, it also attacks his decisions not to bomb Iran at several crucial points.
Ironically, the Democratic platform is not much different from Republicans' own attacks on the Biden administration. Each side accuses the other of weakness, and neither wants to take credit for diplomacy or own the compromises necessary to avoid war.
It's easy to forget now, but in 2017 the Korean peninsula had become a remarkably tense place. North Korea was testing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting U.S. soil. The U.S. military was massing forces in the region, and Trump was issuing threats.
Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reportedly called for a military attack aimed at giving North Korea a "bloody nose." McMaster and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) publicly warned that war might be inevitable.
And then, in January 2018, a false alarm drove home the lesson that nuclear war is nothing to play around with. During a disaster preparedness drill, authorities in Hawaii accidentally sent an alert about an incoming ballistic missile. For more than half an hour, Hawaiians and tourists were convinced that they were going to die in a nuclear war.
A few months later, McMaster was out of the White House. Trump accepted an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June 2018. Trump met Kim again in February 2019. Stepping over the North Korean–South Korean border in June 2019, Trump became the first U.S. president to visit North Korea.
The meetings failed to secure a permanent agreement—it didn't help that McMaster's replacement, John Bolton, publicly hinted that denuclearization would end in Kim's violent death—but they bought some crucial breathing room.
The Democrats' 2024 platform attacks the very idea of talks with North Korea. Trump's approach, the platform says, was "embarrassing the United States on the world stage including by flattering and legitimizing Kim Jong Un, exchanging 'love letters' with the North Korean dictator."
This isn't a break with past Democratic rhetoric. During the presidential debates in 2019, then-candidate Joe Biden said that Trump gave "North Korea everything they wanted, creating the legitimacy by having a meeting with Kim Jong Un." Another candidate, Kamala Harris, said that there are "no concessions to be made. He has traded a photo op for nothing."
If even talking to North Korea is a "concession," then it's hard to see what alternative Harris would accept, other than continuing to barrel towards nuclear war.
Iran, unlike North Korea, does not have nuclear weapons. In 2017, Trump tore up an international agreement that regulated Iranian nuclear activities, instead betting on a "maximum pressure" campaign designed to overthrow the Iranian government by cutting off its oil exports. Bolton later said in his memoir that "only regime change would ultimately prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons," and then–Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was obsessed with killing the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.
The Iranian government did not react warmly to the maximum pressure campaign. Iranian forces encouraged rocket attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, and Iran is believed to be behind sabotage attacks on the international oil industry, including a September 2019 drone strike on Saudi oil infrastructure.
The U.S. military massed forces off the coast of Iran during this time. On June 19, 2019, Iran shot down an American surveillance drone. (The two countries disagree on whether the drone was in Iranian airspace.) Trump ordered a bombing raid on Iranian air defense batteries, then pulled back at the last minute, because killing Iranian troops was "not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone."
Although the Democratic platform calls maximum pressure a "reckless and short-sighted decision," it also attacks Trump for failing to hit Iran back at each of these points. "Trump's only response" to an Iraqi militia attack on the U.S. consulate in Basra "was to close our diplomatic facility," the Democrats complain, and "Trump failed to respond against Iran or its proxies" for the attack on Saudi oil facilities.
The platform is somewhat ambiguous on whether Trump should have bombed Iran in June 2019. "Trump responded by tweet and then abruptly called off any actual retaliation, causing confusion and concern among his own national security team," it says. Perhaps putting American lives at risk to avenge the honor of a robot would be too far even for the Biden team.
Maximum pressure reached its climax in January 2020, when Trump followed Pompeo's advice and ordered the military to assassinate Soleimani. Iran responded by launching 12 ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Iraq, which injured Americans but did not kill anyone. Trump called it even, claiming that "Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned."
At the time, Democrats were highly critical of the decision to risk war by killing an Iranian officer. "Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox," Biden wrote right after Soleimani was assassinated. After the Iranian retaliation, Democrats immediately put forward a war powers resolution making it clear that the president does not have the authority to start a war with Iran.
The current Democratic platform takes a different tone. When "Iran, for the first and only time in its history, directly launched ballistic missiles against U.S. troops," the document declares disapprovingly, Trump "again took no action." The platform criticizes Trump for making light of U.S. troops' brain injuries without mentioning the assassination that prompted the Iranian attacks in the first place.
After all, it would be hard for Biden to criticize Trump for bringing America to the brink of war in the Middle East when he has done the same.
After four short years of a Democratic administration, the mood among Democratic leaders has gotten more hawkish, especially as the defense of Ukraine gives them a "good war" to rally behind. But that's not necessarily how the American people, including Democratic voters, feel. Direct talks with North Korea are still popular, and direct war with Iran is still unpopular. Republicans and independents are less likely to call themselves hawks than in 2014, and even Democratic voters are only one percentage point more likely to consider themselves hawkish than before.
There is a public appetite for diplomacy and deescalation. But party leaders don't seem to want to take the opportunity. They would prefer to fight over who can outhawk whom.
In this week's TheReason Roundtable, editors Peter Suderman,Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Nick Gillespie welcome special guest Ben Dreyfuss onto the pod ahead of this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago to talk about Kamala Harris' truly terrible economic policy proposals.
02:48—Dreyfuss' YIMBY conversion thanks to Reason
13:20—Harris drops some lousy economic policy ideas.
Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.
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Depending on how you feel about protesters, there's good news or bad news about the estimated number expected to converge on Chicago this week for the 2024 Democratic National Convention: 30,000. Either way, you would not be faulted for thinking the number is possibly aspirational, based on the fewer than 50 who showed up yesterday for an outdoor event and press conference organized by theCoalition to March on the Democratic National Convention.
(March on the DNC 2024; Nancy Rommelmann)
"Almost 270 organizations from across the U.S. have joined the Coalition to March on the DNC. And tens of thousands will be out on the streets starting tomorrow," Hatem Abudayyeh, coalition spokesperson and U.S. Palestinian Community Network national chair, told the assembled, who politely took notes and asked him to repeat the marching schedule. They nodded in commiseration at the city's "approved march route," a 1.1-mile stretch that threatened to become a human parking lot and did not take marchers past the United Center, where the DNC is taking place.
"Which means that the thousands do not get their First Amendment rights upheld," he said. "They do not get to be within sight and sound [of United Center] to say, end Israeli occupation, end U.S. aid for Israel, end U.S. support of the genocide."
Abudayyeh vowed to keep pressure on the city until the very last minute, hoping that after months of legal wrangling, it would allow the 2.4-mile route they had originally hoped for. It sounded rather self-limiting and not perhaps in the spirit of the protests that have roiled the country since October 7, a refashioning perhaps of rage into something potentially more politically expedient.
(Nancy Rommelman; Google Maps)
There was no rage at yesterday's event, no black hoodies or keffiyeh-shrouded faces, no shouting or snapping when Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the coalition, cited the "horrific genocide of Palestinians that's being aided and abetted by the Democratic leadership and its representatives, Genocide Joe Biden, Killer Kamala Harris, Baby Killer Blinken." Even when Mijana enjoined the crowd to chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," the response was muted.
Maybe it was activism fatigue. Maybe the long run-up to the convention—the march had been in the planning stages since before October 7—had sapped some spontaneity. Maybe the multifariousness of those looking to coalesce under the coalition's umbrella—Abudayyeh mentioned "the Black Liberation Movement and the Immigrant Rights Movement and the Women's Rights Movement and the LGBTQ Movement and the Workers' Rights Movement and the Reproductive Rights Movement"—rendered the movement more PTA, less punk rock.
(Nancy Rommelmann)
Not that the event was without anger. Mijana, an organizer also for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, was especially critical of the Chicago Police Department, claiming that "the same Israeli occupation forces that are committing the genocide in Gaza, train police departments like the Chicago Police Department, who then implement the offensive tactics they learn onto our communities."
Still, no one anticipated any violence and certainly would not be participating in it. "We intend to have a family-friendly, peaceful march," Mijana told me. "That's why we're fighting for the permits, because we know that will keep the police away from us and allow us to march on our own with our own people."
But any movement of size creates a collective effervescence that can spill over and attract people outside the cause, including bad actors and those seeking a perverse type of heroism. This was evident when James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a group of counter-protesters during a 2017 "Unite the Right" protest in Charlottesville, killing Heather Heyer, and when Michael Reinoehl, in an effort to prove his commitment to Black Lives Matter, shot Jay Danielson point blank during a 2020 protest in Portland.
This suggests DNC protesters might welcome some police protection, if only for themselves.
"I'm from Minneapolis, so I know a little something about some mayhem," said Jess Sundin, of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice. "Every time I've seen that on any significant scale, it's been police attacking demonstrators, is what starts it. I am not trying to be dismissive, but my experience is that if the police refrain from using violence against the demonstration, we won't see any sort of significant no mayhem, no significant outbreaks of drama."
Perhaps. And if Sunday's event was a foretaste, the protests will be disciplined, even mild. But I wouldn't count on it.
"What we're doing in terms of the [first-time homebuyer] tax credits, we know that there's a great return on investment," Harris asserted in Moon Township, Pennsylvania. "When we increase home ownership in America, what that means in terms of increasing the tax base, not to mention property tax base, what that does to fund schools—again, return on investment. I think it's a mistake for any person who talks about public policy to not critically evaluate how you measure the return on investment. When you are strengthening neighborhoods, strengthening communities, and in particular the economies of those communities, and investing in a broad-based economy, everybody benefits, and it pays for itself in that way."
Italics added, to emphasize America's ongoing mistakes.
Democrats begin their four-day national convention Monday in the city that perhaps best exemplifies the chasm between their party's dreamy policy rhetoric and grim real-world results. As a direct result of one-party misrule (there are zero Republicans on the 50-seat City Council), Chicago's tax base is decreasing, not increasing. The population has declined for nine consecutive years, is shrinking by an annual rate of 1 percent, and is at its lowest point in more than a century.
Illinois, where Democrats control the governorship and a two-thirds majority of the legislature, lost "an estimated $3.6 billion in income tax revenue in 2022 alone, a year the net loss of 87,000 residents subtracted $9.8 billion in adjusted gross income," syndicated columnist and Illinois native George Will observed last week. "In the past six years, $47.5 billion [adjusted gross income] has left….Illinois leads the nation in net losses of households making 200,000 or more."
None of these or other grisly Windy City stats—including the murders and the pension liabilities—are obscure. As Illinois Policy Institute Vice President Austin Berg put it Saturday night at a live taping of the Fifth Column podcast, "I believe Chicago is the greatest American city, and the worst-governed American city."
The bigger mystery has been why the Democratic Party would choose such a metaphorically dicey backdrop. But an answer begins to suggest itself amid the banal dystopia of the DNC's endless security checkpoints, concrete barriers, and battalions of police officers separating America's political class from its serfs. Democrats chose Chicago for a similar reason that Harris chose a running mate with a particularly awful record during the pandemic- and riot-scarred year of 2020: Because they, like their candidate, know that, contra Harris' assertion Sunday in Pennsylvania, the people who talk about policy—whether politician, journalist, or political consumer—almost never "critically evaluate how you measure the return on investment."
If professional political conversation was tethered even loosely to policy results, you might expect one or maybe even two of the journalists dutifully collecting their DNC press credentials at the colossal (and colossally empty) McCormick Place convention center to ask a follow-up question about what their eyeballs cannot miss. How in the world can a city in terminal financial crisis not just support the country's largest convention-center complex during a time of market oversupply and conventioneering decline, but actually keep expanding the damn thing?
The DNC's second major site (behind the United Center, which is hosting what you watch on television), "has been a political money pit for nearly 60 years," Berg wrote in 2019. Built in 1960, rebuilt after a 1967 fire, then expanded in 1986, 1997, 2007, and 2017, McCormick Place looks this week like the cover of a Mike Davis book—extensive security barricades and fencing separating the nearby poors from a depopulated, dully corporate expanse.
"Over and over, Chicago and Illinois public officials and a roster of consultants promised that a bigger McCormick Place would yield hundreds of thousands of new convention attendees and billions in new spending and public revenues," Heywood Sanders wrote in his 2014 book Convention Center Follies. "Those repeated promises have proved false, the consultant projections unmet."
Instead, like so many other Chicago governance failures, the unmet promises are covered over with taxes—on hotel room stays, restaurants, car rentals. In completely related news, a 2024 Wallet Hub study of effective state/local tax burden per median U.S. household income ranked Illinois dead last.
But the 2024 campaign is famously more about "vibes" than anything related to governance. The Harris/Walz campaign website still does not have a policy page (though the party did on Sunday release a draft platform). "I have not had a single constituent in El Paso or a single person on the road try to get very specific policy details from me," Harris campaign co-chair Rep. Veronica Escobar (D–Texas) toldThe New York Times. You're going to have to vote for a Harris administration to see what's in it.
Republican nominee Donald Trump famously did not even update the 2016 GOP platform when he ran unsuccessfully in 2020, suggesting that America has a supply problem when it comes to national politicians and policy accountability.
But don't sleep on demand. Trump fans love his boorish, bizarre, and often funny jokes, so he keeps making cracks about Kamala Harris' looks and Montana Sen. John Tester's fat stomach rather than stay as focused on issues as his advisors would prefer. Harris is getting cheered on by a subset of journalists for not subjecting herself to any kind of public cross-examination. And the residents of Chicago, looking upon both the civic dysfunction and the city's undeniable energy and charm, just keep on voting for more Democrats.
Americans may be getting precisely what they want out of politics in 2024. Good and hard.
Gird your loins, it's DNC time: The Democratic National Convention starts today in Chicago, and the Israel/Palestine-related tensions that have been coursing through the left since October 7 may very well come to a head this week.
Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to set up right outside of security to protest the party's support of Israel; presumptive nominee Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, is expected to speak about Judaism on stage; and, just like during the Republican National Convention, some families of hostages taken by Hamas will plead onstage for the return of their loved ones.
Some delegates who eschewed voting for Kamala Harris, calling themselves the Uncommitteds, have broken from the party pick precisely because they do not support U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war. The Uncommitted factor is especially relevant to Michigan, a swing state with a large Middle Eastern population, and Democratic officials have been attempting to make inroads with the vocal disgruntled in recent weeks; they want a DNC that signals unity, and the likelihood that massive protests will be taking place just outside the gates undermines this.
"The key question for Democrats this week is whether the demonstrators represent a meaningful group of voters who could swing the election in November, or if they are outliers on the left who should be resisted in an appeal to the center," sums upThe New York Times.
Hamas rejects latest ceasefire proposal: On Sunday, following days of tense negotiating and Secretary of State Antony Blinken shlepping to Israel believing an agreement was imminent, Hamas rejected a proposed ceasefire deal with Israel.
"After being briefed by the mediators about what happened in the last round of talks in Doha, we once again came to the conclusion that Netanyahu is still putting obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement, and is setting new conditions and demands with the aim of undermining the mediators' efforts and prolonging the war," declared Hamas in a statement, adding that the U.S.-brokered ceasefire "aligns with" Israel's demands.
At issue is the fact that the ceasefire did not force full a Israeli withdrawal from the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Israel had proposed maintaining a large security presence on the border between Egypt and Gaza, as well as maintaining control over the Netzarim Corridor, which divides the Gaza Strip's north from its south.
Blinken has called this round of negotiations a "decisive moment" for Israel and Hamas. In the last few weeks, Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, have vowed to strike Israel in retaliation for its July assassinations of Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Thus far, wider war has been staved off, but it's unclear for how much longer that will last; the fact that negotiations were in progress may have played a contributing role. Now that may not be so.
Scenes from New York: One of the New York City hospital systems, Northwell Health, is starting a studio to make its own movie and TV shows following the success of the Netflix show Lenox Hill, which followed doctors and patients within the system. But just a few years ago, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center had to pay out a more than $2 million settlement to federal regulators for failing to protect patient privacy when a television crew was filming inside the hospital. Expect more issues, both ethical and legal, to arise.
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"The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for roughly a third of all US container imports, had their third-strongest month ever in July, just shy of an all-time high reached in May 2021. Back then, a wave of inbound consumer goods caused supply bottlenecks on land and a queue of cargo ships waiting for a berth offshore was getting longer by the day," reportsBloomberg. "Demand now is driven by retailers and other importers that are stocking up ahead of US tariffs on Chinese goods and a possible strike by a large group of American dockworkers—adding to the usual frenzy of pre-holiday ordering that occurs this time of year."
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers is offering free vasectomies and abortions for DNC attendees at a van near the convention center, which seems a little self-defeating if the idea is to grow your political party.
Also in DNC abortion news: Some protesters have dressed up as abortion pills.
Officials in Georgia "like the prosperity that could come with making [electric vehicles], but not the California-style mandates that prop them up. They like the jobs but agree with many of their voters who think electric vehicles are a sheet metal-clad tenet of the Democrats' woke ideology," reportsPolitico.
Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, responded this weekend to news of a Kamala Harris poll bump by saying the "media uses fake polls."
In this week's TheReason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie welcome not just one but two special guests from The Dispatch. In this convivial Roundtable crossover episode, Jonah Goldberg and Kevin D. Williamson ruminate on Kamala Harris' veep options, identity politics, and drug legalization.
Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.
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Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to announce her running mate next week. She is reportedly considering several governors who theoretically appeal to moderate voters in the swing states: Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are also in the mix.
Which of these individuals would be best from a libertarian perspective is not as clear cut as it was on the Republican side, where North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was obviously better than the alternatives. (Unfortunately, former President Donald Trump selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, whose distinguishing feature is his contempt for libertarian economic policies.) Nevertheless, it's possible to parse them.
First, the national figures. Unlike the other names on the list, Buttigieg is actually a member of the current administration and has been responsible for implementing federal policies. Unfortunately, his tenure as Transportation secretary will not be remembered as particularly libertarian. While he has signaled openness to tearing down bureaucratic "barriers" in the wake of transportation-related disasters, he has not made any serious attempts to grapple with said bureaucracy. On the contrary, when things have gone wrong, he has reserved most of his ire for private companies like Southwest Airlines and Norfolk Southern, rather than the outdated and meddlesome regulators who make their jobs more difficult.
Buttigieg comes across as a technocrat rather than a progressive: He appears to believe that smart, capable people like himself should run the government and make things more efficient. When he pursued the presidency in 2020, liberal news site Vox described him as a "product of the meritocracy" and did not intend it as a compliment. He enrages the left, but this does not make him a friend to liberty, amusing though it is. His foreign policy views also seem somewhat more hawkish than other standard-issue Democrats, which is not an improvement.
Then there's Kelly. As an astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D–Ariz.)—who was grievously wounded after being shot in the head by a deranged gunman—he is certainly an inspiring figure. However, his political positions are mostly in line with his party. He has voted in support of President Joe Biden's approved policies 95.5 percent of the time. On energy and environmental issues, he has deviated from the progressive wing of the party: He opposes the Green New Deal and has voted in favor of increased oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. On the other hand, he is one of the more outspoken Democrats on gun control.
Arizona's U.S. senators have tended to be more individual-minded, bipartisan, and independent: see Kyrsten Sinema. For those reasons, Kelly might be slightly preferable to some of the other options.
Now for the governors. Walz and Beshear were both elected in 2018 and thus have longer records than Shapiro, who became governor of his state just last year. Alas, their tenures are not particularly inspiring, as both of them overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic—providing an opportunity to implement policies that were anathema to liberty.
Walz implemented many of the same heavy-handed, liberty-infringing mitigation policies as other blue state governors; he also maintained a government hotline for people to call and report their neighbors for violating social distancing rules. When Republicans complained about it, he replied: "We're not going to take down a phone number that people can call to keep their families safe." This alone should be disqualifying.
For his part, Beshear attempted to keep lockdowns, mask mandates, and school closures in place—well into the pandemic. In fact, he reimposed masks on public school students in August 2021, saying, "We are to the point where we cannot allow our kids to go into these buildings unprotected, unvaccinated and face this delta variant." This is also disqualifying.
That leaves Shapiro, who has had mercifully less time in office to do things that would offend libertarians. To his credit, he has supported several encouraging initiatives. One of his first actions after taking office was to eliminate the college degree requirement for government jobs. He also made some small progress on reforming the state's occupational licensing system. He is a supporter, to a degree, of school choice; he ultimately vetoed a voucher bill after facing significant pressure from teachers unions, however.
Given how popular he is in Pennsylvania—a must-win state for Harris—Shapiro has emerged as the likeliest veep pick in recent days. Like Buttigieg, Shapiro seems to make the far-left very upset: The New Republic called him "The One Vice Presidential Pick Who Could Ruin Democratic Unity." While that sounds entertaining enough, the main knock on him from the left is that he harshly condemned the recent pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and is vocally supportive of Israel. For libertarians who would like to see the U.S. become less involved in Middle Eastern affairs and stop spending American tax dollars on costly foreign wars, these are reasonable concerns.
At the same time, it's hard to imagine Vice President Shapiro steering a markedly different course on foreign policy than any of the other options; on most other issues, he is slightly better. All this contributes to a weak—very weak—libertarian preference for Shapiro.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won applause at the Libertarian National Convention by criticizing government lockdowns and deficit spending, and saying America shouldn't police the world.
It made me want to interview him. This month, I did.
He said intelligent things about America's growing debt:
"President Trump said that he was going to balance the budget and instead he (increased the debt more) than every president in United States history—$8 trillion. President Biden is on track now to beat him."
It's good to hear a candidate actually talk about our debt.
"When the debt is this large…you have to cut dramatically, and I'm going to do that," he says.
But looking at his campaign promises, I don't see it.
He promises "affordable" housing via a federal program backing 3 percent mortgages.
"Imagine that you had a rich uncle who was willing to cosign your mortgage!" gushes his campaign ad. "I'm going to make Uncle Sam that rich uncle!"
I point out that such giveaways won't reduce our debt.
"That's not a giveaway," Kennedy replies. "Every dollar that I spend as president is going to go toward building our economy."
That's big government nonsense, like his other claim: "Every million dollars we spend on child care creates 22 jobs!"
Give me a break.
When I pressed him about specific cuts, Kennedy says, "I'll cut the military in half…cut it to about $500 billion….We are not the policemen of the world."
"Stop giving any money to Ukraine?" I ask.
"Negotiate a peace," Kennedy replies. "Biden has never talked to Putin about this, and it's criminal."
He never answered whether he'd give money to Ukraine. He did answer about Israel.
"Yes, of course we should,"
"[Since] you don't want to cut this spending, what would you cut?"
"Israel spending is rather minor," he responds. "I'm going to pick the most wasteful programs, put them all in one bill, and send them to Congress with an up and down vote."
Of course, Congress would just vote it down.
Kennedy's proposed cuts would hardly slow down our path to bankruptcy. Especially since he also wants new spending that activists pretend will reduce climate change.
At a concert years ago, he smeared "crisis" skeptics like me, who believe we can adjust to climate change, screaming at the audience, "Next time you see John Stossel and [others]… these flat-earthers, these corporate toadies—lying to you. This is treason, and we need to start treating them now as traitors!"
Now, sitting with him, I ask, "You want to have me executed for treason?"
"That statement," he replies, "it's not a statement that I would make today….Climate is existential. I think it's human-caused climate change. But I don't insist other people believe that. I'm arguing for free markets and then the lowest cost providers should prevail in the marketplace….We should end all subsidies and let the market dictate."
That sounds good: "Let the market dictate."
But wait, Kennedy makes money from solar farms backed by government guaranteed loans. He "leaned on his contacts in the Obama administration to secure a $1.6 billion loan guarantee," wroteThe New York Times.
"Why should you get a government subsidy?" I ask.
"If you're creating a new industry," he replies, "you're competing with the Chinese. You want the United States to own pieces of that industry."
I suppose that means his government would subsidize every industry leftists like.
Yet when a wind farm company proposed building one near his family's home, he opposed it.
"Seems hypocritical," I say.
"We're exterminating the right whale in the North Atlantic through these wind farms!" he replies.
I think he was more honest years ago, when he complained that "turbines…would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard… Nantucket….[They] will steal the stars and nighttime views."
Kennedy was once a Democrat, but now Democrats sue to keep him off ballots. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls him a "dangerous nutcase."
Kennedy complains that Reich won't debate him.
"Nobody will," he says. "They won't have me on any of their networks."
Well, obviously, I will.
I especially wanted to confront him about vaccines.
In a future column, Stossel TV will post more from our hourlong discussion.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections provide valuable insights into how a big chunk of your income is being spent and reveal the long-term consequences of our government's current fiscal policies—you may endure them, and your children most certainly will. Yet, like most other projections looking into our future, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. So should claims that CBO projections validate anyone's fiscal track record.
So much can and likely will happen to make projections moot and our fiscal outlook much grimmer. Unforeseen events, economic changes, and policy decisions render them less accurate over time. The CBO knows this and recently released alternative scenarios based on different sets of assumptions, and it doesn't look good. It remains a wonder that more politicians, now given a more realistic range of possibilities, aren't behaving like it.
First, let's recap what the situation looks like under the usual rosy growth, inflation, and interest rate assumptions. Due to continued overspending, this year's deficit will be at least $1.6 trillion, rising to $2.6 trillion by 2034. Debt held by the public equals roughly 99 percent of our economy—measured by gross domestic product (GDP)—annually, heading to 116 percent in 2034.
The only reason these numbers won't be as high as projected last year is that a few House Republicans fought hard to impose some spending caps during the debt ceiling debate. The long-term outlook is even scarier, with public debt reaching 166 percent of GDP in 30 years and all federal debt reaching 180 percent.
No one should be surprised. To be sure, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Recession made things worse, but we've been on this path for decades.
Unfortunately, if any of the assumptions underlying these projections change again, things will get a lot worse. That's where the CBO's alternative paths help. Policymakers and the public can better see the potential risks and opportunities associated with various fiscal policy choices, enabling them to make more informed decisions.
For instance, the CBO highlights that if the labor force grows annually by just 0.1 fewer percentage points than originally projected—even if the unemployment rate stays the same—slower economic growth will lead to a deficit $142 billion larger than baseline projections between 2025 and 2034. A similarly small slowdown in the productivity rate would lead to an added deficit of $304 billion over that period.
Back in 2020, the prevalent theory among those who claimed we shouldn't worry about debt was that interest rates were remarkably low and would stay low forever. As if. These guys have since learned what many of us have known for years: that interest rates can and will go up when the situation gets bad enough. So, what happens if rates continue to rise above and beyond those CBO used in its projections? Even a minuscule 0.1-point rise above the baseline would produce an additional $324 billion on the deficit over the 2025-2034 period.
The same is true with inflation, which, as every shopper can see, has yet to be defeated. If inflation, as I fear, doesn't go away as fast as predicted by CBO—largely because debt accumulation is continuing unabated—it will slow growth, increase interest rates, and massively expand the deficit. To be precise, an increase in overall prices of just 0.1 points over the CBO baseline would result in higher interest rates and a deficit of $263 billion more than projected.
Now, imagine all these variations from the current projections happening simultaneously. It's a real possibility. The deficit hike would be enormous, which could then trigger even more inflation and higher interest rates. The question that remains is: Why aren't politicians on both sides more worried than they seem to be?
What needs to happen before they finally decide to treat our fiscal situation as a real threat? President Joe Biden doesn't want to tackle the debt issue. In fact, he's actively adding to the debt with student loan forgiveness, subsidies to big businesses, and other nonsense. Meanwhile, some Republicans pay lip service to our financial crisis, but few are willing to tackle the real problem of entitlement spending.
The time for political posturing is over. The longer we wait to address these issues, the more severe the consequences will be for future generations. It's time for our leaders to prioritize the nation's long-term economic health over short-term political gains and take bold steps toward fiscal responsibility. Only then can we hope to secure a stable and prosperous future for all Americans.
The Los Angeles Press Club on Thursday announced the finalists for the 66th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards, recognizing the best work in print, online, and broadcast media published in 2023.
Reason, which is headquartered in L.A., is a finalist for 14 awards.
A sincere thanks to the judges who read and watched our submissions, as well as to the Reason readers, subscribers, and supporters, without whom we would not be able to produce impactful journalism.
Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a finalist for best technology reporting across all media platforms—print, radio, podcast, TV, and online—for her November 2023 print piece, "Do Social Media Algorithms Polarize Us? Maybe Not," in which she challenged what has become the traditional wisdom around the root of online toxicity:
For years, politicians have been proposing new regulations based on simple technological "solutions" to issues that stem from much more complex phenomena. But making Meta change its algorithms or shifting what people see in their Twitter feeds can't overcome deeper issues in American politics—including parties animated more by hate and fear of the other side than ideas of their own. This new set of studies should serve as a reminder that expecting tech companies to somehow fix our dysfunctional political culture won't work.
Science Reporter Ronald Bailey is a finalist for best medical/health reporting in print or online for "Take Nutrition Studies With a Grain of Salt," also from the November 2023 issue, where he meticulously dissected why the epidemiology of food and drink is, well, "a mess":
This doesn't mean you can eat an entire pizza, a quart of ice cream, and six beers tonight without some negative health effects. (Sorry.) It means nutritional epidemiology is a very uncertain guide for how to live your life and it certainly isn't fit for setting public policy.
In short, take nutrition research with a grain of salt. And don't worry: Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) says "too much salt can kill you," the Daily Mail noted in 2021 that "it's not as bad for health as you think."
Managing Editor Jason Russell is a finalist in print/online sports commentary for his August/September 2023 cover story, "Get Your Politics Out of My Pickleball," which explored the emerging fault lines as the government gets involved in America's weirdest, fastest-growing sport:
Pickleball will always have haters—and if its growth continues, local governments will still face public pressure to build more courts. Some critics think the sport is a fad, but strong growth continues for the time being, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ends and other activities compete for time and attention. There's no need to force nonplayers to support it with their tax dollars, especially when entrepreneurs seem eager to provide courts. If pickleball does end up as an odd footnote in sporting history, ideally it won't be taxpayers who are on the hook for converting courts to new uses.
Reporter C.J. Ciaramella is a finalist in magazine investigative reporting for his October 2023 cover story, "'I Knew They Were Scumbags,'" a nauseating piece on federal prison guards who confessed to rape—and got away with it:
Berman's daughter, Carleane, was one of at least a dozen women who were abused by corrupt correctional officers at FCC Coleman, a federal prison complex in Florida. In December, a Senate investigation revealed that those correctional officers had admitted in sworn interviews with internal affairs investigators that they had repeatedly raped women under their control.
Yet thanks to a little known Supreme Court precedent and a culture of corrupt self-protection inside the prison system, none of those guards were ever prosecuted—precisely because of the manner in which they confessed.
Senior Editor Jacob Sullum is a finalist in magazine commentary for "Biden's 'Marijuana Reform' Leaves Prohibition Untouched," from the January 2023 issue, in which he disputed the notion that President Joe Biden has fundamentally changed America's response to cannabis:
By himself, Biden does not have the authority to resolve the untenable conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. But despite his avowed transformation from an anti-drug zealot into a criminal justice reformer, he has stubbornly opposed efforts to repeal federal pot prohibition.
That position is contrary to the preferences expressed by more than two-thirds of Americans, including four-fifths of Democrats and half of Republicans. The most Biden is willing to offer them is his rhetorical support for decriminalizing cannabis consumption—a policy that was on the cutting edge of marijuana reform in the 1970s.
Governments do unconscionable things every day; it is in their nature. But not all transgressions are equal. In the wake of the Iran team's silent anthem protest, an Iranian journalist asked U.S. men's soccer captain Tyler Adams how he could play for a country that discriminates against black people like him. What makes the U.S. different, he replied, is that "we're continuing to make progress every day."
The most perfect and enduring image of a person weaponizing his body against the state was taken after the brutal suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The unknown Chinese man standing in front of a tank didn't have to hold a sign for the entire world to know exactly what the problem was.
Reporter Christian Britschgi is a finalist for best long-form magazine feature on business/government for "The Town Without Zoning," from the August/September 2023 issue, in which he reported on the fight over whether Caroline, New York, should impose its first-ever zoning code:
Whatever the outcome, the zoning debate raging in Caroline is revealing. It shows how even in a small community without major enterprises or serious growth pressures, planners can't adequately capture and account for everything people might want to do with their land.
There's a gap between what zoners can do and what they imagine they can design. That knowledge problem hasn't stopped cities far larger and more complex than Caroline from trying to scientifically sort themselves with zoning. They've developed quite large and complex problems as a result.
Associate Editor Billy Binion (hi, it's me) is a finalist for best activism journalism online for the web feature "They Fell Behind on Their Property Taxes. So the Government Sold Their Homes—and Kept the Profits," which explored an underreported form of legalized larceny: governments across the U.S. seizing people's homes over modest tax debts, selling the properties, and keeping the surplus equity.
Geraldine Tyler is a 94-year-old woman spending the twilight of her life in retirement, as 94-year-olds typically do. But there isn't much that's typical about it.
Tyler has spent the last several years fighting the government from an assisted living facility after falling $2,300 behind on her property taxes. No one disputes that she owed a debt. What is in dispute is if the government acted constitutionally when, to collect that debt, it seized her home, sold it, and kept the profit.
If that sounds like robbery, it's because, in some sense, it is. But it's currently legal in at least 12 states across the country, so long as the government is doing the robbing.
Senior Producer Austin Bragg, Director of Special Projects Meredith Bragg, Producer John Carter, and freelancer extraordinaire Andrew Heaton are finalists for best humor/satire writing across all broadcast mediums—TV, film, radio, or podcast—for the hilarious "Everything is political: board games," which "exposes" how Republicans and Democrats interpret everyone's favorite games from their partisan perspectives. (Spoiler: Everyone's going to lose.)
The Bragg brothers are nominated again in that same category—best humor/satire writing—along with Remy for "Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor Swift Parody)," in which lawmakers find culprits for the recent uptick in thefts—the victims.
Deputy Managing Editor of Video and Podcasts Natalie Dowzicky and Video Editor Regan Taylor are finalists in best commentary/analysis of TV across all media platforms for "What really happened at Waco," which explored a Netflix documentary on how the seeds of political polarization that roil our culture today were planted at Waco.
Editor at Large Matt Welch, Producer Justin Zuckerman, Motion Graphic Designer Adani Samat, and freelancer Paul Detrick are finalists in best activism journalism across any broadcast media for "The monumental free speech case the media ignored," which made the case that the legal odyssey and criminal prosecutions associated with Backpage were a direct assault on the First Amendment—despite receiving scant national attention from journalists and free speech advocates.
Associate Editor Liz Wolfe, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Producer Justin Zuckerman are finalists in best solutions journalism in any broadcast media for "Why homelessness is worse in California than Texas," which investigated why homelessness is almost five times as bad in the Golden State—and what can be done about it.
Finally, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Audio Engineer Ian Keyser are finalists in best documentary short for "The Supreme Court case that could upend the Clean Water Act," which did a deep dive into a Supreme Court case concerning a small-town Idaho couple that challenged how the Environmental Protection Agency defines a "wetland"—and what that means for property rights.
Winners will be announced on Sunday, June 23 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Subscribe to Reasonhere, watch our video journalism here, and find our podcasts here.
A new candidate is making waves in the Democratic primaries: nobody. Organizers had urged Democrats to vote "uncommitted" in the Michigan primary on Tuesday, a way to show President Joe Biden that his foreign policy risked losing a crucial swing state. Around 13 percent of Democratic primary voters did, exceeding organizers' expectations.
The campaign was led by Arab Americans angry with U.S. military involvement in Gaza and Yemen. Other voters were motivated by a lesser-known side of Biden's foreign policy: The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) also campaigned for uncommitted votes in order to protest Biden's support for Armenia's enemy Azerbaijan.
"We didn't deliver the bulk of those votes, clearly, but we were part of it, and we were happy to be a part of it," says Aram Hamparian, executive director of ANCA. Armenians are looking to organize similar campaigns in Nevada and Pennsylvania, two other swing states with robust diaspora communities, according to Hamparian.
The U.S. Census counts 17,000 Armenian Americans in Michigan, although it may be an undercount, as the Armenian Community Center in Dearborn says that there are 50,000 Armenian Americans in the state. Both the Armenian and Arab communities in the state date back more than a century.
The Armenian uncommitted campaign went public on February 20, when ANCA board member Dzovinar Hatsakordzian published an op-ed in The Armenian Weekly announcing that she would vote "uncommitted" in the Michigan primary.
"I was surprised with the reaction of the community," Hatsakordzian tells Reason. "When we started, we didn't think that they would be open to the idea, but [the support] was overwhelming."
Armenian Americans "tend to align along with the area they live in" in terms of party politics, but "they'll cross a party line if they feel like there's a very stark issue before them," Hamparian says. "The military aid to Azerbaijan is our chief complaint about Biden."
In September 2023, the Azerbaijani military stormed the Armenian-majority territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, driving out almost the entire population, an act that many outside observers have called ethnic cleansing or even genocide. It was the ugly coda to a long, brutal conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh had attempted to declare their independence from Azerbaijan, leading to a war that involved atrocities and mass displacement on both sides. (The territory is also called Artsakh in Armenian.) The conflict froze in the mid-1990s and restarted with an Azerbaijani offensive in September 2020.
"If they do not leave our lands of their own free will, we will chase them away like dogs and we are doing that," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an October 2020 speech. Aliyev also stated that he would welcome Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenians as fellow citizens, a claim that Armenians were inclined to disbelieve after Azerbaijani troops beheaded two elderly Armenian men on camera.
Azerbaijan's wars have been funded, in part, by the American taxpayer. Congress initially tried to stay out of the conflict, banning military aid to Azerbaijan in 1992. A decade later, the U.S. government reversed course, hoping to gain a new strategic ally, because Azerbaijan is located between Iran and Russia and along key air routes to Afghanistan.
Every president since George W. Bush has waived the congressional aid restrictions, and Washington provided $164 million in "security assistance" to the Azerbaijani military between 2002 and 2020. Most of that aid, over $100 million, came during Donald Trump's presidency.
After the 2020 offensive, then-candidate Biden demanded an end to the aid. But after he took office, Biden continued to sign off on the security assistance programs.
"The bulk of military aid to Azerbaijan went under Trump, and the [2020 offensive] took place in the last months of Trump's presidency, so he bears heavy responsibility for that," Hamparian says, but "having witnessed the war, [Biden] continued the military aid."
There was a particularly strong sense of whiplash within the Armenian-American community in April 2021. That month, Biden recognized the World War I–era mass murder of Armenians in Turkey as a genocide, a move that Armenian Americans have long called for. A few days later, Biden went back on his campaign promise and approved additional aid to Azerbaijan.
The Biden administration announced its genocide recognition with massive media fanfare, while it quietly notified Congress about the military aid. Biden was behaving "as if somehow Armenians will not notice that he's arming a genocidal state in the same week that he's recognizing a genocidal crime," Hamparian says.
U.S. military aid, which mostly focuses on border security, is not a make-or-break issue for the Azerbaijani army. Between 2010 and 2020, the majority of Azerbaijan's weapons came from Russia, with smaller contributions from Israel, Belarus, and Turkey. Russia also supplied nearly all of Armenia's weapons in the same period.
In addition to selling weapons to both sides, Russia has had peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh since November 2020. Those troops have largely not acted to protect the local population.
However small U.S. aid was in the grand scheme of things, Hamparian believes that the very existence of that aid was "morally emboldening" to Azerbaijani leaders, who thought they had an American green light.
Then came the starvation siege. In late 2022 and early 2023, the Azerbaijani army gradually cut off Nagorno-Karabakh's access to the outside world. Severe shortages set in. Azerbaijan was even rumored to be building a concentration camp for Armenian men, a rumor that New Lines journalists were able to corroborate using satellite imagery.
Her voice filled with emotion, Hatsakordzian describes the Armenian-American message to the Biden administration at the time: "We went to them, and we said we know this is going to end with ethnic cleansing…Why is my taxpayer money going to fund a genocidal country such as Azerbaijan?"
Those fears came true in September 2023, when the Azerbaijani army overran the territory, leading to a mass Armenian exodus. The Biden administration then paused military aid to Azerbaijan, and the Senate moved to make it a two-year suspension. At the time, Hamparian called Washington's actions "a day late and a dollar short."
Hatsakordzian says that she does not currently plan to vote for Biden, and that in order to win back her vote, "he can sanction Azerbaijan, he can stop sending weapons to Azerbaijan, and take concrete actions to stop the genocide that is going on."
Some Armenian Americans also sympathize with Arab Americans' campaign against the Biden administration.
The two campaigns "share the exact same frustrations" with U.S. foreign policy, says Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy in the Arab World Now, a Washington-based nonprofit. She is an Armenian American whose own family escaped to Jerusalem in the wake of the Armenian genocide, before fleeing again due to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Whitson compares Armenian-American grievances with U.S. support for Azerbaijan to Palestinian-American grievances with U.S. support for Israel: "You have a strong diaspora community that's deeply opposed to an abusive regime, and they find their own government supporting it."
ANCA has been more circumspect about its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hatsakordzian and Hamparian emphasize that Armenians have good relations with their Arab and Jewish neighbors alike. Yet Hamparian supports, on principle, the other efforts to pressure the Biden administration in the primaries.
"Everyone who voted 'uncommitted' went to the polls trying to bring accountability to our foreign policy system, and that's a good thing," Hamparian says. "Exercises like this remind [politicians] that foreign policy doesn't start and end at the State Department. It's the property of the American people."
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