"High on list of scholars Farrell is channeling: Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, who first wrote about the weakness of existing party organizations back in October 2016, and then turned that paper into their new book, The Hollow Parties. One of the things that is interesting to me is how much this school of thought highlights the potential of the gigantic local capacity-building effort of Obama for America in 2008—which organized more than two million volunteers and empowered them, not just entasked them. The thing is, as I reported back in 2017, and others have documented as well, Obama and his circle didn’t just let that massive muscle wither away—they actively smothered it because it was seen as a threat to party insiders. It’s bitter irony to see people from that crew, like Emanuel and Plouffe, continuing to ride high, while Obama spends most of his time making money on book and Netflix deals and sucking scarce philanthropic dollars into his billion-dollar presidential library (the most expensive in history) instead of funding the party-building he neglected for so long." -- Micah Sifry

The other mistake Obama made was that none of the people who caused the economic collapse in 2008 evere paid the price for what he did. So while he is a very great speaker, he ultimately failed as a President. He could have permanently re-oriented this country, but instead be protected the elites. And now a demented fascist, who did attack the elites (vocally), is going to try and end democracy.

#uspol