Another day, another political advertisement for the Democratic Party published by The New York Times, dressed up as a “Guest Essay.” The latest shill is Ben Rhodes, a widely-disliked 48-year-old man who spent eight years in Barack Obama’s administration, one of the 44th president’s butt boys who snapped to attention when the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner walked into the room. God only knows if he, like so many others, cowered when Michele Obama cast a glowering shadow in the Oval Office or canteen where interns lined up at the “carving station.”
It’s a leap of faith, given the Times’ spotty record of allowing public officials and Democratic “influencers” to employ ghost writers, but since Rhodes was a speechwriter, let’s assume he wrote this September 8th load of drivel, “Voters Have Spoken. Why Aren’t Democrats Listening?” without an AI aid. In another typical Times tic, Rhodes’ bio at the column’s start omits his time with Obama, merely saying he’s the author of All We Say. (Has anyone read that book? Not sure, although bulk buys likely propped it up on the Times’ dubious best-seller charts.) Disingenuous, once again, but probably out of Ben “Let’s Fuck the Jews” Rhodes’ hand.
Rhodes opens and closes with quotes from Franklin D. Roosevelt upon his Democratic nomination for president in 1932—94 years ago!—in an effort, I guess, to warm up the already-converted (at least those who have a passing recognition of FDR) to his full-on endorsement of people like Hasan Piker, Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, Texas’ out-of-his-depth-and-mind James Talarico, Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan and Maine’s Troy Jackson. He says Democratic minority leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries are representative of “sclerotic” Democrats (that’s kind to 75-year-old Schumer, who’s correctly identified as a corrupt hack—maybe worse than Rhodes) and a gratuitous DSA-mandated pile-on of the 56-year-old Jeffries. It’s manipulation, which is commonplace—on both side—in journalism.
He writes: “Roosevelt accepted that first nomination… in a similarly untethered time and made the future feel like something that could be shaped, declaring that he would ‘restore America to its own people.’ Only by making itself a movement to do just that can the Democratic Party convince Americans that the forces shaping their lives are not beyond their control. After all, this is a democracy.”
It is a democracy, contrary to the TDS clique that gets wealthy proclaiming that it isn’t, but unless, for example, Michigan voters slide into the cyanide swamp of El-Sayed and elect the antisemitic candidate as that state’s junior U.S. Senator, I think Rhodes will be disappointed. I hope so, but that’ll just give him more ammunition, and TV invites, to declare from his Washington, D.C. home that the United States of 2026 is reminiscent of 1932. Is the unemployment rate today equal to the 26.3 percent in the third year of The Great Depression? Rhodes is employed, but he’s counseling “progressive” Democrats, presumably some of whom attended the festival-like “No Kings” rallies (all but forgotten now) that Obama’s onetime aide points to as major events. (Open question as to whether Ben and Barack are still buds.)
He continues: “By defining themselves in opposition to Mr. Trump, Democrats have failed to tell a future beyond him. To break this cycle, Democrats must put themselves on the side of Americans who feel as if they don’t have any power—or even agency—over their future.” Pardon the rudeness, but I think Rhodes is addressing the liberal white women who get wet upon hearing the word “agency.” Rhodes, despite this idiotic rhetoric, doesn’t name even one possible Democratic presidential candidate for 2028.
This bit might be AI: “After a decade of Trumpism, our society has gotten meaner, uglier and more obsessed with screens, consumption and conflict. Lying and cruelty have been rewarded. In the process, we’ve lost track of what gives us a sense of meaning and belonging.” Speak for yourself, bub (although the well-heeled Rhodes has been “rewarded”). Has he forgotten that a Democrat occupied the White House (sort of) from 2021-2025?
The photo above is of my father as a 15-year-old high school student in Beverly, Massachusetts. His family was wiped out by the Depression—my grandfather’s modest jewelry shop closed—and when he went to the University of New Hampshire he played saxophone and clarinet at clubs to make ends meet. Nevertheless, when I was a kid, Dad was never bitter, never complained about the circumstances of his young adulthood, and didn’t become a socialist, talk about “agency” or, when he was eligible, ever vote for FDR.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Frankie Frisch won the National League’s MVP; The Negro National League disbands; Max Schmeling is boxing’s Heavyweight Champion; Twenty Grand wins the Belmont Stakes; John le Carre is born and Khalil Gibran dies; Robert Frost wins the Poetry Pulitzer Prize; Dorothy Sayers’ Five Red Herrings, Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key and Emma Goldman’s Living My Life are published; Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” is a big hit; Thomas Edison submits his last patent application; and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights premieres in Los Angeles.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023