Watching TV in Des Moines Right Now Is a Special Kind of Hell
Screenshots from campaign ads There’s this Tom Steyer ad that’s been annoying the hell out of me ever since I got to Iowa. It starts off simply enough. Steyer is sitting in a dinner, wearing that tie he always wears, and talking about how he’ll take on Trump. “When he calls himself a billionaire businessman…
Warren vs. Sanders: Inside the Progressive Debate Over the Student Debt Crisis
Mother Jones illustration; Getty Last April, the socialist magazine Jacobin had a message for its favorite presidential candidate: “As President, Bernie Sanders Should Cancel All Student Debt.” The secretary of Education, the magazine argued, could wipe out most of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding college loans “with the stroke of a pen.” As his reward,…
Tom Steyer Takes Credit for Impeachment
Tom Steyer in Knoxville, IowaJack Kurtz/ZUMA With less than a week to go before the Iowa caucuses, four Democratic presidential contenders are stuck in the Senate chamber in Washington, DC, for Donald Trump’s trial. But there’s one candidate who’s free to traverse the Hawkeye State and brag about his role in impeachment. “Those eight-and-a-half million people pulled Washington,…
Is Bernie Sanders the Next George McGovern—or the Next Donald Trump?
John Locher/AP BerniePanic has set in. As the Iowa caucuses approach, Democratic establishmentarians and we-gotta-beat Trump pundits have begun to fret about the Sanders surge. They fear the prospect of the Vermont (small-d) democratic socialist triumphing in the Hawkeye State, winning in New Hampshire, and then becoming an unstoppable force in the remaining primaries. Is…
Trump’s Greatest Trick Was Convincing Voters That Women Can’t Win Elections
On November 5, New York Times polling savant Nate Cohn appeared as a guest on The Daily, the paper’s popular podcast, to shed light on the biggest question in the Democratic presidential primary. The episode’s title: “Who’s Actually Electable in 2020?” Cohn took to the microphone to deliver some real talk to millions of listeners:…
Hear the Bern: Why Bernie Sanders Strikes a Chord With Musicians
Evan Vucci/AP Evan Weiss was surprised when he got a text message asking if his band could perform at a rally for Bernie Sanders in Coralville, Iowa, in November. The text came from an old friend of Weiss who works for Sanders’ campaign as an event coordinator and has a hand in booking the music…