The Blog on the Left

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you cross-bred a pocket Constitution, a time machine stuck on the year 1789, and a Facebook uncle who thinks the IRS is a front for lizard people, you don’t need to wonder anymore. The Constitution Party already exists. And boy, do they have thoughts —mostly about how the United States should return to an era before indoor plumbing, universal suffrage, and the concept of weekends. Let’s begin with their core belief: “strict constitutional originalism.” Sounds tidy, right? Except the Constitution Party’s version of originalism isn’t about what the Constitution actually says. No, that would be far too straightforward. Their version is more like the Constitution as remembered by someone who skimmed a YouTube summary of the Federalist Papers while half-asleep. Take the 14th Amendment . You know—the one that explains how citizenship works. The Constitution Party has decided that the text doesn’t say what it clearly says. According to them, i...

  Two or three days after what everyone is already calling The Showdown , the dust has settled enough to say the quiet part out loud: the political right did not merely win. The left surrendered. This was not an overwhelming defeat delivered by superior strategy or irresistible popular will. It was a collapse from within. A folding of principles. A series of calculated retreats sold to the public as “pragmatism,” “unity,” and “moving forward.” The right pushed. The left stepped back. Again. And again. And finally, off the field. For years, the warning signs were impossible to miss. Every red line was provisional. Every demand for justice was paired with an apology for making it. Every moment that required confrontation was reframed as a need for civility. The right learned what the left refused to accept: power yields nothing to moral lectures alone. When the showdown came, the left still believed it could negotiate with bad faith. It believed norms would restrain those who had ...

The government shutdown we’re living through right now is not some complicated fiscal puzzle. It’s not about balancing a checkbook. It’s not about “responsibility.” It’s about power — specifically, who the government serves. On one side, we have lawmakers trying to protect and expand healthcare access, food assistance, education funding, environmental protections, and the basic social supports that allow ordinary people to live with dignity. On the other side, we have the same old coalition of corporate-backed Republicans and MAGA hardliners who insist that the government is “too big” — unless we’re talking about the police , the border enforcement machine , or the military-industrial complex . Those budgets never get cut. Those budgets always grow. There is always money for new weapons, drones, surveillance tools, and prisons. Just not for medication, childcare, clean water, or housing. Funny how that works. They Didn’t Shut Down the Government to Save Money If Republicans were ...