Matisyahu's Blog

Woke up today with stomach cramps and felt under the weather so I decided to have the day off, resting in bed, drinking plenty of water to keep hydrated. I’ll need to have a good night sleep and see how things work out tomorrow but depending on what happens I’ll make the decision when I get to it. I went for a small walk tonight just for the sake of some fresh air but nothing more than that.

I was watching the following video and there were some interesting points being made particularly regarding the whole shut down situation that occured in the United States:

I disagree with a few points that David Frum raised in the video – the idea of having a single payer healthcare policy isn’t ‘militant left wing’ is merely bringing the United States inline with almost every other country in the OECD. Are there issues that I disagree with regarding what Zohran Mamdani proposed? yes, but the reason why he won was because he dealt with the ‘bread and butter issues’ – didn’t get bogged down in BS culture wars so if there is something that Democrats can learn then it is the need to stay on message and no get distracted with sideshows that the Republicans put up to derail to conversation away the very topics that they’re failing to address.

As for what should have been done – they should have held out and forced the hand of the Republican Party to get rid of the filibuster to then get them to pass the budget with a simple majority. The only reason why the Republican Party don’t want to get rid of the filibuster is because they know their ‘big beautiful bill’ is very unpopular so instead what they need to do is to spread the blame as wide as possible then play the game, when there is the obvious backlash, that the budget was passed with bipartisan support so therefore the Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans for the negative consequences of the bill. To force the Republican Party into that position where they get rid of the filibuster you need shape the narrative in the media and the only way you can do that is for every senator to go out and speak to a unified voice, go onto every media outlet and podcast, carpet bomb the airwaves with your narrative and that includes going into hostile territory such as Fox News.

If you create the narrative, control the narrative and push that narrative then the onus falls back on the Republican Party – make it abundantly clear that the Republican Party have a majority in both chambers so therefore the responsibility of getting it passed falls on their shoulders, that it isn’t the Democratic Party’s responsibility to carry water for the Republican Party. If you truly believe that the policy you’re advancing is good for the country and popular then you would remove the filibuster, pass it with a simple majority, go off to the mid terms boasting about how you kept the government open and got the budget passed then if that is what the US public want then it should translate to a thumping victory and possibly an even larger majority in both chambers.

Getting back to home, it is interesting how the National Party is already getting themselves prepared for election time next year with discussions regarding privatisation being back on the agenda which kind of puts them in a situation that their only coalition partner left being the Act Party. If the only party they can form a coalition with is the Act Party then either one of two things will need to happen – the both of them will need to get enough seats to form a majority or they form a minority government but find that their ability to get anything through is severely crippled by the lack of a majority.

When it comes to New Zealand First, Winston Peter’s whole raison d’être is opposing privatisation and foreign ownership of strategic assets – New Zealand First like Jim Anderton’s New Labour came as a response to the neoliberalism of the 1980s when both Jim and Winston found themselves at odds with the neoliberal orthodoxy sweeping both parties and found that the party they joined no longer represented their philosophical world view. National have boxed themselves into a corner which makes me wonder whether they’re setting themselves up to lose the election because they don’t have the numbers rather than losing the election because the New Zealand public rejected their three years of ‘getting back on track’ only to find that after three years they’re no where near the track.