F**king Mondays: Wet Towel Democrats, Sydney Sweeney's Genes, and Agreeing with Peter Thiel??
Why do Democrats always do this?
Welcome to the latest edition of the F**king Monday column! In the roundup today:
Democrats fold like a wet towel
Whether you love him or loathe him, it is impossible to deny that Donald Trump has extreme conviction. He does not care what the pollsters and strategists tell him. He does not care what the public thinks of him. He says what he wants, when he wants — and to hell with the consequences.
This is, I believe, one the main reasons he’s won two elections. The era of career politicians regurgitating saccharine messages crafted by strategist is over, and a new one has emerged where authenticity rules. Trump is limitlessly greedy, shameless, and one of the greatest liars in human history. But he is authentic, and commands enormous loyalty because of it.
Democratic pollsters and strategists know this. After the shellacking they took in 2024, they’ve urged party leaders to show conviction and authenticity. But because Democrats are, well, Democrats, that conviction lasted all of 40 days.
Democrats had two jobs after Congress failed to approve appropriations or a continuing resolution to keep federal agencies funded back in October:
To ensure the Affordable Care Act tax credits were extended for 22 million people
Show they had some backbone by standing up to Donald Trump.
For 40 days they held the line. Finally the Democrats got it! If Trump wanted to throw millions of people off their health insurance, then he was going to own it! During the shutdown Democrats even won a slew of elections across the country proving their mojo was back. The polls showed the public blamed Republicans for the shutdown while Trump’s numbers were, as Nate Silver put it “in free fall”.
And then….the Democrats folded.
On Sunday, eight moderate Democrats — no doubt at the behest of Chuck Schumer — broke ranks to back a GOP deal to end the 40-day government shutdown. What did they get in return for their complicity? The promise of a vote on the tax credits sometime in December. Or in other words, nothing:
So what exactly was the point in putting the country through this misery for almost six weeks if they were always going to cave?
To beat Trump and his fascist enablers in the GOP, Democrats need to show they are willing to fight. When they do, the public rallies behind them. But conviction can’t be faked — you either have it or you don’t. And if Democrats don’t, new leaders are needed.
How not to interview Sydney Sweeney
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably seen the viral video of Sydney Sweeney’s interview with GQ features director Katherine Stoeffel. The interview focused on American Eagle’s summer 2025 campaign, which used the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” The ad featured Sweeney and prompted left wing identity politics warriors to accuse the company (and Sweeney) of promoting “white supremacy” and “eugenics.” Yes, seriously.
Apparently Stoeffel didn’t get the memo that Americans across the racial, gender and sexual orientation divide are sick to death of this nonsense. The era of forcing celebrities to apologize for perceived infractions against the ever shifting moral absolutism of the woke mob is well and truly dead. But not to Stoeffel, who pushed Sweeney to apologize for doing a jeans ad. Here’s is the part that went viral:
The gremlins on the right have gleefully turned Stoeffel’s interview and facial expressions into a meme, making her the viral poster child for liberal elitism.
Not that I agree with that kind of grotesque bullying, but Stoeffel really didn’t help herself. Her demeanor and line of questioning throughout the interview are a case study in how liberals lost the culture war — from the performative concern-trolling to the obliviousness that anyone might not share her far-left sensibilities.
Sweeney, to her credit, didn’t take the bait and politely but firmly ended that part of the conversation. Unfortunately for Stoeffel, the internet is a far less forgiving place and she’s had to lock all of her social media accounts:
The sorry episode also encapsulate the ugly dynamics — and power asymmetry — of our political discourse. For as misguided as Stoeffel’s interview was, it is clear she isn’t a malevolent person. The right’s reaction on the other hand has been ruthlessly cruel and demeaning.
A small plea to liberals, though: if you put a sign on your back that says “kick me,” they will. So don’t.
I agree with Peter Thiel?
Before you all unsubscribe from The Banter because I’ve become a far right polemicist, hear me out.
After Zoran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s mayoral race, an old email from tech billionaire and far-right political activist Peter Thiel went viral online. The email was sent to Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Andreessen five years ago, and in it, Thiel warned that dismissing millennials’ growing sympathy for socialism as “stupid or entitled” was shortsighted. He urged elites to understand why so many young people felt that way:
Last week Thiel, who is a prominent Trump supporter, doubled down on this, telling The Free Press that restrictive zoning laws and housing limits had enriched boomers while shutting millennials out of owning a home. “If you proletarianize the young people, you shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually become communist,” he said.
To me this seems like something of an inflection point. If major figures on the left and right believe capitalism isn’t working, then maybe it’s time to admit that capitalism really isn’t working.
While I don’t think Mamdani’s policies are necessarily the solution, the right’s would be infinitely worse. We’re already seeing a version of this play out under Trump: the merging of state and corporate power into a quasi-fascist, “stakeholder” economy that benefits the connected and punishes everyone else.
If there’s anything positive to take from this it’s that the unmentionable is now mentionable: capitalism is failing and we need new ideas, fast.
Why does everything have to be 100% one or the other. Societies have proven some basics of human life should not be for profit: healthcare, policing, fire departments, military, schools and universities, the postal service, the prison system -- and I'd add to this, Internet and infrastructure. If we paid construction specialists well, without a profit motive -- think about how amazing and on-time our highways, bridges, cell towers, fiber lines, and affordable housing would be. For most everything else, let a well-regulated free market do it's thing.
i spent ten years writing a book on how we would redesign our civic infrastructure for post-capitalism... it was resoundingly ignored. You can find it on Amazon: How Soon Is Now. People always say they want to have this conversation, but generally they do not have the ability to focus on it. I also developed some of my ideas further in today's post, "A Proposal for Zorhan" - it is here: https://substack.com/@danielpinchbeck/p-178492088