DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANTS ALMOST KILLED THE EPSTEIN DISCHARGE PETITION

I just wanted to draw your attention to something Bill Kristol posted today about the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition. Kristol praised the four House Republicans who joined with every Democrat to support the petition, then noted that the bill calling for the release of the Epstein files might never have reached a vote if Democratic consultants had had their way:

The four Republicans who held firm deserve a lot of credit. But they only were able to make a difference because the entire Democratic conference signed the discharge petition. And the entire conference signed up because some—mainly California’s Rep. Ro Khanna—insisted on seizing the issue.

I’m sure that Khanna and others were constantly being told by Democratic “strategists” not to let Epstein “distract” from the focus on “kitchen table” issues. I can’t even count how many meetings and conferences I’ve been at over the past months at which the Epstein issue was either downplayed or ignored, as Democratic consultants went over their polling data on health care. When some of us would politely—or sometimes not so politely!—point out that releasing the Epstein files polled even better than saving Medicaid, we were pretty much ignored. And we were sometimes privately reprimanded for indulging in this distraction.

We were also reminded time and again that Democrats are in the minority, and that it was important to stress to their supporters the limits of what they could do. But it turns out that Democrats are not powerless! They can sometimes make a difference. There are some levers of power—such as discharge petitions!—that are available. One has to pull on all those levers, and one often doesn’t know ahead of time which one might work.

Maybe you don't think it's appropriate for Bill Kristol to be in these meetings at all, but he's on the right side of this issue (and quite a few others -- he was saying "Where does the 'Abolish ICE' movement go to get its apology?" in April), and his years in the GOP taught him the importance of fighting rather than surrendering, a lesson every current and former Republican understands and all Democrats need to learn.

What Kristol says about the Democratic consultants is a reminder that they're not really the Spock-like number crunchers they pretend to be, following the data wherever it leads -- they choose particular narratives, then stress only the numbers that support those narratives.
Kristol concludes:

So: Democrats should ignore much of the advice of the Democratic consultant-pollster-industrial complex. And in general, fighting is superior to finding reasons not to fight. You don’t score any goals if you don’t take any shots, even if they seem at first like long shots.

I agree with the consultants that affordability should be Democrats' main focus, but I don't think it should be their only focus. How many other fights could they be fighting right now if consultants weren't warning them away?

The Bluesky post below will remind you that many people, especially young men, who chose not to vote for Kamala Harris last fall thought she might get us into a futile war. So what's going on with Trump and Venezuela right now? Democrats could be asking that question right now.

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— 川上信 (Shin Kawakami)🇯🇵🇨🇳🇺🇸 (@nkfinity.bsky.social) November 16, 2025 at 9:26 PM

And should Democrats be talking about Trumpian corruption when even this right-wing influencer thinks it's gone way too far?

During recent visit in DC, the talk of everyone was how overt the corruption was. It's at levels you read about in history books. In nearly every department. Lots of, "Do people just think Democrats will never win and they'll all get away with this?"

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) November 14, 2025

Here's what's happened to Donald Trump's net worth this year, according to Forbes:

Trump added $3 billion over the last year, leveraging the presidency for profit. His cryptocurrency ventures, stalled out before the election, exploded after his victory, adding an estimated $2 billion to his fortune in 10 months. Another $500 million came in court, where Trump’s legal team succeeded in eliminating a half-billion judgement against him. His once-dormant licensing business surged by another $400 million, as foreign developers clamored to do business with an American president. With most of Trump’s second term remaining, expect billions more to head his way.

Remember that WelcomePAC report on the Democrats that we were all talking about just before Election Day, the one that said Democrats had too many horrible progressive ideas to win elections? In addition to listing unpopular (and popular) Democratic ideas, that report also listed unpopular (and popular) Republican ideas. Do you know what the net approval rating was for "Launch a national Trump-branded cryptocurrency"? It was minus 43%. And that's just the mere notion of launching a Trump crypto product, never mind making billions as president from sleazy interactions in the world of crypto.

Talking about affordability is good. Talking about Epstein is good. But there are many more ways Democrats could -- and should -- attack Trump.