My favorite comedian and satirist is Jon Stewart. While I don’t want him to be president because that seems like a curse for whomever takes it on at this point, I think he is one of the most courageous, insightful, thoughtful, and genuinely caring individuals in the media landscape we all have to make our way through in today’s world. He is a truly trusted voice because he is honest with himself and his view.

But sometimes Jon Stewart can be very, very blind.

I will sit here and say, as a humanist (of the more spiritual variety), I would call myself a Jon Stewart-Democrat. Yes, those are real and we exist. I’m an honest progressive who will own to the failures of progressives, but I believe that the American experiment in democracy is based in bringing up all communities and the country so that individuals within those hopefully-thriving communities are able to best explore their dreams, passions, and desires to define themselves through social freedoms and fair economic opportunity that is honestly geared toward an equitable and egalitarian society based on laws, true and restorative justice, and liberty. I think Jon Stewart would read that and not disagree with it fully, though he would probably add a component of competent governments ensuring such a system is able to sustain itself and prosper. There’d probably be a lot of globalism and a ban on Chicago deep-dish pizzas, which I also support because those are a tourist scam.

But I’m still a humanist first, and part of being a humanist is taking a critical view of bullshit, especially the kind that harms other human beings. It also means taking self-responsibility seriously.

And the bullshit was on full display when he recently had Bill O’Reilly and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez on his podcast, the Weekly Show—which, cute. Nothing says “we’re not corporate” like matching, but only so much.

O’Reilly did what he typically does—he smiles wryly, concedes some points to “his friend” Jon about conservative malfeasance, and nobody mentions that this man had to have Fox News pay out $12 million dollars in sexual harassment suits including the involvement of a loofa. Fascists do as fascism does.

Then Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez came on.

Again, I’ll shoot honestly: I supported her at the beginning of her political career. I absolutely believe we need and still need younger representatives in the Congress and Senate to handle modern problems that require modern solutions. For the most part, I think AOC had her heart in the right place for a long time until she had become a political animal in the Washington zoo.

But listening to AOC and Jon Stewart diagnose the reasons why Democrats failed, a prevailing sense of gloom fell upon me.

Oh. No. Oh, no. They don’t know. They don’t get it. Worse, Jon Stewart, sincerely one of my creative inspirations and a voice I look to, doesn’t get it.

You can’t have a reckoning without thunder and bloodshed (figuratively, though sometimes the literal works as well.)

At one point in their conversation AOC brought up the notion that Democrats have to ask themselves some uncomfortable questions.

To put it bluntly, I don’t believe AOC and the Democrats have the ability to ask serious questions anymore, let alone truly uncomfortable ones. Or do serious things for the betterment of the country.

Or be a party until they get their act together. Which seems less and less likely.

Democrats have shown themselves to be a corporatist party that is more concerned about the vibes they give off rather than if actual fascism was rising or not, or if there are poor in the streets. They are the party that fundraises off social concerns and economic injustice, but doesn’t really work to solve them unless it falls under the clearly-corrupted argument of incrementalism, which conservative-led accelerationism has shot dead in the streets.

Sorry, congresswoman, but you don’t get points on the backend because you suddenly remember how terrible US domestic policy has been for literally twenty-four years because Old Joe isn’t in office anymore, and that’s not even counting the damage done by the devil named Ronald Reagan—which Democrats in the 1980s had a part in setting up and establishing as well by becoming de-regulation friendly so they, too, could make that sweet, sweet money.

So I will ask some uncomfortable questions. I’ve voted for the Democratic party all of my life save the time I made the mistake of voting for Pat McCrory for North Carolina governor, so I have every right to ask my leaders questions they don’t want to ask themselves. But I also realize that people now look at their leaders as they look at themselves, so spillover will happen if I like it or not.

And once again, I honestly never expect any answers because I’ve lost hope for the Democratic Party providing any serious answers.

But without further ado,

1. “We need an actual platform” – AOC on The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

What’s honestly stopping you?

(This first question is rhetorical. Don’t worry, we’ll address why.)

2. In 1992 Bill and Hillary Clinton and the Southern Democrats took over the party and turned its platform to turn government into a corporate-friendly staging ground started by Reagan that helped usher in the very oligarchs former President Biden cavalierly warned us about on his way out. (He also doesn’t get points for that.)

Is the Democratic Party willing to divorce themselves publicly from the pro-corporate, anti-working-class policies Democrats held onto despite those aged policies clearly losing the 2016 and 2024 elections?

3. Speaking of Mr. Clinton, there is a picture of him receiving a shoulder massage from a victim of sex trafficking and pedophilia perpetrated by Jeffery Epstein, with whom Mr. Clinton was recorded to be in his company on multiple occasions while crimes were occurring, as were other high-level Democratic donors who frequented such events. Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs and Harvey Weinstein were frequent contributors to Democratic campaigns, and despite multiple instances of being a party plagued with outright sex pests, factions of Democratic party officials have been willing to take part in rebuilding the careers of abusive men like Anthony Weiner, Andrew Cuomo, and others.

When will the Democratic Party own up to its massive moral and ethical hypocrisies about protecting women and children and purge itself of members that are clearly implicated in crimes against women and children, especially if they are constantly appearing in rumor mills for their immoral and scandalous behavior?

4. This angers me so much I can’t boil down to a single question, so we’ll ask several in the same vein:

What is the Democratic Party’s actual environmental and ecological policy to counter the already-recurring effects of climate change that have devastated communities and economies across the country that will go beyond corporate green-washing via the Green New Deal? What is your actual plan to make sure we have clean and plentiful water that is freely available and plastics-free? What is your plan to make sure our infrastructure is updated so its ecological impact is minimally invasive to our local and national ecologies, but also allow for the networks needed for the strategic defense of the country and the growth of commerce? What is your actual plan to remake America so we become stewards of the earth, since we only have one earth to live on, instead of its oppressor-species?

5. China is an actual problem not only for America, but has transformed into an idea that is the antithesis of our higher ideals. The guy who beat you was right to highlight the threat they pose to free and democratic values, even though his diagnosis is wrong, as are his solutions. But the threat and challenges the Chinese Communist Party pose are still real.

What is your actual solution to the problems China poses to the rest of the world via their aggressive posture towards our democratic allies in Taiwan and our south and southeast Asian and Pacific partners in the region?

6. It is easy for liberal Democrats and their voters to point at leftists in reaction to the recent declaration by the Trump administration to have America “take over the Gaza Strip”, but how is that any worse than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris silently standing next to the same genocide and smiling in front of the cameras during their stay in office while trying to win a non-existent Cheney vote? You know, the warmongers who wrecked the country for two whole decades. You don’t get to point to leftists and say “look what you allowed in the door” when liberal Democrats already damned themselves standing up and standing by an obvious and globally-recognized genocide attempted by the Netanyahu government. Democrats looked away from dead kids, dead moms, burning hospitals, concentration camps and prisons full of abused and violated Palestinians (including more kids!), and a hyper-conservative obstructionist/genocidal maniac in Bibi Netanyahu who continuously got in the way of Biden in trying to establish a ceasefire.

Do you honestly think you look better spurning those who warned you against standing beside the slaying of innocent people? Who are you to think you have the right to speak with any moral or ethical authority? Who are you to actually expect us, your supposed-constituencies, to adhere to your worldviews that excuses the wholesale murder of an entire group of people paid for with our tax dollars?

(It sounds like you’re just mad you got caught in your Brown shirts when your foes were putting on their Black shirts—but let’s not pretend you were foes on everything.)

7. The United States military is engaged in multiple military actions across a diversity of global theaters, conducting wartime actions despite no official declarations of war, however it is clear we are in warming conflicts with Russia and China over the position of NATO and Putin’s aims restore Russian sovereignty to areas he erroneously believe are his and Xi Jinping’s desire to annex Taiwan and dominate the eastern and southeastern shorelines of Asia.

If we cannot be a country that does not use war to maintain its sovereignty and economic power while also ensuring global peace, then will the Democratic Party at least be open and honest about it? Can you at least attempt to articulate reasonable, rational response to the public about the need for constant military interventions that risk American lives and do not improve American’s prosperity or liberty at home? Can you attempt actual honesty?

I’ll stop here because by now any reader should understand my view on the problems plaguing the Democratic Party. It’s not about its leaders or who is in charge—there is a sickness in its soul. I could ask forty more questions because my disgust is profound over their participation in dark money and open insider trading ala Nancy Pelosi to enrich themselves at the expense of their own voters. I need no questions for that since it is so damnably true. Hell, I could ask that instead of worrying about the coffers of your donors in the health insurance and hospital industries, how are you going to change society so we don’t create more desperate options like Luigi Mangione?

In case you are wondering where I stand, that young man is a hero, which is not a word most in the modern world understand. We give it out too easily. Someone decided to start slaying the dragons and that is always mean, bloody, and gray work. If only we had more brave souls bound to greater convictions to save humanity from the villains of our times—especially executives who wanted to use faulty and slanted artificial intelligence tools to deny sick human beings the care needed to live, survive, and sometimes just endure. There are boardrooms across America filled with the masters of war, disease, famine, and death.

And for the sake of saints like him, I must ask those reading this:

Where is the party to save those brave souls from having to take the battlefields of the world in the first place against these honest-to-goodness-they’re-hurting-people devils of our time?

Where is the party dedicated to actually healing our sick and housing our poor?

Where is a party of universal decency?

Because I want to vote for a vision of decency, and justice, and the actual opportunity for my kids to end up in a better world than what I’ve seen grow up around me. I don’t want a left-bent world that only focuses on a cultish-need for totalitarian fairness that isn’t fair at all, nor will I ever throw myself in with the faux-Christian Nazi death-cult on the right side of the aisle. I want to vote for a representative democracy where every soul of this nation has their voices measured and actually know that those voices matter. Every single one, from the prisoner to the pensioner to the property baron (though I have dire and deadly concerns about this person too with their usual intents.) I want that to finally happen instead of being a dying, decaying promise for later on made by white slaveowners that were also in the wrong in profound ways.

America must defeat both its crumbling Cathedral and the darkness of these wannabe gods and kings set to destroy it. The battle is not Left versus Right, or Liberal versus Conservative, or any of those binaries people like to comfort themselves with. It’s about right and wrong and the deciding where things fall in those gray areas in between what’s clear and what isn’t. It always has been.

I don’t have to ask “where are the good people?” Because I see you. I see you in the streets, in the hospitals, in the schools, and in the offices of places fighting it out because you believe in America, liberty, and an experiment that allows the maximum opportunity to allow human beings to flourish.

But I see also that kid, dejected and alone, in his prison cell because he watched too many around him suffering. He is literally sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sam Bankman-Fried and Diddy, who are actual criminals who used the system to harm people.

I see the cell my kids might be walking into.

Where are the fighters to knock down the walls of this burning palace that imprisons all of us?

The story of one person doing it alone is a fantasy.

We need fighters and saints, not a party that stands by while human beings suffer. And Democrats have been slowly standing further and further away from their fellow human beings for decades.

We need fighters and saints.

God bless you, Luigi Mangione. You’re one of them.

And Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez? You can be too–but you have to make some hard decisions for yourself and your party. Let’s see if you and the rest can actually rise to the occasion.