The Daily Populous Friday February 6th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by esquire.com and submitted by sabedo

It appears that there is a serious divide developing within the Democratic party at its upper levels. (And, as Toby Ziegler once put it, the oddsmakers take another beating.) At issue, believe it or not, is the ongoing pogrom being carried out by the administration in Minneapolis and elsewhere. The pols closest to the action—chiefs of police, mayors, some governors—seem better able to articulate the popular (and entirely justified) anger at the obvious authoritarianism unleashed on the streets. However, the people with aspirations for the presidency seem to be taking a, well, nuanced view of the whole thing.

For example, over the weekend, Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner read the riot attack at the possibility that ICE will bring Minneapolis to Philadelphia. He was not ... nuanced. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Last week, during a news conference about proposed restrictions on immigration enforcement in Philadelphia, the district attorney said he would “hunt down” and prosecute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who commit crimes in the city. “There will be accountability now. There will be accountability in the future. There will be accountability after [Trump] is out of office,” Krasner said. “If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities.”

This got up the nose of Governor Josh Shapiro, who has aspirations to improve his living arrangements with an eye on a run-down piece of property in Washington. Shapiro and Krasner don’t dance, and Shapiro seems to be exercised further by Krasner’s recent broadsides.

Shapiro, who is Jewish and is a rumored presidential contender, was interviewed a dozen times last week on national media while promoting his new memoir and condemned ICE’s tactics during all of them. During an interview Thursday on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, Shapiro was asked about Krasner’s comparison of ICE agents to Nazis and called the comments “unacceptable. ... It is abhorrent and it is wrong, period, hard stop, end of sentence,” Shapiro said.

Bullshit. Period. Hard stop. End of sentence. Krasner wasn’t calling anyone a Nazi. He was saying that any federal agents who commit street crimes in his jurisdiction can expect to hear footsteps for the rest of their lives. Which I think should be the case of people up and down this administration. I think the overriding mission of a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress should not be vengeance but justice for offenses against the law and the republic.

Which is what made recent remarks from Kentucky governor Andy Beshear so troubling.

Beshear, who intrigues me as a national candidate more than does Shapiro, gave an interview to Jonathan Martin at Politico. A lot of it was standard I’m-running-before-I’m-running talk. But then Martin asked him about repairing the damage done since 2017. Beshear proceeded to dive into a vat of oatmeal.

“Democrats and a lot of Republicans are going to look for someone who can right the ship, hopefully who can heal the country and who can get us past our McCarthyism moment and back to a more stable time,” he said. “See, I think by the time that we reach 2028, the country is going to be tired,” Beshear argued. “And they’re going to be so tired of what Trump has done, the idea of having a Democratic version of Trump is more than that—it’s exhausting.”

Yet hasn’t [Gavin] Newsom taken off with Democrats because he’s punching the bully back and doing so in a way that commands attention? “I think that excites people,” Beshear allowed, noting that he’s standing up to Trump by filing lawsuits against the federal government and that he “talks about them publicly in a Trump plus-30 state.” Contrasting himself with the governor of California, a Democrat plus-a-lot state, Beshear said, “I don’t believe in responding to Trump like Trump. And I was always taught that if one person’s yelling and you start yelling out…” Nobody can hear anything, I interjected. “Exactly,” Beshear said.

Assuming it even happens, the process of recovery is not going to be discreet. It’s not going to be painless or easy. It is going to be loud and necessarily bloody. Arms will need to be twisted. Careers will need to be ended. Indictments ought to fly, thick and fast. The republic is going to need radical surgery because the malignancy is everywhere. That is the reality of the next several elections. Any Democratic politician who is not prepared to be merciless is unworthy of support.

Looking Forward, Not Backward was the original sin of the Obama administration. Because of it, the Republican party found a way to elect a dangerous president whose crimes in office dwarfed those of the previous two dangerous Republicans presidents combined. I sincerely hope that’s not Beshear’s game plan, because I don’t want to think about what unpunished crimes the current criminal Republican president might inspire in the next one.

LabPowerful9983 on February 5th, 2026 at 19:06 UTC »

"They go low, we go cry" is not proving to be an effective political strategy.

Probable_Bison on February 5th, 2026 at 18:42 UTC »

Heck we could use a Democratic Senate leader who is merciless.

Every time Chuck Schumer takes the gloves off it just reveals another pair of gloves underneath.

I sometimes wonder if Mitch McConnell's health is tanking so hard because he's exhausted from also being Chuck Schumer.

shadowdra126 on February 5th, 2026 at 18:37 UTC »

Run in a campaign promise to bring the current admin to justice and you get my vote