D.C. summer 2026

I want to live here again so badly. Then again, I could do without a few of the current residents. Coming from Alabama, it’s a real “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation with regard to right-wing nutjobs. Then again a third time, that’s what the San Franciscans said about me.

Budget-wise, I need to wait. I need to save up. I need my condo to appreciate. Or, at least waiting seems like the wise choice. Rob also wants to save. We’re looking at about three more years in Huntsvegas.

At least I get to visit. Budget-wise, thank Goddess I stay with friends and family. Butt-wise, I’m glad it’s a direct flight.

These liminal spaces between having decided to move and actually moving are nothing new for me by now.

Between Birmingham and my first jaunt to D.C., it was hard.

And D.C. to San Francisco.

And San Francisco to Huntsville.

This time seems easier. So far.

This week I’m back in Mordor for the New Liberalism Action Summit. My progressive friends ask why I bother with the business (as usual) Democrats. The moderate Dems are always clowning on the far-left. I want to know why we’re not working together to defeat the real enemy: People who stand on the left on the escalator.

Over sushi, a friend told me he knows a Log Cabin Republican who will give any pro-Palestinian queer a million dollars. They just have to hold a gay rights rally in Gaza.

In politics, you’re often catapulting between ignorance and cynicism. Ever the overachiever, I’ve chosen both.

Everyone involved has a personality disorder. “In politics, as opposed to reality, everything is zero-sum,” PJ O’Rourke wrote in Peace Kills. Anyone who willingly chooses to play a game where someone must lose when games where everyone can win are available is necessarily deeply disturbed. If Washington, D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people, electoral politics is team sports for people who lack hand-eye coordination.

Listen, lefties. I did attend one North Alabama DSA meeting. They argued for literally 40 minutes about who would train medics for protests. I still give them $5/month.

Two people asked for my take on Platner. I have two thoughts:

1. It’s very… something that one of his early accusers had loudly doubted the Kavanaugh accuser. If I cared, I’d dig into what made Ford’s story unbelievable that didn’t apply to Fifield’s. But I do not.

2. We need to pay electeds more. I’m not saying this because I like them. My knee-jerk feeling toward an elected is “No, thank you.”

It’s pure selfishness.

I’m not saying paying pols more would solve the recruitment problem. But it couldn’t hurt.

Anyone with the talent, sanity, and work ethic to do that job well could easily earn three times more in the private sector. And for far less hassle. FAR less. Have you met the public? Have you talked to a voter? Remember my personality disorder observation?

Listen, candidate. If you can’t earn good money in the private sector, please don’t make decisions on my behalf.

There’s a reason only narcissists, retirees, crooks, and the certifiably insane run for office. There’s a reason the revolving door exists.

Our best bet for a functional politician is someone who’s already made their money elsewhere who runs because they’re extremely irritated by one specific problem. But us Democrats have a large contingent of “activists” who decry those people for the crime of *checks notes* being rich.

Please, someone, explain to me how the path to victory involves only running candidates who are poor, crazy losers?

Oh, God. I just realized why people keep asking me when I’m going to run.

Who is served by forcing people who win elections to choose between staying poor or doing crimes (or non-crimes that are bad for competition and/or democracy)? I don’t get it.

Listen, my babies. I may be crazy. I may be poor. I may be a narcissist. That may not be my only personality disorder. But I’m not so crazy, narcissistic, or committed to being poor (or becoming crooked) that running for office sounds like the path forward for me. Not yet, anyway. But I do want to be in the belly of the beast again. In the meantime, it’s nice to visit. And stay tuned for my dispatch from the actual conference.