The Morning Cup: Progressives Are Winning. Now Comes the Hard Part.

Good morning, and make sure you have coffee on hand, this your Morning Cup.

Today is Saturday, August 8.

The bad new right off the bat,

-Todd Blanche is officially the attorney general of the United States.

-New polling is challenging one of the Democratic establishment’s favorite arguments against progressive politics.

-Washington Democrats suddenly have Republican seats within reach.

- And another ICE detention center is facing a civil-rights investigation.

But there’s a bigger story connecting a lot of what happened this week.

Progressives are winning.

Not everywhere. Not automatically. And certainly not permanently.

But enough that pretending this movement doesn’t exist is becoming impossible.

Grab your coffee. Let’s get into it.

Trump’s Personal Lawyer Is Now the Attorney General

We need to start with what happened overnight.

The Senate voted 50-49 to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general of the United States.

Blanche isn’t simply someone who previously worked somewhere in Trump’s orbit.

He was Donald Trump’s personal criminal-defense lawyer.

Yeah...

Now he runs the Justice Department.

Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined Democrats in voting against him, but it wasn’t enough.

And Blanche’s path to confirmation was messy.

His nomination became tangled in controversy over the administration’s proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” compensation fund and protections involving Trump’s taxes. Republican senators threatened to withhold their votes, and Blanche eventually backed away from major pieces of those proposals.

There’s actually an important lesson buried inside that fight.

Congressional oversight works when members of Congress are willing to use it.

But the larger concern remains.

The Justice Department is supposed to enforce federal law independently. It may someday be responsible for investigating Trump, members of his administration or people close to him.

And the person now leading that department previously represented Trump personally.

Every politically sensitive decision coming out of DOJ deserves scrutiny from this point forward.

Turns Out Progressive Policies Are Pretty Popular

Now let’s talk about some numbers.

Because I keep hearing the same argument.

Progressives can’t win independents.

Progressives are too far left.

Progressive policies are electoral poison.

Except new Reuters/Ipsos polling paints a much more complicated picture.

Among independent voters, 64% support raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations.

Sixty percent support government-provided healthcare.

Those aren’t tiny numbers.

Those are majorities.

There is an important caveat here.

The label “democratic socialist” itself remains unpopular with many independent voters.

And that tells us something incredibly important about political messaging.

The policies are often more popular than the labels.

Republicans understand this, which is exactly why they spend so much time trying to make elections about words like “socialist,” “communist” and “radical” instead of asking voters whether wealthy corporations should pay more in taxes or whether people should be guaranteed healthcare.

And here’s another number worth remembering.

The same polling found 59% of independents are less likely to support a candidate associated with MAGA.

So maybe the story isn’t that progressive ideas are inherently unelectable.

Maybe Democrats need to get better at explaining what those ideas actually do for people.

Lead with healthcare.

Lead with wages.

Lead with housing.

Lead with affordability.

Lead with what changes in someone’s life if you win.

Let Republicans argue about labels.

Washington Democrats Suddenly Have Republican Seats Within Reach

Here in Washington, Tuesday’s primary is starting to tell us something important about November.

Democrats believe four Republican-held legislative seats are legitimately competitive, particularly in southwest Washington.

That matters.

A lot of progressive political energy gets consumed by fights inside deep-blue districts. Those fights can absolutely matter, and primaries are a legitimate way to challenge incumbents.

But there is another way to build progressive power.

Take seats from Republicans.

If Democrats can flip Republican-held legislative districts this November, they aren’t simply rearranging who sits inside the Democratic caucus.

They’re expanding governing power.

That means more votes for labor protections, housing policy, reproductive rights, climate legislation and public investment.

There is also an interesting fight developing in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District.

Progressive candidate Brent Hennrich has said he will not endorse Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez after losing the primary.

Perez now heads toward another general-election battle against Republican John Braun.

That raises a question Democrats across the country are going to confront repeatedly this year:

What happens after a brutal primary?

If we’re serious about stopping Republicans from controlling Congress, rebuilding coalitions after primaries isn’t optional.

You don’t have to suddenly agree with every Democrat.

You don’t have to pretend ideological disagreements disappeared.

But elections have consequences.

And November is coming.

Another ICE Detention Center Is Under Investigation

New Jersey officials have opened a civil-rights investigation into Delaney Hall, a privately operated ICE detention center in Newark.

The investigation follows the death of Salvadoran detainee Edwin Lopez-Cornejo.

His family says he did not receive adequate medical treatment for serious health problems.

ICE says he received appropriate care.

That disagreement is exactly why independent investigations matter.

Because this isn’t happening in isolation.

More than 50 people have reportedly died in ICE detention since Trump returned to office in 2025.

At the same time, the detention system is expanding.

And ICE’s new nationwide body-camera policy still gives the agency enormous discretion over whether footage gets released publicly.

We’re building a larger detention apparatus while transparency struggles to keep pace.

That should concern everyone.

If the federal government is going to deprive someone of their freedom, the government assumes responsibility for that person’s safety.

Immigration status does not erase basic human rights.

And government agencies should never be allowed to investigate themselves and simply tell the public everything was fine.

Independent oversight matters.

The Progressive Wave Is Getting Harder to Ignore

And finally, let’s talk about what happened this week.

Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.

Other progressive candidates won important races.

And national reporting is increasingly describing what we’re seeing as a progressive wave inside the Democratic Party.

That’s significant.

Because for years, progressives have been told the same thing:

You can’t win.

Your ideas aren’t popular.

You’re too far left.

Voters won’t support you.

Then progressives started winning.

So the argument changed.

Now it’s:

Sure, you can win a primary. But you can’t win a general election.

Fine.

Let’s test that argument too.

Michigan is going to be one of the biggest tests.

El-Sayed is running in a state Trump has carried. Republicans are already calling him a communist and trying to define him through ideological labels.

That’s predictable.

The response shouldn’t be getting trapped in endless arguments over terminology.

Talk about healthcare.

Talk about wages.

Talk about corporate power.

Talk about why families are working harder and still falling behind.

Make Republicans defend the system people are angry about.

Because the goal isn’t merely to win an argument inside the Democratic Party.

The goal is to govern.

One More Sip

This week was important.

But nobody should confuse momentum with victory.

Winning Democratic primaries is one stage.

November is another.

Then comes governing.

That’s the hard part.

A political movement becomes powerful when it can do all three.

Nominate candidates.

Win elections.

Deliver material improvements in people’s lives.

Progressives are proving they can do the first one.

They’re increasingly proving they can do the second.

The next question is whether this movement can turn those victories into durable political power.

And that is where things get really interesting.

That’s your Morning Cup for Saturday.

Stay informed. Stay engaged. And I’ll see you tomorrow morning.

— Sean Bartley
Cup of Culture