Barney Frank - Entering Hospice

[taiwan_girl]

Former Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal icon who was a key architect of the landmark Wall Street regulations Democrats enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, has entered hospice care at his home in Maine. And as one of his last acts, he is preparing to release a book repudiating his party’s left flank.

A champion of liberal causes during his 32 years representing Massachusetts in the House, Frank says progressive Democrats have “embraced an agenda that goes beyond what’s politically acceptable.”

“Until we separate ourselves from that agenda, we don’t win,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

and

Known for his acerbic wit and sometimes combative style, Frank chaired the House Financial Services Committee through the heart of the 2008 financial crisis, from 2007 to 2011. His name is synonymous with Democrats’ last signature achievement in the financial policy space — a sweeping 2010 rewrite of Wall Street oversight known as the Dodd-Frank Act that put new scrutiny on U.S. banks.

and

His latest book is set to be released later this year (“I face a literal deadline, so I don’t know how we’ll adjust to that,” he said of the timing). He’s hoping “to use my reputation and my record of being on the left to give courage to many of my colleagues who I know agree with me but are inhibited from saying so.”

“For a lot of my colleagues, the argument has been, ‘well, we don’t support defund the police or open borders, and we don’t say we do,’” Frank said. “But my point is, no, it’s not enough … to be silent. We have to explicitly repudiate it.”

He says he’s “not arguing that anybody should stop his or her advocacy.”
“But it’s one thing to advocate something knowing that you’re going beyond the current viewpoints, and another to make it a litmus test,” he said.

In the progressive-moderate clash roiling his new home state, Frank supports Gov. Janet Mills for Senate over Graham Platner.

“I worry a little bit about the tendency on the Democratic side to fall for the flavor of the month,” he said, though he credited Platner for focusing his attacks on incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins, not Mills. “There is this flirtation or this attraction of people who are new and who are very good at articulating a response to the anger, but without talking about what you do about it.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/28/barney-frank-hospice-democrats-00897112?utm_content=politico/magazine/Politics&utm_source=flipboard

[jon-nyc]

Interesting.

[Horace]

Seems the left will never live down defund the police or trans stuff or other woke nonsense. Turns out that socially enforced absurdities that everybody knows are absurd but are intimidated into not saying it, comes back to bite you in the privacy of the voting booth.

[Horace]

BLM alone left a huge crater in the political prospects of Democrats. And it goes without saying that it did nothing at all to benefit black people.

[Mik]

They will live it down...hopefully...by a return to something resembling sanity.

But extremism isn't limited to the left. I'm probably voting Democrat in all local, county and possibly state elections this year and right wing extremism is why.

[Mik]

Things can and do change. To wit:

[taiwan_girl]

@Horace said:

BLM alone left a huge crater in the political prospects of Democrats. And it goes without saying that it did nothing at all to benefit black people.

Yup. There is always some "crisis" of the day, and depending on which side thinks they can benefit, there will be a bunch of meaningless talk and speeches.

Then, after X period of time, we look at what they said and laugh, but the damage has already bene done.

[Horace]

@Mik said:

They will live it down...hopefully...by a return to something resembling sanity.

But extremism isn't limited to the left. I'm probably voting Democrat in all local, county and possibly state elections this year and right wing extremism is why.

What sort of right wing extremism are you seeing locally?

[Mik]

Corruption with developers in the area, declaring small towns abortion sanctuary areas, trying to drag national politics into local issues, people who have been in office much too long.