Hakeem Jeffries saying, “This is bad y’all” is the same as police showing up to a shooting and playing Candy Crush on their phones. I want Hakeem Jeffries to pledge launching an investigation and using whatever power his party has, even if it ends in the president pardoning the people responsible. Just like I wanted the police to storm into the school and take down the shooter killing children. I want action being done.
I agree that it is good that Jeffries is speaking out in defense of Omar, but I would argue that the only reason he is defending his progressive colleague is because he’s been recieving a bunch of pressure to do so. It is very obvious why the leader of the party is not defending Omar; it’s because of the progressive ideals she espouses.
Leftists need to continue pressuring the Dems apparently for them to do the basics of their job. I see no reason why Jeffries would defend Omar without having experienced the pressure and criticism. He and the other Establishment Democrats in leadership positions have been actively sabotaging and holding back their progressive flank.
During the Uvalde shooting, did it not upset you that the police stood around doing nothing? Even as the minority party, the Democrats have some power they can exert. At the very least, they can make a big stink about the situation. When the Republicans inevitably obstruct them, the Dems can highlight how the Republicans are obstructing justice.
Instead, what we’ve seen the Democratic party do time and time again is just sit on their hands, defeated. Rolling over like dogs, unwilling to even appear to care. Hiding away and hoping nobody notices them standing off to the side.
Yes, obviously people are upset when the Republicans do something bad. They want the Republicans to be held to account. The people that should be holding them to account is the oppositional party and the Democrats aren’t doing that.
I dunno, I’m pretty tired of Establishment Democrats like Ken Martin not using their leadership positions to fight fascism. Maybe people will stop complaining about the same shit when the Dems stop doing the same shit.
Back when Bill de Blasio was mayor, he was also trying to regulate the NYPD. In response, they arrested and doxxed his daughter.
Yeah, I can’t really blame you for being disillusioned with the current Dem Party. I will note that the article you mentioned is from last month, and is likely refelctive of Schumer’s current opinions and desires, but I choose to read the OP’s article from yeaterday as folks like Schumer making poltical movements against their internal desires. I read it as Schumer understanding that the country is moving in a more progressive direction and he is trying to appease his masters by lying to them.
Not to be too contentious, but I hope you are wrong about the future of the Democratic Party and that things do move in a more Progressive direction. That more Dems will tie the Iran War to Isreal or advocate for taxing the ultra wealthy.
I agree with you that the current leadership and most of the Democrats in power do not want to prosecute Epstein affiliates. However I would also note that even 6 months ago, Establishment Dems would not approve a message of going after Epstein affiliates. This ad is a movement from “Don’t talk about Epstein” to “Say Epstein was a bad guy”. Yes, this is a pretty minimal movement, but any movement towards the populist position is a sign of Establishment Democrats’ arrogance and entitlement being curtailed.
I view the Democratic Party like a disobedient dog in need of training. This dog has been behaving extremely poorly, pissing on the kitchen floor and refusing to come to heel. Lately though, through rigorous training, this dog has shown minimal improvement, at least considering potential punishments before enacting bad behavior. This improvement should be encouraged while the training continues.
Yes, I agree with you that the idea of punishing pedophiles is a very easy and uncontroversial position. The fact that Democrats have to even consider the population’s opinion is a progressive shift in strategy, when in the past, they have felt very comfortable simply ignoring their constiuents. The only thing that’s really changed is that Progressives are getting big wins and becoming more popular amongst the voter base. The Dem leadership is trying to stay in power by appealing to their left flank. This should be encouraged while the training continues.
This is Obama moving leftwards, not Abdul moving rightwards. Obama is getting on the Progressive bus, not the other way around. Abdul and the larger Progressive wing is still driving the bus.
Hopefully, the Establishment Dems continue being humble and stop fighting for control of the party. I doubt it though, so it’s important for the Progressives to keep pushing.
We saw with MAGA that Epstein is a motivating force for people to become politically active. Voters on both sides of the aisle want pedos to be prosecuted and voters on both sides became politically apathetic when no consequences materialized.
While it’s true that there are other levers that the Dems could be pulling, I’m just happy they are pulling a popular lever at all. To me, this signals a change in strategy from, “Advertise ourselves as Republican-lite” to, “Make some sort of delineation from Conservatives”.
The political consultants the Dem leadership listens to must be feeling the pressure from the Progressive wing; I’m hoping this means the party can be forced to move further left on other issues. Not too long ago, Epstein was on the list of things Dems wouldn’t talk about.
It’s not surprising, but I hope people see through it.
The major reason Trump was made the GOP candidate was the Pied Piper strategy employed by the DNC and Hillary Clinton. They intentionally raised up Trump because they thought he would be an easy opponent to defeat.
Maybe Third Way’s next bright idea will be, “The Left has some good ideas, actually”.
My dog said it’s actually 23% and that polymarket has underestimated the influence of frisbees in this election.
Yeah, everyone can see the cynicism Kamala is trying for here. She wants a little of that progressive popularity to rub off on her to continue her political career. The silver lining here is that Kamala, representing the Establishment Democrats, sees where the wind is blowing. The Establishment Dems are realizing that they’re gonna have to go leftwards of they wanna remain politically relevant, so we gotta keep pushing left while they are on the back foot.
People forgot Trump’s COVID policies killed a million people. I agree that it feels frustrating to repeatedly hearing headlines like, “Evil Person Continues Being Evil”, but we are not the target audience. A bunch of people would probably forget that Elon is a terrible guy if they weren’t constantly reminded.
I don’t think that analysis of why Establishment Dems keep losing is advocacy for accelerationism. Most of the people who sit out of elections are not the kinds of people to post on the internet in political threads. If we want to reach the people on the who have become politically apathetic, the most effective method would be a top-down approach where the politicians and leadership change their positions and how they advertise the party.
We already know why these people don’t vote. Yelling at them to vote hasn’t worked for a decade, so we should try something else.
Yeah, hopefully we can do enough to change the Democratic Party so that they stop hemorrhaging voters. If we get to the 2028 presidential election and the Dem candidate is another neoliberal like Newsom, we’re probably cooked. The past decade has shown that voters have become apathetic to the threat of, “Vote Dem or else you get the Republican”, so hopefully, the Democratic Party doesn’t run that losing strategy again.
There are a lot of people like hoppeduponcoffee who are being ostracized by both the Democrats and Republicans. Both parties are effectively communicating, “we don’t need your votes to win”, so it shouldn’t be surprising when those ostracized groups take that message to heart.
These groups have very clearly communicated what it would take to get their support, so why isn’t the Democratic party listening? It’s not like they are asking for much. Protect queer rights. Stop funding genocide. Spend money on improving living conditions. It seems like it would be much easier to change the positions of a couple politicians than it would to convince millions of voters to go against their conscience.
The core difference between our analysis of why Kamala Harris lost is in our understanding of people. I think Kamala Harris lost because she advertised herself as Republican-lite while you think she lost because people are stupid. I would argue that my analysis provides concrete changes that provide a pathway to a better future while your analysis expresses only despair and apathy. My changes require affecting about a hundred politicians while your changes require tens of millions of people suddenly awakening politically.
I want the ranking Dem member on every committee to conduct inquiries. Make a billion motions, cast votes, debate, whatever to result in some kind of legislative action. Hold formal proceedings, conduct investigations, subpoena people.
I want the Democrats to launch Benghazi style investigations like the Republicans did that helped tank Hillary Clinton’s presidential run. The only difference being that there is actual wrongdoing here.