Yeah, but you can’t win every battle on every front. DSA had an amazing primary season in NYC by picking their battles. There were plenty of people who were pissed that they didn’t primary Jefferies, but instead of pouring all there money into unseating the minority speaker, they focused on several smaller races, and took three congressional seats and four state rep seats.

It’s important to remember that, when we’re talking about centrists, we’re talking about the Democratic establishment, which has functionally unlimited financial resources, and when talking about leftists, we referring to candidates that are either backed by small organizations or completely independent. There actually was a leftists alternative to Platner in the race; her name was Andrea LaFlamme, and you probably didn’t hear about her because she didn’t qualify for the ballot and had to run as a write-in. So why would the DSA throw their limited money into splitting the leftist vote three ways against Mills, when instead they could focus on the governors racd?

The only reason that Graham Platner got as far as he did was because the centrists pushed Janet Mills. Once Mills was in the race, leftists who were actually properly vetted by organizations like the DSA decided it wasn’t worth competing against a DNC funded candidate (of course, they didn’t know she’d implode spectacularly). That’s why you had a two person senate primary and a five person gubernatorial primary. There’s an alternate timeline where Schumer doesn’t meddle in the race, there’s a competitive primary field, and Platner’s voters switch to Troy Jackson after the Nazi tattoo story breaks.

That’s one perspective. I would argue that, given the ways in which the two parties have created election laws to protect their duopoly, third-party and independent candidates will rarely be viable. Instead of spending finite resources attempting to compete with the massive Democratic party machine in the general election, where a splitting of the liberal/leftist coalition could very possible (if not probably) result in a win for thr far-right, seizing the levers of power of said machine through primaries is not only safer, but more likely to succeed.

I think he’s just being pragmatic. He endorses progressive challengers in the primaries, and then he urges his supporters to support Democrats in the general instead of splitting the liberal/leftist vote and handing the Republicans a win. He often gets blamed for losses anyway (Hillary supporters are still mad) and he’s made some bad picks (Fetterman and Platner come to mind), but the growing success of progressive and DSA candidates this year might be vindicating this as long-term strategy.

Anecdotally, I’m seeing a lot of normie liberals get radicalized by watching Democrats approve Trump’s nominees, pass his legislation, and cave on their own government shutdowns. Turns out, if you pitch yourselves as the only opposition to fascism, people expect you to actually oppose fascism.

Who knew that taking funding for scientific research away from government institutes and universities and giving it to ketamine-addicted con men would have negative consequences.

I’m always skeptical of claims like this. Don’t get me wrong, Trump is actively working to advance the Russian agenda, and Russia has actively supported him financially and through propaganda. But I’m wary of tales of kompromat or clandestine, decades long KGB plots.

Occam’s razor, I think Trump is a piece of shit that would destroy his own country to make a quick buck, and Putin offered him a quick buck. Honestly, elaborate Manchurian Candidate conspiracies would probably be less scary than the idea that our entire democracy can collapse because one real-estate conman was willing to sell us all out.