you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 69 points 3 weeks ago (60 children)

You win with the electorate you have, not the one you want.

People are idiots. Expect this.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 60 child comments
  • [–] 87 points 3 weeks ago (57 children)

    If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot? They thought they could discard these votes and found out they couldn’t. Figure out how to continue treating them like people with understandable sorrow about the genocide in Gaza, or keep losing 🤷‍♂️

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 57 child comments
  • [–] 63 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

    There can be more than one idiot in a given situation

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 22 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot?

    You've hit the nail on the head for why so many people have been upset and frustrated with how terrible the dems are. They'd rather lose votes to stay center than do anything that keeps voters voting for them

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Centre

    It's the USA, there is Right and Far Right, you've never ever had anything close to a left wing.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago*

    From were I stand (in Europe), it looks more like Hard Right (hardcore Neoliberals) and Fascists.

    Mind you, here in Europe it's also shifted in that direction, just not as much as the US (except in the UK and Germany)

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 19 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    What makes you think they were genuinely trying to win? They have no interest in changing the status quo. It's been very good to them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    What makes you think they were genuinely trying to win? They have no interest in changing the status quo. It's been very good to them.

    And that’s why they were genuinely trying to win. Centrist Dems are all about the status quo. This isn’t the status quo.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    didn’t seem to be bothering them that much. the democrats have shown no onus to fight for the status quo. now progressives? watch them sweat to stop that from happening. the progressives already won in a land slide? watch as they keep spending money and time and effort into undermining him at every turn.

    trump removes person hood from immigrants? thats a stern letter. fuck the democraric party

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    That’s the Democrats’ corpo faction

    The progressives and the democratic socialists are the one who are fighting tooth and nail to make things better for us

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago

    the DNC is the corporate faction. they are spending all their money to harass their own base. and until they are all replaced, it will continue to be their DNC.

    you don’t remove the corporate faction by voting blue no matter who.

    you remove them by voteing blue only when it’s a progressive

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago*

    I get the impression that the people who pay them thought they themselves would be alright either way, which is why the establishment Democrats for all their talk about how crucial it was to defeat Trump, repeatedly made politically choices of the far-right kind (supporting the Genocide in Gaza, cozying up with the Cheney family) that antagonized many of their natural voters.

    Mind you, Trump is so spectacularly incompetent that even with all the very explicit things he's doing to help the wealthiest (most notably in terms of taxes) he might very well still hurt their interests more than he helps, them by turning America's greatest trade partners against anything American (most notably Canada and the EU).

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Yeah, the Democrats want to lose. Everyone who voted for Trump or abstained is helping them.

    I say we should foil their plan by getting them elected against their will. Last time America elected a Democrat, the stress of the job gave him cancer. Be proud of yourselves, Americans; you killed Joe Biden. And you can do it again to the next bastard!

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    Everyone is an idiot. The Dems, the voters, the pollsters, the Republicans, everyone. Me included.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (21 children)

    If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot?

    Abdul and the other progressive candidates winning the nominations this year are not because "the Democrats" are trying when they weren't before, it's because the electorate came out to vote in the primaries when they did not before. The nominees are selected by the voters who come out during the primaries. So when the electorate isn't showing up to pick the nominee, then they shouldn't complain about the party "running" bad nominees.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 21 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago (18 children)

    Im kind of with you, but are you suggesting the DNC would support progressive candidates if more voters showed up to vote in the primary?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 18 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (11 children)

    but are you suggesting the DNC would support progressive candidates if more voters showed up to vote in the primary?

    No. I'm saying stop talking about what the DNC or Democrats want, because it doesn't matter when the voters show and tell them what we want. Too many people say they'll vote when the party gives them someone to vote for. That's backwards and exactly what the establishment wants.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

    The Establishment Democrats have a lot of power. Haley Steven's only lost the Michigan primary by 1% after outspending Abdul El-Sayed over 10x. That means roughly, Haley Steven's spent over $10 for every vote compared to Abdul El-Sayed $1 per vote. She absolutely was being propped up by both the Israel lobby as well as Establishment Dems and that money went to waste. That money could have been way more useful in the general, but the DNC has been burning all their cash on fighting progressives instead. It's gotten to the point where the DNC is millions of dollars in debt and had to put up their physical building as collateral while the RNC has over $100 million in their warchest leading up to the midterms.

    It is very important to talk about the Establishment Democrats because they are doing their best to lose all political power by dunking on their left flank instead of combating the Republicans. They would truly rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and they're gonna drag us all down to party with Lindsey Graham. As much as it sucks, the DNC still has a lot of power they are exerting that needs to be addressed before they cause the situation to become unsalvageable.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (7 children)

    Are you saying the DNC was directly spending money on Haley Steven's campaign? It was understanding the DNC chair Ken Martin is vocally against the DNC supporting any one primary candidate over another. That was even one of the points of friction between Ken Martin and David Hogg.

    I didn't stop at saying "don't talk about what they want," I said show up to dictate to them what we want instead of just sitting around talking about what they want.

    The fact is, Abdul wom because he received more votes. Not because of spending it establishment support, but because the people just voted for him. Don't wait for the party to flip and bless a progressive, just go vote the progressives onto the ballot, and the establishment neoliberals will continue to see themselves replaced.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    We all know the DNC works to suppress candidates they don't like. Most famously, the DNC worked directly with the Hillary Clinton campaign to crush the Bernie Sanders campaign. So when Ken Martin claims "We are investing in a year-round distributed organizing operation capable of supporting races at every level of the ballot.", I feel it's pretty obvious what he means. The Establishment Democrats have historically been very weak opposing the Republicans while fighting tooth and nail against their own progressive wing. They are not spending money raising up candidates like Abdul El-Sayed or Francesca Hong, but neither are they simply waiting for the candidate that wins the primary. The DNC has a type and they are spending money to get that type of candidate through primaries into the general.

    Abdul almost lost the primary despite very obviously being the best candidate for Michigan. This is because his opponent had an absurd amount of money. Money does influence elections and the DNC is beholden to their donors. The common voter can very clearly see these relationships and it depresses voter turnout whenever money wins. I agree with you that it is important to vote for progressives that are on the ballot, but you are framing these races as if the common voter has the same amount of influence as the establishment neoliberal. The DNC is the referee and it is blatantly bought and paid for.

    "Just go vote" is not good advice because the opposition is spending absurd amounts of money to place obstacles in front of the populace. People like you and me who spend time talking about politics on lemmy are more politically active than the common voter. We need to help remove those obstacles so that everyone can vote for who they'd like instead of trip over manufactured concerns like electability.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • load more comments (6 replies)
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (1 child)

    In case you didn't notice it during the Hilary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders primaries, the DNC has mechanisms like super-voters that allow them to override the will of voters.

    If I remember it correctly they even went to Court to make the case (which they won) that the Democratic Party doesn't need to actually be Democratic in their candidate selection process.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Looks like slightly less people showed up, actually (typical for a non presidential primary):

    https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2024/states/MI.html

    https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2026/states/MI.html

    Michigan has open primaries and there was one uncontested Republican running this year, look at the total votes in 2024 vs 2026 and not just the blue numbers.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago

    Yeah comparing to 2022 would be better. I can't seem to find that on the NPR site, though it doesn't appear to list the actual turnout percentage, just the number of votes. I have this site but it doesn't break it down by party and doesn't have 2026 data yet. It shows 27% primary turnout for Michigan in 2022 and 24% in 2024.

    https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/

    With turnout that low in the primaries, it really shouldn't take a big surge for progressive voters to tip the scales away from neoliberal incumbent/establishment candidates.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    People could also show up to primaries. People could have been showing up for the past several decades.

    This is not a situation that has just spontaneously happened, this has been happening since voting has been a thing.

    The reasons those democrats have the power they do is because we keep letting them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    What primary?

    The DNC made sure that the primary in 2024 was a joke. Even here so many people were like “how are you go against Biden! He’s the only one!”

    Only, I could list off dozens of reasons why he fucked up and wouldn’t have won. (Failed to get a Trump conviction is a big one, for example.)

    The whole reason he bowed out was because his campaign was clogging the shitcan, and Kamala sidelined the best thing that happened to her campaign, and proceeded to toe the corporate line saying she wouldn’t have changed anything.

    (Easy dodge: “with the benefit of hindsight, of course there are things I’d change. But as I’m currently VP, I need to support my president, so please ask the next question.”)

    And then there’s the whole genocide thing, and yeah. We all have lines we can’t cross.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • load more comments (3 replies)