Democratic (Party) Direction

An excruciating story to read. Oh, will someone think of those moderates!

And Stacey Adams is "brainy"!

reassuring to see the US centrists are just as nauseating as their UK counterparts!

Gary Lineker feels their pain tho...

lol, see, they're both extremists, she thinks the confederacy were bad guys!

Hey there was violence on both sides

love how it throws in republican talking points tangential to the actual topic - "The unemployment rate has declined by more than 6 percentage points since the current governor, Nathan Deal, took office in 2011." hmmmmm, wonder what was going on with employment in the years before 2011 and how this number has compared to that in other states, or nationally. ehhh whatever clearly this radical speaking of expanded access to health care should have all sensible georgians - you know, Jeb! voters - quaking in their boots.

so so many thoughts on this but i think it's better for me just to listen

Unified. Vote D for Democracy. pic.twitter.com/0S5oww1kR5

— Operation Wolverines 🇺🇸 (@OpWolverines) July 28, 2018

no real idea who this crowd is or where this came from

wolverines...idk sounds kinda ruskie

Opposite, right? Like from Red Dawn?

canadian

which hand goes with which group though

That has to be a Red Dawn ref

the progressive has very long fingers

the fingers of communism

That acct is torture as I love FDR-era agitprop and it pains me to see it used in this way.

Also, I’ve seen the sentiment both online and IRl that left “factionalism” is bad and we really need to “unify” if we’re going to defeat trump at the polls. This seems so blinkered and acquisient to Establishment power holders as it never gets spelled out who gets to call the shots or define the program folks are supposed to unify behind. “Things we can agree on” is a mealy-mouthed concept and so vague as to be useless, as there are plenty of stances that are completely incompatible.

I tried explaining this to someone today using deliberately older examples that mattered who people are supposed to rally behind, somebody like Paul Wellstone or somebody like Joe Lieberman

How would that work? Older people like me remember enthusiastically supporting both Wellstone and Gore-Lieberman. Didn't feel weird.

I don't think "unify" means "adopt a policy framework with which all Democrats agree" and it definitely doesn't mean "young progressives should shut up and vote because it's not their turn to drive the bus yet." I think what it means is that Dems should run a wide range of candidates who fit their districts and that we should have a lot less "fuck u bernie and jill stein look how much things suck because of you" and a lot more "i have talked to every one of my friends who is 18-30 about the importance of voting and maybe i wrote a check to a state senate candidate who has an unusually good chance to win in an R-leaning district"

Mr. Kemp, 54, is a drawling agri-businessman from Athens who has revived a populist style that has lain dormant in Georgia since the late 1960s.

i wonder what "populist style" this could be!

How would that work? Older people like me remember enthusiastically supporting both Wellstone and Gore-Lieberman. Didn't feel weird.

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

i'm middle-aged and i remember voting green because joe lieberman was such a fucking creep

Hillary won precincts with median income over https://twitter.com/jbarro/status/102293153006530560050k by 27 points. Obama lost them by 12 four years earlier. I think this is why media and political elites underestimated Trump: these tend to be the Republicans they knew; in this small demographic, flight from Trump was very real. https://t.co/NqwELXhkHb

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 27, 2018

https://splinternews.com/the-democratic-socialists-of-america-s-cynthia-nixon-di-1827894468

at which point do leftists figure out that the reason their “organizers” always act suspicious of “outsiders,” especially “leaders,” is almost always territorial bullshit and almost never to do with beliefs or principles?

so many punchable college politics stereotypes in NYC

I mean my town has ‘em too but the difference is we’ve never tried to pretend otherwise

“I think it’s really problematic to say that we need some savior like Nixon coming in, even though she might be wonderful,” Ariel Zakarison, co-chair of NYC-DSA’s labor and strike solidarity working group, told another packed gathering of DSA members in Bushwick on Tuesday. “We need to build power by building movements with the working class, not by electing people to represent the working class.”

lol mine is always like "all we want is life beyond thunderdome."

promising new direction for the party:

My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist. Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica. This is not what we need on Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/0eBvxFd6sG

— Leslie Cockburn (@LeslieCockburn) July 29, 2018

dying

Also that's not a real name.

call out culture has gone TOO FAR, what's next, alien fetishists in camps?

When will leftists wake up and listen to tombot

Well, NYC DSA did endorse Nixon (sigh) so maybe Tombot was the deciding factor

https://splinternews.com/the-democratic-socialists-of-america-s-cynthia-nixon-di-1827894468

at which point do leftists figure out that the reason their “organizers” always act suspicious of “outsiders,” especially “leaders,” is almost always territorial bullshit and almost never to do with beliefs or principles?

so many punchable college politics stereotypes in NYC

― El Tomboto, Sunday, July 29, 2018 9:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, I followed the DSA Nixon endorsement debate about as closely as you could from outside and I thought there were pretty strong arguments in both directions, and even reducing it to two directions is unfair since there is a "we shouldn't be endorsing anyone" camp and a "we should only be endorsing a very small select few committed socialists" camp on the anti side (people who might have been pro-Salazar and pro-AOC endorsements but anti-Nixon, or pro-Salazar but anti-AOC and anti-Nixon). I mean this goes back to my post above, which you said was helpful. They are an extremely democratically organized group that gets consensus on fucking everything, they have limited resources, and their primary purpose is not as a PAC or electoral organization. If they took sides in every race it would suck up most of the energy of the group and dilute its meaning. And Nixon says a lot of the right things but it is reasonable to question her bona fides imo. She has said some things about labor that have raised an eyebrow for me. I have misgivings about her but Cuomo is a snake.

Also, "we're not going to endorse Nixon" does not mean "don't vote for Nixon" or "stay home" or "Nixon isn't the best option here." It just means the organization isn't going to put its force behind her.

btw Indivisible just endorsed Nixon, that seems kind of big

imagine, the DSA might have a different collective will than El T

xp

massachusetts attorney general maura healey just endorsed the challenger in my district’s congressional race, ayanna pressley, a black city council member who is very much viewed as an up and coming face in the national party. i haven’t decided which candidate is getting my vote yet but i’m very curious to see how this race turns out, because mike capuano (incumbent, elected 20 years ago, has raised double the funds of pressley) has been pretty vocally opposed to trump and his policies and people really like him.

i hope that whatever happens both stick around on the national stage, because the last thing we need is more charlie baker types to rise up in either one’s absence. this globe piece talks about their subtle differences

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/07/22/capuano-pressley-grapple-with-same-question-what-makes-you-different/64Uffu4cVVpWZVMYwH4jwL/story.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-is-the-trump-campaign-attacking-senator-kirsten-gillibrand

Gillibrand attended Dartmouth College and the U.C.L.A. Law School, then, in 2006, after several years as a corporate lawyer, at Boies Schiller Flexner, she decided to run for Congress as a Democrat in a solidly Republican upstate district, against a four-term incumbent named John Sweeney. She had no name recognition, and friends and advisers warned her against it, but she recognized that city people were moving upstate. She tied her opponent to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, and raised huge amounts of money. She advocated for an expansion of Medicare, a proposal that Sweeney derided as “a government-run universal health-care system.” She also, however, adopted conservative positions on immigration and guns (earning an A rating from the National Rifle Association). Then, a few days before the election, a personal scandal derailed Sweeney’s campaign. Gillibrand won by six points.

In the House, she joined the Blue Dog Democrats and took a conservative Democratic line, including embracing efforts to make English the national language. But, in a preview of her later populist stance, she voted against the 2008 bank bailout, over the objections of other members of the New York delegation. A year later she became the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, when Governor David Paterson appointed her to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat after she became Secretary of State. Once Gillibrand represented the whole state, she became a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and she shed her previous positions on guns and immigration, saying that she needed to speak for a broader swath of constituents. In a competitive Presidential primary, she would face hard questions about those stances. In February, in an appearance on “60 Minutes,” she said she is “ashamed” of her previous positions. “I just think, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned more about life, and sometimes you’re wrong,” she said. “And you’ve gotta fix it. And if you’re wrong, just admit it and move on.”

She has also proved to have an apt sense of issues that were not receiving the attention they should. In 2014, more than three years before the #MeToo movement, in a memoir and in interviews, Gillibrand spoke of sexist remarks from male lawmakers, including a member of Congress who told her, “Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!” (Her reply: “Thanks, asshole.”) The next year, on The New Yorker Radio Hour, she broadened the point, recalling subtler forms of sexism that she had encountered as a lawyer: “When a partner said to me, when we’re having this big, congratulatory dinner, after years of work, ‘Don’t you just love Kirsten’s efforts? She’s worked so hard. And don’t you just love her new haircut?’ That felt like a shot in the gut.”

Gillibrand’s zeal can alienate potential backers. When Senator Al Franken was accused of sexual misconduct, she was the first Democratic senator to call on him to resign; to some in the Party, that haste was in error. Despite years of political support from the Clintons, Gillibrand said that President Bill Clinton should have stepped down over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a decision that has led some Clinton allies to keep their distance from her in the run-up to 2020.

I wouldn't want Clinton allies swarming around me at this late date either

"why-is-the-trump-campaign-attacking-senator-kirsten-gillibrand"

huh i can think of one reason... there's a word for it...

I wouldn't want Clinton allies swarming around me at this late date either

― devops mom (silby), Monday, July 30, 2018 1:59 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I'd say this is savvy more than zeal

yup

And Trump's strategy has been to enact preemptive strikes on anyone remotely considered a threat. It's Cheney Doctrine politics.

Which, I'd also have to say, is savvy. He tries to poison any possible challenger well in advance. He understands media and knows that a bad narrative is stronger if it's been around for a while.

Or that you can try to define your opponent before they get a chance to define themselves.

hey look, a fucking organizer

We’ve got about ONE WEEK LEFT until a whole slew of elections come up across the country.

From @KanielaIng & @SaadforCongress to @AbdulElSayed & @CoriBush, it’s time to leave it all on the field.

Check your state primary date & VOTE August 7th + 11th.

pic.twitter.com/sjQK0AkLtF

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) July 31, 2018

coworkers saw her in SF last night

maura otm

man alive very distant from tm

“The swing voter is not red to blue. The swing voter is non voter to voter. That’s our swing voter.” - @Ocasio2018 pic.twitter.com/z3XyJ5GUdd

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) August 5, 2018

Otm

This has been Dem campaign conventional wisdom forever and I hope it works this time

I mean OK that's not fair. If Ocasia-Cortez means "the swing voter is somebody who was going to be a lifetime non-voter and thinks politics is bullshit, but this time is going to show up at the polls because they actually have something to get behind," that would be authentically different from Dem campaign conventional wisdom, which is more like "the swing voter is the college student / union member / city voter who shows up to vote for President but not for midterm / governor / state leg elections and we want to swing them to voting all the time"

It’s both imo