Democratic (Party) Direction

The way to realign the Democratic Party isn’t just to run insurgent candidates who occasionally upset the party’s establishment. The way to move the Democratic Party to the left is for progressives to become the party’s establishment.

The way we put it in my org's strategy doc a couple of years ago:

It means setting a standard and putting forward demands that will unify democratic voters and polarize politicians and party leadership, forcing them to either shift with their base or risk losing their primary races to progressive challengers willing to prove they will represent everyday people instead of wealthy campaign contributors.

*constanza voice* seize the levers, baby

People seem to think the radical right just walked into the Republican Party one day and took it over, but the fact is that it took decades of struggle. The notion that you could just issue a verdict on this fight among the Dems on the basis of one night's elections is absurd. https://t.co/wstc7ktVGq

— corey robin (@CoreyRobin) August 9, 2018

yup

3 years ago the story was "A socialist will never get more than 5% anywhere outside of Vermont."

Now if socialists don't win absolutely every primary we run in, we're sputtering? It's obvious to everyone that this is the biggest political shift in generations. C'mon now. https://t.co/1RQNaLcTbX

— Lee J. Carter (@carterforva) August 9, 2018

idk about "biggest political shift in generations" - the implosion of the GOP into a nihilistic cult-of-personality is surely bigger

I honestly think it's fine and even good if the centrists are in denial. Let them think that, let DSA and other groups do the quiet work to take over county committees and state assembly seats and that sort of thing under the radar.

Read your reassuring Politico article and feel smug as you go back to brunch.

idk about "biggest political shift in generations" - the implosion of the GOP into a nihilistic cult-of-personality is surely bigger

― Οὖτις, Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:52 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok good point, it's in the top 2.

if anything it's sustainability/growth is a reaction to the first, and the extent of it remains to be seen. feels v much in its infancy to me at this point

"biggest political shift in generations"

The Dem lurch to the left will remain superficial until things like Medicare For All and minimum wage increases get implemented. Until then, it's nothing but a brainstorming session (one I'm pleased is happening, for sure, but one that's still more theoretical than practical).

IDK, the radical right has had a pretty successful incrementalist approach to a lot of their goals.

And, because this country is so jumpy, the moment Dems regain legislative power (and hopefully executive power), they'll have to act fast on this stuff. People want to see tangible results fast because people are kinda dumb, tbh.

the material conditions that are engendering greater acceptance of socialism are only going to continue.

“feel smug as you go back to brunch.“

Why don’t you just call him a “wine mom”?

the failing bernie/aoc narrative is so weird about a primary where dsa member rashida tlaib won and will become a member of congress

I think the right has more liberty to be incrementalist in a lot of areas. From birth, messaging to Americans is all about conservative bullshit like suspicion of non-white folks and our "exceptionalism," et al. Unless you have the coolest parents in the world, you have to get more unconservative as you grow as person. Perhaps not every place, but in the US for sure. So far right messaging is easily absorbed where left of center ideas require digestion.

You'd think the opposite would be true, but here we are.

the problem w/ incrementalism in the current era is we are roasting to death

the failing bernie/aoc narrative is so weird about a primary where dsa member rashida tlaib won and will become a member of congress

― the bhagwanadook (symsymsym), Thursday, August 9, 2018 12:16 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right. Also as has been pointed out Gretchen Whitmer is not exactly a centrist.

“feel smug as you go back to brunch.“

Why don’t you just call him a “wine mom”?

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Thursday, August 9, 2018 1:14 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

can you explain the purpose of this post?

the material conditions that are engendering greater acceptance of socialism are only going to continue.

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, August 9, 2018 5:14 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding

Why don’t you just call him a “wine mom”?

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Thursday, August 9, 2018 1:14 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"hating brunch is anti-queer and anti-woman"

class is gendered now

a revolution without brunch is not a revolution worth having

i guess tlaib is replacing john conyers who was also a dsa guy, but it's not nothing!

Oh yes let’s pretend it’s a class thing, sure.

Whet’s funny/cringey about the “brunch meme” is it somehow transitioned from a ill-conceived way of expressing a maybe valid critique of political engagement into “no it’s literally about brunch itself now”

wtf are you talking about

Also very cool to blame restaraunt goers and not owners in addition to the meme’s initial subtext of “it’s good that Trump won because people are more politically engaged so maybeit’s not that bad that we didn’t do enough to stop it”

eggs benetrump

on the subject of brunch, gender and class

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/09/398832815/taking-mom-out-for-brunch-it-s-kind-of-a-feminist-tradition

(the article is much better than the url implies)

ok, by "brunch" I was trying to signify professional class people who wish we had a centrist in office so we wouldn't have to be bothered by politics and they could go back to enjoying their lifestyle. Those same people are eager to put the new "socialist insurgency" to bed for the same reasons, hence all the articles in WaPo and The Hill and Politico and those types of publications, which I don't think are disproportionately written by women, but if it's no longer acceptable to use "brunch" as a signifier of anything because it is perceived as an attack on women (and apparently moms and also "restaurant goers") I'm fine with using something else.

Whet’s funny/cringey about the “brunch meme” is it somehow transitioned from a ill-conceived way of expressing a maybe valid critique of political engagement into “no it’s literally about brunch itself now”

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Thursday, August 9, 2018 5:43 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

incredibly productive of you to critique a thing no one here is doing

I don't think brunch is gendered.

eggs genderdict

That article posted about brunch was good; I didn't know. I thought the pejorative about brunch these days is a stand-in for white woman feminism which is basically what Fedora is summarizing above.

won't somebody think of the brunch itself

The fact that people are feeling inclined to engage in brunch discourse with you is astounding. It’s one of the most obnoxious and privileged food-related traditions imo

— Skogsrå 🌹 (@kelleym_arie) July 5, 2018

when is brunch?

Yeah, when I was coming up we went directly from the breakfast table to the salt mines 25/8/367, no time for brunch ever.

You had a breakfast table? La dee dah! We just ate cold grubs off the dirt floor of the hovel.

You had grubs? Luxury!

etc.

I don't know why it's so hard for people to grasp that this is a giant country with multifarious local conditions, and you can have a DSA-backed candidate lose a primary in Michigan while at the same time a long-time Dem incumbent DA in St. Louis gets knocked off in a primary challenge from the left and in a week Wisconsin will choose a gov nominee from a pool of candidates who do not at all cleave neatly into "Team Left" and "Team Centrist".

Or maybe it's not that people find that hard to grasp, but rather that if you are writing for Politico and your livelihood depends on people linking your piece in a tweet, your tweet kinda has to be "Who won the day: Team Centrist or Team Left" and it can't be "A lot of different stuff happened in different places." But it kind of sucks that that's the way people's Politico pieces have to read.

Jesus brunch is fucking drinking for breakfast its like seinfeld sweatpants saying ‘i give up i have to live in this turgid crowded mess with you guys i might as well feel comfy by getting sloshed and bloated before lunchtime.’


Smilemoji

Am i projecting too much thsts how i do brunch what

\\

The fact that people are feeling inclined to engage in brunch discourse with you is astounding. It’s one of the most obnoxious and privileged food-related traditions imo

— Skogsrå 🌹 (@kelleym_arie) July 5, 2018

― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Thursday, August 9, 2018 7:05 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it remains incredibly productive of you to critique a thing no one here is doing

It's OK to brunch as long as you order the Alexandria Ocasio-Corteggs

Mimosacialism

Eggs Corbynedict

The prolatteriat’s casus bellini was to take over the means of probruncheon

Bloody Maoria

Miss, can I get another Bernietini over here? Thanks.