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[–] 115 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (45 children)

When Dems are in power, we have the luxury of pushing back against the establishment wing of the party. When the GOP is in power, we need to focus our energy on getting them out, even if that means working with less-than-ideal Dems until we can shift focus back to our internal disagreements.

This is why it isn't helpful to be defeatist about both-sidesism during general elections. We all know the Democratic Party isn't perfect. But little by little, we can shift the overton window to the left.

That's all I have to say about it. Obviously that part is behind us for now. Looking ahead, it'll finally be time to roll our sleeves up and get to work on the issues that matter.

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  • [–] 0 points 14 hours ago* (3 children)

    yeah, nice sentiment if it worked but it doest. The election is over. The centrists dont need anything from us for 2 years. The time to demand action was when we had a way to threaten them. Got a sternly worded letter ready to send huh?

    And in the meantime while these fuckwit centrists sell us out--and they will--, it'll depress the voting base and we'll suffer from anger at democrats next election. Do you understand how that cycle works?

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  • [–] 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

    Dude, reread the title of the post. There are elected congresspeople right now who are working on trying to replace the centrist dems from the key leadership positions.

    You can't take an honest look at the recent elections and see the sheer number of progressives who did well, and then tell me that we didn't move the needle at all. You can try, but I won't believe you're doing so honestly.

    Be a part of the solution or a part of the problem, it's your choice. But whatever you choose, you're either in or you're in the way. So hop to or hop out.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 hours ago* (1 child)

    One second you're all in on not fighting centrists and concentrating solely on repubs, and the next you are pretending that the battle for progressive outcomes has all but been won already. We wont see progressive outcomes soon, despite the won seats. The time to fight for those has now passed until the next election. You are too easily deceived. What you dont/cant understand is the number of congressman in both house and senate that AIPAC owns amongst the dems (and the repubs just as much I guess, but they as usual do not bear ta;kling about since we have no hope of changing them).

    Dems are not your friends and they hate progressives. We needed to vote out centrists, but people like yourself always yell at everyone to do it later. Enjoy the next two years of being ignored by your own party, herr armchair-general.

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  • [–] -1 points 19 hours ago (5 children)

    I don't think you'll shift anything. The ratchet has been ratcheted. The amount of judges and overall reform needed is just too much and requires spines that don't exist.

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  • [–] 1 point 16 hours ago (4 children)

    Every ratchet has an opening latch

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  • [–] 1 point 15 hours ago (3 children)

    And a famous chef once said, if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.... There has been no evidence in our lifetime that the US has what it takes to do that.

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  • [+] -57 points 1 day ago (34 children)

    "You guys better do what we say or we'll vote for you again." is a heck of a threat there little buddy. How do you expect to actually 'push back' against the establishment wing of the party?

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  • [–] 62 points 1 day ago (20 children)

    Take your unhelpful intentional misinterpretations and propaganda somewhere else there, little buddy.

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  • [+] -19 points 1 day ago* (11 children)

    It's a fair point. We don't have much leverage in a two party system. Letters to reps aren't going to cut it, protesting against the "good" guys just as hard as we did against the fascists is basically the only option at this point.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Voting in primaries is for voting with your feelings. Voting in the generals is for voting with your head. Basically vote in primaries if you don't like how the dems did and vote blue no matter who in the generals.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    I'm saying that we need to properly pressure them instead of expecting them to save us willingly. Waiting for the next round of primaries isn't enough, they simply won't make the needed choices if they don't have to.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Well that's entirely the point then, isn't it? Tell them that if they don't do their job properly, then they'll be fired. I don't get why that's such a crazy hard to understand concept, but whatever makes it so hard to understand is probably what got people like Trump into office in the first place

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago

    If you mean during the primaries, yes. If you mean when it's Democrats vs Republicans, then it's an empty threat because not voting is monumentally stupid and hurts us more than it hurts them.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Exactly that's what got Trump in office, was firing democrats.

    So... again what do you expect people to do?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    No, it's not a fair point. You seem to either not fully understand what voting is or how elections work. The 'leverage' is that if they don't do what we want them to do, they lose their jobs. I wish there were more severe consequences to abandoning the voters, but we don't have those yet and the only way to get there is to vote

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  • [+] -19 points 1 day ago (7 children)

    Answer the question. The DNC has and will again simply stop people from running in the democratic primaries. There is no law to stop them from just refusing entry to the party or revoking the party affiliation.

    So primaries do not work for this. As history shows. So how, exactly, are you going to threaten someone if the party says they're the only blue candidate?

    What if the DNC just stops having primaries? There's no law that says they have to have primaries, or have to have public primaries. It's all convention.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Abdul El-Sayed won his primary then became Senator. Primaries work, focus your energy on getting people to vote in them. DNC isn't getting rid of primaries, that's a completely baseless claim.

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago

    https://ivn.us/dnc-to-court-we-are-a-private-corporation-with-no-obligation-to-follow-our-rules/

    In the case Wilding vs DNC in 2016 the DNC argued that they have no duty at all to run a fair primary. DNC attorneys argued that the organization is a private political corporation with the right to select its nominees internally and that statements of neutrality were general political or aspirational remarks rather than legally binding contracts.

    Spiva (DNC lawyer) stated in court: “We could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.’ That’s not the way it was done. But they could have.”

    The DNC won that case. The judge said, "To the extent Plaintiffs wish to air their general grievances with the DNC or its candidate selection process, their redress is through the ballot box, the DNC's internal workings, or their right of free speech — not through the judiciary."

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  • [+] -11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    Yes, a completely baseless claim from the party that didn't have a presidential primary.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    What are you talking about? The Democratic party had a presidential primary in 2024. Biden won them.

    There's lots of things to complain about the Democratic party, you don't need to make up things.

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  • [–] 1 point 14 hours ago (1 child)

    The Dems had a primary for some states right. The DNC arbitrarily decided to nullify the New Hampshire Dem primary because they didnt follow the schedule change the DNC preferred, in putting right-leaning South Carolina first so a centrist would have a leg up in the Dem selection process. What kind of party just declares that the votes of a whole state just dont matter? what kind of fair election process changes the rules so a more rightwing group has first say?

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  • [–] 0 points 8 hours ago
  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    I’m keeping a record of everything my elected officials do right, and everything that they do wrong. And every time I call them, I tell them that we’re keeping track of whether they’re listening to their constituents, we will organize accordingly when they’re up for re-election.

    It sounds like an empty threat, but for those of us who actually care, we’re making shit happen.

    In my district, we just got rid of an establishment dem representative, and got our first progressive representative in decades.

    We can, and are, moving the needle left.

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  • [+] -10 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    And when the DNC just stops allowing people to run as democrats if they don't accept AIPAC? The DNC has pulled funding from candidates before for progressive ideology.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago

    Then we run as our own party. But until that point, the way to most effectively move the needle to the left is to shift an already-existing dominant party to the left.

    I hope we eventually overthrow the two party system entirely, that’s the dream.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 child)

    Do you address people as "little buddy" in real life? Do you find it motivates them to consider your views with an open mind?

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  • [–] 4 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

    Uh oh someone doesn't know the difference between a primary and the general election

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago

    You're being down voted by people that cheerfully vote for politicians they know don't represent them. To be fair, they're still going through waves of ecstasy over voting in "bad" over "worse," and that really is probably pretty good harm reduction, if Schumer and Jeffries don't just give Trump everything he wants in the name of "bipartisanship" and an alignment of donors.

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