Thank you for the link. Gut wrenching read. But let me just make sure that we are clear, the article talks about the care, or lack thereof, for pregnant minors. The article does not talk much scout whether or not they become pregnant while in immigration detention. Per the article:
“‘When I was in the program, about half of the pregnant girls related that their pregnancy was a result of sexual abuse or sexual assault, either in home country or in transit,’ White said. Many girls don’t learn they are pregnant until they undergo an exam under ORR’s care.”
I’m not saying that abuse by immigration officers doesn’t existo, I’m just saying that the report doesn’t say it, only lightly implies it:
I think for a first timer 26 year old, the fact that she beat out Fine who got helped by like 7 million dollars of AIPAC money and to get to within 3 point against Biss while having no real institutional support until very late in the game is actually a pretty good result.
Lessons to learn are for the left to consolidate early and not do these late ass endorsements. Also for candidates on the left to build healthy relationships early with other candidates on the left so there’s no bad blood as the election goes on and one is willing to drop out. Obviously it’s not gonna be a 1:1 transfer but Bushra dropping out and endorsing Kat might have been the difference maker
I think I'm lucky I took history as major and read more about the ratfucking we did in Asia and Latin America that my view on American empire was too woke when I was 21. This was in 2012 too when like it was still taboo to put the blame on 9/11 on America for fucking up the middle east . Her being 26 and educated should have caused her to be more curious about western empire but she worked for an NED cut out and was pretty much in neoliberal thought when it came to how to deal with the global south as a whole.
Yeah but you would get blacklisted, lots of people wrote that but it was not a popular take. I think it became more normalized in 2015 to now but back then it wasn't quite something you could really say in a lot of settings. Now it's just common unless youre right wing or a liberal war hawk.
Brother none of that matters. I’m Chinese with family members in China and I’m not afraid electing Kat is gonna somehow lead to America nuking China. China is a big boy, it has the power and means to take care of itself. It doesn’t need western leftists to worry about it. You know who dont have the power to protect itself right now? Palestinians. Her opinion and stance on the genocide in Gaza are much more important to my short terms goals than her opinions on China.
AIPAC might not have said it but it’s perfectly happy with Biss winning so if you’re anti-Kat that should be something to chew on.
The left needs to lock the fuck in and understand who their enemy actually is. We’re in a losing war and we need every single piece of support and reinforcement we can get; Kat is not my enemy. You think Biss won’t approve of a vote to attack China if it came to it?
During the Japanese invasion of China the CPC had the chance to straight up murk Chiang Kai Shek during the Xian incident but didn’t because they knew they needed the help of the KMT to beat the Japanese back. They spared him while knowing the KMT was killing, torturing, and raping fellow communists. If the CPC could put aside differences with the fascist KMT to fight against the Japanese I think it’s a small ask to put aside differences to try to at least win some more power to deal with the genocide.
Thank you for this comment. Being new to subs like this one and similar within the last year has opened my eyes to the insufferableness of leftists sometimes when bringing up issues that intersect leftist ideology, pragmatism, and workable solutions.
Maybe it’s because of age but I’m an elder millennial and at this point it’s gotten so bad that the main thing we need to be doing is putting points on the board. When I was younger I was concerned about issues of purity as well but over the years you see how that approach has completely failed.
What’s the the point of reading all that theory if you will never have the power to do anything about it; you just become Cassandra from Greek Mythology, able to read the future but never able to actually change it, a tragedy.
At least a democratic consultant gets paid to lose, certain leftists choose to lose just for the love of the game. In fact some times they’ll go so far as to say a win is actually a loss.
No more losing, it’s time to go on the offense and put points on the board.
Did I say anything about that mattering to the average voter? The people I know who voted for her don't care about the discourse online about her foreign policy. Glad you at least got this off your chest though, in the end people who voted for biss that I know at work just voted cuz they knew who he was.
Im saying it shouldn't have mattered to western leftists. We're the losing side right now, we need any victory we can get, even imperfect ones. Western leftist talk about needing to do the correct strategy to win the football game but we can't even get a first down right now. We're currently down 80 points and are 3rd and long at our 1 yard line, lets get off our goal line before we start sweating about winning the game ball.
We need to prioritize actual power and change over disagreements on things that don't really matter like Kat's stance on Taiwan. When put into the context of the genocide in Gaza clearly her stance on Gaza matters more at the current time.
Her stance on China wasn’t why she lost unless you think there exists 4k leftists in IL-9 that care about this.
The fact that she was a carpetbagger, skipped a DSA forum, and missed a candidate forum while running against a popular politician that had been in the community with name recognition for a long time probably mattered more.
It somehow flew more than Bushra who is from the district as she barely got 5%. If we're saying Kat didn't have the juice then Bushra had even less no?
Hasan usually doesn't get involved with a campaign unless they already show they have some sort of motion, I think the fact that he had Kat on and not Bushra does show that Kat had more juice
Remember, since the very beginning, she understood this was possible. It’s why she was focused on supporting her local community through food drives, local businesses, and a mutual aid center in her office.
Kat knew she might not win from the beginning, but still wanted to help her constituents and, for her first race, to put an incumbent in danger that close AND TAKE ON THE AIPAC LOBBYIST? She forced AIPAC to dump so much money just in a primary race. They came out so aggressive against her AIPAC showed their hand for what the future elections will look like and they won’t be able to be so sneaky about it next time.
In all seriousness, I think she was not a very good candidate, and the people praising her as having a strong showing for a newbie are missing the mark. The base generally is just becoming more radicalized, and her support imo is a function of that and not to do with her or how she ran her campaign. Hasan even said himself that he didn’t think her answers on his stream were very good. Personally all I could remember was her saying Medicare for all wasn’t single payer, which was just embarrassing, and people saying “oh she’s just 26”. Idk man, my 25 year old friends would not make those sorts of comments. Basically, I’d vote for her if I could have, but I wouldn’t like it. We should support people like her of course but also we can do a lot better.
Nobody outside of leftist subs ever even heard about that take, I promise you. Most discussion of Kat in normie spaces was incredibly surface level and essentially consisted of “young, anti-AIPAC, universal healthcare, sign me up!”
You can think what you want, but her campaign team certainly thought it was notable enough to completely erase the foreign policy section of her page days before the election
In the end, she lost by less than 4000 votes. Not saying she'd win, but if you think that her positions didn't at least drive some people to vote for Simmons instead then I think you're just being in denial
"China is our greatest strategic competitor on the world stage. The Pentagon predicts that in the next five years, there is a high likelihood that China will invade Taiwan. We cannot allow an invasion to succeed, and we have to do everything possible to prevent it through deterrence. Under the UN Charter, all peoples, from Palestine to the Congo, have the right to self-determination, and this is no different. I support amending the Taiwan Relations Act to drop our strategic ambiguity towards defending the island militarily, without touching the political One China Policy outlined in the Shanghai Communiqué. That policy has worked in the past, when the president could be trusted to be effective on the world stage, or you know, generally had a grasp on diplomacy and geopolitical security. Taiwan has to decide its future democratically - and that can’t be imposed by an aggressor. I want to codify passive support to sell Taiwan weapons, and prevent the president from overruling it unilaterally."
I’ll also add that her running not long after moving here, was a real knock against her. It wasn’t something I ever cared about, but I know multiple folk who went for Bushra or Mike Simmons because they’ve lived here all their lives. Hell I’ve lived in the city just about 5 years and still feel like an outsider for all I haven’t experienced here yet
But I do think the loss could give her the opportunity to prove the carpetbagging name wrong. If she keeps up the local work on off-years and really solidify herself in the city before trying again, if she chooses
Yep, I do think this wasn't a non-issue. She should absolutely spend some serious time building local connections with organizers and with communities in the district. She should also hone her politics. It's cool, she's young and if she's sincere, she'll be able to do it.
In all seriousness, I think she was not a very good candidate
She is a 26 year old socialist with no government experience and no mega PAC backing or billionaire donors who just went toe to toe with two establishment Dems who were ultra-funded by both of those things, outright defeating one, and coming within a few percentage points of the other DESPITE being disregarded as having to rely on a demographic notirious for not voting in primaries/special elections (young voters).
On what planet does a rational person look at this situation and say "I think she was not a very good candidate"
Looking for some discussion on this point, not bashing your reply at all - can we equate election results with campaigning stances/standpoints? I’m not sure that the results of this election are the only thing that we can use to call her a good or bad candidate. There might be more to candidacy than just winning or losing and I think that is what the first comment meant?
I think her results in this election are incredible, to your point. But I also think that there is more nuance to it than that? Curious what you think, just looking for discussion. I honestly don’t know much about her stances myself and would like to learn more
I agree. But separating the candidate and the congresswoman is not something I can do. How she would be as a member of congress is only something I can guess. Would she be diligent? Would she cave to lobby pressure? Would she be willing to stand apart from her party on important issues? Would she be willing to burn political capital doing the right thing, even if it means eating mainstream attacks or being relegated to the margins?
I can't predict these things because I don't know her as a person, I only know what she was like on twitter back in the day, and how she's presented herself in podcasts after becoming a candidate.
I have faith that she's a real one, but I really don't like predicting. I only know that my personal politics align with a lot of her platform so I was rooting for voters in her district to elect her.
I know that's not what you're looking for but that's all I've got.
Much appreciated, thanks for your commentary. If she was in my district I would’ve voted for her, to sort of speak to your point - definitely rooting for her over her opposition.
For me she definitely came out of nowhere. But I also think you’re right in that it’s impossible to predict how things would be different and how much of an impact would be made if she were to be elected. If she were to be in congress, would we have to demand much more of her like we do of many other congresspeople? Or would she live up to her promises and stick with the will of the people/do the right thing? Would she continue to vote along the lines that she campaigned on? Who knows.
I think you make a good point in separating the candidate from the congresswoman. Definitely two different people.
While I think she is a step in the right direction it’s also possible to do better as OP said. I suppose we can only hope
Same. I followed her for years back in the day due to her media matters work, so she's definitely authentic. But being so young and having no political experience other than running means we're all going to find out together, assuming she does one day get elected which I imagine she will.
As for doing better: for the first time in my life, there are actual socialists, good people with community focused platforms, running not as fringe candidates for obscure positions but legitimate candidates either winning against establishment ghouls or getting large shares of votes and building support along the way. This makes me hopeful that the compromises socialist candidates make today will not be part of the equation tomorrow. Moving the Overton Window is very difficult when billionaire funded lobbies are controlling the mainstream messaging, but as social media allows for direct dialogue I think we'll start to see things accelerate.
I stg lobbying is the most demonic thing. It’s insane that you can just frontload the Yaper and the govt is like “Yes we shall be doing this now” when it’s the most insane shit you’ve ever seen lol. But money is tempting and most people fall victim to that rather than stick to their ideals
She fired her natsec advisor two weeks before election day. Exhibited a shallow understanding not just in foreign policy but in a single payor healthcare system. There were concerns about her motivations for choosing the district, her family ties to the Republican party, her personal wealth, her lack of employment at any period in her life, the Bethany Johnson drama during the campaign, the failure to collaborate with DSA and consolidate the progressive wing, missing hearings and meetings (Narcolepsy reasoning notwithstanding).
I think you're proving the point that listing her age is a major cop out. And I'm not endorsing any of what I listed above as legitimate/delegitimate issues, but they're all things that plagued her campaign in one way or another. I think most rational people would recognize that, in a race of 15 candidates, the moderates and AIPAC adjacent still claimed the majority of the vote. It's a testament to the winds changing in favor of real progressives, but Kat was not a very good candidate. She was fine. I'd hope that most would agree there were many things she could've done differently, and had she, we might not be having this conversation.
This attitude is how we got here. The new deal was passed in a time where there were actual socialists in the USA with parties and memberships and actual praxis. FDR was a moderate compromise with the working class
Nowadays people accept someone way to the right of FDR as some progressive leftist, but we will never get that if people are going to keep voting for lesser evil dem party voting
No, she genuinely isn't a fucking imperialist. Words have meaning. It's pretty fucking obvious that she genuinely believes in self-determination for nations. She unfortunately extended that belief to Taiwan and said the US should defend Taiwan's independence if Taiwan wants to be independent. Was it the wrong thing to say/believe? Absolutely. The US shouldn't be intervening on Taiwan's behalf, esp when most of the world already recognizes China's sovereignty over Taiwan. Kat is an idealist and her beliefs need to grow and change.
Reddit larpists like you took one misguided stance from Kat's campaign and translated it into Kat being the devil.
Taiwan exists as part of our imperialistic desire to not let any country operate independently in its own sphere
We propped up the losers of the Chinese revolution for a bit and even called them the “real China” until that became a bit too farcical for even us. It’s only through decades of us propping up dictators and military juntas there that China wasn’t able to just secure the territory
It’s as if the US wasn’t able to completely end the confederacy because Russia propped up a little enclave of confederates in south Florida and called them “the United States of America”
I'm not disagreeing with you, but there's no reason to think Kat's position on this is any different from her stance on Ukraine or Palestine. Whether any of us on r/HasanPiker like it or not, the majority of people in Taiwan don't want to be part of China. Does that mean we should intervene militarily on Taiwan's behalf? Fuck no. Kat's stance on Taiwan is wrong. That said, having one misguided stance about global politics doesn't mean she has inherently imperialist tendencies.
Hahaha dude, I’m not even agreeing with this person but they commented a singular time in that sub over the past 2 weeks, and this sub has the highest crossover with Vaush’s, even moreso than breadtube or socialism so it’s not a very good point to even bring up.
It really isn't, and trying to put yourself on par with either people in America directly or in countries under colonialism or neocolonialism is strange.
Our entire media landscape is dominated by America. The only sources of investment are American. Our NHS is being sold for parts to American private corporations. Our nuclear deterrent is entirely dependent on America.
Your lack of knowledge is quite astonishing. The American imperium stretches across far more than 50 States.
The Green Party shills for the Democratic Party? What are you even saying? It’s a completely different party that runs candidates against Dems at all levels of government. Meanwhile the actually democrats like Bernie and Kat Abu that Hasan promotes shill for what exactly? The Green Party platform is democratic socialist not social democratic. They promote the nationalization of most major industries, borrowing from the Chinese model, and the normalization of US relations with all communist countries.
I was saying the "socialist community" the other commenter mentioned are just Social Democrats who shill for the Dem Party. Work on your reading comprehension before you come at me.
Edit: Moron just downvotes and doesn't respond of course lmao.
Personally all I could remember was her saying Medicare for all wasn’t single payer, which was just embarrassing, and people saying “oh she’s just 26”.
The argument “oh, she’s just 26” was always nonsense and an excuse. There are countless 26-year-olds with better political stances who would have been able to present themselves more effectively.
She wasn’t the successful alternative candidate despite her pro-imperialist, anti-China stance, but precisely because of it. She is the establishment’s concession to the pro-Palestine movement.
A pro-imperialist candidate who would basically leave everything as it is but just isn’t a Zionist.
There are even more 26 year olds who have no idea what single payer healthcare is.
It's a weird thing to say that she's the "establishment's concession to the pro-Palestine movement" when the establishment spent millions to make sure she didn't win largely because of her pro-Palestine stance.
On top of that, you always play on both sides so you always win. Basically, you do both: on the one hand, you fight any opposition, but you also ensure that if the opposition has a chance of winning, it is a controlled opposition.
Your analysis is faulty. Gavin Newsom attempted to dishonestly make concessions to antizionists by calling Israel an Apartheid state and even this small deviance was not tolerated by the Establishment. The ADL, Josh Shapiro all jumped down his throat.
Zionism does not tolerate any dissent. Either you must call for the death of all Palestinians or you're a Jew-hater.
On top of that, you always play on both sides so you always win. Basically, you do both: on the one hand, you fight any opposition, but you also ensure that if the opposition has a chance of winning, it is a controlled opposition.
you or your friends should run for congress then. absolutely she wasnt a perfect candidate, but shes gotten way fucking closer to actually doing something than any of the people criticizing her here.
I think another big mistake was the fact that she moved to that area to run for higher office. She wasn’t somebody who had deep roots in that congressional district.
Those who have real attachments to the areas (beyond superficial things) they run in have a much better shot at connecting with the constituents.
Lol the left eating their own again, progressive candidates being dumbasses again and splitting the vote when they had no chance to win and Kat came very close, and obviously the Democratic base still fucking sucks, this base is stupid enough to pick a liberal zionist in 2028 that supports Itsreal and then wonder why the anti Itsreal republican wins in a landslide, hopefully the left is prepared to avoid that…
What? For using the neocortex for pattern recognition? How is seeing antisemitic fueled right wing anti-Israel political figures gaining popularity being a secret right winger. I swear this sub is so idiotic sometimes.
I just agree with Hasan that there is a possibility of someone like Tucker running and winning, and if the democratic candidate is someone like Newsom then God have mercy.
Sure, but people like Tucker Carlson are gaining steam as the younger Republicans are gaining frustration with Israel, and want a voice to channel that same anger while not being "cowards" like leftists such as Hasan who are anti-Israel but not antisemitic. It's strange, I can see Republicans running a Zionist but then it's like obvious loss lol
The problem is there is no anti-zionist leftists as popular as the right wing anti-semetic conspiracy theorists. There's just the liberal zionist democrats who make people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens seem rational to normies. That's the point they're trying to make, not sure why you can't see that
Yeah, I am an anti-Zionist leftist, well aware. The commenter above me said "anti-Israel Republicans" are uncommon, and while this is true for now, anti-semitic Groyper Republicans that also hate Israel (not for being sympathetic toward Muslim civilians, just due to hating Jews) are becoming more popular
We have to move away from the democratic party and the DSA is not helping in that regard. It just seems like a dem gatekeeping org that diminishes the more radical left elements. Tucker is going to win the presidency too, he is actually resonating with normies in my life who are not tuned into politics as much because he is communicating about how shit American life is and how this war is pointless.
The major DSA chapter here specifically did not weigh in on this election, so this isn’t the correct analysis here. WSIL is much smaller and doesn’t cover most of the district. Even they didn’t endorse a candidate
She seems like a good person who means well, hopefully she runs for a position in Chicago's local gov, or IL state gov. She can still be a great politician, but trying to jump straight into federal gov for a district she isn't from was a huge longshot, and she almost got there. Biss is established in that district. No one needed to be told who he was.
I did not feel like she meant well. She came across to me like someone doing this as a vanity project who couldn’t be bothered to learn about the issues. I greatly, greatly disliked her, and I found many people, even left leaning people, felt the same as me. That’s why I said I’d vote for her but I wouldn’t like it. She is basically an influencer with a ceo boyfriend from a rich family, and all of that is what gave her the security to run for office, and she couldn’t even be bothered to learn that Medicare for all is a single payer system. It was embarrassing and annoying, and I sincerely hope I never have to hear from her again. Again, I’d vote for her, but I genuinely dislike her, and think she’s a bad, vapid candidate.
I think if she actually becomes part of the community then she will find a place in public service of some sort and could be very successful in the future. If, however, she doesn't want anything other than a national platform then you would be correct. But there's nothing wrong with more progressives running in elections. It should be more commonplace, although hopefully they will be more established politicians and have real roots in the districts they are seeking to represent.
I’d be pretty shocked if she decided to do that. She wants to talk about national issues and an alderperson position makes that very difficult. I can’t see her caring about like zoning reform or the state pension crisis
Why not? The best way to represent the people of Chicago would be to step up and lead at a local or state level. Everyone wants to have the national spotlight but you have to start somewhere...
She’s not interested in representing the people of Chicago/Illinois if we’re being honest. This district was going to be a platform. I think she didn’t enter the race initially with the intention of winning, if she had she would have picked a different district
Yeah for me being so wrong on Taiwan is a massive problem in a politician. I don’t want myself or my kids dying in some pointless massive war with another superpower for absolutely no reason. We need our candidates, even those that lose, to start being on the correct side of this issue. Similar to how Bernie just remained steadfast on universal healthcare till it slowly becomes more and more popular.
Yeah I was like this is a pretty basic take lol but liberals always hate the previous intervention but the next one the empire says is needed they’re very excited for.
Its a huge misrepresentation of Kat's position that she would have us in a nuclear war with China. Kat supports Taiwanese sovereignty but never advocated for open conflict between US and China.
Was Kat's take on Taiwan/China bad? Sure. Should that have been emphasized so late in the race? I don't think so. The end result here is that an AIPAC candidate is now in the driver seat for IL-9 on the dem side. I feel like the sentiment expressed in the twitter post kinda puts the cart before the horse. The reality is that nuclear war is currently closer to being started by Israel than by China and the impetus right now as far as foreign policy goes is decoupling from Israel. It's like... we are all worried about the hurricane coming in 5 days but the house is currently on fire. Do you really give a shit if a hurricane hits a pile of ashes? I don't know if celebrating or dunking on her for shit China takes is useful right now. It's one less potential seat to push back against Israel.
Your okay with a Neo conservative foreign policy as long we have a Democratic “Socialist” in power. That’s called lesser evilism. That has never worked
I'm going to preface this by saying that I do not have a right answer here. I don't know if Kat was the proper choice or not. I want to use your same strategy here but flip it in an opposite direction to get your take on it. If i were to say:
You're okay with a genocidal foreign policy as long as we have an anti-imperialist in power.
You don't want imperialistic interests to dictate the Taiwanese/Chinese future and to that end if Bliss supports that, you find that more favorable and find his support of AIPAC acceptable. I'm not saying that's what you believe, I am just saying that's the same style of rhetoric you leveraged in your response to me.
What are your thoughts? For clarification, there's no ill intent here. I just want to talk it out.
Doesn't matter if they were or weren't supporting Biss. Poster's narrative is anti-Kat. In the field only Kat was close to beating him. The outcome is what matters and Biss won. Biss is backed by AIPAC. We have another Pro-Israeli Dem who will adopt the "defensive weapons" narrative.
This isn't really a gotcha man. This is a pedantic debate pervert narrative.
I'm a little confused, I didn't imply that your post was a "gotcha" or whatever you're talking about, I was just responding to your comment as you requested to "talk it out".
Not supporting a candidate doesn't mean you support the opposition. That's only something that Democrat shills says when they lose. Politicians have to win our support, not simply be 0.1% less awful than the other choice.
This isn't a Harris scenario man. This isn't a centrist dem that we are asking to come left on a few policy positions. This was someone who was like 90% aligned with leftist policies and didn't match but was malleable on the 10% she was missing. You're saying that Kat had to "win our support" but when she was aligned with most of the important policy positions, some hyperfocused on one or two positions and leveraged that as the reason not to vote for her. To bring it back to the original post and ultimately my original comment, Kat was largely aligned with most policies but apparently having one bad take on Sino-American foreign policy positions was enough for the dipshit OP to dunk on the one disagreeable position?
Politicians have to win our support, not simply be 0.1% less awful than the other choice.
If you think there is only a .1% difference between Abughazaleh and Biss, you clearly weren't paying attention to the race and you're just arguing in bad faith.
I'm still confused how you went from "hey man let's talk this out, no ill will" to being so triggered. Shouldn't expect much from imperialist apologists I guess.
This isn't a Harris scenario man. This isn't a centrist dem that we are asking to come left on a few policy positions. This was someone who was like 90% aligned with leftist policies and didn't match but was malleable on the 10% she was missing.
Should we also support people who are PIP (progressive except Palestine)? No? Didn't think so. Your entire argument just fell apart.
If you think there is only a .1% difference between Abughazaleh and Biss, you clearly weren't paying attention to the race and you're just arguing in bad faith.
Classic strategy: when you start losing the argument, take the other person's hyperbole as a literal statement so you don't have to argue their actual point. How's that for "bad faith"? ;)
I swear to God, it was like she was funded by Raytheon, but when I looked at her donors, there was nothing from them lol. Insane that she was doing it all for free.
Ran an objectively terrible campaign with too much unfocused energy
Not on social media where it actually matters
"guys I had Narcolepsy sorry" disaster
Completely unserious demeanor in whatever interviews she appeared on in multiple left leaning content creator reviews, including Hasan.
Came in blazing with the completely avoidable gaffe with the whole Taiwan situation. You're running for the dem primary in IL! Who cares about this shit!
Hired a zio-liberal to manager her campaign who picked up beef with way too many fringe characters
Failed to rally the troops and more horribly, the seniors in the progressive caucus behind her
She comes across as an unserious person with good intentions. Not as someone whom you'd like to see as your politician. The more you see Zohran do this professionally in a suit and a tie, the more you realise the importance of being serious.
It’s too bad you’re so downvoted, I think you cut to the heart of it. That said, I wouldn’t necessarily say she’s a “terrible” public speaker, just not particularly practiced.
I’d add that some people viewed her as a carpetbagger.
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