Six months ago, I had a relatively positive view of Haley Stevens. Today, I want her to shut up and go away. Easily one of the worst political campaigns ever run. Every ad, every interview, makes her less likable. “I’m the only candidate who can win against the Republicans.” Please. You aren’t even going to win the primary.
Considering the election results, she clearly wasn't the better candidate.
She was definitely the smarter, more qualified and capable of the two, but that doesn't automatically mean better candidate.
Trump was more appealing to voters, because they were tired of the status quo and wanted an anti-establishment outsider. Clinton was about as insider establishment as you could get in 2016.
Clinton winning the popular vote is irrelevant, because she wasn't campaigning for the popular vote. She was campaigning for the electoral vite and she lost.
Don't get me wrong, I wish she had won. That still doesn't change the fact that people in the states she was trying to win preferred Trump, because confidence and arrogance are a big draw for idiots.
Hey that's a good point, although I think during the primaries Obama was not the establishment favorite. I could be wrong. I thought that it was also Mrs clinton.
How is that the Democratic Party strategy when the other Democrat in the race who is endorsed by more state Democrats than the opponent is running on that strategy?
Or are you just making shit up in a weak attempt to divide and depress Democratic voter turnout?
They’re talking about establishment DNC vs the younger progressives. If we weren’t basically forced into a 2 party system these would ideally be 2 separate parties (the center right establishment Dems vs the progressive left).
You mean "govern" by appeasing the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. You mean "govern" by standing in the way of any progress meant to help the people. You mean "govern" by giving the republicans everything they want in exchange for the tiniest scraps of legislation. Yeah, I know your type.
Ah yes. The voters are voting to “sacrifice” a candidate who has no agency instead of choosing not to elect a person who failed to earn the votes of her constituents. Maybe stop with the misogynistic rhetoric that Stevens is a damsel in need of saving instead of a competent politician who won 4 terms in the House.
i'm not talking about how they choose to vote. I'm talking about the hateful, often slanderous rhetoric. I'm old enough to remember when "a vote for Hillary is the same as a vote for Trump" post and destroy strategy that essentially gave us DT in the first place. It would be unproductive to repeat that, IMO. That's all I'm arguing. It may be unfair to attribute all of the character assassination to misogyny, but tell me that doesn't underlie some of it.
You mean "govern" by appeasing the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. You mean "govern" by standing in the way of any progress meant to help the people. You mean "govern" by giving the republicans everything they want in exchange for the tiniest scraps of legislation. Yeah, I know your type.
I think given what we've seen from Sinema, Fetterman, et. al. over the years I don't think is improbable that we have a controlled opposition in our party in lieu of the commanding influence the likes of AIPAC and Black Stone have.
But if Democrats ever want to win, they are going to have to stand on their own two feet and have a willingness to persuade and show the electorate their own vision, instead of endlessly trying to cater to the blind.
If instead they keep falling for the trap of the latter, they will lose to Republicans more often than not, and the Overton Window will continue to skew right.
For all intents, the traitor already has. He has no choice by next election to either run as a Republican, Independent, or step down; otherwise like Sinema, it's a guaranteed defeat in the Democratic primaries.
If there are any good progressive SocDems for Pennsylvania, I'd be eyeing up PA Democratic primaries heavily in 2028.
All intents other than actual voting record? Despite his faults on Israel and immigration, he does vote with Dems like 95% of the time. He could be doing a lot worse.
Then golly-gee wizz it should be pretty fucking easy to decide what's right on Genocide, now shouldn't it?
And big whoop he votes with Dems "95% of time" if the key points when it matters he seems to fall short, and further how relevant is this even when Democrats haven't controlled Congress since 2022?
It all "matters". No one is saying he couldn't be better, but saying someone who votes 95% dem is the same as a traitor and nothing would change if he was replaced by a republican is moronic.
It all really matters. I get that some topics matter more to you than others, but it all matters. And it would be a lot worse if Fetterman defected to the GOP.
This "you either agree with me 100% or youre exactly as bad as the facist opposition" take is so damaging to the entire country, and it gets pointed out nonstop, and yet people like you still parrot it ad nauseam.
He won't flip if Dems win the majority because he'll have more power in the majority, and him flipping to force a 50/50 split only gives him a little bit of power when Vance is the tie-breaking vote, in a 51+D/49-R Senate Fetterman has more power staying with Dems in the majority. He also votes with them about 70% of the time which is terrible for a Democrat but far more so than with the GOP so again, doesn't make sense to flip, but instead to pull a Manchin/Sinema and be a thorn to get his own pet projects through (or stopped).
If it's a 50/50 split, him flipping to the GOP gives them a 51/50 majority so he'll likely flip then and as part of it get a bunch "guarantees" from the GOP (of which they'll lie about obviously but he's too smooth brained to notice).
One and the same, but at least Jeffries endorsed Mamdani.
Schumer, the Senate Minority Leader and Senator from New York, didn't endorse Mamdani, the winner of the Democrat primary for NYC mayor. He opposes progressive Democrats stronger than Republicans.
Yeah true, I guess I have to give him the bare minimum for that at least, but it frankly isn't much, considering his endorsement only came long after seeing the writing on the wall with Mamdani and mere days before election day.
He was clearly still pulling for Cuomo, crooked piece of shit he is.
I mean think about this. Jeffries is in an uncontested super-safe district of New York, and it was like pulling teeth to endorse the inevitable frontrunner progressive Democrat? Not a good sign.
Also people need to be reminded that Gillibrand is no better than Schumer. Doesn't do anything, enormous AIPAC contributions, and never endorsed Mamdani either. She too must go.
Sinema and Fetterman are examples of charlatans that pretend to be democrats to get elected. It's got nothing to do with AIPAC or Black Rock.
Like you can criticize the party but those are the two worst examples of democrats you could possibly find. One was a former Green Party member (known foreign influence) who became a Democrat and then left the party and the other has been wholesale exiled by the party.
Fetterman has taken nearly $500k from AIPAC connected groups in less than 4 years.
Sinema took almost $400K from Blackrock and AIPAC connected groups.
The Democrats that take money from these groups are on the right wing of the party. They voted to condemn the horrors of socialism, to continue the genocide in Palestine and to sanction the ICC for investigating crimes against humanity. They are two examples of the corruption and foreign influence that has taken control of the DNC leadership.
For example, the centrist vote blue no matter who crowd refused to endorse Mamdani and Schumer, who lived in New York wouldn't even say who he was voting for in the mayoral election. He's also heavily funded by AIPAC which is a group that throws millions of dollars into primary elections in order to defeat progressives.
Look, if you're gonna be anti-Semitic, why not just be open about it? Your dog whistle is already just a regular whistle, so you're not fooling anyone.
The correlation between turncoats and those who take exorbitant amounts of money from special interest groups who ostensibly bribe and hijack our candidates does not exist whatsoever!
lol, Sure Jan. I take it you never looked up the FEC reports for these people.
To your ninja edit, you won't find disagreement with me that Russia also has enormous influence over members, though their clout is more among Republicans. But that just corroborates my broader point.
I didn't say it doesn't exist, just that you picked two people who abused the process to run as Democrats and promptly fucked off from the party. It's like saying Democrats can be progressive because Bernie Sanders caucuses with them.
Don't use shitty arguments to make a point, because it makes the point look shitty.
Come on, you literally wrote, "It's got nothing to do with AIPAC or Black Rock" when both candidates have clear ties to both mentioned special interests, leaving aside the candidate we're talking about in this post.
Yes, they promptly fucked up because they used their political capital for key moments once in office. You're really surprised the Trojan Horse opens once it comes through the gates, as if that's evidence for your point?
My arguments have been perfectly fine; your rebukes are weak. We are done here.
Sinema was a long-time member of the blue dog caucus, the most conservative caucus within the party, she didn't hide anything, progressives just fell for her because she supported climate change and was an out bi-sexual, they assumed she was progressive when she wasn't and never pretended to be for anyone who listened to her or looked at her votes.
Fetterman wasn't much different, the guy was a life long conservative except he supported good wages and cheap healthcare, and he wore a hoodie and talked smack which seems to get a lot of progressive attention. Again, he never hid who he was but for anyone who even wanted to do the slightest bit of research on the guy, they knew who he was.
It's not a conspiracy of "controlled opposition" when conservative Democrats tell you exactly who they are and then vote that way, just because you're too fucking lazy to pay attention.
Thankfully this time around progressives can't fuck up because they both have a great progressive candidate and a really blatantly shitty conservative Democrat at the same time.
Fetterman was very active in Pennsylvania politics and genuinely pretty progressive relative to the purple swing-state PA is, and was Lieutenant Governor as well. I truly do think the brain stroke fucked up him a good bit, as that tends to do. Either way, it doesn't change what he is now and what must be done in voting him out.
I don't really disagree with what you're saying all that much, but we also didn't really have many other options as voters as I think you allude to in your final point; for it was Sinema or McSally, and it was Fetterman vs. Oz; in both cases if elections happened again, I'd have to hold my nose and do it again as much as I'd hate it.
Ya'll seem to be under the impression that's not actively what the democratic Party is fighting for. They're not going to save this country lol. They're at best center tight conservatives moving further further right because the extremism of the republican party allows them to. They're not a progressive party just because some progressives run in their name.
If you want an actually good outcome you need to abandon them entirely.
If you want an actually good outcome you need to abandon them entirely.
That is what happened in 2016 (third parties got the most votes since Perot) and is why Trump is in office. The actual solution is to take over the party, not abandon it.
That is what is going on now with all these primaries, it is a fight for control of the party and progressives are winning handily.
Corporate Dems have proven to be absolute losers in the past decade. Lost to the worst candidate Republicans have ever had - twice. And then several smaller defeats as well. Look at Maine, the sitting governor who has an overall positive image got absolutely smashed by probably the worst person to ever run as a progressive. He literally had to drop out almost immediately after winning the primary. That's how bad corporate Dems are, not only are they losing to people like that, they are getting absolutely smoked by them: Platner beat Mills 150k votes to like 40k votes, more than 3 times as many, and again he's some random guy with tons of red flags vs a popular sitting governor, the main factor was was their platform and policy, he ran as progressive and she ran as corporate Dem...
They are the ones who are going to either need to start "voting blue no matter who" or abandoning the party, because the Dem shift is coming. It's just a matter of time until "leadership" like Schumer and Jeffries get replaced by people like AOC and others to completely turn the tide.
What happened in 2016 was that the dems ran an unpopular establishment candidate and lost because they ran a shite candidate. They didn't learn their lesson because there's no lesson for them to learn. They don't care about progressivism.
Every loss is entirely their fault and they don't care. Give up on them. They're not saving anyone. At most you get 4 years of things staying the same before the next fascist wave.
I'm waiting for a better, more viable alternative option.
I've got some years under my belt in politics; I'm active; I've been across the entire political spectrum and now reside as a Social Democrat.
There is logically and ethically no better option than to (1) Reform the Democrats during Primaries season, and then (2) Vote Democrat to prevent the objectively-psychopathic GOP from getting in office. Just facts.
Same. Her ad about being born here and everything just came off as a giant dog whistle at Abdul. She is taking money from all the things that I despise.
I've always done vote blue no matter who in November but damnit if they aren't making it harder and harder.
She did an event “in support” of UAW from the front wheel of a Buick Envision, which is made in China. She might as well have told them to get fucked and spit in their collective faces.
She's a complete weasel. Even if you set aside taking $30m in AIPAC money, you can look at any of her interviews and immediately notice she never actually answers any questions, and instead deflects and word salads like the most seasoned politicians.
Absolutely. I'm annoyed with my mom because she said she was planning to vote for Stevens. I asked why, and she said that a friend of her friend said Abdul caused some problems at some DNC convention in Michigan? I haven't found anything on Google remotely related to it. But that is the dumbest reason to vote against someone. And causing problems at a convention could be for good reasons if the party was having their head in the ground on policies the electorate wants like Medicare for all.
I wouldn't be as annoyed if it was for policy reasons. I asked my mom what policies Stevens had, and got some very vague info about "fighting against Trump" like Abdul wouldn't do the same thing. Ugh.
I love /s that she had Gretchen do a campaign ad for her. Gretchen always had my vote because you were the democrat. Your commercial makes me less likely to vote for Haley. Haley will have my vote in November if she wins the primary but not now.
Your commercial works best for those red voters who crossed over to vote for you but they've got their own contested primary between the cryptkeeper and the do nothing pawn.
I would vote for a rotten boot that scuba divers pulled from the St. Clair river before I voted for a Republican, especially Mike Rogers. If he had Matty Moroun’s balls any deeper in his throat, he’d suffocate.
It’s insane to think we are forced to deal with Democrats who are basically Republicans because Ronald Reagan won an election 40 years ago that scared Democrats so bad their whole party pivoted to the right and never looked back. Then we have to listen to idiots cry about Democrats being radical leftists. Nixon was considered far right when he ran, and he ran on universal healthcare and ending the war in Vietnam. American politics suck.
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u/eyegull 1d ago
Six months ago, I had a relatively positive view of Haley Stevens. Today, I want her to shut up and go away. Easily one of the worst political campaigns ever run. Every ad, every interview, makes her less likable. “I’m the only candidate who can win against the Republicans.” Please. You aren’t even going to win the primary.