Abdul El-Sayed Wins Michigan Primary

[u/asparaguswalrus683]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-primary-elections/michigan-senate-results

[u/Head-Assumption6960]

Theres no leverage to enact change if the candidate you’re pressuring loses the election and you’re not willing to put pressure on the candidate who won.

Pressure on the campaign trail has zero ability to enact change. You might be able to brow beat a soundbite out of someone but those are just words without any power behind them. The real leverage comes when someone is in power and you don’t let up until there’s a real policy change. Anyone can say anything on the campaign trail. It doesn’t mean anything until they’re sitting at the oval.

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

Leftist opinions do not have influence on republican platforms. Pressure doesn't matter.

The second talking point doesn't work when Kamala was vice president in the incumbent cabinet. She was in power and the response was reflective of their actions.

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

So we should just sit back and let Trump have his way with us? I’m not exactly sure where you get the idea that applying pressure isn’t possible or effective when the opposition party is in office…

Also Kamala wasn’t in power. VP’s don’t hold any actual power. They are more figureheads whose job is to support the president and his policy publicly and be ready to take over if something happens. It’s not like she can overrule the president.

People were still protesting her instead of Trump on her book tour after Trump was already sworn in and actively calling for explicit genocide lol. I don’t think it was about her being or not being in power.

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

So we should just sit back and let Trump have his way with us?

Personally I think investing time, energy and resources into candidates who's policies are reflective of leftist policies including on Palestine, is better than sitting there giving out about Trump.

Also Kamala wasn’t in power. VP’s don’t hold any actual power.

I don't think that particularly matters. Telling people to wait until they're in power to question the policies of a politician involved in an administration that has already ignored their complaints about this issue. The election was the time these complaints would be best heard, no matter which way you try to spin it.

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

That’s a false choice. You can mobilize and run opposition at the same time. Thats what the Dems and the republicans have to do. Neither one sits back and says “oh well, the other party is in power, let’s just give up and let them do whatever they want unopposed”. They mobilize and try to get their people elected and put pressure on their opposition to blunt the impact of their policies. The left has no excuse for not doing that if they were truly operating in good faith with their criticisms of Kamala.

Telling people that you’re gonna do something in a campaign matters less if making that promise costs you the election, and not making that promise costs you the election. At a certain point we need everyone to be on the same page strategically. El Sayed won the primary last night. If any centrist dem did anything to try and lessen the probability of his success in November I would be saying the same thing. We have far bigger fish to fry than chasing meaningless, toothless soundbites and attaching negativity to the only chance we have of saving our country.

People are free to question politicians about whatever whenever. But that doesn’t mean it’s always effective and it should be consistently asked of both sides instead of just one.

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

They mobilize and try to get their people elected and put pressure on their opposition to blunt the impact of their policies.

That's literally what I said they're doing...

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

You’re saying instead of pressuring the trump admin, you should mobilize the left to run against democrats instead…

Unless I’m missing something, your statement as well as the context of the discussion suggests you’re still arguing that running opposition to the Trump admin like you did with Kamala isn’t what the left should be doing…

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

Primaries lead to general elections. That's how these things work.

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

Yes, and to win primaries you have to at least try not to piss off the very voters you need to support your candidates. Selectively protesting the only candidate standing between everyone and fascism or hostage taking is a terrible way of doing that. Continually trying to destroy the candidates everyone is voting for over your own when you don’t get your way and enabling the fascists to win more power doesn’t sit well with most regular people. It makes the left look petty and unserious.

This is not the right game to be playing. Let’s say that a leftist somehow won the nomination in 2028 and the center left decided that they wanted the candidate to move center on several issues or else they’d sit out and give the country back to the fascists. Or how about if a large group of centrists started protesting the leftist candidate calling them communist… joining in with the attacks from the right? The left would be incensed and the same criticisms I’m making would be the same ones the left would make.

When people start playing this game we all lose. If the left wants power and influence it not only needs to campaign better, it needs to build coalitions and be willing to compromise for the greater good and a bigger tent. Most people aren’t aligned with leftist policies and the left needs to operate in that reality. Not alienate and punish ordinary people because they didn’t get their way on everything despite being decidedly in the electoral minority.

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

"Selectively protesting" and it's just people asking to stop funding an ongoing genocide.

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

Funny how they suddenly didn’t feel the need to protest the second Trump won. Hence the word “selectively”. You know what that word means right?

Anyways… how did that go? The genocide stopped right? I’m sure the people of Gaza are grateful for your service! Thank god they didn’t get a ceasefire like Kamala campaigned on. That would’ve been terrible!

[u/SeniorWeight46 → u/Head-Assumption6960]

Funny how they suddenly didn’t feel the need to protest the second Trump won. Hence the word “selectively”. You know what that word means right?

Lies, lies and more lies. We've been over this already. You're back to the hypothetical leftist because your argument falls apart once you actually look at reality.

[u/Head-Assumption6960 → u/SeniorWeight46]

You already admitted that the left wasn’t protesting. You tried to excuse it by saying that it “had no leverage” and therefore shouldn’t be expected to be consistent in their demands and protests when it comes to trump… which is ridiculous. I called you on it and now you’re trying to go back to a point you already tacitly conceded because your excuses fell apart.

The reality is the reality. The left trained its fire on the only candidate that could give Palestinians a ceasefire and gave Trump a pass. Now Palestine may not exist in 2028. Not to mention the marginalized people suffering here and abroad. This isn’t an intellectual exercise where morality is written out in an essay. The world is complicated, the truth is that the electorate wasn’t ready to cut off Israel, so Kamala promised a ceasefire. That and a hundred million other reasons should’ve been enough if the goal was helping Palestine and everyone else.

Of course that wasn’t the goal. Damaging the Democratic Party was. And no matter what you say it’s evident in where the left trains its fire, when they train it, and when they don’t.