Dems have to ditch their addiction to AIPAC and corpo money.
Otherwise their fucked.
Get money out of politics.
It’s not some eldritch knowledge.
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I would argue that Mamdani, AOC, Sanders, and any others who follow that same path are all parts of a different party that is simply forced to run on the Democrat ballot. Meanwhile the true Democrats and Republicans are two wings of the same Corprocrat party who is there to progress the interests of corporations and the only divide is on what to do with the ‘remaining’ population.
He lost them with “don’t take corpo checks”
“b-b-b-but how will I afford a gravy yacht?”
🥺👉👈
Because the DNC isn’t actually on the side of the working class. They aren’t like us. No matter how much they say they are, actions speak louder than words. I just don’t understand why others can’t see the pattern that I do. I see Democrats tanking on purpose, accepting money from influences that don’t have their voters best interest, and reaping the benefits of Republican decisions that they claim they are against…
Just follow the money.
I mean, the last few elections were proof enough. They put up safe (for them) candidates and barely even try to do anything more than be “not trump”. Its infuriating when people preach at me about how great Kamala was going to be and that nobody voted for her out of sexism/racism. I voted for her, but the pre-election was handled like shit and the lack of a primary turned off WAY more voters than they want to admit. The right wingers are constantly calling the democrats communists, and then the democrats respond by selecting their candidate without anyone’s input. They just play into the narrative and reap the rewards while trying to keep the illusion of a moral high ground.
NYC isn’t the country. However, that being said, a few years of him being successful would go a long way to convince the centrists that it’s the way to go.
I mean, most of us here know it is…but we need to get the rest of the country onboard, and showing success is the best way to do that…
Throughtout my life I’ve encountered the “X isn’t Y” thought-terminating cliche anywhere I’ve ever tried to do any sort of activism or advocacy (When I was doing bike advocacy in NYC it was often “New York isn’t Amsterdam” which was especially ironic considering that it once literally was). It’s never once been a meaningful or persuasive point. Reality on the ground is always what we make it, and policy can be communicated through the right identity and strategies. New Yorkers really aren’t at all that different from Americans anywhere else, the biggest differences are aesthetic.
I’ve been accused of being a centrist, despite basically being to the left of everyone in American politics, and I think it’s because people tend to over-weight the economic left/right spectrum (or project other non-economic issues onto the left/right spectrum), and not place enough effort into thinking through:
- Ideological purity versus pragmatic deal-making.
- Actual governance skill, kinda a technocratic versus populist view.
- When and where it’s appropriate to break the law to accomplish goals, like the lawfu-to-chaotic alignment in the D&D memes.
None of that is left/right or centrist in itself, but my positions (pragmatic, technocratic, lawful) sometimes put me at odds with other voices on the left.
Other criteria that don’t map onto left/right include authenticity, consistency/predictability, coherence across issues, and plain old network connections, and political effectiveness (influencing the public and other politicians to follow your lead on issues).
Mamdani is awesome because he exudes authenticity (like, I’m not a Knicks fan but he can give a great mayor’s speech for his favorite team winning), gets things done (actual stuff around city governance, like snow shoveling), and seems to know how to get policy passed (working with Hochul to get some big ticket legislation on taxing the rich accomplished, even if it will contain some compromises). He is, in other words, an effective politician. We need more people like him scattered throughout different jurisdictions.
I will gladly support a coalition of centrists and leftists to move things to the left, especially if they can flank the current Republican party on plain old competence and honesty/fairness in governance.
I always say, if you vote for the left-most candidate in EVERY election, then that’s how we move things to the left. If you stay home because the left-most candidate isn’t left-enough for you, that’s how the right wins.
I am not from US so I don’t know how NYC is going? Is Mamdani really doing good there?
His policies sure are popular, and definitely better for the people there. The 1%'ers don’t like it, but I haven’t heard of any big names leaving just yet. Definitely passed the test during the last big snowstorm… had the roads and sidewalks cleared in record time.
The dems “win” for their masters by losing.
Also, it’s incredibly simple. Mamdani is getting stuff done but even attempting to get stuff done makes people happy.
And getting stuff done implies in some part that it could have been done before. So why had it not?
He’s the politician that didn’t get the memo to try and look like you’re doing something, but don’t actually do it. As if we’ll run out of problems to solve and campaign on. Maybe it’s that simple - having to shift to new messages is hard vs. sticking with the old ones.
Turns out Mamdani many other people like him got the memo, it’s that the corporate centrists didn’t get it and have been ignoring for a long time
but even attempting to get stuff done makes people happy.
Meanwhile, mainstream Dems: “We can’t do that. If we tried to do things, the Republicans would be mad at us.”
The corporate donors would be mad
We don’t give a shit about the corporate donors lol
Yeah even good intentions are rare
Because the Democratic Party serves the same masters as the GOP. They exist to make sure that a large enough majority maintains faith in the system to keep the populace from revolting. They serve a secondary purpose of capturing and neutering any social movements that might create a danger to the Wall St agenda.
Note that “governing” and “policy” are not part of their purpose.
Hurr Durr BoTh SiDes’
Fucking idiots in here desperate to pretend this utter bullshit, even with all we’ve seen.
A most erudite rebuttal. You’ve made a very convincing argument (that you don’t know shit about politics except what you see on cable news and you think it’s just another team sport).
Masters = voters?
Lol, what action taken by either party in the last thirty years gave you the impression either of them serve their voters?
Most of them? You can keep pretending otherwise, but they are where they are because people voted for them.
So nothing at all, but your fifth grade civics textbook said that’s how it works, so there’s obviously no need to interrogate that further?
The entrenched establishment that still controls the DNC isn’t interested in winning elections if it means offending AIPAC or their mega rich and corporate donors. They can’t offer any meaningful change for the working class without risking their own paychecks, so they don’t have any moves except “not Trump.”
Over 100 Democrats are voting against funding Israel now. Are they not in the DNC?
Oh wait, yeah they are.
This is why primaries exist if I’m not mistaken.
Excellent point. If the DNC was captured by AIPAC, then they wouldn’t have primaries, and would instead figure out some way to nominate a pro-Israel candidate undemocratically.
These people who bitch and moan online never vote in primaries or actually participate.
I can think of one
Spill the beans
Are Americans going to pop a blood vessel in their eye if they don’t use abrivations for everything?
The entrenched establishment that still controls the [Democratic National Committee] [is not] interested in winning elections if it means offending [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] or their mega rich and corporate donors. They [can not] offer any meaningful change for the working class without risking their own paychecks, so they [do not] have any moves except “not Trump.”
The problem is that most people know these organizations by their abbreviations rather than the whole title
Holy shit AIPAC stands for that? No wonder about the last few years then
(yeah I’m not american, I also only knew these by their abbreviations)
They’ve been lobbying hard for like 30+ years afaik
They’ve successfully overthrown the government with bribes and blackmail, the upcoming military integration seals it.
Wait ‘til you learn that GOP stands for Republican.
Grand Old Pedophile Party
aka: Greed Over People party
Or, in reality, the progressive voters don’t show up during Democratic primaries and the DNC responds to those who do.
Progressives showed up to the primary for New York mayor and the DNC responded with Islamophobia, an anti-socialist manifesto, and threats of splitting the party.
the DNC responded with Islamophobia
Have a source on that?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/top-democrat-racist-tirade-zohran-mamdani_n_6861aab5e4b08e0b4a741231
https://www.jezebel.com/democratic-leaders-join-republicans-islamophobic-attacks-on-zohran-mamdani
https://newrepublic.com/article/199293/democratic-establishment-shunning-mamdani-disqualifying
https://newrepublic.com/post/196734/andrew-cuomo-ad-edited-photo-zohran-mamdani
Hopefully a lot more to go. We even got a progressive who won the Democratic primary for Senate in Kentucky, Charles Booker. Though he hasn’t called himself a socialist, he’s running on the same social democratic platform as the DSA-aligned socialists have been.
The actual truth, not that Lemmy wants to hear it.
We showed up for Bernie in droves that the DNC got so scared they conspired AGAINST him to prevent any chance of him being the nominee. I’m done with neo-liberals, they’re as much contemptible as reactionaries, more so because they pretend to be on our side.
they conspired AGAINST him
No, they didn’t. You just believe what you want to believe because the person you like didn’t win. Just like MAGA does. Good for you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak#Bernie_Sanders’s_campaign But hey, pretend you’re right like neo-liberals do.
Where’s the link where Bernie said he was cheated? Or maybe you can explain why Bernie advocated that everyone vote for the “evil neo-liberal” Harris? Funny how often THAT gets ignored.
Bernie lost BOTH times because he’s not as popular in real life as he is in your bubble. I don’t like that either but it’s reality and you continuing to drive this wedge in the party when Trump is destroying country is NOT was Bernie wants you to do. Unlike you cultists, he has integrity and believes in his causes. YOU do not care about his causes because you help put in office people who set them back by decades.
The link you provided in NO WAY proves that the DNC somehow cheated in all the states Bernie lost. You have to give up this delusional nonsense and face reality. Yes, you have proven that SOME individuals in the DNC preferred Clinton. Guess what? That happens in every single fucking primary. There were people in the DNC who liked Sanders more - but you just discount them altogether because you agree with them. There is NO proof in your link that shows that Sanders would’ve won if those DNC members who didn’t like him didn’t exist. There is definitely no proof that there was voter fraud.
Brad Marshall suggested getting a reporter to question Sanders about whether he believed in God. There is no evidence the proposal was actually carried out.
Mark Paustenbach proposed promoting a story that Sanders’s campaign was disorganized. The suggestion was rejected.
-Schultz’s insults were NOT public before or during the primary.
So several things that never happened and one that was unknown to the public is your apparent proof of nationwide election fraud. Did win Trump win in 2020 as well?
Clinton won approximately 2,205 pledged delegates to Sanders’s 1,846, about 54% to 46%. So superdelegates did not turn the tide in the election.
The lack of debates is also not proof in any way. He had six debates to make his case. He did his best. He lost.
The Bernie-supporter lawsuit was dismissed, so it was not determined if the case had any validity. Is merely bringing lawsuits enough to prove fraud? Because the Republicans tried that like 70 times in 2020 and lost every single one of them.
To be perfectly honest, what you’ve provided is even flimsier than what I expected. There is nothing even approaching solid enough evidence in here to claim he was cheated. You have evidence of bias among a few individuals, NONE of which had their bullshit acted upon. And that’s proof that Clinton didn’t win more elections? You want to pretend that it came down to ONE contest and the DNC cheated there? Her delegate total accumulated across dozens of states/primaries.
This is essentially the same as Trump’s electoral denial. The only difference is that Bernie actually has integrity and Trump does not. Bernie doesn’t claim to have been cheated, Bernie did NOT say to sit out the election in protest.
Every single “progressive” who did that either in 2016 or 2024 is a phoney cultist asshole. They want to pretend that they’re acting in solidarity with Bernie but what they have done is set back the issues Bernie cares about for decades, at least. They’ll be a stain on his legacy.
You’re tilting at windmills, no one accused the DNC of engaging in election fraud (that’s MAGA’s ballpark). The person you replied to said DNC leadership “conspired against” Bernie, which is broad enough to mean a lot of things, including that they coordinated messaging to manufacture controversy around his campaign (as was proven true by the leaked emails).
This guy isn’t worth arguing with, I’ve reviewed posts and its all harassment of left leaning people or straight up sealioning as well as just lumping every person left of their position into the same one they “debated” with before.
TLDR don’t fucking care. Coming out in bad faith elsewhere while sea lioning you deserve absolutely no consideration. I would have thought it apparent but has to be spelled out.
It’s the billionaires that are pulling them to the right… The money… The greed… The power
Democrats doing their centrist bullshit are captured by corporate lobbyists.
How Money Works explained the saturation of money in politics (here, on YouTube), and it runs effing deep.
Essentially anyone who gets elected at a federal or state level has to decide between two options. Do they:
a) Want to serve their constituency and fight for the common voter? Or…
b) Get really rich and join the ownership class (the 0.1% or higher)?
And during the 90s and Aughts it became normal in both parties to choose option b) Apparently, it’s super humiliating, because the official no longer does any actual legislating. Instead, lobbyists come to them with premade bills (and promises of campaign contributions and dark money and stuff) and the lawmaker only gets the prize if the law gets passed verbatim. There is no doubt from the official that they’re being played and owned, and that their constituents are going to suffer for their corruption. But then, the money is awesome, and so they get used to it.
We’re actually seeing how removed some of our officials have become from the common American experience, with countless let them eat cake moments. We’ll hear an official express in a soundbite that they don’t understand or care about the concerns of the commoner.
And yes, we’re seeing other signs of capture in the establishment Democratic party. News came out not long ago (here from Politico) that centrist Democrats are getting worried now that progressives and SDAs are winning elections and becoming a larger portion of the big tent. Evidently, it’s a coalition party so long as the left side offers its votes but not its opinions.
I think Democratic voters are tepid about merely keeping the Republicans at bay (even though the consequences are awful when we fail) but actually get excited about voting in candidates when they have specific platforms they want to do while in office. Taking a page from Ross Perot in 1988, a lot of people got excited because he had a very specific plan. I think voters would like to see detailed plans rather than ambiguous objectives.
It’s time to kick out all the corporate centrists and vote in pragmatic progressives who hate corporations and vote in new deal democrats
It’s time to hand the country to conservatives for good then.
If we can, yes. That AIPAC money has become an albatross is definitely encouraging.
I thought albatross were good omens
In the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an albatross follows a ship setting out to sea, which is considered a sign of good luck. However, the titular mariner shoots the albatross with a crossbow, an act that will curse the ship and cause it to suffer terrible mishaps. Unable to speak due to lack of water, the ship’s crew let the mariner know through their glances that they blame him for their plight and they tie the bird around his neck as a sign of his guilt. From this arose the image of an albatross around the neck as metaphor for a burden that is difficult to escape.
Yes, well, let’s all remember one little thing that is separate from whatever legislative and social wins he’s getting:
The guy is good. Good at communicating, good at promotion, good at finding common ground. He’s not Che Guevara, he’s an upgraded Obama.
He’s never going to be left enough for .ml, you can see right here they can’t wait to shit on him. What he’s teaching the Democrats is they’re old and busted. A party designed for television and radio.
Plus, do you know how hard it is to be that kind of good at politics? It’s freakin rare. Sure if he could teach all the Dems how to be charming, persistent, kind, and knowledgable why won’t they listen? They’d love to listen but Joe Schmo in Topeka is basically an introvert who just wants to make his community happy.
Has anyone here, on Lemmy, tried to run for office? If so, you probably found it’s basically a lifestyle that takes over everything; work, family, hobbies, health. Pointing to Mamdani and saying “Joe why can’t you be like that” isn’t a matter of just political positions. You’ve got to sell. Sell sell sell.
And I hate selling. And salespeople (no offense). It’s . . . a problem for Dems. Republicans don’t have that problem. Any grifter or sleazeball can step right into a race in their sleep.
I’ve run for office, and yeah, the running is a job all on its own. That and everything takes money.
Campaign signs don’t print themselves, canvassers need to be paid, handbills need printers, venues need to be booked, offices need to be rented and all of it, all of it takes money that the majority of candidates simply don’t have on their own.
Once you experience that you realize why a lot of politicians become corrupt, or at least corrupted by the system.
Making political election campaigns illegal to even the field (and use the money for something beneficial) is worth a thought.
No, I don’t know either if it’s even viable. But maybe someone smarter than me can make something out of that thought.
wanna add that he’s young and grew up in the same situations that he’s actively working to fix
Yea, I have tried to get involved. Not even run just involved with people running. That is even a lot.
That and his lesser touted positions are NOT popular outside deep blue NYC.
I love the guy but he isn’t winning the Midwest with ALL his positions and it’s stupid and basic to think that. No one in Wichita wants government run grocery stores for instance.
They certainly can take pointers from him but there’s a full cemetery of progressive candidates who have crashed and burnt outside deep blue areas.
He’s exactly what NYC wants and needs. He wouldn’t be for every single place across the country.
Isn’t the midwest just saturated MAGA, white Christian nationalist and plain ol’ white supremacist? People who vote for centrists but not progressives have long since devoted their lives to the Trump god-king. They don’t care about anyone other than themselves, and may turn around because they’re personally hurt by the economy. But in that case, they’re voting against the incumbent, and don’t care who the opposition is, even if it’s a proverbial sack of potatoes.
At this point Trump is personally responsible for everyone losing money. At least everyone but the handful of guys getting pardons and government contracts out of him.
Harris lost by playing to the center, and an awful lot of polls are telling us that progressive platform ideas are popular.
If you think centrists are fans of trump I don’t know what to tell you except that’s so far off I can’t believe it’s a thought.
Centrists voted for Trump in 2024, thinking egg prices would go down. (Or just terrified of immigrants and trans folks.)
I have little confidence in centrists. (Or what counts as centrist in the United States.)
But I do know that a lot of the progressive platform is popular:
~ Universal healthcare
~ A jobs guarantee
~ Higher education for all
~ National action on the climate crisis
~ Women’s reproductive healthcare access (including abortion)
~ Housing as a human right ~ Abolishing ICE and police reform
…and so onAll that isn’t centrist according to the Overton window. In fact, the far-right propaganda machine is asserting any one of those is a slippery slope to communism. So the majority of Americans who take polls are communist.
I think that running on an actual platform is a winning move. Doubly so if candidates present a blueprint on how to implement it.
I also think that none of this is enough. We’re going to have to address the democracy crisis and capture of the federal court system. Ultimately, according to Nobel laureate economists, we’re going to have to redistribute the immense wealth at the top. (That may be impossible, and if so, the entire industrial world may be doomed to capture and decline.)
Why wouldn’t they want that? Why wouldn’t anyone want that?!
Think about the reddest, most homophobic, bigoted, capitalist, Fox News brained person you can think of who thinks Black people are animals and Hispanic people are all drug smuggling cartel members and “illegals” “deserve” the camps. Now double the bigotry and then imagine a whole town full of that, and, like, one single scared gay kid. That’s not every town, but it’s a frighteningly large number, because America is a massive place and unfortunately with a continent this big you’ll end up with clusters where the outlier becomes the norm.
Some towns need to be burned to the ground, is what I’m hearing.
I’ve lived in Missouri my whole life. MANY towns need to be burned to the ground out here.
This was probably almoat 20 years ago, in a small rural (like 5k people) Illinois town I used to love in. We were outside doing some yardwork, and this guy comes door to door selling some kind of cleaner.
Black guy. Which I mention because its relevant.
We chat for a bit, he demos the cleaner, at one point his friend calls so he takes the call.
The friend, also clearly a black guy, is basically saying he is done and ready to leave and basically half the houses threaten to shoot him and keep calling him n***er.
This is rural America, in general. This is MAGA.
Anyway, we bought some cleaner, it seemed to work on the outside mold spots on the house.
Cuz that’s communism obviously. Generations of propaganda is a hell of a drug.
Except we basically already have that. Rural areas are littered with food pantries because rural people tend to be poor as fuck. Maybe they are run by voulonteers now, but why not cut out the hassle and add in some guaranteed funding and efficiency?
“dying of whiteness” is a fascinating book about whites voting against their own interests so those people don’t get anything nice
You don’t have to convince me. You have to convince them.
Look at Oklahoma- they just voted down a minimum wage increase. You think they’re on board with government run grocery stores?
Also true yeah. But “leftists” on here can’t get to that.
The country is big. Big, big. Slogans only go so far.
Hey did Harris win on being Biden again? She won, right?
Yeah the midwest didn’t vote for a black woman because she was too much like Biden.
If only she had done more for the proletariat!
Hey did Harris win? I’m asking you a question.
What’s the question?
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Being a champion of establishment is the biggest self own in those states, both deep red and blue states.
Nobody want a status quo, when the status quo means everything is getting worse around them. Between status quo or a hail Mary, they choose a hail Mary as it’s better than consistently downgrading
Ah but they don’t actually care if we are happy. They want the illusion of working for us while making their donors happy - the people they really serve.
In Europe he’d be center left
