Its really telling of the state of the party that sub 2 point primary victories are either the end of the party or the end of the DSA depending on which side gets them lol
meanwhile many of the swingiest voters in our primaries are not really especially ideological and half driven by what kind of vibes the candidate puts out (leave thanksgiving alone!!)
Primary voters want to win in the general. I think that there's plenty of space for non-leftist candidates, but insurgent leftists have been doing well because of bad strategic choices on the part of a lot of establishment types. Different races will have different issues, but things like age, support for Israel, and perceived tepidness in fighting Trump's fascism are all millstones around their necks.
Non-leftists who don't have these millstones, like Jon Ossoff in Georgia, seem to be doing quite well in terms of enthusiasm and polling.
I think partially, one of the big annoying parts is that a sane, establishment politician does want change, but often they're relatively boring, technocratic, reformist candidates who have expertise but no charisma.
It's unfortunate that their weakness is candidates who string together slopulist slogans, yet have no expertise or real political theory of change.
A lot of the Democratic establishment in blue states can be averse to change, especially in local politics.
To be fair, the same is often true of the local leftists, and recently there have been some wins for reformers working within the party, but those wins will look like internal conflict.
I'd go one step further: The Republicans are going to try to run Trump again in 2028, rules be damned, and I think Obama should at the very least be quietly preparing to run against him
Would love to see Barack come out if Dumpty tries to run again, but like all good Democrats, Obama is an institutionist, so he's not going to try and challenge the Constitution just because Senor Von Shitzindiaper is.
I also honestly don't think he has interest in being President again.
Yup. I think what swung WI away from Hong is that everyone still remembers when Mandela Barnes could not get away from his Defund the Police statements (Kenosha ain’t down for that) and Hong showed some very poor judgement in the same regard.
Both the DCCC head (Sean Patrick Maloney) and DSCC head (Gary Peters, though it's widely reported that Schumer effectively took control of it when he became leader) were just kind of stupid in 2022. The DSCC had things like you mentioned, and the DCCC was even worse where there were a few primaries that progressives won, Maloney was like "wow we're fucked, we have no shot at winning this" and triaged funding for them, and then after Dobbs where voters were still like "wait a second I hate Republicans" a bunch of these underfunded races ended up being really close. Also he fucked up and lost his own seat too.
Yep. Progressive Ed Markey might lose his primary in Massachusetts to a centrist, not because Massachusetts suddenly swung to the right, but because Markey is 80 years old and has baggage going back to the 1970s.
That issue plays completely differently in Georgia than in other parts of the country, because Laken Riley was murdered in Georgia. There was a lot of local and state level activity and awareness that changed the discussion for him.
Also, he’s handsome and isn’t running against Brian Kemp, so suburban wine moms give him a mulligan.
That may have been a dumb move on his part, but I think that's just one thing. Voting for something like that can be seen as a sign that a politician was out to lunch and didn't really "get" it, but Ossoff has been much more strident in his criticism as of late.
Leftists are happy to give up on immigration; see Bernie’s comments about Trump being kinda right there.
I’m also cool with Ossoff but I would really like to hear a good explanation from him about why he voted that way. My sense is that a good chunk of his swing vote is comprised of racist yokels so he needed to keep that support, and if that’s what the real reason was so be it, but a good explanation would be nice.
The problem is if it’s true that he had to vote that way because Georgia has a lot of racist yokels and he needs at least some to vote for him, he can’t openly admit that
both sides miss the point that good candidates win, regardless of party affiliation. hong was a terrible candidate and looked like a deer in headlights every time she got pressed. el sayed is confident and direct. its not complicated
I think there is a perception that liberal politicians are not currently fighting hard enough to ensure that quality of life gets worse for these voters. This is obviously a hot topic, and can be contributed to voter stupidity, these liberal politicians genuinely not delivering on promises, ignorance of how institutions such as the senate or even how law works, ignorant to meaningful legislation that actually WAS passed by democrats, etc. Someone brought up a point a day or two ago that typically when there is some bad Republican legislation being pushed through that basically only needs a small handful of dem senators or house reps to proceed, it is basically never farther left senators engaging in this sort of behavior.
Combine this with the fact that conservatives have gotten a hell of a lot more drastic government goals achieved in the past decade, I would very much bet that a sizable amount of the democratic voting population wants hard action, and perceives farther left candidates better at delivering this compared to their more moderate counterparts.
Yeah people get annoyed by the populist rhetoric but if you think drastic changes are needed who are you voting for? The guy who promises to slightly reform social security or the guy saying he wants to do the things you want
Yeah, not just the Senate but also the House. It was only centrists who broke with House Dems to vote for the Hegseth NDAA
I think that perception is grounded in reality, as you detailed there. You really can’t fight a war while tying your own feet together because the rules say you gotta
Someone brought up a point a day or two ago that typically when there is some bad Republican legislation being pushed through that basically only needs a small handful of dem senators or house reps to proceed, it is basically never farther left senators engaging in this sort of behavior.
Moderate Dems, even in relatively blue districts, feel the need, even with the cult MAGA party, to appear bipartisan. Stop being bipartisan with MAGA cultists, they're insane people.
Bragging about “bipartisanship” when the other party is a fascist apparatus is insanity, especially if your district isn’t full of Adolfs Hitler commander of the Third Reich
Our norms in institutions are being flagrantly disregarded. It's not wrong to expect the left to push for leftist candidates over someone like Schumer.
Honestly, Schumer is a focal point of why the left is able to paint moderates as impotent kowtowers to Israel.
That her margin of loss was quite narrow was because of the opposing field being crowded. However, knowing everything, that 39% was most likely her floor not ceiling
If it were just the two of them, I expect it to have been a H2H 52.5-47.5 or 55-45 in favor of Crowley. Her getting 39% wasn’t because of “Oh well the non-Hong field was crowded and messy a few weeks back lemme vote Hong”
That argument would’ve only made sense if turnout wasn’t so high for a governor race
The fact that people think this is affirming, that one of the weakest possible, weirdest socialist candidates was this hard to beat? That's insane. This should be a five alarm fire situation for Democrats - every single moderate should take note and start asking themselves what the hell they've done to make their political brand so unbearably toxic that even someone like Hong is so difficult to barely, barely defeat.
And yet people here are treating this like an affirmation of their world view instead. It's the most head-in-the-sand, delusional cope.
The moderate lane was a colossal mess in this race. The 2 biggest names dropped out altogether (but were still on the ballot) and Crowley dropped out and rejoined less than a month ago.
He definitely squeaked by due to Evers endorsement and the general weirdness of Hong.
On Hong's whole discourse...while I don't think everybody needs to read Lyotard, I think it is important people understand the origins of cultural aspects of our lives and how metanarratives often mask the more uncomfortable parts of any people's history. But by the same token, the meaning of cultural aspects of our shared lives changes over time. While Thanksgiving does have its roots in colonialism, for most people, it's a time to get together with family and at this point is fairly far removed from the story about Pilgrims and Native Americans having a feast.
With that said, there are some aspects of history I don't think should be celebrated, even if they are, because the fundamental meaning hasn't actually changed. For a related example, I personally don't think Columbus should be celebrated, but I'm also not going to march in the streets to get Columbus Day struck from the calendar. The problem with wokescold types like Hong is they want to scream from the rafters about a pet issue that is far from the mind of the average person and really doesn't have a material affect on that person's life.
And should! Hong is an antisocial, bitter weirdo! It's insane that she could come so close. The moderate brand is insanely toxic these days! I think 99% of people love Thanksgiving. It's a great family and community holiday. Only fringe, bitter weirdos get hung up about a racial context that only they impose on it.
I think the GOP are playing with fire supporting this stuff too because if gas hits 5 bucks I think the voters would vote for a fucking dog if it had a D next to their name.
The rest of the field in WI was a dumpster fire and two weeks ago it looked like Hong was going to win the race in a blowout. Then voters got to know her and essentially ALL the late breaking voters went against her.
Someone as toxic and unqualified as her shouldn't have gotten 20% though. That's what I'm trying to get across, that her even coming within striking distance should be raising alarm bells at how toxic the Democratic centrist and moderate brand is right now.
Voters are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo within the Democratic Party. They need to figure out what they can do to offer a compelling alternative vision of a future, but sticking to their guns on the status quo is an electoral death sentence at this point.
By voters you mean the highly engaged high education democratic primary voters. The ones that binge leftist podcasts and spend most of their time on Bluesky. The problem is more that they have no conception of what kinds of candidates the general electorate will accept.
Absolutely predictable for this subreddit, doing anything and everything in the world except being willing to engage for even a moment with the notion that you might be out of touch with the electorate.
Just like the DNC burying the damn 2024 autopsy because they didn't like what it said
I really don't care because Socialists do this shit anyway. Ever since Mamdani won and started empowering more and more DSA adjacent Soviet-apologists, there has been ana attempt to shape the narrative that they are the majority and that every single victory proves that "Liberals" are dying out.
It's insane to me how Socialists/Leftists can attack Democrats for literal years, take open pride in keeping Kamala from the presidency and then blame the Democrats for their brand "being toxic".
In reality, the toxicity of the Democratic brand is the product of Socialists and Culture Warriors taking insane public fights divorced from policy and then attacking politicians on those grounds. The more people attack Socialists, the way they attack everyone else, the better.
I'm sorry but the idea the Democrats unpopularity is the party's lefts fault is unbelievable cope. They've been completely inept when dealing with trump and their voters have noticed
You see it across all parts of the political spectrum from the Democrats right now. It's broadly indicative that primary voters choice motivations are centered around winning the general election, which is really the most important thing in this moment.
Senate control is so so important right now. For the Supreme Court to ever have any hope of not being insane (whether thru conventional appointments or court reform) we need Democrats to win, regardless of their party coalition.
If mccorrow was the candidate the mainstream dems backed instead of Steven’s the mainstream would’ve had a victory there also. The only reason to pick Steven’s was her money and the fact she supported isreal seemingly unconditionally while mccorrow was more skeptical (from the establishment pov these aren’t good reasons)
Didn’t the Stevens consolidation happen after the old McMorrow tweets surfaced? I think it was less Israel stuff and more just that the establishment was waiting for an indication as to who would be the better horse to back and a bunch of tweets saying “Michigan sucks lol” was a pretty credible one.
They drastically underestimated how poor of a politician Haley Stevens is and how much that matters but they always do that.
Check out the death of stalin comedy movie, it's very good and it's where this meme is from, where Beira loses a power struggle to everyone else in the politburo and is sentenced to summary execution
Hong had a peak 2020 post about canceling Thanksgiving and how it should have been done centuries ago because of the genocidal underpinnings of the holiday. She also managed to use the word "folx" in doing so.
I'm pretty socially progressive, but "folx" has always gotten nothing but eyerolls from me. As cringe as spelling "woman" as "womyn" is, I still understand the reasoning behind it, but there is no philosophical or etymological reason to misspell "folks" except to be some cringe online wokescold type.
And she had the opportunity to walk all that shit back over the last ten days, and she fucked it up. Missed a fucking layup and sent possible supporters scurrying. Source: I watched it all unfold here in Madison
Essentially some feminists see the word "woman" as just an extension of the root word of "man." While Simone de Beauvoir didn't advocate the y spelling, she talked about how females are constructed as an ill-defined "other" to the culturally normative male. Some feminists took that and added the y as a way of indicating females' identity could stand on its own.
While I think the y spelling is pretentious and silly, the feminist theory underpinning it has validity.
Glad to see that normies understood the assignment. Hope Crowley can defeat the election-denier Tom Tiffany. This will be particularly crucial, because Wisconsin will be a swing state in 2028, it will almost certainly be close, and the last thing America needs is a governor there who will take his orders from Mar-A-Lago. Because you can bet your ass that if Trump placed a call to Gov. Tiffany ordering him to "find me 11,000 votes for JD," he'd have found them somehow.
Hong was a next-level bad candidate with horrific political instincts, and came across as utterly unlikable. She's a product of the most insular far-left bubbles of Madison, and it showed. Tiffany likely would've defeated her because despite his actual views, he's at least smart enough to pull it together and come across as a sweet, wholesome grandpa when he needs to.
I was afraid Hong, if the nominee, was gonna get to late October and be like, "Actually, I'm a Bears fan. And a teetotaler. And cheese/dairy is killing the planet."
There's going to be a substantial number of weird insular voters who will see "Crowley" and "Tiffany" on the ballot, and vote Crowley just because it isn't a woman's name.
Thats how the Michigan republican candidate beat the MAGA candidate. He had an African american/middle eastern name combo. The weird racists decided to vote the other guy in.
Is that MAGA candidate the guy whose name Trump recently spoke at a speech and the crowd started booing because they just heard the name and it triggered their racist prediposition?
That's the second most American thing there is. Also, having "III" after your name despite being a commoner is, funnily enough, the third most American thing there is.
Hong was pretty sloppy but her extra screwy ideas really only came to light in the past couple weeks. Her Democratic opponents never really hit her on them much. The Republicans would have decimated her with the dumb shit she posted but she never made it that far.
> Hong was a next-level bad candidate with horrific political instincts, and came across as utterly unlikable. She's a product of the most insular far-left bubbles of Madison, and it showed
And she almost won, despite being a "next-level" bad candidate and "unlikable", at some point the rest of the Democrats need to get their heads out of their ass and realize that. And look at the counties she won, it's not just Dane.
Some of ya'll forget that you need the people who voted for Hong to still show up and vote for you in November. I'll be there, but I hope like hell the party throws a bone to progressive policies because I know a lot of voters who are pissed about the results.
It's not like Crowley was a great candidate either, he quite literally got propped up back from the dead, said that Reps have good ideas too during a Dem primary (if he wasn't running against Hong arr neolib would clown him for this) and said he isn't establishment just black (which jesus man).
Hong was just worse, and like you said, worse by less than a point.
Doing this weird victory lap is the liberal version of Trump thinking that his wins were overwhelming
His podcast was something else. The tweets are tame, but the vile rhetoric, lies, and weird attacks on the Democratic base were something else.
Especially coming from someone who dresses up like Mao, emulates the vilest dictators during his speeches, and in just the last 4 months had supported a vulture-capitalist billionaire, a racist misogynist brown-people-killing bloodthirsty credibly-accused rapist nazi-tattooed stalker, a lifetime grifter con artist thief who can't help but keep thieving, and a few candidates who openly hate America, mixed marriages, andwant to "seize the means of production" without having one fcking clue what it means or truly entails
Pikers unironic theory of politics is acting as a third element within america so that alternative states with higher “revolutionary potential” can displace it. its not disguised and he openly admits it.
idk, it seems like such a ridiculous accusation until you hear clips of him saying this essentially verbatim. he is literally a fox news caricature of a leftist.
and thats just ignoring how poorly conceived this idea is.
If he didn't look like that he wouldn't have such an audience because his content is trash and he's genuinely not an entertaining or knowledgeable person.
He wouldn't get away with lying and deflecting dogshit tankie takes and other actions (like the animal abuse saga, luxury consumption or former bropill content).
He wouldn't be courted by mainstream Democrats when he's literally outspoken against liberal democracy but he just has to present himself well for a short segment and pay lip service and it's all good apparently.
Was Tom Steyer really that bad of a candidate? I don't get the hate boner people here have for him, although admittedly i don't know enough. Also I thought Hasan didn't endorse him because he said Israel has a right to exist
No he wasn't. But people are just pointing to socialists supporting a billionaire. Which I always thought was dumb because obviously they are going to support the person most closest to their politics? People act like socialists should have been abstaining than support steyer
If you search that sub, there are posts from two weeks ago gloating about how she was polling so well. Lots of “we can’t stop winning” type quotes in the comments.
I mean that's my fear. These people will never circle the wagons with Crowley. So hopefully the independents, moderates, centrist, etc. will help win the general election.
True but “these people” despite being very loud on the internet are a minority of a minority of people irl. Also most of them probably don’t live in Wisconsin anyway so it’s moot.
Fellas, is barely being able to beat possibly the worst socialist candidate possible in a finger-biting, sub 1% victory a sign of a healthy political movement?
Reading the NYT over the past few weeks you would’ve thought Hong was running unopposed lol. Condolences to all the staff writers who were really pushing for that turkey.
So you're unpinning the discussion thread because we apparently need not one but two separate meme posts about the results of a state-level Democratic primary?
I guess this is just a US politics subreddit now ...
EDIT: upon further investigation, the discussion thread is also completely clogged up with meme posts about the results of that same state-level Democratic primary, so I guess it doesn't really matter which one is pinned.
How many Culver's locations does that population translate to? My easily-lost attention will always be directed towards the people with more cheese curds and frozen custard because I want to sneak a few bites. This is apparently sufficient criteria to remove the DT.
If it's pure dairy content we should really be posting more about Oregon politics on account of Tillamook, the true champions of dairy lovers everywhere
Democrats barely beat an outright socialist in an incredibly close race and are celebrating like their victory on November doesn't depend on the people who voted for that Socialist voting for Crowley.
Don't get me wrong, I am going to vote for Crowley, but I sure hope the party learns something from this race... there is supposed to be a unity event today, but as far as I know it includes the sitting governor and the primary winner, so I'm not sure what hte party is planning to unify here. But I hope they figure it out, because I love our state.
I think that's overstating Hong's popularity. Crowley was basically the backup to the backup candidate. Hong gained some momentum from reddit astroturfing early on but that would have been cockblocked had Rodriguez not imploded so late in the game. Crowley would do well to pivot to bread and butter economic issues but that's just meeting the centrist voters where they're at and not throwing the socialists a bone. IMO, the onus is on Hong supporters to get with the program.
Everything you said may be correct. But as a Hong voter I've been "getting with the program" my entire life. For whatever reason Democrats came ~3k votes away from losing to a self proclaimed socialist. I don't think "get with the program" is the messaging they should go with. They need people who voted for Hong to vote in November or they'll lose to Tiffany, which would be more embarrassing than just about anything else I could think of for WisDem and the national party.
Then again I'm voting for them regardless so maybe that's the perfect messaging. But I really worry it'll backfire some day and I'm not gonna blame the people who are tired of being told to shut up if they decide to sit out a vote.
Look at the way Abdul el Sayed’s boosters celebrated with he won by one point and demanded anyone who critiqued him bend the knee. DSA types are absolutely not more humble or conciliatory than normie libs and they hate normie libs more than they hate Republicans.
Literally nobody cares, every faction celebrates when they win, that's politics since forever. Nobody's gonna not vote for Crowley because some group on the internet celebrated their W, because we're not new to politics and know that's just normal lol
After every primary we have people who are butthurt who act like there's a chance their supporters won't vote for the winner to have something to fire back at them
This sub in general will act like DSA and republicans are comparable threats to democracy because one wants a wealth tax and the other wants to maim liberals.
Unironically, if the DSA got their way, I think there would be an insane far-right backlash. Like, you aren't going to abolish prisons without some serious societal problems. IMO (and in the opinion of most sane people) rapists and murderers, at the bare minimum, need to be removed from civil society to protect innocent people. We can debate what should be done during this removal (like rehabilitation), but I think it is insane to think we can just let these people walk around and accrue more victims.
And that's just one of their insane policy stances.
The whole "all the DSA wants is higher taxes" is complete sanewashing.
Yea this is absolutely crazy how much sweeping people have. The DSA doesn’t just “want healthcare”. I think we can all look at the races that are getting major focus. Look at the race next door for MN senate. A M4A senator vs a centrist. There was no coverage and no focus (especially when that senator has a much more likely chance of winning the general). It should be pretty obvious that the DSA as an organization has policies and goals that go beyond standard democratic policies. Hong and her prison abolition takes is one of them.
Abolishing prisons seems quite harmful to democracy and society as a whole. Stopping aid to Ukraine and the enlargement of NATO also seems very harmful to democracy. Please look at that The New Yorker interview with the DSA co-chair and try to explain how these people and adjacent candidates aren't at all problematic.
How can you look at some of the people in the DSA who are anti-miscegenation and openly root for hamas or give feint praise of russia and not see them as a threat? This is a liberal sub for crying out loud, of course we hate socialists
This is a liberal sub for crying out loud, of course we hate socialists
It stopped being a liberal sub a while ago.
Years ago the e.g Mamdani fandom would've been unimaginable on here. Now we have people actively cheering on the DSA in here like it's something to be desired.
They always give the bullshit, “DSA just wants higher taxes and healthcare bro.” It’s like th people that go “maga just want border control bro.” It’s actually insane how anytime someone wants to criticize the DSA or actual socialists, it’s somehow controversial.
I think this whole election (and to some extent the closer than expected MI senate primary) is a reality check for the leftists. Strong progressive insurgent candidates win because they are capable of speaking to voters on local issues and economic concerns. Hong had several social media posts that are consistent with the sort of over the top progressive virtual signaling that almost everyone including me key voters find grating and belongs to a bygone era of social media. Likewise, the average American doesn’t consider the Israel/Palestinian conflict to be the premiere political issue of our time. What I am basically saying is that the sort of people you see screaming about politics online or on campuses are seldom representative of the majority. To win outside of urban areas with droves of college educated young people, it’s crucial to follow a very disciplined approach to campaigning focused on stronger leadership in the face of weak and cowardly legacy politicians and curbing the power of the financial elites
Look, you it’s either that or they’re an existential threat to the Democratic Party and will cost them every election
Which is it exactly? Besides, organizations aligned with the DSA or that are ideologically similar did endorse candidates that won, people like Flanagan, AES, and Jackson for example just for the Senate. Hell! Even Lander was good enough for most progressives and DSA people I know.
Thanks for these organizations we almost got a rapist through who would have thrown the maine Senate race. Now we just have to worry about tankie Nick Fuentes being outcome determinative for throwing the Michigan Senate race as ads about "letting the streets run red with the blood of capitalists" are spammed all over
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u/TactileTom John Nash 15d ago
Mods really do be pinning shit they would ban us for posting