That race means American democracy is fully over. I already kinda think it is, but if that race happens there’s no “maybe we’ll come through this,” we’re just done for.

Same, I don’t give a fuck what we have to call it. This current system is beyond broken, if we need to stroke the ego of the childish narcissist so be it.

Yeah, that’s how I see him too. Assuming we even have elections by then, he’s gonna keep up this charade through a 2028 primary bid where all real establishment challengers magically drop out, immediately switch to more centrist rhetoric for the general and claim to the left that he’s just playing ball, and then proceed to have zero progressive accomplishments in office if he gets there.

I’m not who you responded to but I share sentiments with you both. I believed Bernie in his 2016 primary bid when he talked about reforming the Democratic Party from within. But beginning with how the rest of that primary played out, I’ve believed less and less that it’s the right plan. It was also a nice thing to hope for when we started getting a progressive coalition of Reps, including my own, but that movement seems pretty stalled too.

I’m of the opinion that it is still possible, and we might even still be moving in that direction, but the resistance from neo liberals has slowed the pace too successfully. We’re not moving fast enough and we’re consistently passing tipping points in the meantime. I’m more than ready to drop the baggage and try anew. It’s not without hardship and risks, but I legitimately don’t see the current plan as viable.

My lone suspension in high school was exactly this. They even gave me a longer suspension than the bully who had been verbally harassing me for six months, progressed to threats of physical violence, and then acted on that physical violence. But because he didn’t leave any physical marks on me and my one punch in reaction gave him a massive black eye, I got punished more. He even started choking me afterwards. Great fun!

That bitch never bullied me again though.

He has to go talk to his imaginary and very conservative friends first.

What if someone else is in charge of the door and we all say “Hey I think those robbers are coming back, can we close and lock the door?” Then that person makes the door a little bit less ajar but still open and tells you to thank them. And you say “The door is still open, can we close it?” Then the door person walks away.

Yes, it’s the robber doing the robbing, but it’s also very much the fault of the person who chose to only address the problem in a superficial way.

Gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant extraterrestrials that have visited Earth.

Did they ever stop? I don’t think I’ve ever seen liberals (party or base) grapple with how sinister that primary was.

How about we make a party that represents people rather than corporate interests? Then you might actually attract people who refuse to support corruption.

Sincerely, someone who has barely brought themselves to vote for shitty candidates they didn’t want to be president 3 times in a row.

Reminder that you can also do this if your rep voted against tabling to express support for what they’re doing and they they’re representing you well.

I quite agree with what you’re talking about with local elections.

But you’ve misinterpreted what I’m mad about. I’m not mad that they don’t support progressives. I’m mad that the Democratic Party (the DNC, not your local party chairs) spends more time and effort demonizing and sidelining progressives than learning to work with us. That has effects all the way down to local primary elections where voters who have been fed anti-progressive propaganda are voting against progressive candidates.

What I’m mad about is not the lack of support, I’m mad about the absolutely ridiculous hypocrisy of a party clearly working against progressives at every turn and then blaming us when they don’t get their way.

As a side note, I’m also mad that the progressive movement has a lot of real shitty candidates in local elections. Many of them are clearly just absolute weirdos who shouldn’t be anywhere near an elected office. But a small movement isn’t going to have the reach everywhere. My House rep is progressive, and I get to watch as the person that represents me gets hamstrung by their own party time after time after time. And then the very same Party blames us for Donald Trump. It’s absolutely infuriating.

I am left of the Democrats, and do not feel represented by what they do (regardless of what they say). I vote in Democratic primaries to try to move the party left. I vote D in the general. But you continue to dismiss what I’m saying. You seem to agree that the Republicans trained their party to move to the right but act like it’s some crazy idea that the Democrats are doing the same thing? The wrong side is winning within the Democratic Party, and we’re all going to lose everything because of it.

I’m not saying they’re a shadowy cabal. They’re very openly anti-progressive, no shadows necessary. They spend so much of primary time shitting on progressives and then complain when progressives don’t want to vote for their neoliberal hacks in the general.

If you’re taking the “progressives are irrelevant” position, please make sure to never blame progressives for the losses of the Democrats. Not even nonvoters. If we’re not important enough to justify catering to, then we’re not important enough to blame. You don’t get to eat our cake and shit in it too.

Gonna continue to call bullshit here. The grassroots movement failing to gather momentum in the face of propaganda at the cost of the nation’s future is not the same as the Democrats blaming a minority for their own failures. Not even a little bit, can you please reflect a little on how absurd that claim is?

You’re also not comparing apples to apples here. First: the Tea Party was an unknown element, there hadn’t been a growing fringe movement like that within a major party for a century. The Democrats had the benefit of seeing that happen on the right. Second, the Republicans were willing to embrace the crazy of the Tea Party for the sake of their continuing victory. Very much in contrast, the Democrats are very clearly willing to sacrifice national victory in order to keep progressives down. Three elections in a row they’ve insisted on running the most centrist candidate possible, resulting two very predictable losses and one surprising victory.

Democrats insist on siding with money and corporations every time, their failures are their own fault, and very much also the fault of their supporters.

See the part about the Democratic Party actively working against progressives, to the point of funding propaganda against them. The Dems saw the Tea Party and care more about avoiding that with progressives than they do about running candidates that can either beat the Republicans or serve the people.

And from what you just said: you’d better have never once blamed progressives for losing the Democrats an election if you’re taking the “progressives are too weak” position.

Some of us have been trying. The masses tend to bully and tell us it’s all our fault, somehow. According to the Democrats and their base, progressives are simultaneously too weak and unimportant to listen to, and so powerful that we can swing entire elections. I’m still waiting to hear how that one makes sense.

Kinda horseshit. The Democratic Party needs to stop racing to the bottom and running candidates that are so bad they can only win against garbage like Trump. Because sometimes they’re even wrong about that. Apparently 2/3 of the time.

Good for you, but still wrong. The party fucked up. It’s their job to win elections, and they had loads of opportunities over the last 10 years to act differently and chose not to every time.

It’s not the voters’ fault that a heavily corporate-friendly party doesn’t represent them well enough to reliably get votes. That’s some victim blaming thinking right there.

Uh, you missed a few steps. Like the people voicing concerns over Biden’s mental health and being told to shove it while the party hid him from public view as much as possible. And then when they couldn’t hide it anymore they still tried to gaslight us that we didn’t see what we just saw.

And then finally they succumbed to that public pressure when it was far too late to have an actual primary and rally as a party, instead being told to vote for someone who was candidate-by-default.

The Dems constantly try to pander to the right which only fuels their real enemy in elections: voter apathy. If they actually governed and gave more than lip service, they’d never lose another election.

This is very true. ALSO, if you think the Democratic party gives two shits about the economy for working class people, then I have a bridge to sell you.