If the DSA did more than attack liberals I might be inclined to think this is a good thing, but so far they can’t win in any district that isn’t overwhelmingly blue. Not sure how they’re going to beat back conservatives.
Idk, I think the DSA is only going to succeed in fracturing the Dems. We’ll see.
Now?
Only a third so far have realized that what is now being called “democratic socialism” is what they have always supported. Mainly: using the tax dollars (we already pay) for programs and services that benefit society. As opposed to the Republican plan of using that money to line the pockets of the Trump-Epstein class.
That percentage will only grow.
I mean, what’s 1/3 of like ten people?
Who actually identifies as Democrats? The majority of the US population is wayy too progressive to identify as a Democrat.
Who actually identifies as Democrats?
Boomers, genX, and the blandest millenials.
Anecdotally, I’m seeing a lot of normie liberals get radicalized by watching Democrats approve Trump’s nominees, pass his legislation, and cave on their own government shutdowns. Turns out, if your pitch yourselves as the only opposition to fascism, people expect ypu to actually oppose fascism.
This is just them pivoting because they know they need to rejuvenate the party
Listen, I’m a pretty nuanced guy here in left wing politics. I believe in. Regulating capitalism, not destroying it, I don’t believe in throwing marginalized people under the bus to appeal to conservatives who never vote blue and I think we need to make sure wages go up before prices go down, iykyk.
All that said, even I’m telling you to give these DSA people a try. Will the succeed in their agenda? Probably not, you have to flip actual Republican seats to do so. But dammit they’re gonna try.
Also not a quote from this article
“Are more positive toward the Democratic Party. They are more likely to hold favorable views of the Democratic Party (68% to 60%) and its congressional leaders, and more likely to have negative views of the Republican Party and its congressional leaders”
The DSA are literally more favorable to the Democratic project than the so called “moderates”.
Will the succeed in their agenda? Probably not, you have to flip actual Republican seats to do so. But dammit they’re gonna try.
I find this attitude defeatist. A not insignificant number of people who perennially vote for Republicans are in favor of a lot of Democratic socialist ideas. The problem to surmount is the decades of propaganda making the word socialism somehow demonic and evil. There is also the unholy marriage of the Christian church and republicans. Glued mostly together by the continual fight over abortion.
The problem to surmount is the decades of propaganda making the word socialism somehow demonic and evil.
It’s probably easier to change the party’s name. Lets just call it the Freedom party, because it is.
Conservatives do love to whip out the word “communist/socialist” whenever they can. Here in Missouri they’re trying to get rid of income tax and drastically raise sales tax. They saw it was losing steam fast with how they were initially pitching it so they’re now framing it as “Socialists like Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie always want your tax money!! Don’t give it to them so help us end income tax!!!”
I disagree heavily with the second part of your response. But to address the first part first.
No, this isn’t me being defeatist, it’s me being realistic.
If the senate is made up of 53 GOP and 47 moderate Dems. And the Dems want to pass Universal Healthcare, will it pass? NO!
If the senate is made up of 53 GOP and 47 PROGRESSIVE Dems. And the Dems want to pass Universal Healthcare, will it pass? ONCE AGAIN, NO!
It’s literally impossible to move this country left with any policy if you can’t flip Republican seats. This is a democracy, (that’s heavily rigged in favor of red states). Majorities are king. Not to defend Hakeem Jeffries, but it dosent matter if he, AOC or Karl Marx himself were speaker of the house, without a majority. You’re at the mercy of the party the American people elected over you.
Democialist Party
The DNC wont acknowledge the dem socialists. They would rather lose. So they will lose and the voters will choose between the Republicans and the DSA, which will probably then replace the democratic party. It all hinges on whether the DSA continues to try to reform the Dems from within, which has been tried many times previously and always fails. If the DSA go their own way theres a path to the people being represented and Democratic policies sprouting anew. Otherwise fascism wins and US democracy ends. The DNC will allow democracy to end too, just very slightly slower.
It all becomes pretty clear and consistent if you look at the arc of the democratic party’s history. They have always been a sheepdog party and the voters keep pouring our hopes and dreams into them and let that define who we think they are.
The DNC is like 15 people and they have a lot less power than you’re describing.
They can fuck up the Presidential race and that’s about it. The good work, the “let’s get some D/S people elected” work all happens at the local level, the county level, and maybe the state level in a few places.
I agree that we should elect more Dem Soc everywhere, but let’s not pretend that the reason we’re not doing that is the DNC.
I respectfully disagree – A long arc of history has shown differently. If you are curious what I mean, that video makes the case. a politcial party’s leadership tier is tremendously powerful and legally independent regardless of whether its 2 people, or 15, or 5000. They decide who the candidates will be who wear their logo. They have proven in court that they can and will disregard or meddle with primary votes if they want to, or change voting rules with tools like superdelegates, at will. They are legally a private corporation who make their own rules, and the courts dont hold them to much of anything in terms of the fairness of democratic principles in their internal rules. The party leadership is the layer where the rubber meets the road – where capitalism meets with government to make sure capitalist interests are represented in candidates DNA. They will make sure a mamdani-like candidate never makes it past a primary. No amount of reform will change that.
Surely the path to victory is to tack further right again. Surely, more Republicans will all of a sudden come to their senses…
/s
Surely, more Republicans will all of a sudden come to their senses…
Most of the time a Republican wins, it’s on a platform of Ending The Wars and Protecting the Entitlements and Creating The Jobs with government policy.
Sort of the joke in all this. Guys like Bush, Trump, and Reagan all campaigned far to the left of how they actually governed. They’d take office, their popularity would tank, they’d go into the next election cycle with underwater approval, and Democrats would campaign to the right of the Republicans on the grounds that Reagan / Bush / Trump were incredibly popular.
Periodically, a Democrat will win a primary to the left of the favorite for the office. But they’ll immediately tack to the right again during the general for fear of looking to radical in the national media.
The “centrist”/right-leaning/neo-liberal democrats would rather rip the party in half than to use this swell of popular support for leftist ideals to win elections and make real change. The old Dems will flail and writhe and hurt themselves in confusion as the old guard dies and change happens whether they like it or not. They’ll try to kick leftists out, jump ship themselves (going independent, forming a new third party, merging with libertarians, or maybe going all the way to going Republican), and bomb the entire party with infighting, fixing nominations with anti-democratic party tricks, and intentionally letting republicans win rather than supporting a socialist candidate. Can’t wait for this cluster fuck.
They’ve been doing half of what you listed, for decades.
I’m holding on to the hope that DSA candidates winning more elections in the face of centrist nonsense will make moderates realize they’re being self defeating by doing this kind of crap. A real working coalition of socialists and liberals could be a political juggernaut that could also create some good policies together.
I think what people forget is that moderates are just fighting for what they believe in, just like progressives do. The problem is they do not want the same thing. Moderates and progressives have fundamentally different motivations. Democratic moderates are not simply progressives that have pragmatically decided to pursue centrism to win the most gains they can. They’re not progressives willing to settle for a moderate option. Moderation is their actual desired goal. They themselves are mostly wealthy coastal elites. They’re quite comfortable in their lives, and their main goal is to protect the status quo. They fundamentally do not have the same goal of crafting meaningful legislation that progressives do.
For Democratic centrists, eeking out a single seat majority in the Senate is mission accomplished. Progressives need to push for greater gains, as they want 60 votes to pass major reforms. Conservatives need 60 votes, as they want to implement Christian Nationalism. But Centrists? Neither party ever getting more than 55 votes in the Senate is their ideal outcome. Such a government will be able to pass modest bipartisan bills that don’t rock the boat, but no real change to either the right or the left will be possible.
Liberals ultimately have little desire to create a “political juggernaut,” as a juggernaut is only useful if you want to force through real change.
Al-sayed is the key. If he beats Stevens AND the establishment falls in line, there is hope. If they don’t, there isn’t.
He’s just so…reasonable.
IDK, my wife and I are both Democrats in MI and we’re both voting for him Tuesday.
My analogy for this attitude is 90s MTV executives and producers not understanding the appeal of Primus, giving up on music, and becoming surveillance as entertainment with reality TV because we wouldn’t sit and listen to Train, gin blossoms, modest mouse, etc.
Because that’s what they’re paid to do, obviously.
Like David "iPAC"man?
The corporate centrist wing would sooner switch to the republican party than do anything helpful for their constituents.
The corporate centrist wing is largely made up of ex-Republicans anyway.
Corporate Democrats are just Republicans who happen to inhabit social circles where homophobia is considered distasteful.
So you’re telling me that a third of democrats now support open borders and public control of large corporations?
I’m not sure those are the two basic pillars of DSA. Well, in fact, they are not. But I was being polite.
Have you read Workers Deserve More? And did I say they were two basic pillars?
No a third of people beleive that all people should have basic provisions of life like healthcare water housing and education. Beleive that all people are humans and kind ness and happiness prevail.
Third of people think capitalism is now greed
Probably more than that. What we’ve got is a third of democrats who would accept a DSA member implementing those policies, rather than waiting for a Hillary or Obama to get 99 1/2 votes in the Senate before passing the “Deregulate immigration slightly and maybe consider a public option for large utilities Act of 2052”
Here’s the poll: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28524353-cnn-july-poll-conducted-by-ssrs-midterms-parties/
How are they drawing the conclusion that “A third of Democrats now identify as democratic socialists” from that?
They must have more data than was presented there. For example, 18% of ALL respondants viewed the DSA positively. I would assume that what we didn’t see there was the number that 30% of those who viewed Democrats positively also viewed DSA positively.
We really shouldn’t have to assume…
Also how are we going from “has a favorable opinion of” to “identifies as”?
Cnn trying to stoke fear
If this is their attempt at stoking fear, they should do it more
Well as per usual they are giant failures because they are only managing to stoke hope.
I don’t know, I will give them some credit for awarding the journalists for reporting on Donald Trump’s Epstein files right in front of him at the correspondants dinner. Ultimately meaningless and toothless like much of the reporting but delightfully petty.
Stoke fear among the ruling class*
They want a cultural divide here so that they can send as many people who will try to stop them to the camps as possible. They know what the next steps are. Question is, do you?
Oh sorry. America is a democracy. Democrats should just listen to their base, obviously, so we can avoid further calamity. Surely that’s what will happen next. Surely.
That’s it? I really expected it to be more. I now suspect that might be an over inflation or misunderstanding
