"Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are architects of the crisis that allowed Trump's fascism to arise and succeed," argued one progressive organizer. "They have zero credibility to be leading the fights we face today."
House Democratic lawmakers reportedly used a closed-door meeting earlier this week to vent their frustrations with progressive advocacy groups that have been driving constituent calls and pressuring the party to act like a genuine opposition force in the face of the Trump administration's authoritarian assault on federal agencies and key programs.
They are mostly all careerists who focus on who's "turn" it is while they are one foot in the grave. Its a major issue on why we have the current situation.
The fact that hold onto power they are either unwilling or too scared to use is infuriating.
they never will, they are fat and happy right where they are. Even a fascist gov't is preferrable to giving up access to wealth and influence they enjoy right now. I'd say much more likely is a workers party gaining popularity but that kind of pro-worker party is gonna have a hard time receiving the financial backing the dems and repubs get.
They think the gravy train lasts forever, seemingly unaware the fascists would be more than happy to see them in the same camps as the rest of us, and would make that happen the moment they get the chance, without a moments hesitation.
Hey Democrats, why don't you form another couple of committees and release some weak statements condemning the other side while doing fuck-all. Clearly, it's gotten you this far, so why not just keep treading that same old road? It's frustrating to see the Democrats get beaten over the head again and again and learning the wrong lesson. FUCKING DO SOMETHING.
They DO something.
Punching down on people that didn't vote for their genocide party.
Horrible gloating comments saying it's their fault whenever the israhellis commit more warcrimes and that they deserve it.
If that doesn't make clear they are in powerhungry ghouls without compassion IDK what will.
Don't forget "Strongly worded letters" and vigorous finger wagging. Which is what passes for fighting from our passel of corrupt do nothing feckless Dem "leaders".
Now I'm not saying that the Republican Party is a blatantly fascistic organization designed to re-concentrate all wealth and power into the hands of an aging white billionaire elite afraid of losing their power and want to "scorch the Earth" in revenge for the fact that they and their very specific view of "how things should be" can not last forever
And that the Democrats are not only complacent, but are actively in on the plan and intentionally aiding this grift by pretending to be an alternative choice of leadership that seeks to prevent this from happening, and doing the bare minimum to keep up that illusion to prevent real opposition from showing up.
Part of that plan is to get people to join up with the Democratic Party to resist the Republicans and steer them away from or at least discourage them from doing anything that would actually stop the Great Ominous Plan....
The reason this is so effective is because due to the way America's Electoral System is, anything outside of the R's or D's is entirely unelectable no matter how many people vote.
Though this also means that if the Democrats ever lost control of their party to people who actually want to do something, it would threaten to destroy the Republican Party, and prevent anything like it from rearing its ugly head again. As it would become as demonized as the Nazi Party is in Germany.
But let's just say that that was exactly the case....
This is where I sit. Either the Dems are controlled opposition, or they're actually this incompetent. Does it matter? Do you even need to get conspiratorial? No, they're unqualified and should be replaced.
We need a Democratic Tea Party movement very badly.
Unfortunately, I already know the people who would lead it would also never get past making the rules of who's included, what kind of tea we'll be using, and if it's ethically sourced, and if any members have any problematic tweets in their past, what particular brand of socialism everyone subscribes to, and of course, what we're actually demanding from the government.
Say what you want about the right, but their superficial, Ork-like focus on goals gets them moving. Too bad those goals are usually things like "Vote against our best interests as much as humanly possible."
edit: I love that half the comments below are people disagreeing about how we would organize it and what we would want and who we would include. I both despair and celebrate that I'm not someone who can just hear a single word like "woke" and just laser-focus on uniting with literal crocodiles to take it down. Identify our weaknesses people, stop trying to be smarter than the problem. The problem is stupid simple, we have wealthy elite stealing our lives and futures away and the right is enabling them. Full stop, we should be fucking marching locked-arm with people whom we've been told to abhor to fix this. Imagine if people became scared to associate with billionaires. Imagine if we all did something.
The tea party, however, turned out to be an entirely artificial astroturfed "movement" that got its funding from the Koch brothers. They only came to exist because they were deemed a potentially profitable investment to the one percent. Same goes for Kerry getting "swiftboated". It was always about money.
The left won't big-tent: if you aren't perfect and addressing their issue du jour, well, good luck. I don't know how you make a progressive party if there is no ability to prioritize.
And by the way I get it, if I wasn't allowed to exist, I would sure as shit want my issue at the front of the line too.
Yeah it's a clever lie that's perpetuated that says progressives have no where to go if they try to break from the Democrats. But secretly a more progressive platform would actually draw over a lot of disaffected libertarians and lite conservatives who only vote conservative because they've been convinced that they should only vote in opposition to Democrats instead of in favor of anything.
from my experience with some libertarian 2a people I'd agree with this. I was surprised how indifferent (good) they were about minorities and trans people considering how they vote. honestly having a pro-drug, pro-gun* platform would win a huge chunk of them. and both of those would also be good for oppressed minorities (imo).
actually sitting here thinking about it do we have any figures on how much tax money gets pumped into prison systems that rely on drug enforcement to fill? not to mention the military industrial complex. cuz I know leftists like to riff on libertarians about "I don't understand how taxes work" but there's a lot of tax money going to things I don't agree with either.
*more like "sex positive" in the sense of education and safety and not shaming people who partake. not whatever the NRA is doing.
If you want the Democrats to fight more effectively against Trump, by running on a better platform and listening to the active voter base, so the country is safe for at least 4 more years and maybe arrest Trump, you are actually:
A tankie
A russian bot
A brainwashed Fox News watcher
A china spy who was brainwashed by TikTok
A republican who pretends to be a democrat
A useful idiot for Republicans
Whatever MSNBC said this week was the thing to watch out for
It's mentally draining that I am on the side of the Democrats winning, because I know I would have prefered Harris to Trump every single day. Despite her record of trans rights and gaza, because she could have been pushed forward by learning from mistakes and not having her brains be mush like Trump and Biden.
And because I wanted her to win by publicly expressing the things documented in her campaign's website? I'm somehow wanting Trump to win despite being a disabled queer.
I just don't get how so many liberals will see me go "Harris should advocate for this thing that would be good, she said she wants it in the past" and then read that as "I hate her because she's a Democrat woman, I also love to eat shit of out Trump's asshole and claim it's owning the libs."
Never once have I ever praised Trump unironically, I can could count on two fingers things I am neutral towards, (Backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and getting rid of the Penny) and that's it, everything else he has made my life worse on the Federal level, and helped some of my friends die from COVID.
I just got to wonder if the people who constantly think this are just angry that Trump got a loyal unquestioning fanbase, and want a piece of the media-manipulated voter base for themselves.
I am only donating to AOC until she and her fellow progressives gain a larger voice in the direction of the party. I've unsubbed from a lot of Democratic lists, too.
I advise all to do the same (as she can allocate these money to elsewhere if she wishes), while also contacting the DNC at https://democrats.org/
Here's a thought instead of blowing your money supporting candidates that already have access to massive amounts of cash, donate it to the Trevor project, planned parenthood or literally any nonprofit.
OR here's a thought — now hear me out — you don't because those charitable donations are a treatment of a symptomatic issue reflective of failed government policy to begin with. So if you really want to address the root cause and actually reshape the party from a top-down approach, then I encourage you follow my strategy.
Or you know, you can donate to both.
The more money that goes to AOC, the greater her voice in the Democratic party.
The greater her voice, the greater the progressive shift in the Democratic party.
The greater the progressive shift in progressive economic populism, the better outcomes for Women's and LGBTQ+ rights.
They did rally themselves last month to push hard for tougher laws going against illegal video streaming websites. Netflix or someone in the entertainment industry cut them a check, I imagine.
"We could push for laws to make Nazi shit more illegal... Stop Musk... Maybe try to catch Trump... Nah, piracy is the most pressing issue right now! The camps need more workers for Trump!"
Holding the only buckets that could hold water and go "I've done all I could, I'm gonna keep pushing for more buckets!" while the buckets that can be used are filled with gasoline by Republicans.
"Forcing recorded votes is possible. Frequent quorum calls are possible. A wide variety of dilatory motions are possible. In short, harassing the majority is possible. If they think it's a bad idea, say so. If they say it's not possible, they're lying."
I like how politicians voting is considered a time out. It's their job, jfc.
Right? This is about providing political cover to centrists who take money from the same oligarchs as conservatives. They just want to pretend they are on our side.
They actually can't force votes though, so we'd be getting the same votes and we already knew whenever Republicans stepped out from the ranks such as the Hegseth confirmation where 3 of them abstained but he got appointed anyways. Recorded Votes doesn't stop the Trump admin. The Dems are effectively powerless without 13 Ind + Gop to impeach and remove him or his cabinet members or corrupt federal judges.
This has been half a century of Fascists vs neoliberals, center-right "free to be LGBTQ as you die of poverty in the gutter" vs so far right we're building Concentration camps.
Unfortunately our people have been poorly educated by design as well as brainwashed into believing profit comes before humanity. " Herp derp Anything less is socialism and therefore evil!"
This is only "freedom" for the rich to trample the poor. Freedom without social responsibility is a rampage. We need revolution, revolution that does far more to Wall Street than merely occupy it , or we need to accept living in hell until the capitalists destroy the climate enough to destroy civilization all together.
Don't worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we're failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
This isnt the usual ebbs and flows of history, There is a very literal deadline of humanity's own greedy making.
Don't worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we're failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
That’s the plan. That’s why billionaires are buying up properties in places that are currently too cold and remote for masses of people to want to live there (Montana, Greenland, etc).
They know climate change is real and it is 100% reflected in Homeowners insurance rates in FL and other high risk places. I’m fairly certain that it’s not the leftist types that get into starting insurance companies.
Also, the whole Covid thing… I am pretty sure there was a concerted effort that would cull our numbers a bit.
So yea, we’re all going to die probably — unless you’re rich enough to afford to move to somewhere that will have a more hospitable climate when we cross the 3 degrees Celsius threshold next year.
Progressives need to start their own party. The establishment DNC is so entrenched with big donors and lobbyists that it is unable to serve the people. Their balancing act of appeasing both the right and the left is just serving to alienate everyone because the final policies get so diluted. They have become too stuck in the quagmire of their own doing. I don’t see the DNC being able to change any time soon and through their inaction, will only enable more devastation of the country.
The new Progressive party should align with the DNC as the opposition during this administration but simultaneously run more like minded candidates in the next elections with their own separate fundraising campaigns. That’s the only hope I have for meaningful change to happen.
There's a free app called 5 calls. It helps you to call your representative with a script. Progressives need to get on this. I'm aware it's a pain, but the script makes it a lot easier especially when you get an answering machine instead of a person.
The problem is you get the NDP/Liberal vs. Conservative effect when you do this. If you have 30% of the population vote for your Leftie, and 30% vote for the other Leftie, in a given congressional district, the Republican can win with 31%, despite 60% voting against the Republican. We need RCV before we can do this, and people need to understand that they MUST put the other party as choice 2 or we are back to ending up with a Republican.
That is indeed a problem that needs to be resolved, and likely through ranked choice voting. But as a country, we tend to focus too much on the presidential election. Change will have to start in the congressional elections - both at federal and state levels. The issue of votes splitting will be a lesser issue in these elections except in a few large districts. That will also be where smaller fundraising campaigns would go further.
I fail to see your point. That sounds like you have a 61 majority for the Republicans. The "Liberals" are aiding the Republicans getting power, as the article points out.
Also the Democrats are a pink washed far right party, by standards outsidr the US.
The Democratic party has just officially morphed into the Republican party of 30 years ago. They trotted out the Cheney's ffs.
Not like it matters. We're not voting our way out of this situation, the fascists won't let anyone take power back now that they have it. It's revolution or a technofeudal hellscape.
The DNC leadership are elected by people who are elected by us. Almost no one votes in those elections... Probably no one even knows they exist. But a well timed strategy of getting like 50 progressives to show up to each election and vote for progressive leadership is all it would take to replace every liberal in the party leadership with progressives... No reason to leave 2 conservative parties intact
"In 2025, the DNC Chair election will be held on February 1. The chair will be elected by the 448 active National Committee members, consisting of 200 elected members from state parties, as well as elected officials, constituency representatives, and at-large members."
so a 200 person minority of the voters are people elected .. somehow.... (how do pick which state people get a votes) presumably in a way that forwards the publics wishes, not that they ever do that-- and the other 248 are dnc insiders. I dont see how progressives can maneuver to a win with those constraints.
Anecdotal, but our chapter of the DSA (not radical enough for me, but it's what I've got around me) is growing rapidly. New member orientation has been standing-room-only since the election.
You should check out the Axios article they cite before you write them all off. The supposed "gripefest" is just Dems talking about how they're recieving hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day.
Wow I can't believe those fake congresspersons on that parody news site would say that. Thank you for bringing this into real political discussions. /s
Jeffries is the main backer for Eric Adams who just got a pardon from Trump under the request that he aids in the mass deportations and likely he will.
Oh Democrats. Only annoyed they ever had to pretend to care about people.
AIPAC as well if trump supporting Israel publicly they will never replace. And if both party turn out to be "end of life" lunatic who want kingdom of Israel then they will never change or push against a President who is pushing for the same goal even though he clearly doesn't believe in anything.
Luckily, if the world survives Trump the Democrats won't matter anymore because America won't matter. The rest of the world was pretty pissed off at the USA before, but still allowed America to keep its leverage because challenging it would be too much effort. Trump, however, is actively destroying that leverage through his trade wars and his cancelling of foreign aid at the same time that he's stripping his own government of its ability to function through his purges.
The only pillar of American influence that Trump isn't destroying directly is the country's media exports, and they were already in the process of collapsing before Trump was re-elected.
You got your high position in the world in the first place due to the fact that you were the only major power left standing after the world wars. Those circumstances won't happen again (well, world wars might, but not ones that leave the USA unscathed.)
The US has been going all-in on hard power while soft power declines. There's a lot of rich individuals who benefit from military contracts but don't care as much about actually maintaining the empire. The big risk is that Americans are going to recognize this disparity and start WWIII in an effort to leverage the one area that the US has an advantage to retain hegemony.
and his cancelling of foreign aid at the same time
I don't think Trump nor President Musk understand how much power the US weilds, just purely on foreign aid. By gutting all of it, we removed a large portion of the US's foreign power (Which, IMO, is a pretty good result).
Same foreign policy, same bullying strategy, but now they are: 1) public about it, 2) Targeting countries that help them being who they are for the last 70 years.
I'm sure they've already ran the numbers and realized getting power to exploit the people from winning is far less likely than getting it from switching sides.
I could swear this shit is like the plot from The Producers. They've monetized their incompetence and realized that they can make more money from losing elections than from winning. They collect billions in donations from desperate people and then launder it, squandering it on ineffectual "vote blue" spam while awarding lucrative no bid consultancy contracts with friendly party aristocracy insiders for massive kick backs and "speaking fees".
Kamala "I'm Speaking" Harris never intended to do anything OTHER than speaking. Seems the democrat establishment doesn't want any of us remembering that TALK IS CHEAP.
Kamala “I’m Speaking” Harris never intended to do anything OTHER than speaking. Seems the democrat establishment doesn’t want any of us remembering that TALK IS CHEAP.
And even then, they refused to have anyone but the old guard speak. Palestinians to help bridge the people who are unhappy with both parties supporting murder? Nah, why do that?
Democrats think words speak louder than actions. A strongly worded tweet stops trump and musk from taking over the government. A donational pledge stops transphobia and racism.
So the Republicans can act like an opposition party but they can't? Have they had their heads buried since the beginning of Obama's term? Or is this their snide way of confirming complicity?
This should be the eye opener to the left that the DNC is right wing. They let the republicans do whatever they want because they want the same thing. They only pretend not to so they can scam for donations.
The democrats were this ineffective during the GWB era as well. Then after America gets sick of Republicans because their policy is terrible and predictably causes calamities of varying magnitudes, only the people who didn't go along for the ride with the Republicans thrive politically afterwards.
For instance, one of Obama's main draws in the 2008 primaries was the dude wasn't drawn into being pro-Iraq invasion.
The feeble wimps will all be seen as such if this era ever ends, and the public will turn to whomever consistently opposed the petard throwing before it hoists the one who threw it.
When they win elections, they refuse to use power to help people, but instead blame Repub obstruction. When they lose they wag fingers, but mostly just go along with Repubs (ie, confirmations) and they FUNDRAISE. Then they use that funding to defeat left dems in primaries.
The Democrats in question would likely say they're upset progressives are getting mad at Democrats as if they have the power to pass bills or do much of anything. Yelling "do something" isn't helping when your party doesn't have any power.
Ironically the most power Democrats have is thanks to the filibuster, which Progressives campaigned against for years.
Yelling “do something” isn’t helping when your party doesn’t have any power.
it didnt help when the dems had power either. Theres zero correlation between what voters want and what our politicians do, even in our own party.
As to your second point:
the filibuster, which Progressives campaigned against for years.
All it takes to remove the fillibuster is a simple majority vote in the senate. Its not the shield you think it is. Its used to enable a minority party to block legislation, and the majority to let them do it while pretending to be stymied. It was used to block so many good pieces of legislation that had majority support. You think the republicans will keep that going? I doubt it.
Do nothing even though the conservatives and rich tech companies are taking over the federal government!
They have millions, they can do many things to make conservatives work harder every single time, they can run protest, they can amplifiy their voices behind one leader, they can do alot of things....
They didn't seem all that frustrated in the Axios article which is the source of all of the information in this article, although I'm sure thousands of phone calls a day would get old fast.
I'm telling you. The DNC is a sunk cost. You'll keep contributing to it thinking is valuable but when it's time to cash in they've already cashed out. At least the RNC spends it's political capital, mostly on shitty culture war shit, but they don't let it disintegrate into nothing.
If I could teach the DNC two words to use against the opposition it would be, "so what?" I mean, they use it on their constitutes all the time so it should be nothing new.
Any of the ones who are upset about Progressives pushing them to act like an opposition party needs to be primaried and kicked out, if they can't be convinced. We need more primary challengers to actually change the party, like the republicans have and continue to do.
Last year they didn't really have presidential primaries because of an Incumbent, something both parties do all the time. But there were still Congressional primaries. And local primaries. Saying they'll get rid of primaries when there was a reason to not have a presidential one, even if you disagree with that reason, is very much misunderstanding how primaries work.
“There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.” - New DNC head
It's a good thing we can all agree on what the definition of good and bad is, and how its applied in our society right?
Can you elaborate? She had made some inflammatory comments in the past but in the past few months she seems to be the poster child of maturity and determination.
Pictured: two of the most useless government employees in history, one of whose net worth grew tenfold after being appointed the successor to the queen of insider trading, and the other one of which is so deep in the pocket of fossil fuel interests that he needs a 12 foot snorkel to breathe.
Still call your Republican representatives and ask what the fuck they are thinking by surrendering their power to an executive branch. That's not how our Republic supposed to work.
Edit: they supposed to represent you, you actually are in state where your representatives are responsible for the current situation and you are wondering how to contact representatives from the minority party that has a very little power to do anything right now.
It doesn't matter that you think they won't listen, if you and others won't complain, they definitively won't do anything.
Things really need to start now on establishing a party and running candidates from local on up to combat things in the next major elections. If the democrats refuse to properly do their jobs, then elect those who will.
They are the ones who have the most ability to hold ORAGNE accountable. Keep the pressure on your Democrat representatives to DO THEIR FUCKING JOB! Signed, a concerned Canadian.
Seeing as centrists dems cant win without the left I dont think your point matters. The left isnt about to make any deals that include genocide, period. Not hard genocide, not diet-genocide. Harris could have won by breaking from Biden and calling Bidens actions genocide, but she refused to and she lost the voters. And if the next dem does the same they will lose the same. Its really that simple. And yes, the people that left their ballot blank or voted third party will do the exact same thing again, even as Trump burns the country down.
If we have to burn a country to the ground with murderous war crime enabling policies, our system does not deserve to exist either.
And we still have swathes of Lemmy screaming that we need to call the Democrats and that they aren't useless as a party and that calls and emails are a valid and productive method of getting favorable action done.
And then the DNC have a private meeting to tell all the leaders of the leftist holding pens to get a better leash.
I mean, people who did vote for them are also demanding the Dems do anything in their power to slow or stop this, which is exactly what the Reps have done when the situation is reversed and Dems just throw up their hands like there's nothing they can do in both scenarios
Maybe we're getting sick of them trying to play act the "good guys" doing things "by the rules" while watching the Reps do whatever the fuck they want and getting away with it again and again