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I really think it’s time to start serious discussions about forming a new party. I really do. The number of elected Democrats capitulating to Trump seems to be growing by the day.
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I’m torn on this. On the one hand, I totally agree that the establishment Dems have been at best useless in resisting the Nazification of the country. OTOH, splitting the (what I assume would be) Centrist and Progressive wings of the party would unavoidably pit them against each other and give pretty much unopposed control to the fascists. The margin is tight enough we cannot afford to lose the centrist voters, but we are very much alienating the progressives with the positions being staked out by Schumer and his ilk. Thinking about this is profoundly depressing. Do we go with a mealy-mouthed “opposition” party that is utterly useless, or split into two parties too small to affect the course of the country, with the Centrist part seeming to be pretty much OK with most of the fascism as long as it is polite about the genocide. I do not know, it seems pretty grim either way. I think the only way to make it work is to facilitate an AOC-type candidate takeover of control of the party, which seems pretty unlikley as well.
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Jeez. She really is all for this:
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“Human rights are a distraction from economics” is pretty much the problem with the centrists in distilled form.
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Yeah, no, sending people Trump doesn’t approve of to concentration camps is the main course, not a mere distraction. Of course, as a Democrat in office, this anonymous traitor is more likely than most to discover that firsthand when things get even worse.
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My god isn’t it though!?
Who do I vote for in the rigged election of 28?
Option one: the feckless Dems who will do nothing except maybe at least lower tarrifs and call it a day. To vote for them you will be put on a list which will be checked against your medical records, employment, and bank accounts. You may face deportation or attempted homicide but you can at least say you voted anti fascist… kinda.
Option two: Trump’s third term or whomever Elon agrees will win the votes. Same thing as last time but you get a reprieve on threats and we all enjoy the depression from the tarrifs but maybe we get a civil war too so that should be fun.
Great fucking choices.
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It’s a little early to get too despondent about that- we have no idea which Democrats or independants may end up running three years from now. It’s definitely possible that someone better may rise to the occasion.
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Anyone in mind?
Serious q.
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There may well be good candidates that I just haven’t heard much about yet. (And I hold out hope that there are) But as for people with name recognition, AOC and Sanders have been drawing massive crowds at their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour that they’re doing in red states and red districts. Just last night they had about 30,000 people attend their rally in Folsom, in a district that Trump won 3 times.
Although I’d probably lean more towards AOC than Sanders simply because if he were to serve 2 terms he’d be about 95 by the end.
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we’re going to go take the bait for one hairdresser.”
Maybe someone should ship off someone in his family to a fucking concentration camp and then see if he’s not interested in human rights…
God, fucking assholes.
Yeah, that’s the shit they should focus on. His atrocious economic policies will create enough pain to have an effect, but the god damn policy of sending people to concentration camps is the four alarm fire that too many democrats are just fucking ignoring.
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As much as I love Bernie, I’m not sure if he’s the right person for this moment. He talks a fantastic game-- listening to him was one of my many steps leftward-- but when he’s challenged or blocked, he backs down. We need a passionate fighter who won’t quit. Bernie’s passionate, and he’s hung in there for a long time, but we need more than pretty words right now.
AOC is problematic for me for much the same reason. She also makes wonderful speeches, but her votes are pretty much in lockstep with the current Democratic policy, which I loathe. (I wish I could remember which site it was that allowed users to compare voting records. It told me that over the three years listed, her voting matched Pelosi’s over 90% across three years. Very maverick, much rebel. 
)
Impractical as it may be, I’m not interested in the same old political game. Business as usual got us here. I want somebody who’s gonna flip the godsdamned table.
(I know that’s probably not gonna happen. I still want it.)
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Plus, we have the same problem with AOC that we have with Harris and Clinton, in that too many men will not vote for a woman. At all. Even if they are on the left and believe in progressive causes. Even if she had truly progressive policies and said all the class stuff, and all that. Men are the problem here and men need to fix that about themselves and their friends.
I still think a Walz-AOC is a path to win, honestly.
I have less of a problem with AOC going along with the party, personally. But I agree that the party needs to be more bold and progressive, but that’s a party-wide problem. To get that done, we need more progressives in positions to influence the party platform and party message… If we get that done, and people start voting for the party being that way, that’ll help pull the party to the left. It’s probably a long-term project…
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As much as I hate to admit it, misogyny is a problem, in addition to how she’s been thoroughly demonized by the right wing would-be pundits. It would be lovely to see her at the top of the ticket, but it would spur conservatives to the polls to vote against her.
Honestly, I’m more concerned with the damage being done to our system now than whatever happens four years in the future. Anybody who’s considering throwing their hat in the ring would probably win over a lot of people if they stepped up and led the fight ASAP, but maybe that’s just my opinion. 
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I would love to see progressives try not caring for once, given how the opposite strategy of pandering to them keeps going. My guess is they’re a distinct minority compared to people who might get behind a candidate that looks like they might actually stand up for them.
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Unfortunately, we are in a country right now where 27% or so will vote fascist because they are fascists, about the same will not vote at all because they have been convinced it doesn’t matter, about the same will vote against fascism because they understand the threat, and the rest will, sadly, fall to the lowest denominator for them. That may be sexism, racism, xenophobia, whatever. The smart move (IMHO) is to get the quarter or whatever who are not motivated enough to even vote to get activated, the mainstream Dems seem to think that it is to win over some of the fascists, which is just not going to happen. But having a woman, or (horrors) a Black woman at the top of the ticket drives that last category to the fascists. The last 3 elections have proven this in a this-can’t-be-real experiment. Against the same opponent, a white man wins both popular and electoral victories, a white woman wins popular but loses electoral votes and a Black woman loses both popular and electoral votes. I hate it, but it certainly seems to be real.
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Oh yeah, me too. It’s possible that they just break the entire system enough to keep this regime in power past 2028. The Democrats need to realize what’s actually happening and fight back against that now… and not by throwing people under the god damn bus and thinking that playing to some mythical middle on the economy will help.
I think you’re right on that… As long as they don’t track to the right to try and win moderate republicans. But I still think misogyny is a problem that too many men will not address.
I wish it were not so, but I think it is.
And far too many people just refuse to face up to that fact.
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I don’t think it is too early, because I’m not sure there even will be an election in 2028. Remember, Trump told his base they wouldn’t have to vote again after this last time. Trump lies a lot, but when he talks about stuff like that, he absolutely means what he says. Whether he can pull that off is an open question still, but we need to be worried about it right now.
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