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.
The headline almost reads like an Onion article.
Most of them do nowadays.
If they’re so pissed about it, the progressives should just pack up and form a new party or join the WFP
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.
I mean, lots of “libertarians” are frothing at the mouth to defund our military but agree that the government should at least subsidize healthcare and education with some of those funds. The terms we have are loosey-goosey and most people are incoherent policy to policy. We’ve just been sorted into groups by a century of two-party propaganda.
Better get fucking used to it bluedogs.
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.”
I dont think we want to brand off anything related to tea. Lets call it the people’s party.
Nah that name gives off Democratic People’s Republic of Korea/People’s Republic of China vibes.
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.
The left will happily big-tent to a point, but we’re not about to include people who directly attack the party platform, and we need to throw out those shits when we find them-- the liebermans, bidens, sinemas, and fettermans. We need to get back to having a party platform, which the current democratic party doesnt really. We also cant belly up to AIPACs udder like the other parties did or we’ll be right back where we started.
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.
I voted 3rd party in the election in a swing state and would do it again today.
The Democrats need to internalize the political cost of supporting Israel. If they want to win, they have to drop Israel.
I don’t think that is a lesson to take away here
A party with more support for Israel won so if that was the issue then it seems they didn’t support Israel enough
it seems they didn’t support Israel enough
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.
Are you happy with the current administration’s Israel policy though?
The voted third party so I imagine not.
Except unless they had been lobotomized, they knew damn well that their vote was being thrown away and that Trump would be the likely winner.
Which is tact approval of Trump and everything that came with it.
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.
When the R’s are in a minority they seem to block everything just fine though…
Maybe if they can’t do anything, these useless fucks should all resign and retire. Clearly, it wouldn’t make one difference.
And have new people with new ideas? Never! That’s why Clinton and Harris won, old ideas work in new times!
Progressives have even less power. You want them to all resign and retire?
Less than zero?
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…
Vichy-Democrats.
So they are silently just watching when Murica burns to the ground.
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.
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.
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.
LOL it does seem eerily similar to the plot of the producers.
Primary every democrat.
If they even run primaries…
Primary every republican.
Other Republicans already did that over the last 20 years, that’s how we got here.
If you want the Democratic party to shift left primarying weak moderates is how you do it.
This.
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.
A big military is an expensive military, and if the American economy collapses it’ll be hard to maintain that military.
Sure, but it can still cause a lot of destruction in the meantime if it decides to go out with a bang.
That’s great for the rest of the world, be we still have to deal with this mess somehow.
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.
The US needs a left-wing Party.
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.
Support psl
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.
Let’s start a new party called the Modern Future party.
Yeah I have completely lost faith in the Democratic Party. Seems like they don’t mind Trump because he benefits their wallet.
Democrats biggest donors are wealthy Republicans.
Hakeem Jeffries is one of the biggest sellouts. Him climbing the DNC ladder is a sign that Democrats will do yet another 2016 in 2028.
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.
That’s why its important to introduce Israel as a political liability for the Democrats.
Demonstrate that they lose elections because of their support for Israel.
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.
It’s rather naive to think that phone calls will change anyone’s mind in office. Money speaks, not phone calls.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
Following centuries of political theory have led us to this point.
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
Not really. The only thing they pay attention to is the amount on the check.
If calling really changed things, I’d be getting emails from TheDemocrats asking people to jump on a phone bank. All they are asking from me is “More Money to fight Donald Trump!”
Do you not get those texts? I would understand if you blocked them but they are definitely being sent.
Not anymore… I blocked them after the 15th begging for “$50 dollars is all we need to defeat Trump!” on November 10th…
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.
The thing you’re missing is that you’ll tap into a whole new category of voters that have never had anyone to vote for before.
Ding. Both major parties have abandoned the working class, and a whole lot of people have given up on the system as a whole. Give a real choice that has a chance and people will turn up. But that means the politics-as-sports folks need to hang up their team colors, and that’s only going to happen by spreading class consciousness. No war but class war.
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If Democrats are so scared of splitting the vote, they don’t need to run a candidate. It’s not like they’re particularly interested in winning anyway.
This is why a new party needs to be built from the ground up, starting with local races that are uncontested or use ranked choice voting already.
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.
Change starts at the dog catcher. That’s how the maga morons did it. They ran for every single down ballot race, all the way to the bottom.
That’s how the maga morons did it.
Hell, in my city, the local Dem committee helped the MAGA morons, by running against their own primary winner (A socialist). They were even dual dropping lit for the Chosen One they had in mind, plus the sheriff who is a MAGA nutter.
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.
They just need to put the Trump party last (or whatever the shittiest party is at the time)… They can put anyone they want 2nd
Tell this to Bernie and other progressives. Seriously, if we call and email them, they might decide they even enough support to do such a thing.
100% agreed, it’s time for a new party. Republican-lite is killing our nation.
The Democratic party is dead.
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
So like, how do we do that? How do I help organize that?
Can you clarify, who are you talking about?
Aren’t there already other progressive parties? Look how they’re doing.
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.
“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.
Remember all the times people said “Push for bills so when Republicans vote no it’s on the record for election season?”.
As if Republicans can see anything but the Republican next to the first person’s name in a ballot.
“But if our votes are recorded, our
voterscorporate donors will know we voted against them!”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.
Hay man, they’re on our side! When it hardly matters.
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.
Leeja is cool but her opinion was that they’re running their tiktok accounts wrong and they were born in the wrong year.
What specifically would YOU do to stop what the Trump admin is doing?
Lmao, I can’t believe that’s what you got from the video. That was not remotely her point. Her entire point is that the Democrats should be using everything within their polical power to obstruct and delay everything the Trump Admin is trying to do. She gave multiple examples of exactly how they can do that. That’s the bare minimum the Democratic Party should be doing. I already participate in local community organizations.
What is it YOU think is in their political power? Specifically.
People didn’t vote dems into power and that is why we are in the situation we have now.
Here’s an entire comprehensive list. Which was, again, discussed in Leeja Miller’s video…
The Democrats are responsible for losing this election to an unpopular fascist by failing to represent the demands that the majority of their constituents were demanding. Start demanding more from your representatives.
You have incredible patience.
So you want them to do the things they’re already doing to delay votes that will happen in short matter regardless of what they do?
Reminder that only simple majority of 51 breaks filibuster for cabinet and judge confirmation hearings since 2013 and 2017 respectively. The DNC stalled for 30 hours because they were allowed to by the GOP, and the hearing still went through as planned. Nothing can stop this.
It sure is neat how powerless the minority has suddenly become.
Remember when the democrats had everything for a few years and did basically nothing and kept blaming the republican minority apparently that was bullshit and actually the minority has no power. So either the dems are liars or damned liars.
Democrats have had less than 50 for over a decade, nothing sudden about it.
