Has there been analysis on who turned out and who didn’t? Did the normal maga base just not turn out, a combination of being complacent or disgruntled?

Israel has been expending all of its political capital since O7. It’s now almost entirely gone.

You see before this time, Democrats had a strong Jewish caucus in their coalition who equated support for Israel as opposition to antisemitism; same with the converse.

This meant that Israel mostly through AIPAC could bully Democrats by forcing a pledge of fealty in order to get not only their endorsement, but their money, and also an assurance they wouldn’t accuse them of being an antisemite and or supporting their opponent.

Cori Bush’s primary loss is textbook of this.

But now the tables are turning. The baggage is now associating with Israel and AIPAC. The cost of being tied to them is worse than the consequences of their opposition. Their ability to drive a wedge is diminishing greatly.

The more this is brought out in public, the better.

Agreed, but it (a) doesn’t stop our pursuit of idealism or perfection, and (b) it doesn’t stop concurrent pursuits. We can both advocate for a two-state solution (whatever framework that looks like where both predominant ethnic groups cohabit peacefully and with share of power), and simultaneously mitigate loss of civilian life overall wherever we can.

Of course the chief offender is Israel, no dispute there. But in theory providing only defensive weapons mitigates future offensive capacities of Israel and thus harm to civilians in Gaza, while also protecting children in Israel just the same. (There is more nuance to this in retrospect, I merit).

Clearly we all also want a permanent ceasefire as another step further, putting an end to the deaths everywhere. But you try every avenue you can in damage mitigation.

Yeah absolutely. I just wonder if when Republicans are at their weakest and AOC is about to make a move if he wouldn’t have some synergistic amplification in the timing of his own move in 2028. Governors have use (thanks to them, Dems may be able to gut the electoral college), but personally I’d rather be a US Senator if the path to the Presidency is closed.

That will indeed be very damaging to his campaign. If not him, who?

They never will. The crime syndicate is in too deep. Doubling-down is the only thing they have at this point and they know it.

Which is why it pisses me off how many are trying to denounce AES as verbally slamming Vance and now — in classic Democrat fashion — the tepid hand-wringing has already begun about how we should try to find compromise with a fucking fascist who tried to overthrow Democracy and whom is all over the Epstein Files.

Anyways, your friendly reminder to keep amplifying the message of calling for Schumer and Jeffries to step down from leadership roles and to find someone with more charisma and backbone than a wet noodle.

I respect you bringing substance to this discussion. Upon review I’m personally not all impressed about how Fetterman is shown to be progressive this way simply by relative comparison to the rest of the generally highly-conservative Senate. Even if these were fruitful votes (most honestly weren’t for aforementioned reasons of a divided Congress and non supermajority), I’d be the tallest person in the room with children, but that doesn’t make me tall, right? Finally, we unfortunately cannot contrast with an unanswerable counterfactual that is: Would he have been more progressive if he didn’t have the stroke? Because ultimately there are many other variables from year to year that cannot be fully adjusted for.

I thus prefer to look at Fetterman through the lens of shifted trailblazing policy stances and divisive topics pre and post-stroke:

• Fetterman moved from once referring to himself as a “progressive champion” and “We have started a progressive movement here in Pennsylvania” — Again, these Pre-stroke. Only later in 2023 did he change his tune.

• Since 2023, Fetterman suddenly became much more staunchly anti-immigrant and parroting of Republican Border policy talking-points. His position has heavily shifted on ICE, once being much more strongly opposed to ICE. Contrast, “law-abiding citizens seeking a better life” to Biden “Bungling” and “destroying” the border by late 2023.

• Pre-stroke, Fetterman once strongly supported Single-payer Medicare For All, but now no longer does post-stroke.

It seems he has long been supportive of Israel, which in the backdrop of Charlottesville and genuine antisemitism of the right through the 2010s, combined with peak power of AIPAC and a large Jewish cohort in PA, I can somewhat understand. I can further imagine that his stroke could have reduced his ability to see nuance following O7 and still resorting to default programming of, “antisemitism bad!”

Maybe my definition of progressive or left-leaning is different, but I find it hard to call anyone a progressive whatsoever who has shifted and actively holds regressive positions on that which the broader progressive coalition fully promote.

There never was plans to have a breakthrough. This is just a convenient excuse for Trump officials to fraternize with Moscow in person and without risk of comm leaks. Will never trust a gathering of these psychopaths.

Depends. Is it Primaries season, or is it the General election?

If the former, then vote progressives in.

If the latter, show me in the races these Democrats were elected where the Republican wasn’t objectively worse on practically every issue.

Yes but Mandani cannot be President, unfortunately.

Constitutionally, naturalized citizens cannot be President.

El-Sayed, however, can.

If it must, but not at the cost of children killed by unguided rockets and inaccurate missiles.

Well I think the cart is being put before the horse; for we must deal with the present reality instead of far-fetched idealism: Israel exists, and that fact isn’t changing anytime soon. If we want to talk about net data: then providing defensive missiles so errant rockets don’t strike civilians isn’t necessarily a bad thing because ultimately a net-reduction of child deaths occur. The absence of funding for the Iron Dome further yields no evidence as to the damage wrought by Israel (e.g., Iranian and Hamas missiles have in no way shape or form deterred Israel from carrying out its offensive strikes of genocide).

It just leads to a net-increase in civilian deaths, overall.

When each child’s life is sacred, I can see why one would advocate to mitigate all. Either way, I suppose this is water under the bridge considering AOC’s position has since shifted anyway and she’s still better than any Republican – which is why every single true dissenter to the war caucuses with Democrats, at least while in elected office. A few Republicans protest, but mostly from the sidelines and having since been primaried out.

Not sure what you mean with respect to Sanders; for independent of the movement outgrowing Bernie, you do see why Bernie continues to caucus and endorse Democratic candidates under the same principle of “lesser evil” politics? Why the man himself does try to play the game of sitting out of elections or partaking accelerationism? Why Ilhan Omar does the same. Even Ilhan Omar endorsed Harris, rightfully so. So how can they be both sides of the same coin when one side is simply better than the other on practically every issue, including Gaza, USAID, and Ukrainian support?

Some of your quotes from Harris are anachronistic. She went further, called for Palestinian self-determination, ceasefire, and two-state solution. In order to deal with the greater evil of Trump, she had to toe the line on battleground swing states with considerable populations of Jewish supporters who at the time were still somewhat sympathetic to Israel (we all saw what happened to Cori Bush). She got scared, tried to play safe by listening to advisors. In spite of this she was still better (again, see Sanders and Omar’s endorsement).

I think my opinion of Israel and its future existence as a state is independent of Hamas murdering children — regardless of nationality. I’m fairly sure El-Sayed would say something similar.

I do greatly appreciate Ilhan Omar as well, don’t get me wrong! She’s just not in a position to challenge Schumer.

Right, but the weak leadership of the Democrats (and their corruption in rigging the primaries against their populist uprising in the form of Bernie Sanders) enabled Trump’s rise. So it’s binary in the narrative, but under an oligarchy, it’s really just one choice (so no choice) with different theatrical performances attached.

But that’s not the opinion of the very guy for whom they allegedly rigged against, is it?

By all means, I think we have our work cut out for us to clean Democrats up, but the likes of Bernie’s acolyte, AOC, is by no means the problem. Very low if not next to last on the totem pole.

Also I don’t find it performative when we know if Harris won, 600,000 people would be alive who now are not. When we’d still be in the JCPOA and not have bombed an Iranian school and more. When we’d still be in the WHO. When we’d still be in the Paris Climate Agreement.

I have no problem with AOC’s ethical stance — mirroring that of El-Sayed’s recent words himself noting protecting all children, including Israeli children. The needle can be threaded, and I condemn just as much those child deaths on O7 as I do the greater atrocity by Israel that came after, proportionally. Only the humane would.

Additionally AOC would later state that Israel can fund its own defensive systems and refused to further provide such aid. Presumably this is in part due to the risk of Israel misappropriating these resources as well.

Overall AOC rarely misses the mark, and I’m no single-issue voter. Climate Change, Women’s Rights, LGBTQ+ rights, Healthcare, Support for Ukraine against the Ruzzian genocide, Campaign Finance / Election Reform, protection for immigrants, etc. — there is a lot to consider, and even within the framework of Palestinian human rights, we wouldn’t have a problem standing up to Israel if every person in Congress was like her.

We need to remind ourselves too that Democrats are better for civilians than Republicans in every way and end more wars than they start, at least in the past 30 or so years. For example, Trump with Musk’s help gutted USAID, which has now led to over 600,000 civilians deaths in just a year’s time, and continuously rising. That dwarfs the deaths in Gaza and Ukraine, combined. Naturally one atrocity does not detract from another, but it’s important to put into context the Greater Evil in what is often an inevitably binary-choice outcome for elections. In other words, never let perfect be the enemy of better.

Is this leveraging Miller’s unpopularity with swing voters, or do people actually believe Miller is a Littlefinger / Wormtongue-esque figure? Like RFK Jr., like Hegseth, Miller is only there to contribute to the circus that Putin wants to showcase in undermining our stability to allies.

The 1st Fiddler is still Putin, the second being Bibi and Trump does not care whatsoever what anyone wants since he dodged prison and is a lame duck and will self-pardon at the end of his term. Profit and appealing to his narcissism with branding are pretty much the only things he has interest in nowadays.

At present, the only person who could possibly pull that off is Mamdani, if he wants it.

Which, if we got Mamdani ousting Jeffries and AOC ousting Schumer in 2028, that would be massive.

Depends which tree Mamdani wants to scale from here — Federal, or State (his journey ending with Governor and no further). Alternatively, he could choose to eye Gilibrand’s Senate seat. Nice bit of redemption for how she snubbed him too.

I was pretty involved in my local city’s protest on this and I mostly agree with respect to Occupy. I think they were so shy and naive; Obama’s tepid approval was the best they got, but even back then we know who controlled the airwaves — especially two years post-CU decision. Democrats felt like they were in a good spot and sealed the deal for years to come and we just had to “be patient,” but you know how that went… Pissed me off. No use of bully pulpit to pressure from the top left right-wing media to do its thing and eviscerate the movement.

Worth noting that Trump was there since the early days of the Tea Party; I remember arguing with Tea Party members about how Trump was right about Obama’s birth certificate. He was an enormous catalyst to that conspiracy theory bullshit as well. They were always the same people sadly.

I think we’re talking past each other slightly on this. Nobody – literally nobody – disputes that Tea Party platform is polar-opposite to the demands of even SocDems let alone DemSocs; we’re just stating that the astroturfing worked because it tapped into a dried kindling already yearning for ignition. Catalysts aside; platform aside, both are populist movements who reshaped the broader party and suppressed moderates in their own party. Where Tea Party moved Republicans right, DSA can move Democrats Left. That’s pretty much where the similarities begin and end I’ll agree.

Doesn’t seem that black-and-white to me. The movement was catalyzed by the likes of the Koch Brothers, but it did ultimately become somewhat self-sustaining. Tea Party did become maga after all. Both represent populist movements relative to their end of the political spectrum, which means they can’t really be opposite in this respect.

That doesn’t mean they are equidistant from truth in a false equivalence fallacy; both are wrought from a dissatisfaction with the status-quo and corruption in Washington (“Drain the Swamp”). It’s just that one is Left, and one is wrong in their approach to the solutions.

Though I get that we don’t want to necessarily associate such a movement at all with the Tea Party from a marketing standpoint, as that’s often a comparison made in bad faith in corporate media.

Side note, but my what Occupy Wall Street could’ve become had it had the same sort of catalysts and party-backing…

I do tend to agree that he was more left before the stroke, or at least more covert, though bluest in the Senate during a period of no substantive control really doesn’t mean much. I’m the best runner when nobody else shows up to the race because there’s no reward, too.

This is the talking-point we always heard with Kamala Harris and how she was “More progressive than Bernie Sanders” lol. Or how Sinema was progressive… Until she was actually the deciding vote on something as pivotal as gutting the filibuster.

The narrative that his stroke turned hin conservative is fun, but does not hold up under scrutiny.

Genuinely curious, why?

Most here understand that the Tea Party was astroturfed — arguably the very first movement to fully take advantage of Citizens United v. FEC.

That said, I understand their sentiment.

There is a way to push the buttons of populism for good, and Democrats are doing so. Except this time, it’s a genuine grassroots movement, not necessarily requiring the Epstein Class of billionaires to bankroll them.