California’s governor is being touted as a successor to the Biden throne. Though he’s often imagined as a beacon of progress, his feckless record shows otherwise.
Do we need to start the purity tests already, though? I don’t like Newsom and would vote against him in most any primary but I will absolutely vote for him over Trump or any other current republican. I can’t name a single republican I’d vote for at this point because they’re all complicit.
Yes. People won’t vote against him if we don’t articulate our criticisms against him.
He’s a bad governor who is widely disliked in California. This carnival show he’s putting on is his only claim to fame and it depends on democrats in other states not knowing anything else about him or his record.
Like, I don’t understand the implications of what you’re saying here. That we can’t criticize any politician who’s not a fascist? How is that a reasonable strategy?
I’m not saying that we can’t criticize but does it need to start now? Can’t it wait until we see who the field of candidates are so we can avoid tarring the candidates before they even start debating? I am mainly worried that the democrats are going to rip themselves apart again before campaign season even starts.
I completely disagree. This is the best time to be brutally honest so that bad candidates don’t launch and it’s easier to have a united front once most voters start paying attention during the campaign.
I’ve lived under Newsom (and to be clear, voted for him over republicans every time) so I don’t need to see him debate or anything to make up my mind about him. He blocked more progressive legislation in California than the republicans here did. He’s also a rich, corrupt slime ball who has nothing but disdain for ordinary people. He’s not a good candidate.
He’s also a rich, corrupt slime ball who has nothing but disdain for ordinary people. He’s not a good candidate.
Completely agree with 100% of this. I hate that he’s sort of the default “big white guy face of the Democrats.” But also, I like that he’s at least making some substantive effort to fuck up Trump’s attempt to seize control of the country and throw all his enemies into the camps. I wish there were a few more people in power who were doing that. If he’s only doing it because he’s being a ponce who wants to make a name for himself, fuckin’ great, I hope he gets turbo narcissism tomorrow and starts doing it twice as hard.
There needs to be a united front to get Trump out. Newsom is welcome to join in, and at least he’s bringing the fight to MAGA and not just whining. And I say this as someone who despises Newsom’s sleazy corporate centrist politics.
But I’m going to keep pushing for progressives, and even more, for grassroots organizing outside the Democratic Party. The Dems will only change when events force them to.
How about we start with a primary race? When was the last time the democrats ran a presidential primary that didn’t come across as a fait accompli? Maybe 2007?
With all due respect, as I understand where this sentiment comes from, that is how Trump gained momentum and won.
I think the blue no matter who approach has failed more than worked considering Hillary failed, Biden did win but really it was more Trump lost, Kamala lost (she got a shit deal yeah but still neolib vs unchained Trump should have been a no contest) and going further back Gore and Kerry lost to Bush. Clinton basically was the centrist Republican neolib that got Dems a roadmap that they keep to this day.
The time for half measures is over and the DNC needs to adapt or they will end up like the Whig Party. If you dont believe me look at their approval right now, No one likes the Democrats
Newsom is an establishment figure and telling the next generation of voters this is going to be a candidate for change won’t yield the results you think.
With all due respect, as I understand where this sentiment comes from, that is how Trump gained momentum and won.
Trump gained momentum and won because the people in this country don’t know their ass from their elbow in terms of what is happening, and their whole picture of politics is based on confusion and incredibly effective weaponized propaganda.
You presented a child with a pretty unappealing fast food burger that had gone cold anyway, and a big lump of shit laced with (and labeled as) rat poison, and then he selected the shit and ate the whole thing. And your reaction is, “Well the burger should have been better.” I mean, it’s not at all an incorrect statement. But I feel like the way it played out should be automatic proof that the burger quality wasn’t the core of the issue.
I would say the citizens that experienced the fall out from NAFTA that gutted blue collar jobs and created the rust belt would say “the big lump of shit with rat poison” was the Democrats that threw the working class overboard years ago.
Speaking of poison, it is the same reason residents of Michigan would rather vote Trump because the Democratic party and Obama would rather gaslight them about their water being safe to drink instead of charging the corporations that cut costs that polluted the water with federal charges. Obama also bailed out Wall Street and left hard working Americans with a shell of an American dream.
The core of the issue is the Democrats use to be for the everyday man and they lost their way and eroded trust, that will never be gained back. What that leaves voters in fly over states with is a choice to vote their better interest or have a candidate that “tells it like it is” aka lie and get back at the party that screwed them over.
It’s not as black and white when you’re in the thick of it, as difficult as it is to reason with that base.
The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist. The greatest trick the Republican party pulled was convincing people that its most unpopular ideas are entirely Democrats’ fault.
NAFTA was championed by, majority supported, and voted in by mostly Republicans. It was ultimately bipartisan, but Democrats were significantly more opposed to it than Republicans (of Republican Congress members, only 10 in the Senate and 43 in the House voted against it; of Democrats, 28 in the Senate and 156 in the House voted against it).
This isn’t to say that NAFTA is objectively bad policy; most economists argue that it ultimately benefited the whole country. However it did expose US manufacturing to significant competition, reduced bargaining power for manufacturing workers, and shocked communities which were solely reliant on the sector to support them. Larger cities were mostly unaffected due to their more diverse economies, and in many cases thrived off increased trade and lower prices for goods. As a reminder, urbanites trend Democrat, rural folk trend Republican.
The trope that urban liberals successfully screwed over rural conservatives just isn’t true. Instead it seems that, at screwing themselves over, urban liberals failed and rural conservatives succeeded.
The greatest trick the Republican party pulled was convincing people that its most unpopular ideas are entirely Democrats’ fault.
That’s called being politically savvy and out playing your competition which is why the Democratic party is always in free fall.
All this back and forth leads to this point: The Democrats are not equipped to handle a full assault of our democracy and thinking Gavin Newsom is the guy with some funny parrot tweets is not a real answer.
Oh, I’m not saying anything about Newsom, just trying to dispel some sadly common misinformation about NAFTA. I’ve yet to form a solid opinion of the guy, but I’m not without cynical biases, so he’s got an uphill battle to win in my mind.
When you don’t have a choice that didn’t back NAFTA then you vote for the ones who are currently saying it sucks. Not the ones pointing to obscure economic indicators and saying everything is fine.
Sure. But let’s set the record straight: blue collar jobs in the States didn’t suffer because “Democrat bad and hate workers!” That’s a myth perpetuated by politicians who would manipulate us for their own gain, Republican and Democrat alike.
In meantime we gotta figure out what to do with a ball of shit filled with rat poison.
It’s also relevant that Biden did more for blue collar jobs in the States than anyone since Lyndon Johnson. Along with climate change, it’s something he actually took seriously and fought for, and achieved some success with, which made him a massive outlier in the party of Clinton and Chuck Schumer and all those assholes. How he got that through our current congress, I have absolutely no idea.
And, of course, no one really noticed, because our media is awful and people on social media have no idea what they’re talking about. Even the “sophisticated” left has still been talking about it as if none of that or the climate action had happened.
… Biden did more for blue collar jobs in the States than anyone since Lyndon Johnson.
For fear of reminiscing “the good old days” … Yes, I did like a lot of his policies, especially regarding linking (ever-so-slightly progressive) climate policy with blue collar jobs. The theory was that red states would see enough of the benefits (or the hope of benefits) to soften on the Left. That clearly didn’t work out in the short-run. The Biden administration’s biggest weakness is Trump’s unfortunate strength: capturing media attention and driving a narrative, regardless of truth (i.e. bullshitting).
A cold fast food burger would have been miles ahead of what we were offered. Democrats wouldn’t even say “Genocide is bad, and we shouldn’t support it”. They continuously gaslight Americans on the economy. They support the bombing of kids, and torture programs. They expand out the Republican’s surveillance programs.
It’s not a choice of a burger vs shit, it’s a vomit vs shit
I think a big issue is that money and religion have deep ties in the US. Taking a hard stance against Israel at that point in time would cost votes in purple states; it was the right thing to do, but it would have lost votes. Given there are full on pacs that track each candidate on how much they openly support Israel I have no doubt they would have used money and influence to push them on it.
I think the issues with the economy were that it was still rocked by Covid and the after effects of it. Not having enough votes in the Senate meant nothing could get passed to help the people. Having the Supreme Court stacked by Republicans meant that even student loan forgiveness was shot down.
Really it’s more like a burger that covered in crap. If we want the burger remade to taste right then Democrats needed to win big in 2024. The opposite happened. Democrats lost House seats, Senate seats, and the Presidency. Any positive change now pretty much requires big wins now in 2026 and 2028 to be big wins for the Democratic Party.
For some perspective on how bad the losses for us were: if Democrats won a big trifecta in 2024, we could have uncapped the House, expanded the Supreme Court and set term limits, done away with the Filibuster to get important legislation passed, and even implemented legislation to tackle Gerrymandering across the nation. Just the uncapped House bit would have made it so elections are won by the Popular Vote.
Not having enough votes in the Senate meant nothing could get passed to help the people.
Yet there seemed enough votes to spend more money on foreign wars, and bailing out their rich friends. There also seemed to be enough political capital to take away the highly popular covid-benefits.
Having the Supreme Court stacked by Republicans meant that even student loan forgiveness was shot down.
That’s why he took that route: So that he could look like the good guy, while not actually fixing the problem.
Really it’s more like a burger that covered in crap.
Only if you think there is nutritional value in the Dems. I sure don’t see any.
For some perspective on how bad the losses for us were: if Democrats won a big trifecta in 2024, we could have uncapped the House, expanded the Supreme Court and set term limits, done away with the Filibuster to get important legislation passed, and even implemented legislation to tackle Gerrymandering across the nation. Just the uncapped House bit would have made it so elections are won by the Popular Vote.
Why would you expect any of that to happen? They’ve had the chance to fix these things in the past, and chose not to.
Yet there seemed enough votes to spend more money on foreign wars, and bailing out their rich friends. There also seemed to be enough political capital to take away the highly popular covid-benefits.
You’re right, as there is always funding available when it comes to international conflicts that relate to US interests, especially when certain Congress members districts make money hand over fist from those deals.
2020 is a prime example of Republicans bailing out their rich friends since they demanded that there be zero oversight for the several trillions of dollars going out to stimulate businesses.
The public is the least likely to get any assistance if there is not a Democratic trifecta, since Republicans notoriously will not cross party lines if it means giving Democrats a “win”. Because Democrats did not have big enough majorities in 2021, they were unable to secure additional Covid aid for people. Namely, having Sinema and Manchin, who are both Independents, did not help as they both refused to join with Democrats on bringing more aid. Meaning it was 48 D - 52 R in the Senate. This gridlocked meaningful legislation from passing.
That’s why he took that route: So that he could look like the good guy, while not actually fixing the problem.
So Biden was trying any way he could to get it passed. Biden actually did manage to get some student loan forgiveness passed, but not the mass amount that was hoped for because of the conservative Supreme Court.
Only if you think there is nutritional value in the Dems. I sure don’t see any.
I see that there is some value because they are trying to vote in policies that would actually help people, but they lack the votes to actually pass these things. I don’t see that as a fault of the legislators so much as an issue of us previously having given land so much more power than people in this country. When small states like Wyoming have as many Senators as big states like New York or California we end up in these situations where your voice matters more based on where you live.
I do see the Democratic Party itself slowly becoming more progressive as well as with the new influx in voters generally being more progressive than their parents or grandparents. Establishment Democrats are trying to push back against the progressives, since they see it as a threat to their seats, but frankly many of those politicians deserve to lose their seats for being actual do nothings.
Why would you expect any of that to happen? They’ve had the chance to fix these things in the past, and chose not to.
Mostly because the circumstances have changed. There used to be more buddy, buddy-ness in Congress, it wasn’t so hyper-partisan or was not visible to the old guard Democrats in Congress. Any guise of playing by the rules disappeared when Republicans broke their own made up rule to let a Supreme Court justice be added to the bench during an election year.
They didn’t have the votes to change many of those things in the past, and up until more of the early-2010s Democrats were still doing Gerrymandering themselves at times.
You’re right, as there is always funding available when it comes to international conflicts that relate to US interests…
Agreed. That’s why Biden spent his time helping out his military friends, and bombing the shit out of innocent people, instead of helping American voters.
2020 is a prime example of Republicans bailing out their rich friends since they demanded that there be zero oversight for the several trillions of dollars going out to stimulate businesses.
Agreed, and Biden’s bailouts were another prime example of the Democrats helping their rich friends too.
Because Democrats did not have big enough majorities in 2021, they were unable to secure additional Covid aid for people…Namely, having Sinema and Manchin, who are both Independents, did not help as they both refused to join with Democrats…
Well, that was the excuse they used:
They should have tried negotiating, but couldn’t be bothered to. They were busy helping out their friends. Biden also could have extended the covid relief, but chose not to.
So Biden was trying any way he could to get it passed.
Except for all the ways that would have actually worked. He could have just sent out the money, like he did with Israel. But he slow-rolled it, and sent it to the Supreme Court so they could shoot it down, and he could look like the good guy, without actually doing anything
I see that there is some value because they are trying to vote in policies that would actually help people, but they lack the votes to actually pass these things.
No, they had plenty of votes, but chose to pretend that they were powerless so that they didn’t have to do anything. Once again, it was clear that they could get shit done when it came to bombing kids, and helping out their rich friends, but couldn’t seem to muster up the energy when it came to the voters.
I do see the Democratic Party itself slowly becoming more progressive…
lolwut? The same party that campaigned with the Cheneys? that said they would keep bombing people oversees? That said they wanted more border controls, and are already backing down on support for LGBTQ+ people?
They didn’t have the votes to change many of those things in the past, and up until more of the early-2010s Democrats were still doing Gerrymandering themselves at times.
Yes they did. They just didn’t care because it wasn’t what their donors wanted.
Agreed. That’s why Biden spent his time helping out his military friends, and bombing the shit out of innocent people, instead of helping American voters.
It’s unfortunate that that’s the society we live in where it’s incredibly easy to rubber stamp arms, but incredibly difficult to rubber stamp aid. The military budget alone is a red flag of sorts for where our priorities lie as a country. I mean, when we have the largest air force and the second largest air force then you know it’s pretty bad.
At the end of the day, Red States don’t want money going to aid, and Red States have a disproportionate amount of power in this country. If it was just Blue and Purple States voting on aid then it would have been passed. There’s a reason that Blue states have progressive programs within the states themselves, but Red states do not have those types of programs. If it was just up to Democrats then we would have more progressive programs in place already.
Agreed, and Biden’s bailouts were another prime example of the Democrats helping their rich friends too.
Is this in reference to the Silicon Valley Bank bailout or US/Israel funding?
They should have tried negotiating, but couldn’t be bothered to. They were busy helping out their friends. Biden also could have extended the covid relief, but chose not to.
Negotiating how though? It sounds like they tried again and again to get Sinema, Manchin, or the Republicans to agree to different stipulations but they were unsuccessful in getting to agree on several points. If they don’t have the votes, they don’t have the power to make those changes. Even if they had 51 votes on certain issues, the Republicans could Filibuster to stop them on specific issues. So there were two main issues stonewalling meaningful change from passing the Senate.
Except for all the ways that would have actually worked. He could have just sent out the money, like he did with Israel. But he slow-rolled it, and sent it to the Supreme Court so they could shoot it down, and he could look like the good guy, without actually doing anything
Biden sent out munitions which were already paid for is the thing, from my understanding. The President is not allowed to spend money unless told how it should be spent by Congress in funding bills. The fact that Trump is refusing to spend money how it was approved is blowing over 200+ years of rule following/checks and balances out of the water.
No, they had plenty of votes, but chose to pretend that they were powerless so that they didn’t have to do anything. Once again, it was clear that they could get shit done when it came to bombing kids, and helping out their rich friends, but couldn’t seem to muster up the energy when it came to the voters.
They had effectively 48 votes in the Senate from 2021-2024, that’s not enough to pass progressive legislation. I agree with you that there is broad agreement on support for munitions or for the military, but there is not broad support among the Republican legislators for more stimulus, aid, or progressive programs that help Americans. The fact that Republicans just passed a bill to take away funds for Medicaid should tell you everything you need to know about their platform and who has a majority in the House and Senate right now.
lolwut? The same party that campaigned with the Cheneys? that said they would keep bombing people oversees? That said they wanted more border controls, and are already backing down on support for LGBTQ+ people?
It’s becoming more progressive each year as more people become eligible to vote. The youth are generally much more progressive that the Baby Boomers or Gen Xers for instance. Both from a socially progressive perspective and from an economically progressive perspective. I’m not saying the people in Congress are more progressive overnight, but each election cycle we get a bit closer to people that vote and feel similar to AOC being in positions of power in the Democratic Party.
Yes they did. They just didn’t care because it wasn’t what their donors wanted.
I mean it’s a bit of both, some of the politicians were personally benefiting and others were being paid not to care or change things. There’s more of a consensus these days among Democrats as a whole to push back against gerrymandering, possibly because it’s become a more well known issue that the voters care about.
He will work with the fascist to come up with a compromise that the fascists can live with. That probably means sacrificing vulnerable groups and rallying around right wing talking points.
He is right wing. Gavin newsom is just right wing. the fact that there’s a uneven deeper more belligerent right wing out there doesn’t mean that he is somehow an alternative to it.
Its bonkers that you guys are spiralling into a dystopian shitscape day by day and just cant bring yourself to acknowledge that any alternative has to be better.
It seems like the problem in the US is getting people to give a fuck. By spreading this narrative that the democrats are just slower fascists or whatever your just encouraging progressive voters not to vote.
Well then maybe the Democrats should do somthing to counter that claim. Maybe something like not supporting fascism, and actually fighting against it when they have the chance.
An election is a poll or test or the collective will of citizens at a given point in time. Granted, in the US you have the electoral college fuckery overlaid on that but still …
Voting Blue but complaining about them to your compatriots is not the way.
Protesting about Gaza outside Democrat conventions in an election cycle is not the way to secure better outcome for Palestinians.
That will probably be the case for at least another decade. The facts of the matter are that Boomers and Gen Xers are not very left leaning at all, but they show up to vote the most are thus hold the power in this country. Until the demographics themselves change and progressive Millennials and Gen Z voters make up a majority, I don’t expect giant changes any time soon.
The best bet we have to make an impact is by trying to change the voting system at the local level to us. If enough people do so, we can have more progressives like Mamdani in office. If the alternative system is popular enough, we can change the voting system itself at the state level like Maine and Alaska have done.
Also, continuing to educate the youth on why progressive policies matters is vital to the future. We need to keep people interested in bringing positive change, else the younger generations may end up disinterested in helping to elevate their peers.
The Democrats refusing to acknowledge the desires of the voters, and actively screwing over workers is how we ended up with Trump. The Democrats are “better”, but only in the sense that they aren’t going to fix the problems that led to fascism. They’ve shown over and over that they’d rather support fascism, then fight against it.
just cant bring yourself to acknowledge that any alternative has to be better.
That is not true. Slower fascism isn’t appreciably better than faster fascism. The you of four or eight years in the future doesn’t have any less of a right to not live under fascism than the you of right now. If by choosing the “better” alternative you throw away your ability to actually stop fascism you’re missing the forest for the trees.
Well you still didn’t refute it, so you should do that if you disagree with my propaganda narrative.
In this case choosing the better alternative means preserving your ability to actually stop fascism.
And where, pray tell, is that stopping? How do you intend to do it? I mean do you remember the wins the far-right got under Biden in red states? You’re clutching your pearls without offering a realistic plan to ultimately stop fascism. If your favorite neoliberal can’t fix American society such that the fascists don’t simply come back stronger four years later, you’re just kicking the can down the road and should let the people with an actual plan get to work.
Did you see the other headline today where your actual president mentioned avoiding elections by starting a war ?
Yes, and who exactly managed to fumble their campaign so bad they lost to this well-known fascist?
And this is all before we even look at Newsom’s actual policies. The way that guy treats homeless people is straight up fascism, full stop. If you can’t take a stand on that, why the fuck should anyone else take a stand for you?
First, criminalizing homelessness is fascism. If you can’t take a stand for the homeless how can you expect anyone to take a stand for you? You thibk he won’t throw you under the bus if it’s politically expedient? Second, do you intend to repeat the same song and dance that got Trump elected twice? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Third, why are you compromising from now? Like come on it’s still 2025, even if you’re going to vote blue no matter who, now you should be projecting strength not compliance.
Literally the only time I hear this is from people on Lemmy who are trying to criticize some potential ally by being embittered.
Nobody is talking about voting for Gavin Newsom. We’re talking about it being good that he’s irritating Trump by taking concrete steps to preserve our democracy. You would be the guy in the revolution who’s constantly trying to root out “counterrevolutionaries” in the ranks and snitching people to the secret police because they’re not revolutionary enough, right during the run-up to the big battle to see if the movement can even survive.
The article is pretty explicitly talking about that, and the parent comment of this thread is responding to that by saying they’d “much rather take a neoliberal over a fascist.” If you’re not talking about voting for Gavin Newsom, you’re in the wrong thread.
Back in 2023, when this article was written when we were trying to figure out who to vote for, it made perfect sense to talk about that. Now that people are talking about how to not get thrown into concentration camps for being a Democrat, people are talking about something different.
The fact that one of the most infamous of the “anti Biden all the time” trolls elected to suddenly become nail-bitingly concerned about Newsom’s progressive credentials, and repost this thing from a whole nother pre-CECOT era as if it was relevant, doesn’t change what people are talking about presently, present tense.
I’m aware that you would like them to be talking about various holes and nitpicks in Newsom’s agenda and reasons why he is deeply problematic, and change the subject away from reasons why he is in the news, present tense. Who knows, you may succeed, it worked gangbusters in the last election and I see no reason to think it would stop working now.
I disagree with your argument, but more relevantly this whole comment chain is predicated on the assumption that “Newsom is not your friend” is a position worth debating. If you don’t agree with this assumption, the place to make that point would be a parent comment, maybe a reply to a parent comment. As it stands your response has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
I’m aware that it has nothing to do with what you’re talking about. I’m making a whole different point, directly addressing what you’re talking about but from a different point of view (distinct from “what ‘we’ are talking about” in your parlance). That’s generally how it works.
Oh fuck you, you tell the left they can’t critisize these people during elections and now we’re not supposed to critisize them aftet elections too? When are we supposed to ask for things that keep us from dying then? You’re part of the problem.
Leftists: “Democratic politicians are feckless. They need to get on social media to call out Trump’s bullshit on daily basis! When is a leader going to step up?!”
So sick of the division amongst the left. He is far from perfect, but I’d much rather take a neoliberal over a fascist.
Jesus Christ he hasn’t even announced he’s running yet. Why are we already pretending these are the only two alternatives?
We don’t need to choose a neoliberal over a fascist… we can push for someone better.
I’ve never tried to choose the neoliberal but I’ve never not had to vote for them.
If it’s not Newsom then it’ll be someone else I don’t like.
Do we need to start the purity tests already, though? I don’t like Newsom and would vote against him in most any primary but I will absolutely vote for him over Trump or any other current republican. I can’t name a single republican I’d vote for at this point because they’re all complicit.
Yes. People won’t vote against him if we don’t articulate our criticisms against him.
He’s a bad governor who is widely disliked in California. This carnival show he’s putting on is his only claim to fame and it depends on democrats in other states not knowing anything else about him or his record.
Like, I don’t understand the implications of what you’re saying here. That we can’t criticize any politician who’s not a fascist? How is that a reasonable strategy?
I’m not saying that we can’t criticize but does it need to start now? Can’t it wait until we see who the field of candidates are so we can avoid tarring the candidates before they even start debating? I am mainly worried that the democrats are going to rip themselves apart again before campaign season even starts.
I completely disagree. This is the best time to be brutally honest so that bad candidates don’t launch and it’s easier to have a united front once most voters start paying attention during the campaign.
I’ve lived under Newsom (and to be clear, voted for him over republicans every time) so I don’t need to see him debate or anything to make up my mind about him. He blocked more progressive legislation in California than the republicans here did. He’s also a rich, corrupt slime ball who has nothing but disdain for ordinary people. He’s not a good candidate.
Completely agree with 100% of this. I hate that he’s sort of the default “big white guy face of the Democrats.” But also, I like that he’s at least making some substantive effort to fuck up Trump’s attempt to seize control of the country and throw all his enemies into the camps. I wish there were a few more people in power who were doing that. If he’s only doing it because he’s being a ponce who wants to make a name for himself, fuckin’ great, I hope he gets turbo narcissism tomorrow and starts doing it twice as hard.
There needs to be a united front to get Trump out. Newsom is welcome to join in, and at least he’s bringing the fight to MAGA and not just whining. And I say this as someone who despises Newsom’s sleazy corporate centrist politics.
But I’m going to keep pushing for progressives, and even more, for grassroots organizing outside the Democratic Party. The Dems will only change when events force them to.
Primaries haven’t even started yet for the fucking midterms. This is exactly the time for purity tests.
How about we start with a primary race? When was the last time the democrats ran a presidential primary that didn’t come across as a fait accompli? Maybe 2007?
With all due respect, as I understand where this sentiment comes from, that is how Trump gained momentum and won.
I think the blue no matter who approach has failed more than worked considering Hillary failed, Biden did win but really it was more Trump lost, Kamala lost (she got a shit deal yeah but still neolib vs unchained Trump should have been a no contest) and going further back Gore and Kerry lost to Bush. Clinton basically was the centrist Republican neolib that got Dems a roadmap that they keep to this day.
The time for half measures is over and the DNC needs to adapt or they will end up like the Whig Party. If you dont believe me look at their approval right now, No one likes the Democrats
Newsom is an establishment figure and telling the next generation of voters this is going to be a candidate for change won’t yield the results you think.
Trump gained momentum and won because the people in this country don’t know their ass from their elbow in terms of what is happening, and their whole picture of politics is based on confusion and incredibly effective weaponized propaganda.
You presented a child with a pretty unappealing fast food burger that had gone cold anyway, and a big lump of shit laced with (and labeled as) rat poison, and then he selected the shit and ate the whole thing. And your reaction is, “Well the burger should have been better.” I mean, it’s not at all an incorrect statement. But I feel like the way it played out should be automatic proof that the burger quality wasn’t the core of the issue.
I would say the citizens that experienced the fall out from NAFTA that gutted blue collar jobs and created the rust belt would say “the big lump of shit with rat poison” was the Democrats that threw the working class overboard years ago.
Speaking of poison, it is the same reason residents of Michigan would rather vote Trump because the Democratic party and Obama would rather gaslight them about their water being safe to drink instead of charging the corporations that cut costs that polluted the water with federal charges. Obama also bailed out Wall Street and left hard working Americans with a shell of an American dream.
The core of the issue is the Democrats use to be for the everyday man and they lost their way and eroded trust, that will never be gained back. What that leaves voters in fly over states with is a choice to vote their better interest or have a candidate that “tells it like it is” aka lie and get back at the party that screwed them over.
It’s not as black and white when you’re in the thick of it, as difficult as it is to reason with that base.
The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist. The greatest trick the Republican party pulled was convincing people that its most unpopular ideas are entirely Democrats’ fault.
NAFTA was championed by, majority supported, and voted in by mostly Republicans. It was ultimately bipartisan, but Democrats were significantly more opposed to it than Republicans (of Republican Congress members, only 10 in the Senate and 43 in the House voted against it; of Democrats, 28 in the Senate and 156 in the House voted against it).
This isn’t to say that NAFTA is objectively bad policy; most economists argue that it ultimately benefited the whole country. However it did expose US manufacturing to significant competition, reduced bargaining power for manufacturing workers, and shocked communities which were solely reliant on the sector to support them. Larger cities were mostly unaffected due to their more diverse economies, and in many cases thrived off increased trade and lower prices for goods. As a reminder, urbanites trend Democrat, rural folk trend Republican.
The trope that urban liberals successfully screwed over rural conservatives just isn’t true. Instead it seems that, at screwing themselves over, urban liberals failed and rural conservatives succeeded.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1031/vote_103_1_00395.htm https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/1993575
That’s called being politically savvy and out playing your competition which is why the Democratic party is always in free fall.
All this back and forth leads to this point: The Democrats are not equipped to handle a full assault of our democracy and thinking Gavin Newsom is the guy with some funny parrot tweets is not a real answer.
Oh, I’m not saying anything about Newsom, just trying to dispel some sadly common misinformation about NAFTA. I’ve yet to form a solid opinion of the guy, but I’m not without cynical biases, so he’s got an uphill battle to win in my mind.
When you don’t have a choice that didn’t back NAFTA then you vote for the ones who are currently saying it sucks. Not the ones pointing to obscure economic indicators and saying everything is fine.
Sure. But let’s set the record straight: blue collar jobs in the States didn’t suffer because “Democrat bad and hate workers!” That’s a myth perpetuated by politicians who would manipulate us for their own gain, Republican and Democrat alike.
In meantime we gotta figure out what to do with a ball of shit filled with rat poison.
It’s also relevant that Biden did more for blue collar jobs in the States than anyone since Lyndon Johnson. Along with climate change, it’s something he actually took seriously and fought for, and achieved some success with, which made him a massive outlier in the party of Clinton and Chuck Schumer and all those assholes. How he got that through our current congress, I have absolutely no idea.
And, of course, no one really noticed, because our media is awful and people on social media have no idea what they’re talking about. Even the “sophisticated” left has still been talking about it as if none of that or the climate action had happened.
For fear of reminiscing “the good old days” … Yes, I did like a lot of his policies, especially regarding linking (ever-so-slightly progressive) climate policy with blue collar jobs. The theory was that red states would see enough of the benefits (or the hope of benefits) to soften on the Left. That clearly didn’t work out in the short-run. The Biden administration’s biggest weakness is Trump’s unfortunate strength: capturing media attention and driving a narrative, regardless of truth (i.e. bullshitting).
When choosing between more worse and less worse, it makes sense to vote for less worse.
What’s infuriating is that we can’t vote for better because it doesn’t exist.
A cold fast food burger would have been miles ahead of what we were offered. Democrats wouldn’t even say “Genocide is bad, and we shouldn’t support it”. They continuously gaslight Americans on the economy. They support the bombing of kids, and torture programs. They expand out the Republican’s surveillance programs.
It’s not a choice of a burger vs shit, it’s a vomit vs shit
I think a big issue is that money and religion have deep ties in the US. Taking a hard stance against Israel at that point in time would cost votes in purple states; it was the right thing to do, but it would have lost votes. Given there are full on pacs that track each candidate on how much they openly support Israel I have no doubt they would have used money and influence to push them on it.
I think the issues with the economy were that it was still rocked by Covid and the after effects of it. Not having enough votes in the Senate meant nothing could get passed to help the people. Having the Supreme Court stacked by Republicans meant that even student loan forgiveness was shot down.
Really it’s more like a burger that covered in crap. If we want the burger remade to taste right then Democrats needed to win big in 2024. The opposite happened. Democrats lost House seats, Senate seats, and the Presidency. Any positive change now pretty much requires big wins now in 2026 and 2028 to be big wins for the Democratic Party.
For some perspective on how bad the losses for us were: if Democrats won a big trifecta in 2024, we could have uncapped the House, expanded the Supreme Court and set term limits, done away with the Filibuster to get important legislation passed, and even implemented legislation to tackle Gerrymandering across the nation. Just the uncapped House bit would have made it so elections are won by the Popular Vote.
Yet there seemed enough votes to spend more money on foreign wars, and bailing out their rich friends. There also seemed to be enough political capital to take away the highly popular covid-benefits.
That’s why he took that route: So that he could look like the good guy, while not actually fixing the problem.
Only if you think there is nutritional value in the Dems. I sure don’t see any.
Why would you expect any of that to happen? They’ve had the chance to fix these things in the past, and chose not to.
You’re right, as there is always funding available when it comes to international conflicts that relate to US interests, especially when certain Congress members districts make money hand over fist from those deals.
2020 is a prime example of Republicans bailing out their rich friends since they demanded that there be zero oversight for the several trillions of dollars going out to stimulate businesses.
The public is the least likely to get any assistance if there is not a Democratic trifecta, since Republicans notoriously will not cross party lines if it means giving Democrats a “win”. Because Democrats did not have big enough majorities in 2021, they were unable to secure additional Covid aid for people. Namely, having Sinema and Manchin, who are both Independents, did not help as they both refused to join with Democrats on bringing more aid. Meaning it was 48 D - 52 R in the Senate. This gridlocked meaningful legislation from passing.
They tried to pass regularly in the House and Senate, but they didn’t have the votes because Republicans voted against it and Independents like Manchin voted against it. That vote was 49 D - 50 R in the Senate.
So Biden was trying any way he could to get it passed. Biden actually did manage to get some student loan forgiveness passed, but not the mass amount that was hoped for because of the conservative Supreme Court.
I see that there is some value because they are trying to vote in policies that would actually help people, but they lack the votes to actually pass these things. I don’t see that as a fault of the legislators so much as an issue of us previously having given land so much more power than people in this country. When small states like Wyoming have as many Senators as big states like New York or California we end up in these situations where your voice matters more based on where you live.
I do see the Democratic Party itself slowly becoming more progressive as well as with the new influx in voters generally being more progressive than their parents or grandparents. Establishment Democrats are trying to push back against the progressives, since they see it as a threat to their seats, but frankly many of those politicians deserve to lose their seats for being actual do nothings.
Mostly because the circumstances have changed. There used to be more buddy, buddy-ness in Congress, it wasn’t so hyper-partisan or was not visible to the old guard Democrats in Congress. Any guise of playing by the rules disappeared when Republicans broke their own made up rule to let a Supreme Court justice be added to the bench during an election year.
They didn’t have the votes to change many of those things in the past, and up until more of the early-2010s Democrats were still doing Gerrymandering themselves at times.
Agreed. That’s why Biden spent his time helping out his military friends, and bombing the shit out of innocent people, instead of helping American voters.
Agreed, and Biden’s bailouts were another prime example of the Democrats helping their rich friends too.
Well, that was the excuse they used:
They should have tried negotiating, but couldn’t be bothered to. They were busy helping out their friends. Biden also could have extended the covid relief, but chose not to.
Except for all the ways that would have actually worked. He could have just sent out the money, like he did with Israel. But he slow-rolled it, and sent it to the Supreme Court so they could shoot it down, and he could look like the good guy, without actually doing anything
No, they had plenty of votes, but chose to pretend that they were powerless so that they didn’t have to do anything. Once again, it was clear that they could get shit done when it came to bombing kids, and helping out their rich friends, but couldn’t seem to muster up the energy when it came to the voters.
lolwut? The same party that campaigned with the Cheneys? that said they would keep bombing people oversees? That said they wanted more border controls, and are already backing down on support for LGBTQ+ people?
Yes they did. They just didn’t care because it wasn’t what their donors wanted.
It’s unfortunate that that’s the society we live in where it’s incredibly easy to rubber stamp arms, but incredibly difficult to rubber stamp aid. The military budget alone is a red flag of sorts for where our priorities lie as a country. I mean, when we have the largest air force and the second largest air force then you know it’s pretty bad.
At the end of the day, Red States don’t want money going to aid, and Red States have a disproportionate amount of power in this country. If it was just Blue and Purple States voting on aid then it would have been passed. There’s a reason that Blue states have progressive programs within the states themselves, but Red states do not have those types of programs. If it was just up to Democrats then we would have more progressive programs in place already.
Is this in reference to the Silicon Valley Bank bailout or US/Israel funding?
Negotiating how though? It sounds like they tried again and again to get Sinema, Manchin, or the Republicans to agree to different stipulations but they were unsuccessful in getting to agree on several points. If they don’t have the votes, they don’t have the power to make those changes. Even if they had 51 votes on certain issues, the Republicans could Filibuster to stop them on specific issues. So there were two main issues stonewalling meaningful change from passing the Senate.
Biden sent out munitions which were already paid for is the thing, from my understanding. The President is not allowed to spend money unless told how it should be spent by Congress in funding bills. The fact that Trump is refusing to spend money how it was approved is blowing over 200+ years of rule following/checks and balances out of the water.
They had effectively 48 votes in the Senate from 2021-2024, that’s not enough to pass progressive legislation. I agree with you that there is broad agreement on support for munitions or for the military, but there is not broad support among the Republican legislators for more stimulus, aid, or progressive programs that help Americans. The fact that Republicans just passed a bill to take away funds for Medicaid should tell you everything you need to know about their platform and who has a majority in the House and Senate right now.
It’s becoming more progressive each year as more people become eligible to vote. The youth are generally much more progressive that the Baby Boomers or Gen Xers for instance. Both from a socially progressive perspective and from an economically progressive perspective. I’m not saying the people in Congress are more progressive overnight, but each election cycle we get a bit closer to people that vote and feel similar to AOC being in positions of power in the Democratic Party.
I mean it’s a bit of both, some of the politicians were personally benefiting and others were being paid not to care or change things. There’s more of a consensus these days among Democrats as a whole to push back against gerrymandering, possibly because it’s become a more well known issue that the voters care about.
Neoliberals Don’t oppose fascists.
He will work with the fascist to come up with a compromise that the fascists can live with. That probably means sacrificing vulnerable groups and rallying around right wing talking points.
He is right wing. Gavin newsom is just right wing. the fact that there’s a uneven deeper more belligerent right wing out there doesn’t mean that he is somehow an alternative to it.
This attitude is how you ended up electing Trump.
Its bonkers that you guys are spiralling into a dystopian shitscape day by day and just cant bring yourself to acknowledge that any alternative has to be better.
This is how I feel. I can’t stand neoliberals but some people on here are delusional for saying they won’t vote for Newsom if he is nominated.
It’s not only about voting, but the complaining.
It seems like the problem in the US is getting people to give a fuck. By spreading this narrative that the democrats are just slower fascists or whatever your just encouraging progressive voters not to vote.
Well then maybe the Democrats should do somthing to counter that claim. Maybe something like not supporting fascism, and actually fighting against it when they have the chance.
I’ve been voting for those alternatives for a quarter century and it hasn’t stopped the dystopian hellscape from happening.
That’s not really how voting works though.
An election is a poll or test or the collective will of citizens at a given point in time. Granted, in the US you have the electoral college fuckery overlaid on that but still …
Voting Blue but complaining about them to your compatriots is not the way.
Protesting about Gaza outside Democrat conventions in an election cycle is not the way to secure better outcome for Palestinians.
As long as. I am forced to vote Democratic I will complain about it because it’s bullshit and our government is stupid by design.
So your plan is to encourage others not to vote?
Seems counter productive.
There aren’t enough people like me to make a difference either way.
Progressives and socialists and weirdos are woefully outnumbered in this country, as shown by literally every election in my life.
Even if every single one voted we’d still lose and things would continue to get worse.
That will probably be the case for at least another decade. The facts of the matter are that Boomers and Gen Xers are not very left leaning at all, but they show up to vote the most are thus hold the power in this country. Until the demographics themselves change and progressive Millennials and Gen Z voters make up a majority, I don’t expect giant changes any time soon.
The best bet we have to make an impact is by trying to change the voting system at the local level to us. If enough people do so, we can have more progressives like Mamdani in office. If the alternative system is popular enough, we can change the voting system itself at the state level like Maine and Alaska have done.
Also, continuing to educate the youth on why progressive policies matters is vital to the future. We need to keep people interested in bringing positive change, else the younger generations may end up disinterested in helping to elevate their peers.
The Democrats refusing to acknowledge the desires of the voters, and actively screwing over workers is how we ended up with Trump. The Democrats are “better”, but only in the sense that they aren’t going to fix the problems that led to fascism. They’ve shown over and over that they’d rather support fascism, then fight against it.
That is not true. Slower fascism isn’t appreciably better than faster fascism. The you of four or eight years in the future doesn’t have any less of a right to not live under fascism than the you of right now. If by choosing the “better” alternative you throw away your ability to actually stop fascism you’re missing the forest for the trees.
It’s disingenuous to characterise imperfect alternatives like Newsom as “slower fascism”. That’s a propaganda narrative.
In this case choosing the better alternative means preserving your ability to actually stop fascism.
Did you see the other headline today where your actual president mentioned avoiding elections by starting a war ?
It’s this type of “Harris is imperfect therefore the same as Trump” attitude that brought you to this juncture.
Well you still didn’t refute it, so you should do that if you disagree with my propaganda narrative.
And where, pray tell, is that stopping? How do you intend to do it? I mean do you remember the wins the far-right got under Biden in red states? You’re clutching your pearls without offering a realistic plan to ultimately stop fascism. If your favorite neoliberal can’t fix American society such that the fascists don’t simply come back stronger four years later, you’re just kicking the can down the road and should let the people with an actual plan get to work.
Yes, and who exactly managed to fumble their campaign so bad they lost to this well-known fascist?
And this is all before we even look at Newsom’s actual policies. The way that guy treats homeless people is straight up fascism, full stop. If you can’t take a stand on that, why the fuck should anyone else take a stand for you?
Oh please. You don’t even have the concepts of a plan.
First, criminalizing homelessness is fascism. If you can’t take a stand for the homeless how can you expect anyone to take a stand for you? You thibk he won’t throw you under the bus if it’s politically expedient? Second, do you intend to repeat the same song and dance that got Trump elected twice? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Third, why are you compromising from now? Like come on it’s still 2025, even if you’re going to vote blue no matter who, now you should be projecting strength not compliance.
Literally the only time I hear this is from people on Lemmy who are trying to criticize some potential ally by being embittered.
Nobody is talking about voting for Gavin Newsom. We’re talking about it being good that he’s irritating Trump by taking concrete steps to preserve our democracy. You would be the guy in the revolution who’s constantly trying to root out “counterrevolutionaries” in the ranks and snitching people to the secret police because they’re not revolutionary enough, right during the run-up to the big battle to see if the movement can even survive.
The article is pretty explicitly talking about that, and the parent comment of this thread is responding to that by saying they’d “much rather take a neoliberal over a fascist.” If you’re not talking about voting for Gavin Newsom, you’re in the wrong thread.
Back in 2023, when this article was written when we were trying to figure out who to vote for, it made perfect sense to talk about that. Now that people are talking about how to not get thrown into concentration camps for being a Democrat, people are talking about something different.
The fact that one of the most infamous of the “anti Biden all the time” trolls elected to suddenly become nail-bitingly concerned about Newsom’s progressive credentials, and repost this thing from a whole nother pre-CECOT era as if it was relevant, doesn’t change what people are talking about presently, present tense.
I’m aware that you would like them to be talking about various holes and nitpicks in Newsom’s agenda and reasons why he is deeply problematic, and change the subject away from reasons why he is in the news, present tense. Who knows, you may succeed, it worked gangbusters in the last election and I see no reason to think it would stop working now.
I disagree with your argument, but more relevantly this whole comment chain is predicated on the assumption that “Newsom is not your friend” is a position worth debating. If you don’t agree with this assumption, the place to make that point would be a parent comment, maybe a reply to a parent comment. As it stands your response has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
I’m aware that it has nothing to do with what you’re talking about. I’m making a whole different point, directly addressing what you’re talking about but from a different point of view (distinct from “what ‘we’ are talking about” in your parlance). That’s generally how it works.
Oh fuck you, you tell the left they can’t critisize these people during elections and now we’re not supposed to critisize them aftet elections too? When are we supposed to ask for things that keep us from dying then? You’re part of the problem.
It’s really simple.
You criticise the government of the day, whoever they may be.
You do not criticise your own side when they’re not in government or running for election.
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Leftists: “Democratic politicians are feckless. They need to get on social media to call out Trump’s bullshit on daily basis! When is a leader going to step up?!”
Somewhere, a finger curls on a monkey’s paw.
Calling him out on social media is absolutely not what I want and is definitely feckless.
He threw trans people under the bus, and there’s no way in hell I’m voting for that.