Socialists did pretty good yesterday; Democrats pretend it didn't happen

DNC chairman Tom Perez phoned MSNBC to gloat minutes after establishment candidate Ralph Northam won the Virginia Governor's race.

Perez proceeded to name-check Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala, the first Latinas ever elected to the House, but then Hayes asked him about another candidate—one who’d barely received any national attention throughout the campaign. “There’s also, I believe, a Marine veteran who identifies as a democratic socialist who, if I’m not mistaken, is running competitively with someone in the House GOP leadership,” he said. “The House GOP whip might lose to a socialist Marine veteran? Is that actually happening?”
It was indeed. Democrat Lee Carter, a red-haired, 30-year-old Marine veteran from Manassas, won a remarkable nine-point victory to oust Delegate Jackson Miller, a deep-pocketed Republican incumbent who serves as House Majority Whip. Carter ran openly as a socialist—he and his supporters crooned the union anthem “Solidarity Forever” after their victory—and he won with almost no institutional support from the state Democratic Party. The Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson reported last month that party leaders “abandoned” Carter after he declined to report campaign metrics like the number of doors he’d knocked and the amount of money he’d raised. Carter told Wilson he “ceased reporting to the House caucus after multiple information security lapses in which confidential information that we reported to the House caucus was leaked outside of the party infrastructure.” But he also said the party leaders “wanted a bit more editorial control over my messaging than I was comfortable with.” Wilson wrote that “Democratic Party leaders were not eager to discuss Carter, preferring to promote other candidates.” In fact, Wilson called Carter “the kind of rogue candidate that gives an apparatus like the Democratic Party of Virginia a fit.”

That is just plain f*cking awesome. Neither the Republican, nor the Democratic establishment wanted him. No one took him seriously.
The socialist still won the biggest upset of the day, and the Democrats want to pretend it didn't happen. Just like Republicans.

Miller, the Republican candidate, naturally didn’t see Carter’s socialism as part of a proud American tradition. After largely ignoring him for most of the campaign, he sent out mailers comparing Carter to Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
...At the same time, Carter was happy to talk about socialism when asked. “If you’re to the left of Barry Goldwater, Republicans are going to call you a socialist anyway, so you may as well just own the label,” he said.

Note to GOP: The Cold war is over.
It looks like Republicans yelling "Socialism! Ahhhh!" is not working any better than Democrats yelling 'Racism! Ahhh!"
Both parties have overused and misused the labels until people no longer care.

Carter worked well with his local Democratic Party throughout the campaign, but acknowledged the state party was a different story. “On the state level, it is a bit more strained,” he said. “The corporations I’m actively attacking fund the state party. It’s obviously going to create some tension.”

Bingo!
Carter's victory was the highlight yesterday, but it wasn't the only victory for socialists.

At least 12 candidates endorsed by the DSA, the country's largest socialist organization, won races Tuesday and at least 13 candidates endorsed by Our Revolution, the group started by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also won. Many of the DSA-endorsed candidates were endorsed by Our Revolution and vice versa.
Other winners backed by DSA and Our Revolution include Seema Singh Perez, who was elected to the Knoxville, Tenn. city council; Brian Nowak to the Cheektowaga, N.Y. town council; Tristan Rader to the Lakewood, Ohio city council; Charles Decker to the council of Ward 9 in New Haven, Ct.; Anita Prizio to the Allegheny County, Penn. council; and J.T. Scott and Bew Ewen Campen, who were both elected to the city council in Somerville, Mass.
Instead of running candidates in third parties, the strategy for Our Revolution and DSA has been to elect progressive candidates in an effort to push the Democratic Party left.
"Absolutely, we definitely want to primary neoliberal Democrats," said Maria Svart, the DSA's national director.

Yeh buddy!
The progressive insurgency is gathering momentum.

One last note, yesterday was a good day for marijuana legalization too.

Phil Murphy, the incoming governor, campaigned on marijuana legalization.
...
Ralph Northam, who just got a raise from lieutenant governor to the state's top job, made marijuana decriminalization a centerpiece of his campaign, often putting the issue in stark racial justice terms.
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The Aspie Corner's picture

Flawer-Duh is a literal no man's land for anyone who doesn't immediately suck corporate dick for pharma, hospital and tourism/retirement racket cash (I say retirement, because according to that total fuckwit, Adam Putnam, Flawer-Duh is a reward for a job well done for old rich people).

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@The Aspie Corner
But they also elected Grayson once, so there is hope.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

@gjohnsit Instead, we're stuck with Corporate Democrat Gwen Graham or the possibility of John Morgan or Davos terrorist Jeff Greene, or worse, Katherin Fernandez Rundle, who refused to prosecute after the abysmal treatment of a schizophrenic black prisoner. And that's just the Democratic side of things.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

I'll believe it when I see it. It's another bait and switch if you ask me. It's important though to hold them to those campaign promises. I think that is part of the problem with Obama. He PROMISED us a lot of progressive agenda items and then after he won he said "I got this" and I took him at his word. Those in NJ and VA should call their GOV elects and tell them "now deliver".

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

SnappleBC's picture

@WIProgressive

Which makes me scratch my head at all the demands for party loyalty. I'm just doing what their God-king commanded. I'm making them.... or doing my best to anyway.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

is that unlike WFP around here, who never saw a Democrat they didn't want to endorse, the Democratic Socialists do seem to have some standards.

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Mary Bennett

Mark from Queens's picture

I like this.

http://www.walb.com/story/36790543/from-protests-to-politics-braxton-win...

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Meteor Man's picture

@The Aspie Corner
I am not sure who he is, but I like his rap. I though he was named Prager until I watched another one of his videos the other day and realized the little guy in the background was wingnut talk radio host Dennis Prager.

Can you provide a little background and a link on him?

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Meteor Man ....Though the state Democratic Party seems to deny he even exists. He's been a science education advocate for (I think) the last 20 years and has been posting on youtube for the last 10 years. He's also one of the few I still watch these days aside from Jimmy Dore (and for good reason).

A little background info

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

SnappleBC's picture

@The Aspie Corner

He seems to think that "the left" isn't going to suddenly flip into fascism. I think I'm watching it happen daily. I suppose he might argue that Democrats don't count as "the left" in which case, fair enough. But lord knows I'm sick and tired of social justice warriors seeking to shut down conversation.

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard

The Aspie Corner's picture

@SnappleBC

But lord knows I'm sick and tired of social justice warriors seeking to shut down conversation.

I get why people went after Milo Yianopolous and Richard Spencer. Those fuckers shouldn't be given a platform anywhere because their intent isn't conversation. They do little more than slander and intimidate. And besides, no one who supports a dead regime that advocated for genocide deserves to be given any leeway in any shape, form or fashion. You can't reason with willfully evil assholes.

Meanwhile, socialists and other lefties are shut down at every last turn by the centrists and the fascists and almost no one gives a shit. Any conversation about wealth inequality, healthcare, wages, infrastructure or any talks about ending empire are immediately halted or controlled by the very same willfully evil assholes who insist that theirs is the only way.

Free speech my ass.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

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