Progressives have another good night, this time in Texas
Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 07/15/2020 - 8:14pm
It looks like Nancy Pelosi is going to have a difficult, if not impossible, time ignoring and dismissing Leftists next year. First it was Pennsylvania, then New York, and now it's Texas.
The recent wave of progressive primary victories rolled into Texas on Tuesday evening, with Candace Valenzuela and Mike Siegel pulling into strong leads against centrist opponents for the chance to flip Republican-held suburban districts. In the Travis County district attorney race, José Garza, an immigrant rights activist and former public defender backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, ousted incumbent Margaret Moore.
...Computer engineer Donna Imam was leading Christine Mann, a physician who backed single-payer health care, by almost 14 percentage points in a race where the ideological lines were less clearly drawn.Texas initially held its primary on Super Tuesday, with runoffs postponed to July due to the coronavirus. Siegel was heavily outspent and attacked as too progressive to win the general election, giving his victory more resonance, and Valenzuela mounted a major comeback after trailing Olson by 11 points in the first round of voting.
Siegel and Valenzuela join Kara Eastman in Omaha, Nebraska, and Dana Balter in Syracuse, New York, as progressives who will try to flip in Republican-held districts, something that the DCCC and DNC says is impossible.
Comments
I posted a diary in 2016 on Booman Tribune
Regarding a conversation with a older woman who lost her middle management job to China. We didn't know her at all, but she overheard my sister and I talking politics. She told us her story pumping Trump as the answer. My sister mentioned Bernie sanders and the woman immediately said, "Oh! he's good too!" No way was that woman, formerly a middle manager at a telco EVER going to vote for anyone named Clinton. Yes, part of Trump's victory was bigots hating Obama's skin and name, but most were people reacting to globalism. HRC was the embodiment of globalism while Trump said MAGA!
Most voters aren't political theorists. Many are team voters who don't have a clue about policy and vote Blue or Red as voters in Imperial Rome supported Blue and Green, i.e. as Cubs vs Sox fans. Territoriality, pure and simple. But people wanted change. I think they want it now more than ever. Trumpistas still see Trump as change as opposed to fossilized Pelosi chanting the same old same old lies. I think a lot of people see what a subhuman slug Trump is but still think he will bring change as the DNC types still chant the slogans of the past.
In short, it isn't that people are more or less progressive. it's that they hate what they have now and Biden promises more of the Obama era that crushed these voters.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Similar experiences + Harry
I've told this before, but I had more right-wingers (supposedly) come to me with sincere questions about Bernie Sanders than I could shake a stick at. This was very true in 2016; to a lesser degree this year.
If the Democrats really wanted to get Republicans to vote for their candidate, they totally blew it. Of course, I'm not so sure that's what they want at all...
Harry Truman said it way back in 1952:
That whole speech is worth reading. I read it every now and then just to remind myself what someone with a degree of backbone was like.
I dunno...
W. and all of his BFFs like Biden.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Exactly.
They're voting for the genuine article.
Maybe so.
When I consider Biden's record, it's almost hard to imagine him without a "R" behind his name. The Democrats are now Republicans and the Republicans are insane.
Makes sense that he's the genuine article.
Some of the not-insane Republicans are sneaking round the bend
to come at the situation from the left of the Democrats. (So are some of the insane Republicans, for whatever reasons.)
This has happened before, late 19th and early 20th century (Progressive party - which spun out of the Republican, not Democratic, Party, and Republicans with a social conscience, like one Fiorello LaGuardia....)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I think if Bernie didn't use the S word
and called his program "The New New Deal" or "The Newest Deal" or "The New deal for the 21st century", invoked Roosevelt & Truman, and wrapped himself in the flag like Trump, he would have won in a walk. But as some many have questioned here "Did he want to win ?"
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Sting like a bee?
He certainly could have done the things you mention. In fact, I think you could have pulled folks off the street at random and they would advise him to frame his message just as you've suggested.
Always seemed to me that Sanders was like a boxer who never would deliver the expected hard right hook for the knockout. He's set it up, deftly even - the path was wide open. Then ...nothing. Also, taking below-the-belt punches without protest? Not a fighter who'll go the distance. Maybe not a fighter at all.
Nice stump speech, though. Loved the accent; loved the wild hair. Managed to light a few fires. That's about the extent of it.
Yep!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Also re Obama
Biden's association with Obama got him the black support he needed, it doesn't help with voters whose houses were stolen by the banks or otherwise suffered by Obama policies. I know sanders was a #BLM target and lots of black people hate him because he's a Jew, still faced with the choice of Sanders or Trump, which would they choose? would they so to speak hold their noses and vote for Sanders to get rid of Trump? That's what white progressives are told to do. And I might have done it for Warren or Klobuchar, maybe even Mayor Cheat, but never Biden. I see horns and a tail every time I think of him.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Nah, it's not like that
If Bernie were President the police would go from killing 3 people a day to 5, and the extra two would all be black. By supporting a well known racist who just doesn't use the words older blacks are trying to save their son's and grandson's lives.
On to Biden since 1973
Pelosi and ignoring
"It looks like Nancy Pelosi is going to have a difficult, if not impossible, time ignoring and dismissing Leftists next year."
I dunno, she's had decades of experience doing that, I suspect she'll figure "why rock the boat? go with what has proven to work" especially at her age/likelihood of running for office many more times.
On the other hand, with any luck I'll be able to vote her out as the rep for SF, but that would be an extremely long shot and I'm not holding my breath.
Pelosi and the DCCC are likely to ignore them for the General
At least if the past is any guide progressive upstarts will get little or no support against the Republican in the race.
In fact,support for the GOP candidate by Democratic members in some races wouldn't surprise me at all.
If the past is any indicator, these
individuals will be marginalized or compromised.
Their victories mean little unless they use whatever leverage they might have to push for structural changes in our political system. The trouble is, their "working within the party" is self-defeating in that regard: the Democratic party is the political system, and its leaders aren't likely to support efforts to change it and in fact (as we've seen in the past, e.g. Lieberman in Connecticut) will work hard to oppose such efforts.
If they support other democrats, even those with substantial ideological differences, their victories are as effective for pushing the party left as any voter who states they'll vote D no matter what.
This election will be the end either way
Either the Rs will hold, insuring the end of the quisling Democrats or the quislings will win and turn a disaster into a mass extinction. Either Trump will win, or Biden's "vice president" will assume the Presidency and (not) declare herself dictator, thinking she can announce the vote totals in 2024 and 2028, (and 2032, etc). Either way the Democratic Party will not exist outside of California by 2023.
On to Biden since 1973
Hard to beleive they would lose Illinois
90% (D) votes rolling out of Chicago swamp the rest of the state. Latinos used to vote roughly 50-50 D & R but after Trump ... Cheating is not needed (just a habit). There are very few non-Whites in Chicago anymore. Asians used to be good (R) voters, but Trmp's xenophobia, blaming anyone with slanted eyes for COVID is ending that.
EDIT: few whites not few non-Whites.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Is anyone keeping score?
There is an obvious competition here to see who can be the most cynical.
Can someone tell me how it gets scored? What are the rules? When will the winner be declared and what will he/she win?
Is it too late for me to enter?
Never too late :-)
"We grow too soon old and too late smart."
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.