Socialists had a really good election
Republicans lost the White House. Democrats lost seats in Congress.
However somebody had reason to celebrate Tuesday. Socialists.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that boasts nearly 80,000 members nationwide, endorsed 29 candidates and 11 ballot initiatives, winning 20 and 8 respectively. There are now democratic socialist caucuses in 15 statehouses, including Montana.
...
Now, thanks to DSA members across the country, there is a socialist in Austin City Council and in both the Rhode Island and Montana State Houses. In Pennsylvania, there are three socialists who are almost certainly headed to the legislature in Harrisburg. Socialists in Boulder, Colorado worked alongside the ACLU to win a ballot measure that guarantees no eviction without representation, and DSA members partnered with the labor unions AFSCME and SEIU to pass Preschool for All in Multnomah County, Oregon. And in both Florida and Portland, Maine, ballot initiatives for a $15 minimum wage passed.
The DSA record is rather impressive consider that five years ago they were an afterthought in politics. But it doesn't stop there. Big things are happening on the local level.
Ross Morales Rocketto, co-founder of Run for Something, which backs state and local progressive Gen Z and Millennial candidates, emphasizes the generational shift in local politics. Overall, Run for Something endorsed 525 candidates this cycle, with 202 victories, 77 races left to call and three runoffs as of Nov. 5. Among the winners: Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, an Indigenous candidate who declared victory in her race to be the new Pima County Recorder, which oversees elections in the Tucson area; she ran in response to other Native Americans being disenfranchised. And Nikil Saval, an Asian-American architecture critic and first-time candidate just elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate, ran in part on a “housing for all” agenda.
It's not just big blue cities. Richmond and Santa Ana, for example, both got taken over by progressives.
The trend wasn't just candidates, and it wasn't just in progressive areas. Leftists scored big wins in deep red states.
“If you look at Wisconsin, counties that went big for Trump also voted to hike their own taxes to invest in schools. You see this pattern all over the country.” Arizona even passed a statewide tax hike to bring in nearly $1 billion in new dollars to its underfunded school system, a measure that, Berkshire notes, enjoyed bipartisan support.Portland, Maine, joined Florida in voting for a minimum-wage hike, as well as voting for rent control, against facial surveillance, and for a local Green New Deal.
Tenants were also winners in Boulder, Colorado, where voters passed No Eviction Without Representation, a measure to tax landlords and use the money to provide legal representation for tenants facing eviction, another initiative backed by DSA.All in all, Colorado had a feminist night, rejecting forced reproductive labor for women — that is to say, defeating an attempt by the anti-choice forces to restrict abortion — and for family and medical leave.
Montgomery County, Maryland, with DSA’s help, defeated a property tax override.
Oregon voted to tax the rich to fund universal pre-K. The state also decriminalized a startling number of drugs, including small quantities of heroin, cocaine, and meth, a huge step for the nationwide movement against mass incarceration.
Speaking of drugs, South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, and New Jersey legalized weed for adults for any reason, while Mississippi approved medical marijuana. Washington, DC, legalized psychedelics.
List goes on and on. I could keep listing victories but it gets kind of repetitive. Needless to say you get the idea.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: way too many leftist are abandoning electoral politics at exactly the wrong time. You should've done it two or three decades ago. Because now it's finally getting interesting. Millennials and Gen Z are starting to make waves in ways this country hasn't seen since the 1960's.
Comments
Legal Marijuana lukewarm in Illinois
Lots of illegal too. I'm not a user but I'm told that legal shops charge four times street price. Big tax. It was a Dem law so you know it's only purpose was a regressive tax.
And it is still a crime to grow small quantities for personal consumption! After all, got to feed the tax machine. Unless the law has been changed, you can brew a gallon of beer or ferment a gallon of wine per week for personal consumption, but not one single marijuana plant.
Good points, gjohnsit. Goes to my meme about building a party bottom up instead of top down.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
That's Kamala's position too
“He may not have gotten the words out but the thoughts were great.”
Legal marijuana wins big in Arizona
Approved by 60% to 40%. Up to 1 ounce for personal use. Can grow 6 plants at home.
Good to hear about progressive successes
I've been down about the downballot vote for Democrats, but more DSA folks in legislatures and councils is how you build a party from the ground up. Not with a marquee presidential candidate.
By the way, I haven't been here in a while. I was busy getting into fights with people at DKos, and am now on a two month timeout. I don't think I'll log in there again. I'm tired of their hypocrisy, their groupthink, their biased moderation, and their getting all excited over very unlikely possibilities, like, "We're gonna unseat McConnell! We're gonna take the Senate! Biden's gonna win 350 EV!" I'm tired of being beaten up and called an idiot, and when I push back, I'm the one that gets the hammer. I've unsubbed from their email list and don't plan to give another dime through or to Act Blue. I'll give directly to a candidate I like or not at all.
I'm gonna try this site out for a while.
"Not me. Us."
Welcome back.
You're in good company here.
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..."
DKos is a propaganda site for
democrats. It’s staffed by useful idiots, latte liberals, “Karens”, and a few people (Markos) who desperately want in the centers of their power structures. The contributors consist largely of people suffering under delusions or a severe Dunning-Kruger effect with respect to their political acumen.
It’s pointless to engage anyone there. They want to be fooled, and partake of the koolaid willingly.
@BayAreaLefty There are still some
"Not me. Us."
The Progressive Wing/TPW is a much smaller
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Whatever you do there
do not criticize the Lincoln Project as being grifters that ripped of the centrists. Where a cup if you do. Even though not that many republicans voted Biden because of them. Sirota breaks it down.
Not all republicans are bad either and that includes George Effing Bush
WTF? The guy who destroyed the constitution, helped kill millions and set the Middle East on fire and every other thing he did to us wasn't actually that bad compared to Trump? This is some serious delusional thinking. George W. Bush is a mass murderer and should be charged as such. Does he still have to stay out of certain countries across the pond because there is an arrest warrant for him. And Cheney? OMG. Cheney has been reformed to. Reality base? Nah.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I'm sure there are a few regulars who aren't
completely lost causes. It's not worth the effort of wading through the rest of the stupidity to engage with them, though.
When morons like Republican Lite Markos and Burgeois HasBeen/Sellout Denise are as popular as they are, you know there's something deeply wrong with the membership there. They don't give one shit about anything but their own egos (perhaps as a close second to their deeply immoral and reprehensible support for a deeply immoral and corrupt political party).
It's only Russian bots here
Plus a few Useful Idiots, Purity Ponies, and of course racist, sexist Bernie Bros.
Sorry. There is nothing worthwhile here...so I've heard on DKos.
@gjohnsit Just my username alone
"Not me. Us."
You should have tried being an atheist there.
The hall monitor program on DKos is run by a female Episcopal priest called Wee Mama. She is the walking antithesis of the concept of free thought.
Welcome here. I'm so very glad I found this site and hope you will be happy also.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
IOW, as politically naive and short-sighted
Assume they still believe that Obama walks on water.
I hear you Marie
I still miss the original Booman Tribune before Booman became a Markos clone.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Politically, he was always a Markos clone.
It's much calmer here. Disagreements, for the most part, don't become emotional and extended battles.
"Putin Puppet" LOL!
We've had our disagreements, but you are nobody's puppet.
Stay healthy and watch your back, amica.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
You missed that?
I probably was already gone.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
end of march or very early april 2018
Exactly the strategy John Birchers
adopted when they decided to take over the nation. Being seen generally as the crackpots they were, they even worked to take over schoolboards to get their got in the door.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
"foot in the door."
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
“auto-corrupt” — like the yet-undrained Washington DC swamp… n/t
It's amazing that a site like DKos --
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Alexa?
I'd be worried if Bezos favored me.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
You'll like it here
NYCVG
Spanberger who was on the call with Pelosi and other
centrists that were bitching about 'socialism' was accused of being that during her 1st run at congress so this isn’t something new. Republicans have been accusing democrats of that forever. Why did she leak the call? A bigwig democrat wants the leaker tracked down...umm dude..it’s Spanberger. I think that this is just more kabuki crap being thrown at us.
Jimmy has a great show today. Don’t remember what it’s titled. Sorry. He mentioned that California voted in a lot of progressive people, but CA has super delegates too and kept them from winning. CA also had a super majority of democrats and they finally passed single payer, but the head democrat vetoed it. Dem run states are where a lot of protests are happening and they are letting their police goons clobber people. Lots of articles today on how democrats blew the election by not running on anything except Biden’s not Trump. The world is not happy with them at all.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
CA voted heavily pro corporate Snoopy
Especially on taxes. CA just loves to "defend/expand prop 13, even though only businesses will benefit and even though they will pay for it through neglected infrastructure and bond measures, compensatory sales taxes, and real estate inflation (that they will not be able to capitalize on)
On to Biden since 1973
A lot of political yahoos still in Cali.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Cal's voting results were very disappointing
Corporate friendly stooges indeed. Newsom vetoed rank choice voting. Uber/Lift won big time which is going to be bad across the country for worker's rights that have been decimated already. No rent control? No single payer even though they had the votes for it?
Here is the Jimmy vid I mentioned. Pretty good with Nick Braga of the People's Party. There is no reforming the DP and people have been saying it for over 100 years. There seems to be one person in each race that runs on being a progressive which just gives people false hope.
Chris Hedges said recently that any hope of incrementalism is now dead. Joe posted the link last night in the Evening Blues. Highly rec reading it. Hedges says that he has no idea how to turn things around, but points out how much it's needed.
It is past time to lose hope that democrats will ever return to the party that was FDR. This is why people keep ragging on them because they know that once they did represent the workers, but that has been gone for decades. They should be treated as the enemy they are because they work hand in hand with repubs to get their donor's wishes passed. They are dead. Obama pounded the last nail in their coffin for me.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I'm o;d enough to remember how it happened
People remember the Powell memo, but there were 2 other factors. There was also the Great Society, which was sabotaged in the early 70s by turning it into a welfare program. This "justified" racists like Reagan and Biden. But also the congressional reforms of the McGovern class of 72. By weakening the seniority system the reformers made it possible to get what you wanted by bribing even the lowliest junior congressman. It made corruption so cheap and easy the nation became uncontrollable.
On to Biden since 1973
The seniority system was what gave Southern Dems enormous power
though, by automatically handing them the House committee chairmanships and thus the purse strings (see Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, heading up the House Ways and Means committee).
Segregationist Southern Democrats do seem to have formed an essential part of the postwar New Deal coalition. When they switched en masse to the Republicans, that’s when things really began to “go south” (heh) in federal policy toward U.S. workers.
I'm not saying the reforms were wrong
I was heavily in favor of them at the time and still would be, but they didn't work because of unintended consequences.
On to Biden since 1973
Agreed. n/t
Centrist Dems lost
I'm a happy camper today.
I'll deal with the defects of our new leadership somewhere down the road.
NYCVG
Well I'll be darned
It's finally over - an unpleasant, but highly educational interlude.
Thanks for the lesson in humility, Donald - if nothing else, you helped us see who our real friends are. Maybe it's true; maybe this needed to happen.
Now, it's back to fighting our real enemies...but this time, we'll be fighting Aka Oni AND Ao Oni.
Took us long enough; Ralph Nader was right all along.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Wow, this is such a true statement.
It does seem like more people are getting the memo. The only thing I’m cautiously hopeful for it that Biden/Harris don’t get the free pass Obama did and still does.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Just saw your signature
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Michigan might be overturned
It doesn’t have anything to do with counting the votes where they are claiming voter fraud. But it goes to counting them if received after 8 pm. The state Supreme Court overruled the legislators by saying they could be counted up to 3 days if received on time. Federal law says they shouldn’t have done it.
This is going back to the Supreme Court because they didn’t make a final ruling so the case is still open.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-trump-will-triumph-pa-litigation
If Biden wins Nevada it won’t matter, but if he doesn’t Trump might still win.
I see that Olbermann is back screaming at the president. He wants Trump escorted from the White House in handcuffs and to be held accountable for every person who died of COVID and get the death penalty. Funny how he just did sports during Obama’s tenure isn’t it?
I was so naive during Bush’s tenure. I rarely missed watching Keith just to hear him yell at Bush. I guess I thought it’d change something if he kept yelling. Lol...this is why I give my uncle a break for watching Rachel and being 'in love with her',
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
It's Pennsylvania; not Michigan.
One of the issues in FL 2000 was absentee military ballots. iirc FL accepted them for a couple of weeks and it didn't matter if they were postmarked by election day or postmarked at all. There was evidence that many hadn't been completed by election day, but as with all things that year, Gore lost the debate.
Only counting ballots received by
8:00 PM election day has been the rule in Oregon ever since the unfortunate decision to go to mail voting in 1998.
Voters do have the option of not marking ballots until the last minute if they want to exercise the option of physically dropping them off at ballot collection points.
There may have been complaints about the system but I've hear none...
@Blue Republic Why do you say going
"Not me. Us."
This country has a mixed history (at best)
with respect to voting fraud. Ballot stuffing, "losing" votes, etc.--these are things that have definitely, unquestionably happened in the past. Vote by mail makes it much easier to engage in malicious activities.
The only way to ensure a vote is a fair vote is to have paper ballots counted in public. Anything less than that is absolutely suspect. The machines that count votes, that report totals to centralized computers, etc., can all be easily hacked or pre-programmed to deliver the results TPTB want.
It's frankly very alarming that electronic voting has become so normalized that it's trivial to dismiss as conspiracy theory anyone who dares raises a skeptical point of view about the integrity of our elections. I don't believe one single election using electronic voting has been a faithful representation of the voters' choices. I have no evidence--but I also don't have the millions (billions) of dollars to request access/counts to get that evidence, or to even make a cursory review. That's by design: the DNC and RNC don't want voters choosing who is elected, and the definitely don't want anyone to look closely at how our elections are run. That alone should raise any thinking individual's internal alarm bells. Why make it so prohibitively costly and time consuming to get a basic review of something as fundamental as our votes, if not to impede discovery of something...less than honest?
The process was
Straightforward and transparent - paper ballots were used, there were plenty of polling places, observers from all parties were allowed to be present, votes were tabulated at the precinct level, results and the physical ballots were conveyed to the county elections office and they reported the results to the state SOS.
All taking place around the time of the annual influenza pandemic. Anyone wishing to avoid the risk entailed in in-person voting could request an absentee ballot.
Simple way to avoid most of the controversies surrounding the current election. Tulsi Gabbard sponsored legislation mandating a return to paper ballots and requiring an auditable paper trail but AFAIK it went nowhere.
*Lots* of issues with voting machine vendors and electronic voting systems:
blackboxvoting.org
Remember that DHS is in charge of our elections
This country has had problems with voting machines flipping votes, not counting them correctly and numerous other problems so why does everyone think everything is on the up and up this time?
But after Russia interfered with the election last time Department of Homeland Security was to oversee them going forward right? How about the many Israeli companies involved with our elections? Whitney Webb on MintPress had lots of articles on this. Don't know if they were archived since she has moved on.
Of course not.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
@Marie Pennsylvania is pretty
"Not me. Us."
Gore was a chickensh1te who let
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Thanks
yeah I screwed up the comment by saying MI not Penn. I am pleading being sick.....I was. Still am. But the point stands. The legislator sets the rules and the SC shouldn't have over ruled them. Might be moot either way if Joe wins Nevada.
Or he threw the election. He sure was low key from what I remember. Okay that doesn't mean much with my brain, but that he looked bored while members of the black caucus told him to fight the results because of.....reasons and I just waited to see him yawn.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Do you happen to know when
And it is most definitely the role of state Supreme Courts to rule on legislation when a lawsuit is filed challenging its constitutionality. Same is true for federal legislation and the US SC and they also get to weigh in on the constitutionality of state legislation.
I miss Keith Obermann
"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian
Well here ya go
I think Keith is a hypocritical buffoon for staying silent on Obama's many crimes while going bat shit insane over what Bush and Trump did. Obama continued Bush's wars plus started 3 of his own. 3 brutal coups and all the rest, but Keith didn't bring his show back to yell about it like he has for Trump. Trump has deported nowhere near the number of immigrants that Obama did, but that might be because he has locked them up for his friends in the private prison industry. Great for their profits.
Edited. Ruff morning.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Well, they have to feed the division
I am well aware that many on the "right side" of the spectrum are ignorant, and willfully so. But you do NOT win over a convert by telling them how stupid they are, for fuck's sake. That is simple human nature. So the civil war will keep being ginned up while Liberals shout their glee at getting a possible perp walk out of Trump. That's ALL THEY HAVE. Even they know deep down Biden will change nothing but many of them are comfortable and simply do not have to care. Thomas Frank wrote about the meritocracy in "Listen Liberal" and today of all days I really wish more ordinary voters on the centrist "left" would open up that part of the book and read it, if they could manage to actually absorb what it's point is, but I hold out little hope for that. Today they celebrate the stupidity of the Trump voter and congratulate themselves on not only their virtue, but their supreme intelligence as well. And when Biden doesn't do all that he promised to do, which in fact is really very little, why they'll say he's still better than Trump! Then they'll head off to a nice brunch and heave a massive sigh of relief while awaiting said perp walk. I hope they at least leave a nice tip for their server at that brunch, and maybe today they will, although if that server displays even a slight whiff of "radical leftism" or actual coherent thought on just what was REALLY won today, I'll bet that tip shrinks up, big time. Then they'll all laugh at the poor, dumb stooge who actually thought voting might change things and perhaps tell that person they'd best go out and get a real education and they too can join the smart set and not actually, you know, have to wait on people or anything so tawdry as that.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Brilliant comment, Lizzy
I have seen many comments about how Biden wasn't their 1-5 choice for president, but when he won the primary they decided that he was Just Who Was Needed at This Moment in Time and Space. I have asked just what Biden did between the start and end of the primary that changed how they thought of Joe, but they don't answer. They promised to push him left before he won and now it's let us enjoy the day and now is not the time because the nation has to heal. Gee it is almost like democrats knew people would take this tact. And of course the Bernie Bros are still looked at with disdain because as one kossok wrote this morning, "The Bernie Bros wanted to burn down the DP and put it out of it's misery." No thought at all of why the Extreme Left or Bernie Bros think that the country could do better for it's citizens. Oh NO:
There have been lots of articles and diaries saying that we should forgive Trump and everything he has done for the good of the nation. And that we should make peace with Trumpers because that is what the left stands for. We are the good guys that want to give good things to everyone.
source
The comments are a hoot. Just saying.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Boy are you right about this
AOC is telling centrist democrats that they shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the 'loony left' because their votes are needed if democrats want to win. The centrists are dismissing what she is saying because of centrist reasoning. It is ridiculous.
The Loony Left struck bigly:
- And we complain about Republicans not voting in their true best interests!
- “I want it all, and I want it now...”
IT'S TOO SOON!
-Can I finish my first breath in four fucking years before we start tearing shit apart? Thank you.
Do not diss the Lincoln Project folks. They're bad people with bad policies, but they're our people for now.
Boy howdy you'd think that most democrats would be against everything Kasich stands for and that he should not be in Biden's admin. Well, pie fight over Kasich. Face palm.
Thomas Frank has an article on the Guardian about Biden. I haven't read it yet but it sounds good.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Indeed
Rahm is still an ass. How involved is he with Biden?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Well that's f*cking retarded of him.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
There are a lot of "wild" accusations
vote flipping in PA and GA, mail in ballots "suddenly appearing", Michigan losing votes. (voting machines?) Very likely Trumpian bullshit, but also very believable, since those were tricks used by GWB and HRC.
Even the Fox outlet in SF keeps referring to Trump's accusations as "unfounded". It's interesting that the American SortaNazi Party has turned its back and refuses to admit that anything has happened. They must want to be able to use them sometime in the future. (like 2022)
On to Biden since 1973
Michigan/Electronic voting/Clintons/Pelosi...
Michigan e-voting systems from two different vendors mistakenly shift Republican votes to Democrat - same companies' systems used in nearly all swing states.
Dominion Voting Systems tied to Clintons, widely used in battleground states
worldtribune.com
People don't trust that the election was fair
I get that with both parties running their mouths about counting votes, but remember that the DNC is on record stealing the primary from Bernie. They even went to court to defend their being able to pick whomever they want in back rooms. Did Bush actually steal the presidency in 2004 with the vote shenanigans? The Supreme Court did steal it from Gore because Sandra Day wanted to retire under a republican president. She admitted that. Then we find out Gore actually did win Florida and would have been pres.
Politics here is so damned corrupt I will never take part in the system that 'elects' these people. That Biden barely squeaked out a win shows how dead the dems are. And blaming the left for refusing to vote for centrists is par for the course for brain dead DP.
What Mandate does Biden have? Obama had a huge one and look at how that turned out.
Katie Halper nails how sad it was that with all that Trump has done, Biden/Dems were lucky they won.
Hey how about those polls this year?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I wanna see a socialist people party, is there one yet?
I isten to Biden's speech right now in the background and I can't stand it anymore.
Uncle Joe tells his kiddos another fairy tale story and has forgotten that kiddos grow up one day and don't believe in Santa Claus anymore.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Is anyone in Congress really a socialist?
gjohnsit I think you are looking at social democrats. Socialists want public control of the means of production. Wake me up when they advocate nationalizing industries.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
No -- communism is public control
Harder for totalitarians to grab control from
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
I suppose it depends on
the only thing socialist in this country is the corona virus
@ cassiodorus
and they are winning, just a little consolation for you.
https://www.euronews.com/live