politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I like AOC a lot. She started as any other member of The Squad but has actually learned how politics work and is doing a, mostly, spectacular job of balancing ideology, the will of her constituents, and generation of political capital. In so many ways, she is what Sanders would have been if he got his head out of his ass twenty some odd years ago.
If she runs for POTUS in 2028, she is a god damned idiot. I am still skeptical if this country will EVER elect a woman for POTUS. But she is also still quite young but has almost an entire Hilary Clinton worth of chud-hate and attacks. Whereas Senate makes perfect sense for her.
That said? I could see a world where AOC could... once again be the anti-Bernie. Run for POTUS in the primary. Energize basically the entire youth of the nation. Then lose and immediately endorse the winner while leveraging her influence to get important action items on the ticket. But... I want AOC as a leader and not just as the bait and switch.
I'm not sure that's a reasonable takeaway from the last two times a woman was a major party nominee.
Hillary Clinton was not especially charismatic, which is arguably what wins general elections in most cases. She was also unpopular with progressive Democrats, and widely seen as having secured the nomination unfairly when Sanders might have been both more popular with the party and a stronger general election candidate.
Kamala Harris was severely handicapped by the combination of being nominated without a primary process, starting her campaign very late, and positioning herself as a continuation of Biden at a time when Biden's popularity was very low.
If AOC were to win the nomination, she would be in a much stronger position for the general election than either Clinton or Harris.
Yeah, thank you. The problem with Hillary and Kamala is nobody liked them. Now sure you can argue " maybe people didn't like them because they're women and they have a bias against women". I never heard anybody online saying " wow! I would sure love to have Kamala as president but I just don't think other people will vote for her". I see lots of people saying that about AOC. At some point you have to look around and be like oh wait...lots of people are saying they'd vote for her.
AOC has a message that people want is a key thing. Harris kept it too safe to really sway anyone that wasn’t already sold, unfortunately. That’s not to say Harris didn’t have a published policy list, but it wasn’t what people were seeing or hearing. If Harris came out as a progressive, which I believe she was, then I think she would have swayed middle America.
The problem I think is that harris said she was going to continue Bidens economic policy when a lot of people really are feeling like the economic policy from both sides is benefiting only the wealthy. If any policy helps the little guy then it is such a minor help that it goes unrecognized.
Inequality skyrocketing, wages stagnating, and then you say you want to continue the policy? Not great campaign. Trump lost in 2020 and won in 2016 and 2024 because he was anti status quo. Most people don't really care about "all the other" stuff and are too stupid to realize anything outside of "do I want change RIGHT NOW?" and then vote yes or no based on that
It was very poor messaging for sure. That’s not to say Biden didn’t have a decent economic policy plan, in theory, but it never got off the ground due to the grid-lock in the Senate.
I mean it would be better than now but I really don't think the plan was good enough to change the outcome. He would have had to be far more radical than he is
Oh for sure on all counts; Biden really should not have been the front runner in 2020. Hell, just planning on running for one term would have made a world of difference. Still I’m hopeful for AOC 2028, I think it could be in the cards if the DNC doesn’t pull a Bernie on her.
They def will tho. The corpo overlords will demand it
We also have to ask ourselves why no one liked them. Some of it can be attributed to sexism and or racism, yes. But I think we can attribute a lot of the unpopularity of those candidates to their lack of charisma, weak seeming positions and advocacy on progressive points of interest (such as Gaza, the Palestinians, border climate change, etc), and what seemed like stupid meddling and sabotage by the consultant class.
Biden himself ran for president and won on the third shot. But, since two woman ran for president and lost, thats a sign that no woman can get elected.
Its not that women can't win. Its that centrist dems than run on the status quo when the Democratic party is polling abysmally can't win.
Agreed. When people say they lost cuz America is too racist or sexist I think they miss out what bad candidates we had each time. Either bad in who they are, how they ran the campaign, or factors outside them that killed the campaign, or all 3
Honestly, I think unfortunately gender/sex does play a factor, in addition to race. If this administration has taught us anything, is that there is that much hate within our country.
Also think of cultures where historically their culture doesnt value women. Even if there are people who immigrated here, some still may never vote for a woman. Some will decline because they are racist. While we are all Americans, we are deeply deeply divided ATM :(
This is without even factoring the candidates political platform in yet.
I like when people claim racism was a major factor in Harris's loss, given that Obama was elected in 2008 with a larger piece of the popular vote than any President since.
It was one of many factors. Obama winning didn't prove that racism didn't exist. He won despite the racism. Harris had racism, sexism, a lack of a primary process, the lack of experience as an executive, and so on against her.
In a lot of ways, Obama winning kind of broke the country.
He was a Democrat that people genuinely loved because of how charismatic he was (which was REAL nice after Dubyah...). Or, as a certain Former President put it, he was a Clean And Articulate Gentleman.
The problem being, his very existence set off all the chuds. It completely destroyed their minds that a black man could possibly be President. And it is a big chunk of what set for the "never again" mindset we are seeing.
But it did prove that racism does not have enough of an impact to move the needle in any substantial way—it failed so hard to move the needle that, again, literally no candidate since has even matched, let alone topped, his popular vote %.
Are you sure? Maybe Obama would have swept all 50 states if it hadn't been for the racism. Maybe the only reason it was at all close was the racism.
Given the close margins I would say it surely played at least a part for Harris losing. Obama won by large enough margins that even if all the racists stayed home that he still won in a landslide.
If even 2% of the population would never vote for a women or a person of color then it was enough to have mattered when others are sitting home for other reasons. It’s certainly not the main cause of Harris losing as you pointed out, but when the margins were that close every vote did matter.
Given that, while Trump got ~3 million more votes in 2024 vs. 2020, and Harris got nearly 7 million fewer votes in 2024 than Biden did in 2020, and that the US's population increased about 8 million in that span of time, are you suggesting that there's that much misogyny and racism among the Democrats?
The total population is not the total voting population. There was also a pandemic between 2020 and 2024 so I would expect the total amount of eligible voters would be different as a result of the pandemic.
I think that’s an uncharitable takeaway from what I’m talking about to say that the misogyny and racism were the core reasons that Harris got less votes. There were notable other factors that made it a close election, which I mentioned was the case. My point was more that because the margins were that close that those smaller details did matter more.
I suspect the majority of that 2% would also never vote for a Democrat.
I believe that you are mostly correct, although the actual motivations for these folks are complicated. Some may value a few extra bucks in government support, having social security, and having Medicare programs. So there are some economic reasons they may vote for Democrats on occasion, but their bigotry could get in the way of their best interest.
So, some of those people probably just stay home for election night. While a good chunk may be getting convinced to vote for Republicans if they feel their bigotry is being rewarded.
Still a big risk to take. We need progressives to win at least the next two elections to have any shot at winding back the damage from two Trump administrations and a largely impotent Biden administration.
But I agree that if she wins the primary, that's the part that really matters and what Harris was missing.
Yeah, I think there is a substantial portion of Americans who won't ever vote for a woman, but I think it was still just a small part of the larger issues in both their campaigns
Both Hillary and Kamala were unenthusiastic campaigners, depending on democrats to anoint to victory. AOC isn't very popular outside of the northeast, and she doesn't appear fiery enough to excite those who don't know her.
Worth noting as I almost missed it myself from not RTFA, but: AOC is "gearing up for a big campaign for a bigger office in 2028 -- they're just not sure which."
I align with your view that I really thought AOC would be better to primary against Schumer. Not only is it arguably more attainable, it addresses our problem with stagnant Congressional AIPAC-representing leadership.
That said, I part ways in the belief that a female president is not capable of being elected for a couple of reasons which I'll try to lay out point-by-point:
I think there were many contributing factors to Kamala's loss, but I I think this is pretty low if non-existent among them, and it risks gatekeeping qualified, charismatic candidates like AOC out of fear of past milquetoast candidates that were unpopular from the outset and deeply lacking in charisma.
I'm wondering if Gallup has tried asking if people would vote for a woman if she made it clear she intended to help the citizens of the country and not the oligarchs who own everything.
Replacing Schumer would be a big step forward,
Funny that you say she’d be an idiot for running in 2028, then present a great case for why she might run in 2028…
You’re right, though, that Senate would be the right move. But that has its own disadvantages. If Schumer doesn’t retire, it would be very tough to beat him.
Being a losing presidential candidate could raise your profile. I’m not sure the same applies to a senate candidate.
Also, I would say the hate for AOC is much different than the hate for Hillary. There were plenty of liberals that hated Hillary (🙋♂️). I don’t think this applies as much to AOC. The hate is coming exclusively from the right.
She could easily beat schumer. I never met another nyer who likes that guy. Largely he wins now because nobody (or nobodies) primary him, and the alternative is a republican which just is not an option right now.
Schumer has seniority in the Senate, which is why many have not tried to primary him.
Seniority is a big deal in the Senate in terms of committee assignments. Just because AOC could replace Schumer’s seat, it does not mean that she will gain the current amount of power that he has for a long time. Now it may well be worth replacing his seat just so the current spokesperson for Dems in the Senate changes, but it’s not going to be AOC for a while.
An alternative is for her to grow to become the Speaker of the House, which she could do by continuing to stay in her current role over the next several decades.
Otherwise, she may look at a run for Governor, although then that is much less federally focused.
She could run for President or take on the role for VP. If she were to be VP, I think it would almost guarantee she would be able to win the Presidency at some point. Although, if she joined an administration that caused a lot of baggage, like Harris received from being VP to Biden, then it would make that route more difficult.
It’s a risk, though. She may decide the risk isn’t worth it.
Also, she this may all be an attempt by AOC to make Schumer rethink running in 2028. I don’t honestly know if he is planning on running anyway.
The far right of the country will never vote for a woman unless its a psychopathic maga woman. Then they just might...
The far right isn’t voting for any democrat though.
I honestly think if she ran for president it would be about raising her public profile. There’s many republicans and democrats whose names I know only because they ran for president.
Couldn’t disagree with you more.
AOC for the win
How the fuck would doing EXACTLY what Bernie did make her "the anti-bernie"?
USA has no problem electing a woman (see below). But I am still skeptical the dems will EVER nominate a non-fascist for president.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
I get what you're saying but consider that her participation in the primary will energize progressives. If she really has the courage, immediately after the 2026 election she should announce that she's forming a progressive party. Get people like Tim Waltz, Katie Porter, and others on board. But my guess they lack the numbers to really pull numbers away from the correct Democratic party.
That said, I could see a Waltz/AOC ticket being hugely popular.
You are on lemmy letting us know how much you like someone with million of followers refusing to even make an account on decentralized social media
narrator: And they never did...
She only had to, you know, compromise on genocide and not ever get anything done. AOC is nice to have, but if she is what it looks like when a progressive "learns how politics works," then I'd rather progressives not learn how politics work.
Harris had a ton of support early on so being a woman isn't a decisive factor, and AOC-hating chuds were never going to vote blue.
I am not going to pretend I agree with how AOC handled the Anti-semitism Panel or whatever it was.
But I will say this: NYC tends to be very Jewish and Jewish friendly. And people are stupid. Explaining "I am opposed to anti-semitism but I am not opposed to anti-zionism. Okay, let me explain to you what the difference is" isn't going to fly. Hell, just look around any message board (including these) and see what happens if you actually link someone to an article or page explaining why they misunderstood something.
And... a lot of the verbiage early on (mostly when Hamas still had any meaningful capabilities in the region) really WERE crossing the line. Stuff like "from the river to the sea" is really hard to support in a good faith reading of the conflict in the region. Which is why most politicians have stopped using phrases like that while arguing for Palestinian survival.
Which gets back to the realities of politics. In theory, an elected official is there not to push their own politics but to represent the will of the people who elected them. And if it is going to take a ten minute history lesson to explain why you snubbed a panel on Anti-Semitism to the people who voted for you...
Which is also why all of this is so insidious. Because the zionists know that they have these actually very reasonable stances to take and use them to cover for genocide.
But, as the DSA themselves admit in that press release, AOC has voted heavily in favor of Palestine in many resolutions.
That is literally what Mamdani did. And it, in fact, flew.
You seem to be well-meaning, but that's Zionist propaganda. The full phrase is "Palestine will be free, trom the river to the sea," and there is literally nothing objectionable about this. It's not like Palestinians within Israel aren't also living under apartheid, so the phrase is very appropriate. Also I see no evidence at all that rhetoric around Palestine has gotten less radical as time went on.
Except the most progressive of them—you knowz the crowd to which AOC supposedly belongs. There are people who will he tricked by this sort of Zionist propaganda, but usually those tend to not support progressive politics in general, so this is a problem that solves itself.
I hope Mamdani proves he can pull it off. We'll see what happens in the general. And I really hope he can continue to push a hard line once he gets on a stage where bills are so intertwined that it is nigh impossible to NOT support evil in the form of pork and the like.
My suspicion is that we are going to see a lot of concessions at even the Mayoral level. Let alone if he moves on to Congress. My hope is that we have actually achieved progress (hey, look at that) and the baseline of education has advanced that we can continue to push the line farther and further and actually oppose anti-semitism while also vehemently opposing zionism.
It is Zionist propaganda in that the Zionists actually said it too in the past as justification/motivation for stealing the land from Palestine et al to begin with.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea
There are definitely well meaning individuals who use that and I don't think it inherently means someone is part of Hamas or the IDF. But it is a phrase that literally began as Zionist propaganda to justify their occupation of the region and it is one that, in most readings, fundamentally precludes a two state solution. It is saying that the entirety of the region must belong to one group/subset of groups.
Now, whether a two state solution has been possible for closer to 50 years than not is a much more depressing topic. But when your statement of peace is also largely synonymous with past and present efforts to ethnically cleanse a region... maybe pick some different words.
Which... brings us back to the balance of politics and ideology and not trusting the masses to sit and listen to your long winded explanation of why your slogan just sounds bad but is actually good when you use it.
You don't have to explain it. Puritans will always find fault. It's why they'll also never hold power to do the things they want.