There’s a snarky political saying about America’s political parties: Republicans obediently fall in line, but Democrats form circular firing squads. In the wake of a primary season in which several Democratic Socialist candidates unseated incumbents, that squad is once again emerging.
As I’ve previously noted, these DSA candidates are in the mold of Bernie Sanders, not Stalin, and attributing their success to enthusiasm for the more extreme DSA policy prescriptions is equally wrongheaded. As a recent essay in The Bulwark argued, most Democrats voting in these primaries aren’t socialists–they’re just royally pissed.
And in my view, that attitude is both justified and heartening.
The author of the Bulwark piece is Sarah Longwell, a well-known researcher who regularly conducts focus groups of voters. Her conclusions come directly from the sentiments expressed during those sessions–and she describes those sentiments as a response to candidates who demonstrate backbone and a willingness to take the fight to Donald Trump. The opinions expressed by Democrats in those focus groups are evidence that they are livid–they see the Democratic party as “low on energy and lower on ideas of how to oppose the president and the MAGA movement.”
Longwell writes that the prevailing sentiment she’s getting from focus group participants is the desire to take the battle to Trump. But she also says that desire is “being paired with a sense that their lives are being swallowed by the affordability crisis.” Trump’s unnecessary and illegal Iran war, his idiotic tariffs, and his war on immigration have all caused prices to soar, and people “are responding to the candidates who channel their rage about not being able to afford groceries and gas.”
Successful DSA candidates are seizing on what Longwell calls “voters’ primal scream for Democrats to Do Something.”
Voters are worried about affordability, an unpopular war in Iran, our alliance with Israel, and the Democratic party’s inability to stop Trump’s second-term agenda. With all that, it’s no wonder that voters are looking for a vibe shift. And it should not be a surprise that they’re turning to candidates offering it.
None of this really has much to do with the interminable “centrists” versus “progressives” debates that happen online. And I don’t think it’s because more Democrats are embracing socialism. We host different focus groups of Democrats who want the party to be more progressive, and those who want it to be more moderate. And these days, if I didn’t tell you which focus group was which, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference just by listening to them.
The interchangeability of progressive and centrist Democrats is why there’s no need for the circular firing squad being advanced by those in the Chattering Classes. Longwell points out that the vast majority of Democratic voters aren’t nearly as ideological as these pundits evidently think. Democratic voters aren’t choosing between moderates, progressives and (variously defined) socialists–they are opting for candidates who are more aggressively anti-MAGA and anti-Trump.
These primary battles aren’t centered on a policy agenda. Longwell says that the victorious candidates “are those who are speaking in the emotional register where the Democratic base is operating at right now.”
That could be popular progressives like Mamdani, AOC, or Bernie Sanders. Or it could be any one of the party’s strong communicators and popular officeholders who are mainstream Democrats, but who show signs of life: people like Josh Shapiro, Mark Kelly, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzker, Jon Ossoff, or Gavin Newsom.
In the essay, Longwell shares a number of quotes from voters who rejected incumbents not because they disagreed with their positions (some of the incumbents were very progressive), but because they saw them as too complacent in light of the corruption and cruelty of the GOP.
Longwell point is that these Democrats aren’t necessarily voting for DSA policies–they are voting for “fresh blood and energy”—for people who promise to fight for them. And as she says, at this point in Trump’s presidency, “Democratic base voters will take fighters wherever they can get them, regardless of what ideological lane they come from.”
If my conversations with friends and family–and the comments to this blog–are any indication, Longwell is exactly right. People who are paying attention to today’s terrifying political reality are desperate for candidates with backbone and passion who are willing to fight the cabal that is currently waging war on the American Idea.
It really doesn’t matter if those candidates are moderates, progressives or Democratic Socialists. This is no time for a circular firing squad.
“Successful DSA candidates are seizing on what Longwell calls “voters’ primal scream for Democrats to Do Something.”
Yes, we do need new faces, new voices, new ideas, but…do not discard those seasoned faces, voices and standard IDEALS which have worked to save us from back-pedaling into the mid-20th Century prior to the now lost Civil Rights legislation. President Obama warned the Democrats not to form the destructive circular firing squad and was ignored. The “switching horses in mid-stream” lost us the 2024 election; the lack of loyalty to the sitting progressive President Biden, with his occasional stutter slips, and lack of full support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign was suicidal. It brought us to losing the trust and respect, not only here in the U.S., but globally we are now a source of snickers and behind-their-hands full-out laughter by national leaders who once supported us as their allies.
Waking this morning to the garbled ramblings of the fool from the White House in Turkey again talking about U.S. takeover of Greenland, THINKS the Ceasefire has ended after his newest war actions on Iran and switch-hitting from supporting Bibi back to Putin support before NATO between insulting that organization and it’s global members, has begun another day in Hell on the media.
“It really doesn’t matter if those candidates are moderates, progressives or Democratic Socialists. This is no time for a circular firing squad.” Or another murder/suicidal attack which has allowed Trump’s “demolition derby” and “scorched earth” tactics to allow him to go to war with Denmark over Greenland because HE wants it.
As someone who sits slightly to the left of DSA, their proposals are quite attractive compared to the owned moderate Democrats, especially those owned by AIPAC. They are being flushed from our political system for good reason. In fact, I would go back to when Bibi Netanyahu got all those standing ovations. Any Democrat who stood up and clapped for a genocidal maniac and war criminal needs to be flushed.
There is an organization that is called AIPAC Tracker. It went from a small organization to a very prevalent group. People get a solid reading from them and share the million dollars received by Zionists in our government. Democrats traveling to Israel have a “bullseye” painted on them today. Even if they try to hide those donations (which they do), they are being dug up by very bright online sleuths or “follow the money” crowd.
And Bulwark still sits right-of-center as an organization if it aligns with moderate Democrats. We call them “pro-institution” or also referred to as “MAGA-fighters or never-Trumpers.”
When someone says, “moderate democrat,” that means institutionally captured by capitalism, democracy, or a wealth-driven institution due to their original funders. I get the impression they will slide back to the right once the MAGA forces are defeated. If you’re trying to work on bi-partisanship with MAGA, you are owned by institutional donors.
While MAGA sucks, people paying attention to what’s going on also see the Democratic Party as the problem. The old guard does not want to let go of their old world of being captured by moneyed interests. DSA candidates are anti-capitalist or anti-institutional capture. If DSA candidates stay away from corporate donors and rely on the small individual backers, they are free to seek higher wages and universal healthcare. If they’re backed by Bernie et al., they also understand the system is rigged, and their goal is to break down the rigged government.
p.s. Our little piece of Indiana had a very interesting city council meeting this month, where AFSCME officials told council members that if our Republican administration doesn’t get its shit together, there will be a strike by the people who mow and fix the roads, which already suck beyond belief. Could get interesting!
If Democrat Party leaders think that the only grievance their voters have is “affordability’, boy, do they have it wrong. What I hear most often is fear over the loss of the rule of law and the rights of the people. And added to such fears is the appearance that the party’s leadership is out of touch with its base and takes them for granted. For too long the party has been operating like a private club as in “New ideas not wanted”. That attitude has cost the establishment its right to leadership and helped usher in the ideas and policies of the socialists, who by the way, sound more like FDR than Clinton.
It’s wake up time!
It seems to me that the DSA candidates are calling for what most people want. They want affordable health care, good public schools that offer education in exchange for tax dollars rather than enormous debt, green energy, and a better social safety net. I saw a meme on Facebook yesterday that compared the US to Norway. The DSA wants to be like Norway. Frankly most Americans do too.
THINK,
VOTE!!!!
Copied and pasted from MS NOW’s morning E-mail regarding Maine’s Democratic Senatorial nominee Platner: “For nine months, Graham Platner’s supporters have insisted that Democrats should ignore the mounting evidence of his personal foibles and political vulnerabilities – and support his bid for the Senate in Maine.
They argued that his Nazi “Totenkopf” tattoo was a youthful indiscretion. They said his sexting with as many as a dozen women soon after his wedding was between him and his wife.”
Are we pitting our pervert against their perverts in a, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” as his election campaign?
Latest report, reported from one of Mitch McConnell’s own staff, he is not brain dead or on life support; they have spoken to him by phone…they say. Will he participate in the upcoming Senate Session via Zoom and will we learn why his Chinese wife left his hospital bedside to sit in meetings in China as she has no official position in this government?
We have no information to refer to for guidance as we face what would be a poorly made futuristic movie or favorite old books such as “1984” and “The Handmaid’s Tail”; “Soylent Green” comes closer to reality than the days we fact as we keep thinking it can’t possibly gets worse as it gets worse in ways we never imagined. Invade Greenland…or maybe Iceland…as we still have the kidnapped President of Venezuela and his wife in captivity. Will we be given a tour of Trump’s flying $400 million palace and did he replace original bathroom fixtures with duplicates of the gold thrones in the White House and Mar-A-Lago in the total renovation of the plane? Has the destructed remains of the White House East Wing been removed from the Washington, D.C. public park where they were dumped prior to the destruction of the Reflecting Pool reportedly by a former Olympian and/or vandals? Is there an escape route in any part of the Democratic party’s current foundation and election campaign plans? If Platner’s name was thought to be in the Epstein Files it might be a way to get more of them released.
I could go on but…WHY?
The DSA is a welcome breath of fresher air, to me. And anger at what has become of the once “conservative” GOP, is strong. Trump is, as often been said, here and elsewhere, just a symptom of our country’s problems, but the guy in the stagecrafted suit and tie is no less a sick one, within no idea about how to be a human, no les a POTUS.
My thinking is close to Todd’s, apparently, except for his focus on Zionism.
It seems to me that the voters are not concerned enough about the aggressive moves by MAGA to steal the rights we hold now.
Voting rights should be at the top of every voter’s list of concerns. Many of them seem to forget that we got where we are because millions of voters either actively helped put his administration in office or passively do so by not voting at all.
Voting should be a concrete act not some insubstantial idea disconnected with the realities of surviving and thriving.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” in its essence says it is always about the individual’s immediate self-interest. Unfortunately, lots of us seem to forget or never knew how much in self-interest voting is. You get what you pay/vote for.
RESIST.
VOTE.
I wholeheartedly agree this is no time for a circular firing squad. Also, the gloves need to come off. We need candidates who can put up a fight against the anti
American cabal that’s rolling over the US. The chattering classes are yakking up a blue streak every time trump throws them red meat by doing or saying something outrageous.
Problem is the quality of human lives is at stake. Some human needs need to be addressed head on, like Maslov’s hierarchy of needs for all citizens without the almighty profit motive being the prime factor. How much better, more efficient would healthcare be without the middleman (private insurance) working to ring big profits out of the system. It doesn’t make sense for insurance clerks telling doctors what they cannot prescribe for the benefit of their patients. There are some areas of life where profit interferes and takes away from quality results.
American’s rights and freedoms are on the line, and our hard-earned resources are being pilfered by the trump cabal. We need candidates that aren’t afraid or if afraid are standing up and saying it anyway, putting a bright light on all the conspiracy and corruption that’s going on in the trump regime. Most Americans aren’t stupid and will face facts if they are made clear.