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On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform?
Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers...
On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers.
I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +
during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option.
You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it.
It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026.
This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.)
That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want.
It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it.
Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party.
...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire.
I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried.
I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge.
Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.)
Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess?
That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get.
So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back.
I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not).
What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo.
I agree with Marshall's list and I agree with you about ending ICE and the importance of mobilization. I also appreciate you taking the time to write in an articulate and tactful manner. One of your statements is "if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will", and I totally agree - it's why I said we should replace ineffective politicians (and that includes voting for better candidates over ineffective Democrats during the primaries). When I think about ineffective politicians "giving up their seats", I tend to think about the election cycle - voting in better politicians when the current ineffective ones have to run for re-election. Is this typically what you're referring to too, or are you also considering other ways to immediately force politicians to "give up their seats" during their term, such as impeachment or some sort of community effort to oust a politician before the next election? I don't know where I stand on those other methods just yet.
I’m not aware of many mechanisms to force people out early, for better or worse. Anyway I think it’s more about defining what we expect of our elected officials and yelling at them when they fail – I don’t know if Booker needs to be replaced or not, but I’d like him to know what he needs to do to have a chance.
Ultimately you don’t want a coalition composed only of temperature-taking careerists who are only doing what think will keep them in power. You need a good number of true believers who aren’t gonna cut and run as soon as things look a bit dire. But in the meantime if people are making those careerist calculations, we need the math to come out against “let the fascists take over.”
On November 18 2025 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote] Hell yeah, better late than never!
Can we turn that into a reasonable metric for primaries in 2026 and beyond?
That works for me, for both the primary elections and the general elections. Hopefully Trump doesn't decide to run for a third term, so I would implore Dems to focus less on him (the past/present) and focus more on the future. I also hope they make a concerted effort to outline a helpful, positive, pro-left agenda (similar to Mamdani and Sanders), as opposed to running a campaign that's just anti-right / anti-Republican (even as many Democrats still ultimately run against MAGA Republicans).
I'd go so far as to say that even when running against an incumbent (either for Congress or for the presidency), the messaging should still be at least mostly positive and mostly aimed towards things you want to implement and improve, as opposed to having mostly anti-opposition messaging.
I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that
Dems should instead be energizing and galvanizing the left instead of trying to convince the right that they're gullible cult followers
into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform?
Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers...
On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
On November 18 2025 02:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On November 18 2025 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote] Hell yeah, better late than never!
Can we turn that into a reasonable metric for primaries in 2026 and beyond?
That works for me, for both the primary elections and the general elections. Hopefully Trump doesn't decide to run for a third term, so I would implore Dems to focus less on him (the past/present) and focus more on the future. I also hope they make a concerted effort to outline a helpful, positive, pro-left agenda (similar to Mamdani and Sanders), as opposed to running a campaign that's just anti-right / anti-Republican (even as many Democrats still ultimately run against MAGA Republicans).
I'd go so far as to say that even when running against an incumbent (either for Congress or for the presidency), the messaging should still be at least mostly positive and mostly aimed towards things you want to implement and improve, as opposed to having mostly anti-opposition messaging.
I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that
Dems should instead be energizing and galvanizing the left instead of trying to convince the right that they're gullible cult followers
into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers.
I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +
during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option.
You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it.
It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026.
This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.)
That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want.
It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it.
Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party.
...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire.
I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried.
I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge.
Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.)
Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess?
That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get.
So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back.
I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not).
What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo.
Yup!
I struggle to comprehend how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion based on their behavior since Trump got reelected.
You've endured as much of my abrasiveness as anyone. You also have demonstrated basically the best understanding of my points (even ones you may disagree with) recently.
Clearly they aren't fans of my communication style, so I think this is the part where you experience the kind of interactions that tends to inspire it among socialists.
EDIT: I would add that removing Schumer from leadership immediately is pretty straightforward. Any Senator in the caucus can call for a vote and it's done. Anyone that doesn't want to do that can be marked to leave the Senate with him imo.
What this means is that any member of the Senate Democratic caucus can bring a challenge to Schumer’s continued leadership up for a vote. They would only need a majority of the caucus, or 24 of the 47 members, in order for the vote to succeed.
Unfortunately that might be a lot of them...
The Prospect asked every senator, except for those who negotiated and voted for the continuing resolution, if they would bring a motion to remove Schumer or support one brought by a colleague. None responded.
But it’s not your communication style people object to, at all.
It’s completely disregarding other positions, including positions and predictions that are proven correct, and then lecturing people after the fact.
Nobody’s following Moses if he popped into the Red Sea, discovered ‘oops I can’t part this thing’ and half his flock died.
You cannot admit you were wrong on anything, ever.
My position, stated many times before the last Presidential was, yes Dems suck but they’re against Trump. Who’s already shown a proclivity to Fascism. And given the mechanisms inherent to American politics, there’s not a huge amount you can do within that framework to impede such a thing. It is much easier to keep a Fascist out than it is to dislodge them.
You’re like nah, I’ll spend the whole cycle whinging about Dems, then when exactly the scenario previously outlined happens, it switches to ‘why isn’t everyone else doing more?’ ‘Why aren’t you Europeans opening your homes to US asylum seekers?’
While, saying things like you couldn’t be arsed attending the No More Kings protests I might add.
Or refusing to concede that while the Dems may also not be ideal, that there were meaningful differences in policy towards Israel/Palestine.
Which you were, at least in terms of rhetoric almost a single issue voter on in the campaign and found both parties wanting. Which is fair enough
But you can’t even concede that ‘I’m going to turn Gaza into luxury apartments’ Trump might be worse for Gazans than the alternative.
Do you genuinely not get this?
It’s like a StarCraft theorycrafter who’s never really played the game at a high level discussing the game with those who have. This can be productive, maybe the theorycrafter has some great ideas others haven’t thought of, and could be adopted. In your case you’re the theorycrafter who will outright ignore the veteran GM player telling you ‘yeah cool idea, I actually tried to make that work and it wasn’t viable’
On November 18 2025 05:01 WombaT wrote: [quote] Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform?
Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers...
On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote] + Show Spoiler +
Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers.
I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +
during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option.
You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it.
It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026.
This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.)
That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want.
It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it.
Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party.
...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire.
I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried.
I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge.
Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.)
Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess?
That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get.
So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back.
I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not).
What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo.
I agree with Marshall's list and I agree with you about ending ICE and the importance of mobilization. I also appreciate you taking the time to write in an articulate and tactful manner. One of your statements is "if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will", and I totally agree - it's why I said we should replace ineffective politicians (and that includes voting for better candidates over ineffective Democrats during the primaries). When I think about ineffective politicians "giving up their seats", I tend to think about the election cycle - voting in better politicians when the current ineffective ones have to run for re-election. Is this typically what you're referring to too, or are you also considering other ways to immediately force politicians to "give up their seats" during their term, such as impeachment or some sort of community effort to oust a politician before the next election? I don't know where I stand on those other methods just yet.
I’m not aware of many mechanisms to force people out early, for better or worse. Anyway I think it’s more about defining what we expect of our elected officials and yelling at them when they fail – I don’t know if Booker needs to be replaced or not, but I’d like him to know what he needs to do to have a chance.
Ultimately you don’t want a coalition composed only of temperature-taking careerists who are only doing what think will keep them in power. You need a good number of true believers who aren’t gonna cut and run as soon as things look a bit dire. But in the meantime if people are making those careerist calculations, we need the math to come out against “let the fascists take over.”
Totally agree.
Careerists are also careerists, you don’t necessarily have to replace them.
They’ll bend with the prevailing wind, it’s what they do.
The Trump/MAGA revolution didn’t get rid of all the usual suspects by any means. They just had to play ball with the new rules of the game.
But it’s not your communication style people object to, at all.
It’s completely disregarding other positions, including positions and predictions that are proven correct, and then lecturing people after the fact.
Nobody’s following Moses if he popped into the Red Sea, discovered ‘oops I can’t part this thing’ and half his flock died.
You cannot admit you were wrong on anything, ever.
My position, stated many times before the last Presidential was, yes Dems suck but they’re against Trump. Who’s already shown a proclivity to Fascism. And given the mechanisms inherent to American politics, there’s not a huge amount you can do within that framework to impede such a thing. It is much easier to keep a Fascist out than it is to dislodge them.
You’re like nah, I’ll spend the whole cycle whinging about Dems, then when exactly the scenario previously outlined happens, it switches to ‘why isn’t everyone else doing more?’ ‘Why aren’t you Europeans opening your homes to US asylum seekers?’
While, saying things like you couldn’t be arsed attending the No More Kings protests I might add.
Or refusing to concede that while the Dems may also not be ideal, that there were meaningful differences in policy towards Israel/Palestine.
Which you were, at least in terms of rhetoric almost a single issue voter on in the campaign and found both parties wanting. Which is fair enough
But you can’t even concede that ‘I’m going to turn Gaza into luxury apartments’ Trump might be worse for Gazans than the alternative.
Do you genuinely not get this?
It’s like a StarCraft theorycrafter who’s never really played the game at a high level discussing the game with those who have. This can be productive, maybe the theorycrafter has some great ideas others haven’t thought of, and could be adopted. In your case you’re the theorycrafter who will outright ignore the veteran GM player telling you ‘yeah cool idea, I actually tried to make that work and it wasn’t viable’
You might have missed it, but LightSpectra made it pretty clear they didn't want me there anyway.
As to this other bit, besides Serm, I haven't gotten the impression anyone has spent remotely as much time/effort actually engaging with the Democrat party. Going to the meetings, voting at them, being a delegate, etc. I don't think any of them worked harder to get Bernie nominated in 2016 (not nominating Bernie probably being Democrats actual death knell), and so on.
I don't know about this analogy, but there aren't any "veteran GMs" in this thread and they haven't really tried much of anything.
But it’s not your communication style people object to, at all.
It’s completely disregarding other positions, including positions and predictions that are proven correct, and then lecturing people after the fact.
Nobody’s following Moses if he popped into the Red Sea, discovered ‘oops I can’t part this thing’ and half his flock died.
You cannot admit you were wrong on anything, ever.
My position, stated many times before the last Presidential was, yes Dems suck but they’re against Trump. Who’s already shown a proclivity to Fascism. And given the mechanisms inherent to American politics, there’s not a huge amount you can do within that framework to impede such a thing. It is much easier to keep a Fascist out than it is to dislodge them.
You’re like nah, I’ll spend the whole cycle whinging about Dems, then when exactly the scenario previously outlined happens, it switches to ‘why isn’t everyone else doing more?’ ‘Why aren’t you Europeans opening your homes to US asylum seekers?’
While, saying things like you couldn’t be arsed attending the No More Kings protests I might add.
Or refusing to concede that while the Dems may also not be ideal, that there were meaningful differences in policy towards Israel/Palestine.
Which you were, at least in terms of rhetoric almost a single issue voter on in the campaign and found both parties wanting. Which is fair enough
But you can’t even concede that ‘I’m going to turn Gaza into luxury apartments’ Trump might be worse for Gazans than the alternative.
Do you genuinely not get this?
It’s like a StarCraft theorycrafter who’s never really played the game at a high level discussing the game with those who have. This can be productive, maybe the theorycrafter has some great ideas others haven’t thought of, and could be adopted. In your case you’re the theorycrafter who will outright ignore the veteran GM player telling you ‘yeah cool idea, I actually tried to make that work and it wasn’t viable’
You might have missed it, but LightSpectra made it pretty clear they didn't want me there anyway.
As to this other bit, besides Serm, I haven't gotten the impression anyone has spent remotely as much time/effort actually engaging with the Democrat party. Going to the meetings, voting at them, being a delegate, etc. I don't think any of them worked harder to get Bernie nominated in 2016 (not nominating Bernie probably being Democrats actual death knell), and so on.
I don't know about this analogy, but there aren't any "veteran GMs" in this thread and they haven't really tried much of anything.
I mean I personally helped negotiate the Northern Irish peace process, I don’t mention it much as I’m just that damn humble.
I don’t think anyone is criticising you for doing those things last I checked.
Like if my partner is complaining I don’t listen to her or value her opinion and my response is ‘yeah I hear you, I do a pretty diligent job on the housework’, not really answering it is it?
On November 18 2025 02:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote] That works for me, for both the primary elections and the general elections. Hopefully Trump doesn't decide to run for a third term, so I would implore Dems to focus less on him (the past/present) and focus more on the future. I also hope they make a concerted effort to outline a helpful, positive, pro-left agenda (similar to Mamdani and Sanders), as opposed to running a campaign that's just anti-right / anti-Republican (even as many Democrats still ultimately run against MAGA Republicans).
I'd go so far as to say that even when running against an incumbent (either for Congress or for the presidency), the messaging should still be at least mostly positive and mostly aimed towards things you want to implement and improve, as opposed to having mostly anti-opposition messaging.
I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that
Dems should instead be energizing and galvanizing the left instead of trying to convince the right that they're gullible cult followers
into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform?
Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers...
On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
On November 18 2025 02:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: [quote] That works for me, for both the primary elections and the general elections. Hopefully Trump doesn't decide to run for a third term, so I would implore Dems to focus less on him (the past/present) and focus more on the future. I also hope they make a concerted effort to outline a helpful, positive, pro-left agenda (similar to Mamdani and Sanders), as opposed to running a campaign that's just anti-right / anti-Republican (even as many Democrats still ultimately run against MAGA Republicans).
I'd go so far as to say that even when running against an incumbent (either for Congress or for the presidency), the messaging should still be at least mostly positive and mostly aimed towards things you want to implement and improve, as opposed to having mostly anti-opposition messaging.
I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that
Dems should instead be energizing and galvanizing the left instead of trying to convince the right that they're gullible cult followers
into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers.
I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +
during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option.
You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it.
It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026.
This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.)
That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want.
It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it.
Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party.
...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire.
I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried.
I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge.
Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.)
Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess?
That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get.
So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back.
I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not).
What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo.
Yup!
I struggle to comprehend how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion based on their behavior since Trump got reelected.
You've endured as much of my abrasiveness as anyone. You also have demonstrated basically the best understanding of my points (even ones you may disagree with) recently.
Clearly they aren't fans of my communication style, so I think this is the part where you experience the kind of interactions that tends to inspire it among socialists.
EDIT: I would add that removing Schumer from leadership immediately is pretty straightforward. Any Senator in the caucus can call for a vote and it's done. Anyone that doesn't want to do that can be marked to leave the Senate with him imo.
What this means is that any member of the Senate Democratic caucus can bring a challenge to Schumer’s continued leadership up for a vote. They would only need a majority of the caucus, or 24 of the 47 members, in order for the vote to succeed.
The Prospect asked every senator, except for those who negotiated and voted for the continuing resolution, if they would bring a motion to remove Schumer or support one brought by a colleague. None responded.
Something I’ve always liked about both you and Kwark (and I know I might be alone on this) is that you’re not really concerned with couching your opinions for the sake of persuasion. It means you both come across pretty aggro sometimes, but I’ll take it over a slick used-car-salesman “what can I do to put you in a socialist revolution today?” vibe.
It’s easy to lose sight of how much calibrating and temperature-taking go into how we talk and think about politics. I first thought about this for you a long time back when there was a discussion of legalizing marijuana, and people were saying well, of course, if somebody gets behind the wheel we’ll still lock them up, and you said why? Does it actually impair driving very much?
That hadn’t even really occurred to me to question. Advocates of legalizing marijuana always enthusiastically emphasized that driving under the influence would still be illegal, which was probably smart politics because their opponents were looking for any reason legalization would be a threat to society, and neutralizing the road safety angle cut off that line of attack. But somehow that same calculation trickles down to us, a bunch of randos talking politics on a Starcraft forum, as though we need to modulate our opinions and stay on message like we’re holding a press conference or something. We don’t even realize we’re doing it.
With that said, you do remind me sometimes of Ignaz Semmelweis (the so-called “father of handwashing”). He’s a rather famous case of someone trying to advocate for a moral cause by making extreme moral condemnations of nearly everyone (in his case, “you’re all mass murderers because you don’t wash your hands before delivering babies!”), and engendering extremely defensive resistance as a result. It’s not necessarily that you’re wrong, but there’s gotta be some way to talk about this that doesn’t make people feel like whatever you say the subtext is “everybody but me is completely evil and depraved” and if they give you even an inch they’re conceding that’s true.
Re Schumer: I mean, I think it would kick ass if they booted Schumer ASAP. My read, though, is that for that to be politically feasible they would need to form an intraparty coalition that agrees not only on firing him, but who to replace him with. In the meantime everybody’s likely to keep their powder dry because they don’t want to declare allegiance before they know what the factions are. That’s certainly annoying, but I don’t think I’m ready to declare every one of them unrecoverable because they’re not going on a solo crusade against Schumer. I think his support is pretty weak and a lot of his caucus is in a “not if but when” mode on replacing him.
A party that is run by dinosaurs and loses to a treasonous rapist freedom hating borderline facist draft dodging grifting fraud of an idiot - twice -.. has to hold it's long term leadership and establishment accountable for it's mistakes.
To me Democrats like Schumer, Pelosi, Cuomo.. Fetterman... want people to lose healthcare - fuck them. They don't mind billionaire tax cuts, heck with less focus on the senate trading, they could have become billionaires themselves and taken more risky trades based on privileged information.
In Them vs. Maga.. you make sure they win, because they don't have the ability to stop people overtaking the democrat party from within.
I like Pritzker, Mamdani and the California guy. I want back america that loves capitalism - not a neo feudalism of inheritence and choking out those who were not born into wealth.
On November 19 2025 22:48 KT_Elwood wrote: A party that is run by dinosaurs and loses to a treasonous rapist freedom hating borderline facist draft dodging grifting fraud of an idiot - twice -.. has to hold it's long term leadership and establishment accountable for it's mistakes.
To me Democrats like Schumer, Pelosi, Cuomo.. Fetterman... want people to lose healthcare - fuck them. They don't mind billionaire tax cuts, heck with less focus on the senate trading, they could have become billionaires themselves and taken more risky trades based on privileged information.
In Them vs. Maga.. you make sure they win, because they don't have the ability to stop people overtaking the democrat party from within.
I like Pritzker, Mamdani and the California guy. I want back america that loves capitalism - not a neo feudalism of inheritence and choking out those who were not born into wealth.
I agree with much of what you wrote here, but Mamdani does not love capitalism.
I think the stoned driving example is fascinating, I totally get how GH's approach aligns with it, however, I think that it also shines the light on why having these kind of opinions and not at least couching them makes having people take what you say seriously way harder.
And I also personally agree, just like there is a alcohol level that comes with a DUI the current enforcement of "any weed" = DUI is bad, but if abiding by that that means that we don't get to be arrested over it I'm all for it. I guess it's another embodiment of "the lesser evil" approach that actually, in my opinion, works, some of the time.
An example would be how people in this thread didn't really feel the need to couch their opinions on CK after he was shoot, or say that they were OK with that United CEO getting killed and you will have Introvert and Ryzada come to this thread time after time to tell us all how we are the reasons why they are even more deeply entrenched in their positions that "left has lost it's mind".
Now, they might just be full of shit and are saying this just to make their support for fascism more digestible to themselves, but every time this shit will derail whatever was discussed before hand, and since that shit happens in the microcosm of this forum all the time I am more in the "moderate what you are saying" camp even for things like arguing over politics in online forums.
I wasn’t reading the thread when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I don’t think, but I’m a little conflicted on what you’re saying. I do think a certain degree of tact and “reading the room” is warranted, especially after a tragic event that’s going to have everyone’s emotions high. I think I made exactly that appeal to Kwark in the Israel-Palestine thread after Oct 7.
But also, the reason I’m not posting “ding dong the witch is dead” about Charlie Kirk is that I genuinely thought (and think) that was a bad thing to happen. Political assassination is not going to bring American politics to a healthier place, and as much damage as he did in life, I think Charlie Kirk does consistently more in death as a martyr.
Probably some people in the thread disagree with me on that, but in general people think “political violence is bad” is just one of those things you’re supposed to say, even if secretly you’re pretty sure it’s cool and good actually. I’d like to see people who say it’s bad actually enumerate why, in their own words, and I’d like to see people who think it’s good have to grapple with the larger consequences of it rather than just feeling edgy for thinking the thing they’re not supposed to.
That said, don’t take this post as an invitation to discuss the merits of assassination as a political strategy. I think there’s probably no faster way to get this thread shut down. So I suppose that’s me ultimately landing on “yeah, people should probably couch their opinions, at least in this case.” But I think it’s worth thinking about the cost of that policy.
It wasn't even that people were celebrating or that anyone was even expressing any sort of opinion that is compatible with glorifying political assassinations, it was more "well, he contributed to this atmosphere, he said this in defense of gun rights, he was hateful" etc. with a few posters going more into the "good riddance" direction.
This was enough for them to declare that it was celebrated.
Him being alive, given his movements vis a vi separating himself from the orthodoxy of supporting Israel might have contributed more to the split within the American Right wing, it would be fascinating to see where he'd fall on to in the Ben Shapiro / Nick Fuentes spectrum.
Also, with his "I believe my friends in the administration" thing about the Epstein files he lost a lot of his audience and credibly, how long would he stick with that, all fascinating stuff.
That moron Mormon kid really fucked up his life and the life of his children, his widow, not so sure, she really seems weirdly composed and jumped on every opportunity to monetize his death.
Rush Limbaugh literally rang a bell to celebrate gay people dying of AIDS. He got a Presidential Medal of Freedom from child molester Donald Trump. Anyone who cries about the left "celebrating violence" is either clinically stupid or acting in supervillain-tier bad faith.
On November 19 2025 23:50 Jankisa wrote: It wasn't even that people were celebrating or that anyone was even expressing any sort of opinion that is compatible with glorifying political assassinations, it was more "well, he contributed to this atmosphere, he said this in defense of gun rights, he was hateful" etc. with a few posters going more into the "good riddance" direction.
This was enough for them to declare that it was celebrated.
Him being alive, given his movements vis a vi separating himself from the orthodoxy of supporting Israel might have contributed more to the split within the American Right wing, it would be fascinating to see where he'd fall on to in the Ben Shapiro / Nick Fuentes spectrum.
Also, with his "I believe my friends in the administration" thing about the Epstein files he lost a lot of his audience and credibly, how long would he stick with that, all fascinating stuff.
That moron Mormon kid really fucked up his life and the life of his children, his widow, not so sure, she really seems weirdly composed and jumped on every opportunity to monetize his death.
Some people seem unable to process that ‘political assassinations are bad’ and ‘that person who was assassinated sucked and was a net negative to society’ can co-exist perfectly peacefully, with zero cognitive dissonance whatsoever.
And I mean where does one draw the line?
You had street parties when Seal Team 6 bust in, introduced Bin Laden to American lead, and then dumped his body in the ocean.
Which I think is fair enough to celebrate, don’t get me wrong. But clearly there is a precedent that it’s A-OK in some circumstances. It’s not an immutable rule.
Video does better work of showing whats happened. Like wtf? It is somewhat remarkable that Plaskett is taking directions from Epstein during Cohen hearing, in 2019 no less when it was rather known who Epstein is.
On November 19 2025 23:04 Jankisa wrote:
An example would be how people in this thread didn't really feel the need to couch their opinions on CK after he was shoot, or say that they were OK with that United CEO getting killed and you will have Introvert and Ryzada come to this thread time after time to tell us all how we are the reasons why they are even more deeply entrenched in their positions that "left has lost it's mind".
That position doesn't need entrenching, Luigi and Kirk cases just showed that left is vile.
On November 20 2025 00:38 LightSpectra wrote: Rush Limbaugh literally rang a bell to celebrate gay people dying of AIDS. He got a Presidential Medal of Freedom from child molester Donald Trump. Anyone who cries about the left "celebrating violence" is either clinically stupid or acting in supervillain-tier bad faith.
Yeah mate, Democrats supported slavery, everyone who cries about Republicans being racist is, how did that go? "either clinically stupid or acting in supervillain-tier bad faith."
On November 19 2025 23:50 Jankisa wrote: It wasn't even that people were celebrating or that anyone was even expressing any sort of opinion that is compatible with glorifying political assassinations, it was more "well, he contributed to this atmosphere, he said this in defense of gun rights, he was hateful" etc. with a few posters going more into the "good riddance" direction.
This was enough for them to declare that it was celebrated.
I am sorry, but it was celebrated, thats a fact. Not by everyone on the left, but by a lot of people. Credit where the credit is due, there were people on the left who condemned it.
Probably some people in the thread disagree with me on that, but in general people think “political violence is bad” is just one of those things you’re supposed to say, even if secretly you’re pretty sure it’s cool and good actually. I’d like to see people who say it’s bad actually enumerate why, in their own words, and I’d like to see people who think it’s good have to grapple with the larger consequences of it rather than just feeling edgy for thinking the thing they’re not supposed to.
Sorry for double post, thought this is worth answering separately. Political violence is bad, because it divides people and can easily lead to escalation. If not stopped early there are usually only 2 outcomes possible, some sort of armed conflict, or government infringement on civil liberties, under the guise of stopping terrorists/rioters/rebels (eg: patriot act)
On November 20 2025 01:21 Razyda wrote: Yeah mate, Democrats supported slavery, everyone who cries about Republicans being racist is, how did that go? "either clinically stupid or acting in supervillain-tier bad faith."
People on this forum aren't dumb enough to fall for this, because they understand that political parties' names and affiliations have changed over the centuries and that Republicans are the ones who are currently pro-Confederacy and pro- Southern pride and disproportionately supporting racist beliefs/presidents. Maybe you'll have better luck on Reddit.
On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform?
Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers...
On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote: [quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric?
Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers.
I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +
during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option.
You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it.
It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026.
This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.)
That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want.
It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it.
Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party.
...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire.
I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried.
I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge.
Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.)
Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess?
That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get.
So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back.
I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not).
What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo.
Yup!
I struggle to comprehend how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion based on their behavior since Trump got reelected.
You've endured as much of my abrasiveness as anyone. You also have demonstrated basically the best understanding of my points (even ones you may disagree with) recently.
Clearly they aren't fans of my communication style, so I think this is the part where you experience the kind of interactions that tends to inspire it among socialists.
EDIT: I would add that removing Schumer from leadership immediately is pretty straightforward. Any Senator in the caucus can call for a vote and it's done. Anyone that doesn't want to do that can be marked to leave the Senate with him imo.
What this means is that any member of the Senate Democratic caucus can bring a challenge to Schumer’s continued leadership up for a vote. They would only need a majority of the caucus, or 24 of the 47 members, in order for the vote to succeed.
Unfortunately that might be a lot of them...
The Prospect asked every senator, except for those who negotiated and voted for the continuing resolution, if they would bring a motion to remove Schumer or support one brought by a colleague. None responded.
Something I’ve always liked about both you and Kwark (and I know I might be alone on this) is that you’re not really concerned with couching your opinions for the sake of persuasion. It means you both come across pretty aggro sometimes, but I’ll take it over a slick used-car-salesman “what can I do to put you in a socialist revolution today?” vibe.
It’s easy to lose sight of how much calibrating and temperature-taking go into how we talk and think about politics. I first thought about this for you a long time back when there was a discussion of legalizing marijuana, and people were saying well, of course, if somebody gets behind the wheel we’ll still lock them up, and you said why? Does it actually impair driving very much?
That hadn’t even really occurred to me to question. Advocates of legalizing marijuana always enthusiastically emphasized that driving under the influence would still be illegal, which was probably smart politics because their opponents were looking for any reason legalization would be a threat to society, and neutralizing the road safety angle cut off that line of attack. But somehow that same calculation trickles down to us, a bunch of randos talking politics on a Starcraft forum, as though we need to modulate our opinions and stay on message like we’re holding a press conference or something. We don’t even realize we’re doing it.
With that said, you do remind me sometimes of Ignaz Semmelweis (the so-called “father of handwashing”). He’s a rather famous case of someone trying to advocate for a moral cause by making extreme moral condemnations of nearly everyone (in his case, “you’re all mass murderers because you don’t wash your hands before delivering babies!”), and engendering extremely defensive resistance as a result. It’s not necessarily that you’re wrong, but there’s gotta be some way to talk about this that doesn’t make people feel like whatever you say the subtext is “everybody but me is completely evil and depraved” and if they give you even an inch they’re conceding that’s true.
Re Schumer: I mean, I think it would kick ass if they booted Schumer ASAP. My read, though, is that for that to be politically feasible they would need to form an intraparty coalition that agrees not only on firing him, but who to replace him with. In the meantime everybody’s likely to keep their powder dry because they don’t want to declare allegiance before they know what the factions are. That’s certainly annoying, but I don’t think I’m ready to declare every one of them unrecoverable because they’re not going on a solo crusade against Schumer. I think his support is pretty weak and a lot of his caucus is in a “not if but when” mode on replacing him.
Concede mistakes and learn from em tends to help. Things can exist in parallel. Ya can’t necessarily tick them all off at once.
A few tweaks and it’s all G.
At the core is the idea that regardless of electoral success, that more fundamental things have to change to fully actualise better conditions for the average American, especially the poor. And that the current Dem party sure as shit ain’t doing that as well as they could be.
I mean, I fully agree with that. I think many here do as well, far as I can tell
But to reappropriate Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs to the political realm, you’ve got Fascists banging at the door. You might wanna hold off trying to hit self-actualisation until you’ve located your shotgun and scared them off is all.
I agree with much of what you wrote here, but Mamdani does not love capitalism.
I am sure he does, but in a twisted way, any form of capitalism that is moderate and regulated is viewed by todays americans, 50 years high on the reagonomics, the same as socialism.
It was the GOP that trustbusted the robberbarons and who set income tax to 60,70,90% for income 50x higher than the average to pay for war-time production and even the years after.
It was also the GOP that founded MASSIVE housing programms for Veterans, who could buy a house for basicly $10.
Today people automaticly side with the extortion businesses.
- Yes to Me needing a Microsoft account to install windows - Yes to crack-meth social media that blasts away sanity with engagement bait, please do not regulate! - Yes to Zcukerborg taking ALL MY DATA! - Yes to Software as a Service - Yes to microtransactions - Yes to supersizing - Yes to double the price, half the dorritos - Yes to farmequipment only to be repaired by the JohnDeere subscription service technician, and immobilized shall you attempt to repair yourself - Yes to I need an account - Yes to I need an App - Yes to cookies - Yes to tracking - Yes to 5 Streaming Services that each have exclusive content for video.. but somehow Spotify and Apple Music have the same and are 3 times cheaper.
Regulators and Consumers have become complacent and lazy and ineffective, and with Trump Regulation in the US just a tool, and shall the EU impede the US-Monopolies, His orangeness will hit us with tariffs.
FTC now ruled that Meta owning FacebookAds+Facebook+Instagramm+Whatsapp isn't too much consolidation
FTC also ruled that One Bazillionaire owning 70% of US Broadcast stations for cable is only a monopoly, if Jimmy Kimmel is allowed to play videos of TRump not giving a shit about Kirky Charles. If he gets offed-aired .. than it's okay.
Play some bible tv about underage marriage not being a sin because Baby Jesus didn'T say anything... not Don.T. Care
</rant>
I guess Mamdani is for people owning businesses and reaping their profits - but he is not for people inheriting 12 blocks of manhattan and scalping the living shit out of everyone.
Probably some people in the thread disagree with me on that, but in general people think “political violence is bad” is just one of those things you’re supposed to say, even if secretly you’re pretty sure it’s cool and good actually. I’d like to see people who say it’s bad actually enumerate why, in their own words, and I’d like to see people who think it’s good have to grapple with the larger consequences of it rather than just feeling edgy for thinking the thing they’re not supposed to.
Sorry for double post, thought this is worth answering separately. Political violence is bad, because it divides people and can easily lead to escalation. If not stopped early there are usually only 2 outcomes possible, some sort of armed conflict, or government infringement on civil liberties, under the guise of stopping terrorists/rioters/rebels (eg: patriot act)
Where was this concern when Trump called for the assassination of his political opponent in case he lost the 2016 election?
EPT
