House Democratic lawmakers reportedly used a closed-door meeting earlier this week to vent their frustrations with progressive advocacy groups that have been driving constituent calls and pressuring the party to act like a genuine opposition force in the face of the Trump administration’s authoritarian assault on federal agencies and key programs.
“Forcing recorded votes is possible. Frequent quorum calls are possible. A wide variety of dilatory motions are possible. In short, harassing the majority is possible. If they think it’s a bad idea, say so. If they say it’s not possible, they’re lying.”
I like how politicians voting is considered a time out. It’s their job, jfc.
“But if our votes are recorded, our
voterscorporate donors will know we voted against them!”Right? This is about providing political cover to centrists who take money from the same oligarchs as conservatives. They just want to pretend they are on our side.
Hay man, they’re on our side! When it hardly matters.
They actually can’t force votes though, so we’d be getting the same votes and we already knew whenever Republicans stepped out from the ranks such as the Hegseth confirmation where 3 of them abstained but he got appointed anyways. Recorded Votes doesn’t stop the Trump admin. The Dems are effectively powerless without 13 Ind + Gop to impeach and remove him or his cabinet members or corrupt federal judges.
Leeja is cool but her opinion was that they’re running their tiktok accounts wrong and they were born in the wrong year.
What specifically would YOU do to stop what the Trump admin is doing?
Lmao, I can’t believe that’s what you got from the video. That was not remotely her point. Her entire point is that the Democrats should be using everything within their polical power to obstruct and delay everything the Trump Admin is trying to do. She gave multiple examples of exactly how they can do that. That’s the bare minimum the Democratic Party should be doing. I already participate in local community organizations.
What is it YOU think is in their political power? Specifically.
People didn’t vote dems into power and that is why we are in the situation we have now.
Here’s an entire comprehensive list. Which was, again, discussed in Leeja Miller’s video…
The Democrats are responsible for losing this election to an unpopular fascist by failing to represent the demands that the majority of their constituents were demanding. Start demanding more from your representatives.
You have incredible patience.
So you want them to do the things they’re already doing to delay votes that will happen in short matter regardless of what they do?
Reminder that only simple majority of 51 breaks filibuster for cabinet and judge confirmation hearings since 2013 and 2017 respectively. The DNC stalled for 30 hours because they were allowed to by the GOP, and the hearing still went through as planned. Nothing can stop this.
It sure is neat how powerless the minority has suddenly become.
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Democrats have had less than 50 for over a decade, nothing sudden about it.
Remember all the times people said “Push for bills so when Republicans vote no it’s on the record for election season?”.
As if Republicans can see anything but the Republican next to the first person’s name in a ballot.
Simultaneously,
They just want money and plausible deniability. Any one of these Dems can just be bought like a repub
Wow I can’t believe those fake congresspersons on that parody news site would say that. Thank you for bringing this into real political discussions. /s
Vote a little harder next time it’ll save us
It would have saved us, yeah.
I feel bad for if you truly believe that. At best we’d get democrats kicking the can for 4 years, making 0 progress, then trump or another ghoul gets elected in 2028 and all this still happens
My idea of voting harder is more than 50 Dems, which hasn’t happened in many years, then they could consider taking the Filibuster off for a while.
Ideally 60 Dems, enough to pass all of their platform without being filibustered and without giving Republicans a chance to fight back.
We haven’t even tried that but everybody in here is so ready to blame Dems for not being in charge.
Progressives need to start their own party. The establishment DNC is so entrenched with big donors and lobbyists that it is unable to serve the people. Their balancing act of appeasing both the right and the left is just serving to alienate everyone because the final policies get so diluted. They have become too stuck in the quagmire of their own doing. I don’t see the DNC being able to change any time soon and through their inaction, will only enable more devastation of the country.
The new Progressive party should align with the DNC as the opposition during this administration but simultaneously run more like minded candidates in the next elections with their own separate fundraising campaigns. That’s the only hope I have for meaningful change to happen.
There’s a free app called 5 calls. It helps you to call your representative with a script. Progressives need to get on this. I’m aware it’s a pain, but the script makes it a lot easier especially when you get an answering machine instead of a person.
It’s rather naive to think that phone calls will change anyone’s mind in office. Money speaks, not phone calls.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
Following centuries of political theory have led us to this point.
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
Not really. The only thing they pay attention to is the amount on the check.
If calling really changed things, I’d be getting emails from TheDemocrats asking people to jump on a phone bank. All they are asking from me is “More Money to fight Donald Trump!”
Do you not get those texts? I would understand if you blocked them but they are definitely being sent.
Not anymore… I blocked them after the 15th begging for “$50 dollars is all we need to defeat Trump!” on November 10th…
The problem is you get the NDP/Liberal vs. Conservative effect when you do this. If you have 30% of the population vote for your Leftie, and 30% vote for the other Leftie, in a given congressional district, the Republican can win with 31%, despite 60% voting against the Republican. We need RCV before we can do this, and people need to understand that they MUST put the other party as choice 2 or we are back to ending up with a Republican.
This is why a new party needs to be built from the ground up, starting with local races that are uncontested or use ranked choice voting already.
That is indeed a problem that needs to be resolved, and likely through ranked choice voting. But as a country, we tend to focus too much on the presidential election. Change will have to start in the congressional elections - both at federal and state levels. The issue of votes splitting will be a lesser issue in these elections except in a few large districts. That will also be where smaller fundraising campaigns would go further.
Change starts at the dog catcher. That’s how the maga morons did it. They ran for every single down ballot race, all the way to the bottom.
That’s how the maga morons did it.
Hell, in my city, the local Dem committee helped the MAGA morons, by running against their own primary winner (A socialist). They were even dual dropping lit for the Chosen One they had in mind, plus the sheriff who is a MAGA nutter.
If Democrats are so scared of splitting the vote, they don’t need to run a candidate. It’s not like they’re particularly interested in winning anyway.
The thing you’re missing is that you’ll tap into a whole new category of voters that have never had anyone to vote for before.
Ding. Both major parties have abandoned the working class, and a whole lot of people have given up on the system as a whole. Give a real choice that has a chance and people will turn up. But that means the politics-as-sports folks need to hang up their team colors, and that’s only going to happen by spreading class consciousness. No war but class war.
I fail to see your point. That sounds like you have a 61 majority for the Republicans. The “Liberals” are aiding the Republicans getting power, as the article points out.
Also the Democrats are a pink washed far right party, by standards outsidr the US.
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They just need to put the Trump party last (or whatever the shittiest party is at the time)… They can put anyone they want 2nd
100% agreed, it’s time for a new party. Republican-lite is killing our nation.
Tell this to Bernie and other progressives. Seriously, if we call and email them, they might decide they even enough support to do such a thing.
The Democratic party is dead.
The Democratic party has just officially morphed into the Republican party of 30 years ago. They trotted out the Cheney’s ffs.
Not like it matters. We’re not voting our way out of this situation, the fascists won’t let anyone take power back now that they have it. It’s revolution or a technofeudal hellscape.
The DNC leadership are elected by people who are elected by us. Almost no one votes in those elections… Probably no one even knows they exist. But a well timed strategy of getting like 50 progressives to show up to each election and vote for progressive leadership is all it would take to replace every liberal in the party leadership with progressives… No reason to leave 2 conservative parties intact
So like, how do we do that? How do I help organize that?
Can you clarify, who are you talking about?
You should check out the Axios article they cite before you write them all off. The supposed “gripefest” is just Dems talking about how they’re recieving hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day.
Aren’t there already other progressive parties? Look how they’re doing.
Anecdotal, but our chapter of the DSA (not radical enough for me, but it’s what I’ve got around me) is growing rapidly. New member orientation has been standing-room-only since the election.
The US needs a left-wing Party.
This has been half a century of Fascists vs neoliberals, center-right “free to be LGBTQ as you die of poverty in the gutter” vs so far right we’re building Concentration camps.
Unfortunately our people have been poorly educated by design as well as brainwashed into believing profit comes before humanity. " Herp derp Anything less is socialism and therefore evil!"
This is only “freedom” for the rich to trample the poor. Freedom without social responsibility is a rampage. We need revolution, revolution that does far more to Wall Street than merely occupy it , or we need to accept living in hell until the capitalists destroy the climate enough to destroy civilization all together.
Don’t worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we’re failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
This isnt the usual ebbs and flows of history, There is a very literal deadline of humanity’s own greedy making.
Don’t worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we’re failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
That’s the plan. That’s why billionaires are buying up properties in places that are currently too cold and remote for masses of people to want to live there (Montana, Greenland, etc).
They know climate change is real and it is 100% reflected in Homeowners insurance rates in FL and other high risk places. I’m fairly certain that it’s not the leftist types that get into starting insurance companies.
Also, the whole Covid thing… I am pretty sure there was a concerted effort that would cull our numbers a bit.
So yea, we’re all going to die probably — unless you’re rich enough to afford to move to somewhere that will have a more hospitable climate when we cross the 3 degrees Celsius threshold next year.
Let’s start a new party called the Modern Future party.
Support psl
Democrats are officially a dead party.
“Disgraceful and humiliating surrender from these Democrats as they continue to hit your inboxes and messages begging (spamming) for money.”
That’s all the careers care about.
So the Republicans can act like an opposition party but they can’t? Have they had their heads buried since the beginning of Obama’s term? Or is this their snide way of confirming complicity?
The rich want to end democracy. They dont want to stop Muskler.
And almost everyone in Congress and the Senate is rich.
I’m definitely using Muskler from now on. That’s good
I said this in /r/law and was told that my level of cynicism is unrealistic and I’m arguing in bad faith
Welcome to Lemmy where, in theory, you have much more control over who censors your opinions!
The democrats were this ineffective during the GWB era as well. Then after America gets sick of Republicans because their policy is terrible and predictably causes calamities of varying magnitudes, only the people who didn’t go along for the ride with the Republicans thrive politically afterwards.
For instance, one of Obama’s main draws in the 2008 primaries was the dude wasn’t drawn into being pro-Iraq invasion.
The feeble wimps will all be seen as such if this era ever ends, and the public will turn to whomever consistently opposed the petard throwing before it hoists the one who threw it.
This should be the eye opener to the left that the DNC is right wing. They let the republicans do whatever they want because they want the same thing. They only pretend not to so they can scam for donations.
Yeah I have completely lost faith in the Democratic Party. Seems like they don’t mind Trump because he benefits their wallet.
Democrats biggest donors are wealthy Republicans.
Hakeem Jeffries is one of the biggest sellouts. Him climbing the DNC ladder is a sign that Democrats will do yet another 2016 in 2028.
AIPAC as well if trump supporting Israel publicly they will never replace. And if both party turn out to be “end of life” lunatic who want kingdom of Israel then they will never change or push against a President who is pushing for the same goal even though he clearly doesn’t believe in anything.
That’s why its important to introduce Israel as a political liability for the Democrats.
Demonstrate that they lose elections because of their support for Israel.
If only the fought as hard as they spam & griftIt really pisses me off that the ONLY outreach I saw were requests for money. Hundreds of them (many may have been scams, not sure).
The Democratic Party doesn’t get paid to win elections.
It gets paid to run campaigns.
The Republicans have decided that that is unreliable and have simply gone with open corruption.
100% this.
Louder for the folks in the back, please.
They have to raise money so they can spend money to raise money. Then they’ve raised twice as much money even though they only have half of it.
Better get fucking used to it bluedogs.
We need a Democratic Tea Party movement very badly.
Unfortunately, I already know the people who would lead it would also never get past making the rules of who’s included, what kind of tea we’ll be using, and if it’s ethically sourced, and if any members have any problematic tweets in their past, what particular brand of socialism everyone subscribes to, and of course, what we’re actually demanding from the government.
Say what you want about the right, but their superficial, Ork-like focus on goals gets them moving. Too bad those goals are usually things like “Vote against our best interests as much as humanly possible.”
The left won’t big-tent: if you aren’t perfect and addressing their issue du jour, well, good luck. I don’t know how you make a progressive party if there is no ability to prioritize.
And by the way I get it, if I wasn’t allowed to exist, I would sure as shit want my issue at the front of the line too.
The left will happily big-tent to a point, but we’re not about to include people who directly attack the party platform, and we need to throw out those shits when we find them-- the liebermans, bidens, sinemas, and fettermans. We need to get back to having a party platform, which the current democratic party doesnt really. We also cant belly up to AIPACs udder like the other parties did or we’ll be right back where we started.
Yeah I don’t think that’s as true as you’d like to think. It’s not even about accepting outsiders, it’s purely about agreeing what issue to tackle first. Seeems to me there’s a really strong vibe of “I’m in if it’s my issue” and protesting “what about my issue?!” when it’s not. No concept of eating one bite at a time even though that’s how the work gets done.
I’m not saying you’re wrong but I feel like slow iteration has never worked. We’ve been stuck in the same politics for maybe 30 years. And the DNC dems seem like they arent interested in making anything better, just in winning. They barely bother to make a platform anymore. Its like an afterthought.
The only platform is “we follow the rules and the procedures” and that’s all we got. I would love to see a full progressive agenda, but the first step is, in my opinion, getting money out of politics or it will take a long time to break Republican control and an even longer time to push out the neoliberal old guard on the left. Then you have to fight this fractionation problem. With no ranked choice, the same old neoliberal is probably going to win the primary between the women’s rights advocate, the gay rights activist, the pro Palestine anti war ambassador, and so on. I’m also against slow iteration, and this is why it isn’t working. You can’t just say the equivalent opposite of “guns, Jesus, and trump!” (whatever that is) and win a progressive left race.
This might hold water if Democrats would quit working in the wrong direction on those issues while they’re tackling one thing at a time.
Democrats supported genocide. Democrats ran anti-trans hate in their own ads. Democrats adopted Republican border policy.
Also, what one thing were they working on during this time?
They didn’t. As I’m sure you know. The only unifying thing was “not trump” and “punish trump for doing loudly what others had done quietly”.
But. What are D voters asking for? Is it any wonder the reps aren’t unified if we aren’t either? Of for and by the people doesn’t really work if we all spend our days asking Lemmy how to avoid politics and watching ASMR videos. Or LETTING TRUMP GET INTO OFFICE because of protest no votes against genocide thinking you’re some kind of fucking hero.
Everybody that allowed trump for any reason deserves to get a little bit fucked by the admin. We gotta do better, and this should make it clear to everyone that there. are. consequences.
They didn’t. As I’m sure you know. The only unifying thing was “not trump” and “punish trump for doing loudly what others had done quietly”.
And they either expected that to work or didn’t care if it did.
But. What are D voters asking for?
They have made that clear. They want the Democrats to quit being useless. They want the Democrats to stop selling us all out under the pretext of being polite to people that want us dead in camps.
I dont think we want to brand off anything related to tea. Lets call it the people’s party.
Nah that name gives off Democratic People’s Republic of Korea/People’s Republic of China vibes.
ok, how about the anti-fascist party. We’ll call it antifi.
Luckily, if the world survives Trump the Democrats won’t matter anymore because America won’t matter. The rest of the world was pretty pissed off at the USA before, but still allowed America to keep its leverage because challenging it would be too much effort. Trump, however, is actively destroying that leverage through his trade wars and his cancelling of foreign aid at the same time that he’s stripping his own government of its ability to function through his purges.
The only pillar of American influence that Trump isn’t destroying directly is the country’s media exports, and they were already in the process of collapsing before Trump was re-elected.
You got your high position in the world in the first place due to the fact that you were the only major power left standing after the world wars. Those circumstances won’t happen again (well, world wars might, but not ones that leave the USA unscathed.)
and his cancelling of foreign aid at the same time
I don’t think Trump nor President Musk understand how much power the US weilds, just purely on foreign aid. By gutting all of it, we removed a large portion of the US’s foreign power (Which, IMO, is a pretty good result).
The US has been going all-in on hard power while soft power declines. There’s a lot of rich individuals who benefit from military contracts but don’t care as much about actually maintaining the empire. The big risk is that Americans are going to recognize this disparity and start WWIII in an effort to leverage the one area that the US has an advantage to retain hegemony.
A big military is an expensive military, and if the American economy collapses it’ll be hard to maintain that military.
Sure, but it can still cause a lot of destruction in the meantime if it decides to go out with a bang.
That’s great for the rest of the world, be we still have to deal with this mess somehow.
Same foreign policy, same bullying strategy, but now they are: 1) public about it, 2) Targeting countries that help them being who they are for the last 70 years.
Or… Just act at all…
Any of the ones who are upset about Progressives pushing them to act like an opposition party needs to be primaried and kicked out, if they can’t be convinced. We need more primary challengers to actually change the party, like the republicans have and continue to do.
They will get rid of primaries. They already did it last year
Last year they didn’t really have presidential primaries because of an Incumbent, something both parties do all the time. But there were still Congressional primaries. And local primaries. Saying they’ll get rid of primaries when there was a reason to not have a presidential one, even if you disagree with that reason, is very much misunderstanding how primaries work.
I mean, they threw it out and nominated whoever they wanted. There WAS a primary-- Harris wasn’t in it. RFK was making Super Bowl ads for it
With all the anger over the Gaza situation, they waited until the last possible moment and foisted her on us so that there’d be no time force debate
Yes and that was shit and they should have figured out a way to do some kind of primary. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a real primary in 2028 or that there won’t be congressional primaries in 2026, which the congressional ones was what I was talking about. The only thing that would guarantee not having primaries is an official Dictatorship being created and the dissolution of congress and Trump being declared King or saying there will be no more elections.
Yes and that was shit and they should have figured out a way to do some kind of primary
They will do it again. One of the few things democrats actually do is make excuses.
They can do that for the president because of how that’s set up in the constitution. The states control how congress is elected, though.
When they win elections, they refuse to use power to help people, but instead blame Repub obstruction. When they lose they wag fingers, but mostly just go along with Repubs (ie, confirmations) and they FUNDRAISE. Then they use that funding to defeat left dems in primaries.
Primary every democrat.
If they even run primaries…
This.
Primary every republican.
Other Republicans already did that over the last 20 years, that’s how we got here.
If you want the Democratic party to shift left primarying weak moderates is how you do it.
If you want the Democratic party to shift left primarying weak moderates is how you do it.
The party actively protects moderate incumbents from any challenger to their left.
Constituent pressure? How frustrating!
They didn’t seem all that frustrated in the Axios article which is the source of all of the information in this article, although I’m sure thousands of phone calls a day would get old fast.
mutes the line
