For anyone who wants a truly progressive Democratic Party, Gavin Newsom is bad news.

  • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    There is a spectrum. Trump/Maga/Conservatives are the worst and are actively marching us towards fascism. Corporate Democrats are the second worst. They’re not making the change we need and are prioritizing the wrong people. Progressives would be the best.

    We have a 2 party system. If you spend cycles looking at #2 and saying why you shouldn’t vote for them, you hurt everyone. If the choice in this 2-party system is #1 or #2, you vote for #2, you swallow the medicine and take the pill, you tell yourself it’s a vote against #1.

    Newsom wouldn’t be the best candidate, but all this psy-op crap about demonizing a Democrat front-runner is how you get the progressives to stay home and hand Trump (or his ilk) a third term. Low voter turnout for the left has to be fought. Sitting back and smugly criticizing why Democrats should do better literally killed Ukrainians, Palestinians, and American protesters. Getting people out to vote down-ballot is how we make the change we want and actually push to get a voting system that allows minority candidates to have a shot.

    • deltaspawn0040@lemmy.zip
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      4 hours ago

      Alright, if they run Newson I’m actually going to vote for trump. If America is so intent on dying a slow, painful, corporate death, I want to do my small part in hastening that.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      all this psy-op crap about demonizing a Democrat front-runner is how you get the progressives to stay home and hand Trump (or his ilk) a third term

      No, having Newsom win the primary instead of a progressive is how you hand the fascists a third term. It’s the liberals’ turn to hold their noses and vote for a candidate who can actually win; if they refuse, the consequences are entirely their fault.

      If you want to win, you have to support the progressive in the primary. That’s reality, and reality doesn’t give a shit if you like it or not.

      • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        That’s what I’m saying, I support a progressive in the primary. But I’m not willing to start painting Newsom as the devil, because if he’s the nominee, I’m not gonna want to go to people I talk to and say “Well, I know I said he’s the devil, but now you have to support him.” This isn’t hard. I don’t know why there’s so much arguing about telling people to not burn a bridge in case you’re backed into a corner to vote for the lesser of two evils.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          I don’t know why there’s so much arguing about telling people to not burn a bridge in case you’re backed into a corner to vote for the lesser of two evils.

          The answer to “why” is because, as 2024 proved, a neoliberal can’t win. If we’re backed into that corner, we’re already screwed and your contingency doesn’t matter.

          Think of leftists like a crazy person holding a gun to America’s head (the gun being fascism). If liberals don’t capitulate to their demands, they will shoot. It doesn’t matter if it’s irrational. It doesn’t matter if it’s stupid. They already proved that they’ll do it.

          As a liberal, you are not in control of the situation anymore, and your choice is to capitulate to the left’s demands (less profit for abusive plutocrats – the horror!) or eventually find yourself being marched by ICE goons to the gas chambers.

          If you want to do something useful, your only job is to get other liberals to come to terms with this new political reality. Pearl-clutching about some imagined fantasy where Newsom wins the primary and isn’t fucking steamrolled in the general is absolutely delusional, counterproductive, wishful thinking wankery.

          • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            “We progressives will hold the free world hostage analogous to a gun unless you give us what we want.” Cool strategy, giving in to terroristic threats is deep in the American ethos and I am sure won’t alienate anyone and quickly bring us to a progressive utopia.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              I didn’t say it was a strategy. I said it was reality, and that you delude yourself at your peril.

              I don’t control how leftists vote. Neither do you. The difference is that I’m willing to accept that truth and you apparently are not.

              You move left, or you finish off democracy and probably eventually die in an ICE camp. I’m not even exaggerating; those are literally your choices.

              Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

      • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        corporate centrists are winning again now people realise the horrific truth of trump and liars like yourself

        which side are you really on?

        the kremlin’s?

      • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Running corporate centrists set the board up for a loss, demonizing them and getting people to stay home is how we executed the loss. It wasn’t a sure bet, and the fantasy that Harris would be as bad as Trump only exists in the minds of people NOT victimized by the gestapo and people who make money keeping progressives glued to their streams giving tips.

        • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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          17 hours ago

          I see that you buy into the idea that progressives are why the Democrats keep losing to fascists and not the fact that their platform has like 80% overlap.

          • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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            17 hours ago

            No, I think progressives need to push the party to the left, we need to get more progressive leadership into the DNC, and progressive results will grow the base to keep it sustainable.

            But the language and outrage at this stage poisons the view of candidates, and in a general election, having people say “why would I vote Newsom when I just spent 3 years thinking what an awful corporate shill he is” makes people stay home, which hands the victory to the fascists. And there’s a lot of people out there whose entire living is outrage farming for superchats, and it moves the needle.

            If it’s Ivanka vs. Newsom, you vote Newsom. This isn’t a game.

            • UnspecificGravity@piefed.social
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              17 hours ago

              If it’s Ivanka vs the Democrats the solution is to run someone that isn’t Newsom and this is the right time to point that out.

              Acting like this clown is a viable candidate two years before the election is exactly how we repeat this shit. You aren’t helping anyone by helping to create that situation.

              • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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                16 hours ago

                Politics in America is basically team sports, and language matters. “Newsom is bad” and “Khanna is better” are 2 different ways of speaking that have 2 different outcomes at the ballot box. It’s time to not let outrage stack the deck against us.

                • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
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                  16 hours ago

                  A decade to learn from mistakes and you’re still preaching a failed gospel.

            • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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              15 hours ago

              You say this as if it’s imagined and Newsom doesn’t already have a terrible record of fucking over Californians in favor of corporate hegemony. Consider the imminent threat AI companies pose to our resource infrastructure, and then what that would mean if Newsom were in charge.

              • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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                14 hours ago

                It would mean he does crappy AI things and doesn’t upend all our international climate agreements, gleefully enable hostile foreign powers to oppress their people while gloating with AI generated videos, send the gestapo into American neighborhoods, profiteer from hostile foreign powers, pardon crimes from his friends in exchange for cash, and lots of other things. You are letting perfect get in the way of “less bad”.

                • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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                  14 hours ago

                  “Trump Bad” has been an absolute, objectively failed strategy for over 10 years now. It’s not good enough, and if Dems want to win they will have to do significantly better than that tired old refrain (they won’t, because they are paid not to by their donors, just like Newsom).

                  • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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                    14 hours ago

                    There’s a flow here.

                    1. Push for progressives in primaries.
                    2. Get behind whoever gets past the primaries.

                    If you spend all of part 1 poisoning the well on how terrible Newsom is, a lot of people will simply stay home if he’s the nominee when it gets to 2. I hope 1 happens. If it doesn’t, I hope all this rhetoric doesn’t make 2 fail. This dangerous purity testing is what leads people to stay home instead of voting for “less bad.” Even the suggestion of “be ready to vote for Newsom as a last resort” is too much for a lot of people, and THAT is how we get more Trump. This absurd copium fantasy that Harris/Newsom wouldn’t be better than Trump is just a way for angry people to sustain the outrage that warms them at night, but real people across the planet are hurting.

      • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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        17 hours ago

        More than one thing can be true. The DNC could have prevented our current mess by actually running primaries, not abandoning their base, not trying to court republicans and the millions of other things they do to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Progressive voters could have prevented this current mess by actually fucking voting for the tepid weak sauce DNC candidates once it was clear that we’re only getting that or literal Nazis in that election cycle. There’s plenty of blame to go around and a tragic shortage of mirrors.

    • gnuthing@piefed.social
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      14 hours ago

      Democrats trying to guilt us into voting for them when they do everything within their power to perpetuate American imperialism. Personally, I’m done with it. I’m not going to compromise my own beliefs again for a bunch of liberal Zionist capitalists that profit off the misery of others. If they run actual leftists, I will vote for those individual leftists. But I’m not voting for some anti-trans asshole just because the dems keep pushing him

      Biden could have made Israel stop committing genocide with our taxes and our weapons. Biden and Obama could have reeled in the abuses happening in ICE detention. They could have worked with Congress to pass some legislation to limit executive power, tax wealth, get Roe v Wade made law. Biden could have pushed through pending immigration cases, he pardons his own ppl but not our ppl?

      Btw I voted for Harris, basically straight ticket Dem, just to keep the other assholes out. But the further we get into this regime the clearer it becomes that is no a strategy that leads to meaningful change. You do what you want, but don’t tell me that I’ve gotta swallow the shitty pill they are offering

      • gnuthing@piefed.social
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        13 hours ago

        To add, if Obama’s FBI had done more when they interviewed one of Epstein’s victims back in 2011, then Trump would’ve never been president. Feds knew about all that shit since W in the oughts, and they let it keep happening. Not saying it’s entirely Obama’s fault, by why didn’t his FBI or DOJ do something?

      • surfrock66@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        No one likes the 2 party system, it sucks. But in the 2 party system, that’s the deal, you vote for the Dem or it’s a +1 to the R. I don’t like it either, but demonizing the Dems at this point to get people to stay home hands it to the R’s. This rhetoric becomes dangerous. Saying you don’t like the game doesn’t mean you can sit it out without consequences.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      How about we just hold a fair primary and let the people decide. We don’t need to continue anointing corporate trash like Newsom.