US Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has said he will “seriously consider” running for president in 2028 as he battles the Trump administration over a video in which he urged military personnel to refuse illegal orders.
The Arizona senator, who was accused of “seditious behaviour” by Donald Trump over the November clip, said he and his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, received “many” death threats after the president’s comments.
“We get them on a weekly basis now,” he told BBC Newsnight. “We had to get security to protect us 24 hours a day.”
Asked if he was considering a White House run, the retired Navy captain said he was considering it “because we’re in some seriously challenging times”.
i like mark kelly and gabby would be a fantastic first lady but please not right now; we need a radical to clean up the mess.
I just had a thought about how funny it would be for the next president to report Trump and fam for sedition
Worker led revolution please this system doesn’t serve us.
So if he wins he will be at retirement age when he is starting? Are you sure he is old enough for American voters?
He’s not nearly senile enough
Man doors 2028 seen so far away.
I am hard pressed to think of a democrat I would vote for in a primary over him.
A lot of lefties going to complain about his support for israel, even if modest. But honestly I cannot see another viable candidate in the wings. We have a couple years still but things are getting scary in terms of actual prospects and we’re going to have to throw our hats in with someone (other than Newsom) so Kelly is probably going to be a great bet, he appeals to the largest swath of moderate America who are tuned out and just want to hear that someone strong and professional will keep them in their comforts, and he has enough established clout with the legislative branch that he already has political capital, they won’t be afraid of working with him.
And he’s seen Earth from space, and had to be a caregiver for a wife who was the victim of a political assassination attempt, I imagine that builds all the best kind of character and empathy.
A lot of lefties going to complain about his support for israel, even if modest.
Really depends on who he is running against and how he positions himself along the way. If he’s out saying “Israel is our oldest and dearest friend, they just made a few mistakes” or god forbid “Anyone critical is anti-Semitic” he’s DOA. If he’s out there saying “We spend billions of dollars so Israel can have clean potable water and top tier health care, so it’s time to bring those amenities back to the US”, he can probably hurdle that criticism well enough.
he appeals to the largest swath of moderate America who are tuned out and just want to hear that someone strong and professional will keep them in their comforts
I mean, Biden appealed to these same voters by adopting half of Bernie Sanders’s platform and half of Hillary Clinton’s. Then he spent four years yelling at people for using TikTok and arguing the need to kill more brown people.
Kelly’s fine on paper, but if he opens his mouth and sounds like another “moderate Dem”… I think he’s going to have the same kind of trouble Cuomo did.
i mean congress passed the tiktok ban not biden…
Yeah that was something before trump got in but for democrats like myself the only thing that matters now is getting our house in order. Even then it was not like my top concern more of a hey why are we even involved in this bs but now its something that just is not part of the equation for me. I mean its a strange comparison but its somewhat like obama. Character, intelligence, ability. Honestly the age thing is likely the biggest factor but hoowee compared to we have been having he will still be a pup but who knows how the next two years will go.
If I have to vote for someone I’d rather it be an astronaut.
Honestly I’d love for him to run in the primary against a progressive.
He’s left of center centrist to be sure but miles ahead of that slimy ass Newsome.
I’d vote for him. Back when Biden was dropping out, I posted the question of peoples preferred democratic candidate, and Kelly was suggested by several people.
I think he could have won the '24 election had he been the candidate, and I think he could win the next election also.
The fact that (as he said in the video) he “Doesn’t consider himself a politician” is a huge plus.
It’s a bit sad that he’s starting to get old though. 60 seemed perfectly okay, 65 is a bit on the high end.
If Trump can make it to his age on a diet of McDonalds and child semen I’d bet Kelly will be good for a while yet.
Not ideal, but “not fucking awful” would be a big step up for the dnc.
interesting… that would be change that redefines what “whiplash” means.
And I will seriously consider voting for just about anyone else left of him in the primary. No offense to him, he seems like a very solid dude, but the time for half-measures, centrists, and people that believe institutions will save us is well beyond over.
Ya I’m done placating Dems, anyone left of Gavin or Kelly will have my vote. I’ve played it safe the last 2 elections with trump. We need a Hail Mary. Not more complacent. Marks only in this for a personal grudge, which is fine but when it come to big picture he will be just another dem.
You nailed it on the head. If AOC runs, I’m absolutely voting for her. If not, Kelly seems a lot better than Newsom.
Yeah Kelley seems to be a centrist with a soul. I don’t want another fucking centrist but I really must insist on a candidate with a soul
Ya I’m not compromising. Leftist or nobody
As opposed to the literal Nazi puppets that were pushed into power?
AOC does not move me honestly. I would vote kelly over her. Maybe yang.
Ew
I love AOC, I think she’s the future of the country, but please please PLEASE do not nominate another candidate with a vagina in 2028. We’re just not ready for that.
I am selfish as a New York State resident and want to keep her, and give her Chuck’s seat in 2028. Maybe after a term or three in the Senate we’ll be ready to elect someone without a penis as President.
PLEASE do not nominate another candidate with a vagina
It’s so frustrating when well-meaning people have this blatantly sexist take.
The problem with Hillary and Kamala was not their vaginas, it was their policies.
If you actually believe that the US is too sexist to elect a woman, then you need to explain the election of Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico. By every statistic (rape, domestic violence, etc), Mexico is a more sexist nation than the US, yet they overwhelmingly elected a woman.
What utter BS. We have progressive women winning races in the house and Senate so the problem isn’t having a damn vagina. The issue is the last two women presidential candidates were neoliberal jackasses that had crappy policies and dismissive attitudes toward their electorate.
Sure be selfish and say you want to keep her representation local but piss of saying a woman can’t win and then say don’t even try.
The Presidency is a bridge too far, though.
Ask yourself: why did Joe Biden, of all people, win, where Clinton and Harris didnt? It certainly wasn’t because he had fewer “crappy policies” than they did.
America, as a whole, is simply too misogynistic to elect a woman as President right now but, they are at least self-aware to know they can’t say that out loud. So we get excuses, instead, like “I don’t like her laugh” or “I just don’t agree with her”.
My favorite was a dude who said “I can’t vote for Harris, she reminds me too much of my ex-wife”. At least he’s honest.
Correct. She cannot win.
Your out of line…but your right
- you’re
I’d vote vote for anyone (Mark Kelly) over anyone who protects pedophiles. Plain. Simple. Straightforward.
Honestly, I’m just happy if theres an alternative to Newsome. Kelly isnt a progressive, but hes not a full blown corpo shill that the DNC would happily shove down our throats if unopposed.
Yeah I intended to write a very similar comment. I think Kelly is respected as someone who is both honest and who cares about the country, so while I’d nominally prefer a progressive, Kelly would be a huge alternative to Newsom’s slicked-back car salesman energy.
Either the next president will be a Democratic Socialist, or it will be a fascist. Democrats need to get back 20% of their base, plus the margin they need to pick up in the places they need to make up the differences they’ll need to win the big house.
Ask yourself this without looking at this announcement: Can a corporate Democrat do that?
I’m telling you now, either the next president will be a Democratic Socialist, or the Republicans win. No amount of glazing liberals is going to make them capable of winning an election.
Bernie 2028.
Would love it but to old. If AOC ran with him as vice, I would back that.
Let Bernie rest :'(
I love Bernie, but that ship has sailed. AOC is our next best hope, but we have to back DSA candidates at every level in every race. Even if we succeed, there is a real chance we don’t avoid violence. The Republic of Gilead is already here and the Republican pedo nazis don’t intend to ever allow or accept another fair, democratic election again. They are nothing if not open about that fact.
She cannot win.
You’re getting downvoted, but I agree. Sadly, I don’t think a woman will win the presidential election in the U.S. for at least another decade or two. Too many sexists, and subconscious misogyny
Yes and also being Latina. Many people aren’t ready for that, either. Irrelevant if her heritage is Puerto Rican. Too many idiots don’t recognize that as American.
That Munich conference has me in doubts about AOC
What happened there?
You can’t just link a 25 minute video with no further explenation and expect anyone to actually watch it, and know what your point is.
I was busy so I just added the link. The point was mentioned after the initial clip of AOC speaking.
Anyway, she stated she was in favor of a neoliberal /neocon objective of spreading democracy. At the same time, she made her point with a massive word salad that appeared inauthentic.
I’m assuming they’re trying to say that because she pauses and actually thinks about what she is trying to say (much like Obama did) before she says it, that somehow that makes her unfit to be president, because reasons.
People dragging out Bernie in 2028
As a Canadian, can you please stop picking ridiculously old people?
Find someone in the 45-65 year age range, you’re going to get a better outcome that way.
Our oldest Prime Minister in the last 50 years started when he was 65, most of them have been under 50.
No can do. It will be a day of national pride when we elect someone with a triple digit age.
We need a healthcare system that supports that first
I doubt he will run.
What a shame.
He’d only be eighty six years old.
Still doing the work to get fascists elected I see.
Is he not a democratic socialist?
As long you understand that appeasing your perspective on who the candidate needs to be isn’t important, we should be fine.
If you are BNMW/ Blue MAGA/ ABWD, whatever you want to call it: We don’t need to cater to your perspective. You’ll vote for anyone. Great. We appreciate you taking a back seat, because when previously your perspectives have been centered in the party, Democrats lose those elections to facsists or neoconservatives.
As long as you can accept that you don’t matter when it comes to who Democrats pick to run as president, we’re all good.
You’re not wrong
Getting downvoted for being right about the DNC, yep it’s .world’s politics forum.
I think Gavin’s going to do well even if the left is doing all the work spreading the right’s propaganda about him.
But maybe Bernie will win the primaries and it’ll usher in a new golden age and we’ll overthrow capitalism.
Gavin gives the whole thing to whomever the red fascist is. Period. Just fucking do what you are told this time and we’ll be fine.
He would be 65 in 2029 when he actually took office. Can we get someone who is about 20 years younger?
65 is about 20 years younger than the last two guys.
Agreed but he’d still be a spring chicken in modern terms. I’d rather see max age 50 than min age 35.
He might have to clarify a lot of his stances to get widespread support. For examples,
he opposed the Republicans tax bill giving cuts to the rich, but he has no comments on Kamala’s proposed unrealized gains tax for the rich
he has a 100% scorecard from reproductive freedom advocates, but exactly how far he supports bodily autonomy and by extension trans rights is unknown
Sadly one thing he has been clear and consistent on is when the war in gaza began several years ago, he supported aiding Israel and moving a carrier group to threaten Iran and Houthis into deescelating. He still as recent as January promises to continue “aiding” Israel despite acknowledging the carnage.
Honestly, I don’t like the idea. But he’s a little better than Newsom and he’s 10,000x better than Trump.
Yeah, he’s not perfect, let’s just elect Trump for the third time.
You right now:
Primaries are picking. If you think your opinion matters more than tens of millions of people it’s a you problem.
Bender is poking fun at how we threw the 2024 election when millions of people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not show up for Harris, which is relevant because of how I nitpicked Kelly’s stances.
Kamala lost because she abandoned her voters. She told her own base to pound sand while fruitlessly trying to appease Republicans. The voters didn’t “not show up.” She simply made herself not their candidate anymore. It’s a fools’ errand to blame voters, as they’re not an individual you can actually hold accountable. Blaming voters for not voting for your terrible candidate is like blaming consumers for not buying shitty overpriced items at a store. You can whine, “well you have to buy something somewhere anyway!” But that’s just unproductive whining.
I think the only unpopular stance she had was on Israel and even thats only a few percentage points, about the same as those concerned with the economy among those who voted for Biden but not Harris. SOURCE
Do you have any examples of policies that you think made Harris a worse choice than Trump?
I think she did a poor job of saying what she brought to the table. I understand not wanting to throwJoe under the bus, but opening some daylight on policy would have given her a chance to deflect the affordability problems the last months of Biden had, for example.
She had a campaign website which is no longer up and it detailed every stance very clearly. One of my favorite parts was a proposed Unrealized Gains Tax on amounts over $1M which would cripple income for billionaires, removing the cap on social security so that the rich payed their share, and no tax inceases on anyone who made less than $400k.
There was a large orchestrated effort to keep the conversation off of those important topics, though. Including social media psyops, such as giving lower priority and exposure to DNC on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
The news surrounding her and her campaign advertising were generally pretty ass, though, yeah.
First, you can cut that shit right out with your leading question of “was she worse than Trump.” That isn’t how a large portion of the electorate acts, thinks, and believes. Some vote on utilitarian ethics. Some vote on respect for persons. You can’t just whine, stamp your feet, and pretend that utilitarianism is the only way to vote. You’re trying to hand waive away an branch of moral philosophy that has centuries of scholarly work behind it. If you view voting as simply an either/or choice, sure, Kamala was the only choice. If you view voting as an endorsement of candidate, then it’s perfectly valid to not vote for a candidate simply because you consider their actions to be morally abominable. The other guy being worse doesn’t change that.
She abandoned Palestinian Americans. The strongest defense of trans people she could offer “she would follow the law.” She cozied up with the Cheneys and offered no real policies that would move the needle on wealth inequality. And she couldn’t even offer a robust plan on how to protect abortion rights. And she gaslit everyone on the economy, telling people to believe the inflation figures and not their own lying eyes.
And before you claim that utilitarianism is the only valid voting philosophy, realize that is not how our own government behaves. We’ve literally vaporized millions of innocent civilians over the decades. The justification has always been, “well, they supported the evil regime and their evil actions.” Yet every dictator has come to power on the backs of people who thought they were the lesser evil. Hell, almost every Republican thinks Trump is a monster, but they vote for him because they consider him the lesser evil. I’m sure we incinerated thousands of Iraqis who voted for Saddam because he was the lesser evil on the ballot.
Vote how you want. If you view voting as a utilitarian exercise, so be it. But part of living in a democracy is recognizing that other people can have different belief systems and ways of life. Your way is not the only way. You believe that the ends always justify the means. Others recognize that as a road to Hell.
The Biden administration she was Vice President of had Trans cabinet member and judges appointed, the most LGBT+ administration in US history.
Biden protected the ranks and jobs of LGBT government employees and servicemembers attacked by the previous Trump admin including reinstatements. They also signed the respect for marriage act which gave protections for Gay Marriage.
No matter how you expect the electorate thinks, there were two options and the people of the US collectively made the wrong choice, blame falling on the few million who could have changed the outcome.
Being willing to throw an election is one of the only tools voters actually have to fight fascism. It’s the only way to prevent a bait-and-switch candidate. If you’re not willing to potentially lose an election when your candidate betrays you, future candidates will betray you every time. You’ve told them that you’re perfectly fine with being betrayed. You’ve proven yourself a spineless cuck that will let people walk all over you.
Actions have consequences. Voting has consequences. And Trump isn’t the worst possible leader out there. He’s a monster, but there are many gradations of monster. There are far worse monsters out there waiting to be elected. If you’re not ever willing to walk away from a traitor candidate in the general election, you guarantee that the Democrats will just keep sliding to the right forever. Nominating a corporate Dem in 2028 will almost certainly see another Republican win. But even on the thin chance they do win, electing a corporate Dem in 2028 guarantees someone even worse than Trump winning in 2032.
We’ve degenerated so far precisely because Democrats don’t take responsibility for their votes and will just blindly vote for whatever corporate tool is placed in front of them. It’s the political version of the “next quarter” thinking that plagues corporate America. All that matters is the election today. Don’t think about the long term consequences. Focus only on today, even if it hurts you in the long term. Trump is the result of decades of Dems kicking the can down the road, holding their nose, and voting for the lesser evil.
Notice, we’re only starting to see some progressives gain traction in the party after Democrats have suffered badly at the polls. There has been real change at the DNC. That and candidates like Mamdani would have been completely impossible if Trump hadn’t been elected. It’s only when the old guard loses horribly and has to run away in shame that the opportunity arises for new voices to take the reins of the party.
There are people in concentration camps, and some who have been murdered. China might take over Taiwan. Ukraine has lost many more people than it would’ve, given more support. The Gazan people might wind up displaced in favor of Trump resorts.
None of them volunteered to be martyrs for social democracy. Tell them how much worse we could have it. People who are so quick to sacrifice others instead of doing the work to build a better world get no claim to moral righteousness. If people want social democrats, that’s what the primary process is for. You don’t need to punish them for choosing wrongly. As a parent of five I can tell you punishment doesn’t motivate anyone to do the right thing — it motivates them to remove your ability to punish them.
The more I reread your words, the more I reject your vainglorious recklessness. You must do what you can with the means you are given for the situation you are in.
I hear you, and I understand, but also in that same pragmatic vein, we stand at a crossroads where without a coalition with the left we have no path forward. The right can’t seem to articulate any kind of clear concept of what would bring them on board except hurting more people. The left at least has the advantage of expressing a clear set of demands, none of which are particularly objectionable. Difficult, yes, possibly unachievable in a time frame that would satisfy them, but not objectively evil, which is more than I can say for the voting base of the right at this point. We have a choice to try to win back the left, or to try to make ourselves attractive to those who are at this point actively voting for fascism and potentially for mass genocide. Are we not being just as obstinate with our insistence on political centrism that we too are allowing the right to engage in atrocity after atrocity?
I’m not advocating voting for candidates who “can win the general election” in primaries. Vote for social democrats there and let the general election fall where it must. The more social democrats we get in the party, the stronger their influence will be and that is how we drag the party to the left. But when it comes to the general, the most milquetoast corporatist democrat is better than right-wing outright fascism.
But when it comes to the general, the most milquetoast corporatist democrat is better than right-wing outright fascism.
Only if you only care about the short term. And then short term thinking is what has got us to this point.
Short term we risk losing democracy. Which is a long term problem.
In your opinion. An opinion you’re no more willing to budge on than the leftist is willing to compromise their position that any further concession to the right is tantamount to endorsing their atrocities. That someone willing to “reach across the aisle” at this point is doing little more than consenting to crimes committed in their name. The leftist and the liberal are standing equally on their beliefs and their principles, and both are just as unwilling to compromise. Can you truly say either one is more responsible for dividing the opposition to the fascists than the other? If you truly believe that voting for anyone but Trump is worth whatever price it takes, then you also believe there’s no harm in endorsing a more left leaning candidate no? Unless you truly believe more Democrats are willing to permit crimes against humanity than there are leftists willing to find an acceptable compromise. If that’s the case, the United States of America has already fallen too far to save.
If you truly believe that voting for anyone but Trump is worth whatever price it takes, then you also believe there’s no harm in endorsing a more left leaning candidate no?
That is implicit in what I said. I don’t endorse Newsome or Kelly. I love what I’m seeing out of Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois, but I can’t vote for her. I’m a hopeful pragmatist.
As for the rest, we are doing irreparable harm to our people and others. That’s not a price I’m willing to pay. It’s a price that I fear might harm us all for decades or longer if Trump chooses to do autocracy.
“Letting Trump win fights fascism.”
You think the voters are that smart?
So basically, just another dem. I’ll vote for whoever wins the primary, but he probably wouldn’t be my first choice.
