Your original claim was to ignore what the DNC is doing and to stop talking about them because what they are doing does not matter. I am saying that people should focus on the DNC and continue to talk about what they are doing because they are the biggest obstacle to getting Democrats elected.
I think it is important that Abdul almost lost because of stories like Francesca Hong who almost won. Money plays an outsized role in these elections and the money the DNC is spending is most definitely being focused on raising Establishment Democrat candidates. Sure they are raising money and contributions are up, but they are spending money faster than they are raising it to the point where they are in debt.
Spending money is important to increase influence. I think it’s a good thing to spend money to try and unseat Republicans. But when we hear stories of Establishment Dems getting endorsed by other Establishment Dems, like Gov Tony Evers endorsing David Crowley in Wisconsin or Gov Gretchen Whitmer endorsing Haley Stevens in Michigan, this comes with fundraising and financial contributions from the establishment. This comes with buying ads for the establishment pick. It is a signal from the DNC to the voter base to unify behind a preferred “electible” candidate.
Abdul’s victory is a good thing because it means that people can beat out money. It is also a cautionary tale of how far the Establishment Democrats will go to fight their progressive wing. They already know what the people want which is why Ken Martin released that anemic 2024 autopsy report that was clearly edited to omit key progressive issues.
I am disputing your original claim that it doesn’t matter what the DNC wants. It absolutely matters what they want when they are the ones running the races and influencing elections to get their preferred candidates theough the primaries. They are actively trying to direct the voters instead of listening to the what the voters want. The DNC is absolutely the biggest problem that leads to depressing voter turnout. My problem with your original claim is the idea that we can tell people to vote for who they like without talking about what the DNC is doing. The reason people don’t vote Democrat is directly a result of the DNC spending all their time and energy putting up terrible candidates.
To put it more simply, the Establishment Dems are attacking us. We ought to be defending ourselves.
We all know the DNC works to suppress candidates they don’t like. Most famously, the DNC worked directly with the Hillary Clinton campaign to crush the Bernie Sanders campaign. So when Ken Martin claims “We are investing in a year-round distributed organizing operation capable of supporting races at every level of the ballot.”, I feel it’s pretty obvious what he means. The Establishment Democrats have historically been very weak opposing the Republicans while fighting tooth and nail against their own progressive wing. They are not spending money raising up candidates like Abdul El-Sayed or Francesca Hong, but neither are they simply waiting for the candidate that wins the primary. The DNC has a type and they are spending money to get that type of candidate through primaries into the general.
Abdul almost lost the primary despite very obviously being the best candidate for Michigan. This is because his opponent had an absurd amount of money. Money does influence elections and the DNC is beholden to their donors. The common voter can very clearly see these relationships and it depresses voter turnout whenever money wins. I agree with you that it is important to vote for progressives that are on the ballot, but you are framing these races as if the common voter has the same amount of influence as the establishment neoliberal. The DNC is the referee and it is blatantly bought and paid for.
“Just go vote” is not good advice because the opposition is spending absurd amounts of money to place obstacles in front of the populace. People like you and me who spend time talking about politics on lemmy are more politically active than the common voter. We need to help remove those obstacles so that everyone can vote for who they’d like instead of trip over manufactured concerns like electability.
The Establishment Democrats have a lot of power. Haley Steven’s only lost the Michigan primary by 1% after outspending Abdul El-Sayed over 10x. That means roughly, Haley Steven’s spent over $10 for every vote compared to Abdul El-Sayed $1 per vote. She absolutely was being propped up by both the Israel lobby as well as Establishment Dems and that money went to waste. That money could have been way more useful in the general, but the DNC has been burning all their cash on fighting progressives instead. It’s gotten to the point where the DNC is millions of dollars in debt and had to put up their physical building as collateral while the RNC has over $100 million in their warchest leading up to the midterms.
It is very important to talk about the Establishment Democrats because they are doing their best to lose all political power by dunking on their left flank instead of combating the Republicans. They would truly rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and they’re gonna drag us all down to party with Lindsey Graham. As much as it sucks, the DNC still has a lot of power they are exerting that needs to be addressed before they cause the situation to become unsalvageable.
School Days
I don’t disagree that news reporting helped spread Trump’s message, but far more consequential was the intentional Democratic national strategy of uplifitng Donald Trump because they thought he would be easy to beat. The Pied Piper strategy is well documented now with Democratic leadership working with the Hillary Clinton campaign to uplift Trump and tear down Bernie Sanders. Trump would not have become the Republican nominee if he was not being artificially inflated by the DNC.
I don’t think ignoring people like MTG or Trump really works because the people they advertise to aren’t gonna join the majority. Systemic action needs to be taken against them. Nick Fuentes, for example, waned in popularity after action was taken against him and he was banned from the internet. He is rising in popularity again because those actions have been reversed. These people know their ideas and policies are unpopular and rely upon regular folks not really knowing how disgusting they are. I think shining a light on them and directly calling them disgusting is an important step in actively banning them from public spaces.
We do this in the US public education system; it’s called Tracking. Although it’s become a little less popular, much of the 20th century had three tracks, Vocational, General, and Academic. We still have the echoes of this system today with stuff like “Auto Academy” or “College Prep” in US highschools that offer students different classes based on what group they are in. Counselors and advisors tell students what kind of track they are suited for based upon test scores and teacher observations and will discourage students from classes they are “unsuited” for.
Maybe you saw this in your own schooling? A group of students who all had the same classes all day because they were in the “Finance Academy” or something? A friend whose advisor told them Pre-cal was a waste of time for them, despite being interested? It is systemic and points kids towards futures they may be unsatisfied with all because the economy could really use more programmers or pharmacists or whatever right now.
I definitely agree that many countries’ approach to education creates mercenary thinking. I’m also saying that the education system presented in this article has that same kind of focus.
The article mentions Amelie who was told at 10 to join one track and as a result, spent the better part of a decade learning stuff she didn’t want to. I don’t doubt that she learned some stuff she found interesting and some stuff that makes for a well rounded person, but she was told to go looking in a certain direction by adults who judged her aptitude for labor at the age of 10.
I’m glad the system caught her and she eventually found a field she is interested in, but I would argue that the classification and systemic narrowing of education did Amelie more harm than good. Those textile and blacksmithing classes that Amelie was exposed to are an awesome opportunity for a student interested in those fields, but that really should be up to the student. They should be free to take those kinds of vocational training classes alongside more traditionally academic classes.
I don’t think the point of schooling should be to get a job. Children should pursue their interests while recieving an education wide enough to accommodate being trained in whatever field they decide to follow. A lawyer should know a little trigonometry. An engineer should know a little philosophy.
A job is just something you do to pay the bills. I don’t see any problem with a barista who followed their interests and got a degree in Mesopotamian Culture. It’s only a waste of time if you view education solely as a means to employment.
In much of the modern capitalist world, education is seen this way, unfortunately. I agree with you that people today are sorted into social classes based solely on how much money they make. It’s how we end up with Business Idiots; people like Elon Musk who are fucking idiots that don’t know how anything works. But since they are really good at making money, they are seen as paragons of society. The construction worker with a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving contributes more to society than any CEO, yet is seen as stupid and worthy of derision for both having a physical labor job and pursuing their interests.
This system seems focused on education as a means for employment rather than education. This kind of focus on the material benefits of education results in a very mercenary view of the world. I think most people would agree that it would be beneficial to live in an educated society where everyone is curious and constantly learning, but this kind of tracking and sorting system seems designed to encourage a mentality where the ends justify the means since your future can be heavily influenced by what track you are placed upon. It would be one thing if students could pick their track and shuffle around as their interests change, but telling a kid, “You must get a math job because you are good at math” removes any agency and motivation for learning. It will turn into, “You must get good at math and get placed on the math track because that’s where all the high paying jobs are.” Education becoming a means to an end instead of the goal of school.
You gotta be a gold medalist in mental gymnastics to view the US bombings as legitimate preemptive action.
“We knew Iran would respond to our bombings, so we preempted their response to our preemptive bombing with a prepreemptive bombing.”
Our major disagreement is on analysis. I agree with the idea that we should be talking to voters and trying to convince them to vote Democrat, but your analysis leads you to ignore or avoid talking about the DNC because you don’t think they are the main concern. I think we should be protesting the Establishment Dems outside their public offices and disrupting public events they are at to be more in their faces about how they are screwing up the moment. Candidates and people in positions of power should be speaking out against the Establishment the way David Hogg did. He took the scandal of being ejected from the DNC to propel the progressive movement forward with his Leaders We Deserve organization that helps get progressive candidates like Mamdani in NY or Alawieh in Michigan through the primaries.
But what I think should happen or am advocating for is not the core of the issue in our discussion. You think it is safe to ignore the DNC and Establishment Democrats because they do not represent a majority. I think it is unsafe to ignore the DNC and Establishment Democrats because they still have sizeable influence and power despite not representing the majority. You seem to think that the Establishment Democrats will learn their lesson if enough voters tell them what they want. I have seen Establishment Democrats run the same neoliberal playbook for almost 20 years and I know the current leadership will never learn. The Democratic party is hemorrhaging voters faster than you or I can stop the bleeding specifically because the leadership loves shooting themselves in the foot. You think we should focus on the voters and the leadership will come around. I think we should focus on the leadership and the voters will come around.