This all seems a little bit social-media brained. You're essentially comparing the worst Democratic candidate in the cycle against the president of the United States. Why? Just because Hong gets talked about on X doesn't mean she's suddenly a leader of the Democratic party or a major influential figure.
Hong is very obviously an outlier in her crazy, and if you picked Democratic state candidates at random they wouldn't be like her. Ridiculous characters like Hong get the most attention on social media because they're the craziest of the crazy and people like to obsess over them. Most DSA candidates haven't been as crazy as Hong (Mamdani being the obvious positive example), and most Democratic candidates aren't part of the DSA. The actual leaders and presidential hopefuls of the near-term Democratic party aren't Hong or El-Sayed or Piker, but Ossoff and Buttigieg and Newsom and AOC. Whatever you might say about those people, none of them seem interested in cancelling Thanksgiving or declaring America a settler-colonialist state. Why is Francesca Hong the person the Democrats "just are now", but Ossoff and Buttigieg aren't?
The actual Democratic party has put on an overall good show running a bunch of fairly moderate candidates across some pretty difficult districts this cycle. Meanwhile, DSA's El-Sayed (a much more skilled and charismatic politician than his primary opponent) barely scraped through his primary in a blueish state, in a cycle when liberal voters are desperate for any kind of change and are trying a lot of different things. DSA is also being electorally bolstered by the Israel issue, the one place where most of the public agrees with them. The more liberals find an actual message on Israel (and for gods sake stop taking the AIPAC money), the less that's going to work.
This is the supposed leftist takeover? I just don't see it yet. Crazy factions of the left have always existed on the fringes, and the Francesca Hongs of the world seem far less powerful and ascendent than they did in 2014. DSA candidates are electoral underperformers so far. Why should we believe they'll suddenly take over now?
I think yes there is a risk of taking the Online / Social Media side of this (and the mass journalism NYT, WP etc which lazily echoes that out of DC and NY and Calif-cities)
BUT at the same time the experience of 2010 onwards also says to me that it is an error to shrug off and silently walk along. If the Noah et al are not saying otherwise de-facto outside of the Political Obsessives circles what becomes the Face of the Ds is the Hongs and Mamdanis (as is evidently starting to happen in image)
There needs to be a significant effort to elevant the Ossoffs e.g. (I am not per se personally a partisan of Ossoff but on a naive level he seems like a very good example - calling myself naive here) and raise visibility and counterweight.
Else one gets branded whether one likes it or not.
The "our communities" language was more painful than the anti-Thanksgiving stuff because that was half of my Twitter feed back in the day. Some people would use the day specifically to promote indigenous creators, digital and otherwise.
Quick search engining finds that Wisconsin has 11 tribal entities amounting to 1-2% of the population. I also learned that the Oneida now reside in Wisconsin after having been kicked out of the original Hodenosaunee Confederacy land.
You also see a lot of unhidden sympathy for Hamas and other terrorist groups (prog-washed as "resistance"). As history has shown, leftists see moderate liberals as their biggest enemy, even more than conservatives. A very bleak Weimar-era vibe here.
If one re-reads Orwell writing about the W. European Left of the 1930s one sees quite a lot of similarities in both the educated class ideological Left of that era and now, including indeed seeing the center - "near enemy" as a better target than well the actual fascists
For an apparent socialist, cancelling Thanksgiving is rather Scrooge-like, isn't it?
Especially in America, where there is no federally mandated paid leave, and the average worker only takes 10 to 15 days' leave a year. Let people have their long weekend, for crying out loud!
Quick question from the european side: I understand that a two party system is the direct result of how the whole electoral system works in the US, but I wonder if the GOP has fallen so low and the Democrats are gradually shifting to the very maximalist left, wouldn't there be space for a third centrist party that could hope to capatilize on the vast majority of moderates fed up or their mainstream parties? The vast majority of voters now identify themselves as indipendent, so I guess there could be a potential massive electoral pool from where to draw votes.
The financial threshold is formidable. Current big donors, who usually want something in return for their donations, assess the returns on existing parties as more reliable.
In a proportional system, where a 6 per cent party can still end up being in a coalition government, the financial machine is more willing to take the risk of supporting new upstarts, especially if the public is visibly tired of the old guard.
You need to ask the question to Political Scientist who has understanding of the operational mechanics of the different levels of the US elections (of which what Europeans frequently badly misunderstand is the genuine real profound operational Federalism that mid-late 20th century trends have not upended and the post-1970s 'reforms' that basically removed from the two major parties a genuine legal ability to control own brand [i.e. who gets to use their name] operationally).
As a vulgar financial economist, I myself don't have that expertise but I have read enough now to understand that too few people have paid attention to the actual electoral mechanics and guts of the system as it has emerged since Nixon era, and operate even for American pundits with a false concept of underlying mechanics of the system.
In any case all writing by systems oriented analyses I have read have been clear that it's functionally given the way the US and notably its extreme federalism not realistic to dream of European style New Third Party emergence - not per se because of R or D blocking but the systematic mess and complexity (plus structural factors of specifics on how on state by state basis - and again Europeans even with Federal govs badly misunderstand just how really under-the-hood sovereign the US states remain...)
I like to think that the left, maybe because of its newfound proximity to science, would be more likely to learn from its past mistakes, and when it finally comes down to policy, be able to stick with shit that works, at least marginally. But it’s possible that I am deluding myself, and certainly all this eco-chamber style misguided messaging doesn’t bode well.
One of the best and most important things we can do to save and improve democracy is end party primaries.
These elections horrifically magnify the power of the extremes on the left and right, often leaving people in the general election the choice of only between two horrific candidates, like in Wisconsin. Instead, we need a completely open first round election, with anyone from any party on the ballot who qualifies (like by number of signatures), with qualification standards high enough to keep the number of candidates usually between three and seven, and a ranked-choice election, of course, so as to prevent spoilers, or a small plurality from winning. Then, there should perhaps be a general election of the top two.
Yes, with ranked-choice you could say the runoff is unnecessary, but in many people's minds it would add legitimacy. However, you might get the primary problem, where many people wait until the general to vote, and so the passionate extremes dominate the first round too much still. So maybe just one big many candidate open ranked-choice election would be best.
All of the blue and purple states can do this, and greatly decrease the power of the extreme left and right. It can constitutionally be done by passing a law in the legislature, signed by the governor, or by referendum. This may seem too technical, but it is absolutely crucial today. We are in such serious danger from these party primaries.
I do not want to get too One Weird Trick here, but how many crazies on either side would come out of an open primary? Or a California-style nonpartisan primary?
Rather than one weird trick I do think we need to think of structure and systems as fundamentally at root cause of much of the current dysfunction (with attention to non-partisan Poli-Sci analysis of systems basis): and avoidance of Quick Fixes or Naive Fixes like from 70s era (more democracy better! simple minded naivtete w/o regard to factiosn, poorly attended sub/pre-electionsetc)
Cali style seems to have all the elements to produce severely distorted results especially in "one party" states, but I personally would want to see a game-theoried supported structural examination of workings of changed primary systems (ones that are achieveable not to dream of USA becoming a Europrean parliamentary system or other non-realistic goals).
Clearly primaries as now done - poorly attended - are subject to huge risks of capture (Trump is the R example).
Generally I think that while the comment here objecting to over-reading Online Proggy world is not per se wrong on the flip side if there is not people countering the Hongs with the Kelly, the Gellego, the default image will become Hongs etc. and whether one likes it or not that becomes the Brand.
the shrugging and going along (oh they don't really mean it, etc) of the 2010s was an error.
This all seems a little bit social-media brained. You're essentially comparing the worst Democratic candidate in the cycle against the president of the United States. Why? Just because Hong gets talked about on X doesn't mean she's suddenly a leader of the Democratic party or a major influential figure.
Hong is very obviously an outlier in her crazy, and if you picked Democratic state candidates at random they wouldn't be like her. Ridiculous characters like Hong get the most attention on social media because they're the craziest of the crazy and people like to obsess over them. Most DSA candidates haven't been as crazy as Hong (Mamdani being the obvious positive example), and most Democratic candidates aren't part of the DSA. The actual leaders and presidential hopefuls of the near-term Democratic party aren't Hong or El-Sayed or Piker, but Ossoff and Buttigieg and Newsom and AOC. Whatever you might say about those people, none of them seem interested in cancelling Thanksgiving or declaring America a settler-colonialist state. Why is Francesca Hong the person the Democrats "just are now", but Ossoff and Buttigieg aren't?
The actual Democratic party has put on an overall good show running a bunch of fairly moderate candidates across some pretty difficult districts this cycle. Meanwhile, DSA's El-Sayed (a much more skilled and charismatic politician than his primary opponent) barely scraped through his primary in a blueish state, in a cycle when liberal voters are desperate for any kind of change and are trying a lot of different things. DSA is also being electorally bolstered by the Israel issue, the one place where most of the public agrees with them. The more liberals find an actual message on Israel (and for gods sake stop taking the AIPAC money), the less that's going to work.
This is the supposed leftist takeover? I just don't see it yet. Crazy factions of the left have always existed on the fringes, and the Francesca Hongs of the world seem far less powerful and ascendent than they did in 2014. DSA candidates are electoral underperformers so far. Why should we believe they'll suddenly take over now?
I think yes there is a risk of taking the Online / Social Media side of this (and the mass journalism NYT, WP etc which lazily echoes that out of DC and NY and Calif-cities)
BUT at the same time the experience of 2010 onwards also says to me that it is an error to shrug off and silently walk along. If the Noah et al are not saying otherwise de-facto outside of the Political Obsessives circles what becomes the Face of the Ds is the Hongs and Mamdanis (as is evidently starting to happen in image)
There needs to be a significant effort to elevant the Ossoffs e.g. (I am not per se personally a partisan of Ossoff but on a naive level he seems like a very good example - calling myself naive here) and raise visibility and counterweight.
Else one gets branded whether one likes it or not.
The "our communities" language was more painful than the anti-Thanksgiving stuff because that was half of my Twitter feed back in the day. Some people would use the day specifically to promote indigenous creators, digital and otherwise.
Quick search engining finds that Wisconsin has 11 tribal entities amounting to 1-2% of the population. I also learned that the Oneida now reside in Wisconsin after having been kicked out of the original Hodenosaunee Confederacy land.
You also see a lot of unhidden sympathy for Hamas and other terrorist groups (prog-washed as "resistance"). As history has shown, leftists see moderate liberals as their biggest enemy, even more than conservatives. A very bleak Weimar-era vibe here.
If one re-reads Orwell writing about the W. European Left of the 1930s one sees quite a lot of similarities in both the educated class ideological Left of that era and now, including indeed seeing the center - "near enemy" as a better target than well the actual fascists
I feel like Mamdani needs to start giving private calls to people.
Like he shares a lot of beliefs, but he knows how to be a normie and not alienate those who don't agree with him.
For an apparent socialist, cancelling Thanksgiving is rather Scrooge-like, isn't it?
Especially in America, where there is no federally mandated paid leave, and the average worker only takes 10 to 15 days' leave a year. Let people have their long weekend, for crying out loud!
They might promote October 7 to a holiday instead.
If the Democrats don't save us this time, we remain unsaved
Need more patriotic normie evangelism and organizing. America has problems but we're not going to solve them by devolving into an authoritarian state!
Quick question from the european side: I understand that a two party system is the direct result of how the whole electoral system works in the US, but I wonder if the GOP has fallen so low and the Democrats are gradually shifting to the very maximalist left, wouldn't there be space for a third centrist party that could hope to capatilize on the vast majority of moderates fed up or their mainstream parties? The vast majority of voters now identify themselves as indipendent, so I guess there could be a potential massive electoral pool from where to draw votes.
What is your opinion on that ?
The financial threshold is formidable. Current big donors, who usually want something in return for their donations, assess the returns on existing parties as more reliable.
In a proportional system, where a 6 per cent party can still end up being in a coalition government, the financial machine is more willing to take the risk of supporting new upstarts, especially if the public is visibly tired of the old guard.
Never mind financial, that is not the real problem, the real problem is structure, financial is downstream from structure.
You need to ask the question to Political Scientist who has understanding of the operational mechanics of the different levels of the US elections (of which what Europeans frequently badly misunderstand is the genuine real profound operational Federalism that mid-late 20th century trends have not upended and the post-1970s 'reforms' that basically removed from the two major parties a genuine legal ability to control own brand [i.e. who gets to use their name] operationally).
As a vulgar financial economist, I myself don't have that expertise but I have read enough now to understand that too few people have paid attention to the actual electoral mechanics and guts of the system as it has emerged since Nixon era, and operate even for American pundits with a false concept of underlying mechanics of the system.
In any case all writing by systems oriented analyses I have read have been clear that it's functionally given the way the US and notably its extreme federalism not realistic to dream of European style New Third Party emergence - not per se because of R or D blocking but the systematic mess and complexity (plus structural factors of specifics on how on state by state basis - and again Europeans even with Federal govs badly misunderstand just how really under-the-hood sovereign the US states remain...)
I like to think that the left, maybe because of its newfound proximity to science, would be more likely to learn from its past mistakes, and when it finally comes down to policy, be able to stick with shit that works, at least marginally. But it’s possible that I am deluding myself, and certainly all this eco-chamber style misguided messaging doesn’t bode well.
What "proximity to science"? And why on earth do you think the Left (except on its own distorted self flattery) has a "newfound proximity"?
One of the best and most important things we can do to save and improve democracy is end party primaries.
These elections horrifically magnify the power of the extremes on the left and right, often leaving people in the general election the choice of only between two horrific candidates, like in Wisconsin. Instead, we need a completely open first round election, with anyone from any party on the ballot who qualifies (like by number of signatures), with qualification standards high enough to keep the number of candidates usually between three and seven, and a ranked-choice election, of course, so as to prevent spoilers, or a small plurality from winning. Then, there should perhaps be a general election of the top two.
Yes, with ranked-choice you could say the runoff is unnecessary, but in many people's minds it would add legitimacy. However, you might get the primary problem, where many people wait until the general to vote, and so the passionate extremes dominate the first round too much still. So maybe just one big many candidate open ranked-choice election would be best.
All of the blue and purple states can do this, and greatly decrease the power of the extreme left and right. It can constitutionally be done by passing a law in the legislature, signed by the governor, or by referendum. This may seem too technical, but it is absolutely crucial today. We are in such serious danger from these party primaries.
I do not want to get too One Weird Trick here, but how many crazies on either side would come out of an open primary? Or a California-style nonpartisan primary?
Rather than one weird trick I do think we need to think of structure and systems as fundamentally at root cause of much of the current dysfunction (with attention to non-partisan Poli-Sci analysis of systems basis): and avoidance of Quick Fixes or Naive Fixes like from 70s era (more democracy better! simple minded naivtete w/o regard to factiosn, poorly attended sub/pre-electionsetc)
Cali style seems to have all the elements to produce severely distorted results especially in "one party" states, but I personally would want to see a game-theoried supported structural examination of workings of changed primary systems (ones that are achieveable not to dream of USA becoming a Europrean parliamentary system or other non-realistic goals).
Clearly primaries as now done - poorly attended - are subject to huge risks of capture (Trump is the R example).
Would Mark Kelly be willing and able to take these folks on -- or, for that matter, his Arizona colleague, Ruben Gallego?
And where's Al Franken now that we need him? (Oh, that's right -- he caved.) :-(
Generally I think that while the comment here objecting to over-reading Online Proggy world is not per se wrong on the flip side if there is not people countering the Hongs with the Kelly, the Gellego, the default image will become Hongs etc. and whether one likes it or not that becomes the Brand.
the shrugging and going along (oh they don't really mean it, etc) of the 2010s was an error.