Alexandria-Cortez is very good, and would be a fine leader for the Democrats. She's smart as hell and knows how to use the media--both talking with the talking heads on network news as well as DIY politics on social media. There are people who say she's better where she is as a Congressperson and shouldn't make a run for the presidency, and I'm not smart enough to know if they're right. And of course she is quite young, so even if interested in a run is likely biding her time for another decade or so. But she's a natural, just as Bernie is, and genuine, just as Bernie is; you may not agree with their politics but no one would claim they're not dedicated to the causes they promote.
posted by zardoz at 2:20 AM on April 22 [16 favorites]

It's mind-boggling to me that anyone can believe the democrats lost in 2024 because they went too far left. For a long time I didn't believe such arguments were being made in good faith. But it's become increasingly obvious to me that some people do think this. It's plain that you won't get thousands of people to turn out for the "Democrats: Nothing Will Fundamentally Change!!!" rally, but does that mean there aren't millions of people who will gloomily and without fanfare gratefully vote for a centrist democrat, who would turn their noses up at a leftist and/or vote for an extreme right-wing candidate? I mean, they didn't vote for the centrist last time, so...no?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:36 AM on April 22 [30 favorites]

The DNC and congress needs to be cleaned up before a progressive can actually do something in the White House.
posted by roguewraith at 3:03 AM on April 22 [4 favorites]

Believe it or not, even red states have liberal minded people that live in them. I wonder what the demographic breakdown of these rallies are.
posted by NoMich at 3:19 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

Obama was a centrist. Bill Clinton was a centrist at best. The Democrats don't think they can win a national election with a leftist because they haven't in 75 years. Maybe they could if they tried but they haven't wanted to risk it. (Of course "the Democrats" here is a mixture of the leadership and the primary voters, and there's no single will or intention to attribute.)
posted by rikschell at 3:22 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

#fightoligarchy [bluesky]
posted by HearHere at 3:23 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Alexandria-Cortez is very good, and would be a fine leader for the Democrats. She's smart as hell and knows how to use the media--both talking with the talking heads on network news as well as DIY politics on social media
Foreigner's perspective: My take, for the last several years, has been that of course AOC should be next presidential candidate for the Democrats.
posted by rongorongo at 3:28 AM on April 22 [21 favorites]

I didn't realize David Hogg had become vice chair of the DNC. That's very good news. The Parkland school shooting survivors know that this is not an academic exercise, and are rightly pissed as hell about the entrenched resistance to progressive activism.

This is just incredibly on the nose:

All DNC officers have been asked to avoid activities in their party or personal capacity that would raise questions about their impartiality, but Hogg was the one DNC leader who did not sign the ¡°neutrality policy."

The DNC has been an incredibly toxic organization my entire life. "Centrist" is far too polite a term for it.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:14 AM on April 22 [25 favorites]

"Centrist" is far too polite a term for it.

McGovern lost in 1972 and had to accept "better things aren't possible" Democrats for a half-century. But yeah, centrists aren't your friends.

They're not even centrist.
posted by AlSweigart at 4:27 AM on April 22 [11 favorites]

It's mind-boggling to me that anyone can believe the democrats lost in 2024 because they went too far left.

Totally. Indeed, with the trans and Israel stuff, they went too far right imo. Still not enough to push MAGA off the edge though.
posted by low_horrible_immoral at 5:46 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

It's mind-boggling to me that anyone can believe the democrats lost in 2024 because they went too far left. For a long time I didn't believe such arguments were being made in good faith. But it's become increasingly obvious to me that some people do think this.

The punching-hippies train is never late.

If AOC ever does run, watch for the party to unite against her the way it did against Sanders in 2020.
posted by Lemkin at 6:02 AM on April 22 [16 favorites]

with the trans and Israel stuff, they went too far right imo. Still not enough to push MAGA off the edge though.

2024 was also the first time in years that the Dem platform didn't mention abolition of the death penalty.
posted by HeroZero at 6:09 AM on April 22 [4 favorites]

Obama: "Imagine if I had done *ANY* of this."

Republicans would have have gone nuts--oh, there's your problem.

Obama's sort of got this backwards here? He's asking us to imagine what would have happened if he had done any of this with the implication being that Republicans would not have tolerated it and would not have let him get away with it the way they're letting Trump get away with it right now. But what about the Democrats? It feels kind of weird for Obama to argue that he would've been met with far greater levels of outrage, opposition, and resistance in his hypothetical when Democrats are presumably the ones that should be providing all those things in the current reality? He wants to compare the behavior of Republicans WRT to him vs Trump, but he's also comparing Republicans WRT to him vs. Democrats WRT to Trump, and in that case it doesn't really make the Democrats look very good....

Don't get me wrong, there has been a lot of resistance from Democrats, but Obama's argument shows that they could be doing so much more resistance, opposition, and outrage.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:10 AM on April 22 [5 favorites]

I have to say that I like AOC despite being well to the right of her views. She stands up for what she believes in, clearly likes public service and takes it seriously, and appears to function in well in Washington at a practical level, not just contenting herself with grandstanding.

That said, she doesn't appear to be stopping Andrew Cuomo from becoming the Democratic Party nominee for NYC Mayor in June over spirited progressive opposition, particularly with the alacrity at which he's buttoning up union support. Not especially promising for her odds to be, or back, a progressive Democratic Presidential nominee in 2028.

And, while I have no doubt that there's some reservoir of progressive enthusiasm that Clinton, Biden and Harris couldn't tap, and AOC would ... I severely doubt it's the equal to the billionaire, corporate and pro-Israel support they had which would switch to Vance or DeSantis were she the alternative.

Progressives really ought to make their peace with 2028 being for Gavin Newsom or some near equivalent.
posted by MattD at 6:23 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Obama: "Imagine if I had done *ANY* of this."

Imagine if Obama had executed an American citizen without trial for making constitutionally protected speech. And then, just to make sure no one missed the point, had his victim¡¯s 16 year old son killed too.

Oh, that¡¯s right. You don¡¯t have to imagine because he actually did those things.

[I am directly replying to the poster¡¯s ¡°what if Obama did grossly illegal things¡± content. They opened the barn door. I¡¯m just sauntering outside for some fresh air.]
posted by Lemkin at 6:35 AM on April 22 [12 favorites]

As a person who believes strongly that there needs to be radical change for us to have a future on this planet, AOC should not run for president in 2028. She should stay in congress or the senate and build power and influence for a future run in 2032 or 2036.

It's not that she couldn't win. National elections will be a coin toss for the foreseeable future. Its that if she did win, she would be completely hamstrung by centrist Democrats and be unable to deliver on her vision. Then the backlash would blame her for the failure and we would be worse than where we started.

She needs to spend the time to build a solid base of power nationally so that She can get large enough majorities to do the big things that we need.

For now, Democratic primary voters are shell shocked and are extremely likely to choose a safe white dude in 2028. IMO, it will be one of Newsom, Beshear, and maybe Walz.
posted by being_quiet at 7:05 AM on April 22 [10 favorites]

The Orange Menace has run for president three times. The two times he ran against women, he won. The one time he ran against a man, he lost. Maybe it's oversimplifying things to reduce it to that, but I have no doubt there's a significant fraction of the population that just won't vote for a woman. And a significant fraction that just won't vote for anyone with an "ethnic" name. Regardless of policies, personal appeal, etc. My guess is that about ? of voters actively embraced trump for his fascism, and about another ? has one of these dumb hangups, or is so uninformed they hadn't even heard of Kamala Harris, or thought trump seemed like a boss because they'd seen him on that TV show.

But all this talk amounts to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic because I don't think the USA will have anything resembling free and fair elections again during my lifetime.
posted by adamrice at 7:05 AM on April 22 [8 favorites]

> The Democrats don't think they can win a national election with a leftist because they haven't in 75 years.

The Democrats have never won "a national election with a leftist."

75 years ago, the Democrats won a national election with a Red-baiter. The 1933-69 D Liberal program was NOT A LEFTIST PROGRAM. It was a program intended to keep the world safe for capitalism.

The Ds are almost certainly correct that they cannot "win a national election with a leftist." Because what people want is Capitalism with a human face, not Socialism.

Oh, and AOC is not a "leftist," either, as far as I can tell. She smells more or less exactly like a New Deal Liberal, AFAICT. Except she wants the goodies to not be for whites only. I'm good with that!
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:09 AM on April 22 [4 favorites]

> because I don't think the USA will have anything resembling free and fair elections again during my lifetime.

The US has made a real honest effort to have "free and fair elections" for about 20 years out of the last 235. Now that I am able to see that, I look back at my childhood and the US's passing judgement on the rest of the world's elections with a kind of awe at the effrontery of American moralizing about that.

My attitude is, the worst that I can imagine rarely comes to pass. Things usually turn out to not be as catastrophic as I imagine they will be. I have not given up hope that the current gang will fail to ensure that future elections will be meaningless (I'm pretty certain that they won't be getting rid of elections altogether).

Things are shaping up to re-create the conditions where the R Party will be unable take control of Congress until everyone who sees what fuckups they are has died, and where they won't be able to elect a President for 20 years (and then only by finding a non-Republican to run for them).

It's not too late to hope for that outcome, IMO.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:17 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

It¡¯s been wild seeing the local and national media rewrite SF mayors London Breed, Ed Lee, Gavin Newsom, Willie Brown, Frank Jordan and Diane Feinstein into fire breathing progressive leftists that Daniel Lurie has somehow rescued San Francisco from when he is literally cut from the same wealthy ¡°moderate¡± Democratic cloth as literally every single SF mayor and a good percentage of the Board of Supervisors since the 1970s. Nearly everything ¡°bad¡± about SF happened on these folks¡¯ watch but somehow the narrative is that anybody but mainstream Democrats are to blame. It¡¯s really amazing to see and live in real time how the mainstream Democratic Party and their corporate ideology is never ever ever to blame for why the way things are the way they are.
posted by flamk at 7:31 AM on April 22 [16 favorites]

I have to say that I like AOC despite being well to the right of her views. She stands up for what she believes in

Which is why she can also win over the Trump voters who believe that "he tells it like it is." I don't believe Trump does that, but it's interesting how that perception activates people.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:36 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Walz for Prez, Pritzker for VP! I doubt Pritzker wants 2nd fiddle but I'd love that ticket.
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:13 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

It's a long time until 2028. Hell, it's a long time until 2026 and I guess I kinda count myself as one of those who finds a bit of credulity in Musk et al doing just enough tampering in just enough places to have influenced the last election, and what that might mean for any chance of a Blue wave in 2026 (when added to all of the voter suppression as well).
I like what I've seen of AOC, onstage but more importantly in committees in congress. She's a force there, and I think she'd be a force as Speaker some day.
I think we're too racist and misogynistic as a nation to elect her prez. VP maybe, but then she'd be much less of an influence.
What we need is a few more progressives joining forces with AOC and Bernie to really move the Overton within the party.
posted by OHenryPacey at 8:20 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Pritzger, Pritzger, he's our man, if we'd run Pritzger he would have mopped the floor with Trump. If we had a Pritzger-Walz ticket we would have a mandate for another New Deal. But I also think that AOC would be a very plausible candidate in 2028 since she's raising her national profile a lot.

I would love to elect someone who has been in the regular-degular labor market relatively recently. If we have comparatively free and fair elections in 2028, which I do not think is a totally foregone conclusion but is certainly in doubt, I think that smart Democrats - younger people and people who throw in their lot with the younger ones - could perhaps sweep BOTH a young president AND a better Congress into office.

Someone who has worked a regular job some time in the last fifteen years, someone who doesn't have generational wealth or a coterie of generationally wealthy backers, someone who hasn't squatted in Washington like a toad in a stone for fifty years - someone who has some kind of stake in this country, instead of a bunch of international billionaires and their lackeys. That's what I'd like.
posted by Frowner at 9:06 AM on April 22 [10 favorites]

> or a coterie of generationally wealthy backers

Sadly, IDK if that is on offer. Not sure what Sanders' and AOC's situation is like here but my understanding is that one prime qualification to be a national legislative office holder is to be able to spend 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, brown-nosing wealthy donors for wherewithal to stay in office.

Campaign finance reform is important. Federally-funded campaigns or bust, says me.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:03 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

> she doesn't appear to be stopping Andrew Cuomo from becoming the Democratic Party nominee for NYC Mayor in June

Well, she could endorse current second place contender and socialist Zohran Mamdami and that would seriously change the race, and her (as of yet) failure to do so reveals how serious she is about building a progressive movement -- even in her own city, even in her own borough. Sigh.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:15 AM on April 22 [4 favorites]

NoMich: "Believe it or not, even red states have liberal minded people that live in them. I wonder what the demographic breakdown of these rallies are."

In Utah's case of the AOC led rally it was less than one percent of a contiguous urban and suburban population of over two million with about 30 percent Democratic voters.
posted by Brian B. at 10:17 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

This feels like a reasonable thread to pop in and mention:

If you would like to improve the media coverage of US politics and politicians that ordinary people have easy access to for free, consider helping me with a bit of research to help me improve a few specific English Wikipedia articles. The biography of Zohran Mamdani is one of them! MeMail me to coordinate.

You don't have to actually edit the pages. There are a few articles I'm currently working on improving, or want to, where I could use a bit of help finding good sources that answer, e.g., "What is this person's stance on [issue]"? and stuff like that. I have a pretty good track record of making improvements that stick and don't get reverted (I know the relevant guidelines reasonably well, etc.).

There's that saying: the truth is paywalled but the lies are free. Trying to push back against that.
posted by brainwane at 10:21 AM on April 22 [11 favorites]

Progressives really ought to make their peace with 2028 being for Gavin Newsom or some near equivalent.

Sure, as long as we also make peace with JD Vance, or a third term of Donald Trump.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:40 AM on April 22 [10 favorites]

Progressives really ought to make their peace with 2028 being for Gavin Newsom or some near equivalent.

That's the miracle of Pritzker and Walz - they are late middle aged white guys, one very folksy and one very authentic-sounding though not folksy. One looks like Red State Dad and one looks like he's the founder and CEO of a regionally successful Chicago-based Italian restaurant chain. Chicago pizza guy would beat grass-in-the-wind California slickster by a country mile.

I'm not going to bat for everything either of them has done, but I have some familiarity with both as a constituent and I tend to believe that their worse decisions were made out of legitimate political capital concerns and not conviction. I also believe that Pritzker can twist some fucking arms, and we haven't had a Democrat who could twist an arm not belonging to a junior party functionary for thirty years.

I stress that this is just who I'd run right this minute - if AOC's profile continues to rise, that could very well change my mind about 2028.

But no more shitty Dems! We have folksy middle aged guys who have some kind of moral object permanence, no need to run the Newsoms of the world.
posted by Frowner at 10:58 AM on April 22 [17 favorites]

The Orange Menace has run for president three times. The two times he ran against women, he won. The one time he ran against a man, he lost. Maybe it's oversimplifying things to reduce it to that, but I have no doubt there's a significant fraction of the population that just won't vote for a woman. And a significant fraction that just won't vote for anyone with an "ethnic" name.

I don¡¯t agree with this, and I don¡¯t think the numbers bear it out¡ªClinton won more votes than Trump, and Harris did better in her election than those in other elections around the world pushing against the COVID inflation headwind. But I think the Dem party machers will definitely use this reasoning to make sure it¡¯s Walz or Pritzker in 2028.
posted by ejs at 11:15 AM on April 22 [3 favorites]

I wonder what the demographic breakdown of these rallies are.

Faiz Shakir, who has long worked for Bernie, did a Twitter thread on this recently. The data is based on people who RSVP'd - I'm not clear on how much that represents those in attendance.

The key info:
"32% of attendees are NOT registered Democrats and more than 7% of attendees ARE registered Republicans.

42% of attendees are not college graduates -- a group Democrats have been increasingly losing ground with."
posted by coffeecat at 11:15 AM on April 22 [9 favorites]

Local party leaders are advancing an ideology they call 'new pragmatism

I'm going to guess that the New Pragmatism is going to be very similar to the old "Well we have to sacrifice this group on the altar of electability, its pragmatic and what (very specifically Republican suburban voters) want!". See Newsom's start toward abandoning trans rights and Another Topic for dems more generally.

This is the loser strategy of losers past. Full Sugar Republicans are right there on the shelf, suburban republicans do not want artificially sweetened less-harmful Diet Republicans.

And if you're wondering how to get people on board with $GoodThing and energize everyone who likes $GoodThing, to mangle a quote from Mad Men:

THAT'S WHAT THE CAMPAIGNING IS FOR.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:23 PM on April 22 [12 favorites]

¡° Progressives really ought to make their peace with 2028 being for Gavin Newsom or some near equivalent.
posted by MattD at 6:23 AM on April 22¡±

No.

Which potential Dem candidate is going to have the personal conviction and ability to wield power effectively to purge the system of freaks, saboteurs, DOGE perverts and other undesirable elements from the government? Which potential Dem candidate has an actual positive vision to lay out for the electorate, an actual political ideology that voters believe that the candidate actually believes? The electorate in general has been fed up with business as usual and no consequences for bad actors for something like 20 years now - what Democrat will have the will to call these bad actors out and the force of will to punish them if they ever get into office? That¡¯s a candidate I will vote for even if they don¡¯t perfectly align with my far left politics.
posted by youthenrage at 12:58 PM on April 22 [9 favorites]

I'll vote for anyone willing to betray the party. I've got nothing to say to anyone else.
posted by jy4m at 2:30 PM on April 22 [3 favorites]

Hate to keep being terribly disappointed in any possible Democratic candidates/idols, but VT Senator Peter Welch (not VT Senator Sanders) just visited Mohsen Mahdawi in ICE prison, and no one from NY (including Representative AOC) has visited their constituent Mahmoud Khalil.

Democrats (who have eyes on higher office) can't ever seem to do the right thing.
posted by pjenks at 3:33 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

What centrists don't seem to understand is that the several democrats elected, who were admittedly all centrists, were not generally perceived that way while they were running for office. Obama was widely touted as the most liberal senator of all time (this was incredibly untrue), Biden ran as very pro-labor (and governed as a union buster), etc. Clinton and Harris were both seen as pretty conservative, and ran hard at the center, and lost.

The idea that there's a noble suburban slash rural guy, possibly a farmer, basically someone who's Kevin Costner, who would normally vote republican but is just looking for someone Reasonable to vote for...that story is bullshit. It's a nice story, I wish it were true, but it isn't. The democrats have to get the fuck over this story and stop trying to run people this guy will vote for, because he isn't a real person.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:55 PM on April 22 [17 favorites]

there's a noble suburban slash rural guy, possibly a farmer, basically someone who's Kevin Costner, who would normally vote republican but is just looking for someone Reasonable to vote for...that story is bullshit.

Absolutely. And if there was ever a test of this hypothesis it happened in the fall of 2024. Unfortunately those who executed that brilliant plan don't seem to think that's what happened.
posted by pjenks at 4:12 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

Not that I think that everyone who voted for Trump is MAGA. What turned the election were people who felt like things were not going well (inflation, economy in general), and the Democrats were (1) in charge, (2) not admitting that things weren't going well (the first step to explaining why we were in the economic crisis and how things were being and would continue to be improved), and (3) didn't seem to have any other message than "the other guy is bad".

Professional Democrats / MSNBC Democrats seem to think that appealing to swing voters means to be more MAGA (tough on immigration, abandoning trans rights), when actually it just means to fight for democratic causes with a full voice (health care, economic equality, labor).
posted by pjenks at 4:17 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Progressives really ought to make their peace with 2028 being for Gavin Newsom or some near equivalent.

oh hell no. he's exactly the kind of centrist throw-minorities-under-the-bus Dem that has been the death of the party so far.

if you don't know what I'm talking about, he's been hosting right-wingers on his podcast and talked about giving away trans rights.
posted by kokaku at 4:42 PM on April 22 [10 favorites]

jasmine crockett for president

show some backbone people!
posted by nofundy at 5:08 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

newsom: "I mean, to the extent that I¡¯m marginally part of this party..." just yesterday.
posted by Clowder of bats at 6:05 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

Gavin Newsom has decided he doesn't need progressives, and is virtue signalling his anti-trans and friendly-to-assholes bonafides. He's always been wishy-washy and grandstanding, and now he's leaning into it for tech money reasons. I live in the Bay Area, and when he thought it would benefit him, he married gay people; and now he thinks in benefits him to harass young trans women athletes so he's doing that. He sucks, he always has. And so do all the so-called SF Dems who just want homeless people to magically disappear and self driving cars to push public transit aside.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:59 PM on April 22 [8 favorites]

I love AOC and think she's the absolute best Democrat at calling out Republican bullshit and getting her message out on new media, but. She has a lot of baggage and that's dangerous. Like Hilary Clinton, you know? She's a much stronger candidate than Clinton was but what they have in common is years and years of being demonized by right wing media.

Again I love her and I don't want to think small but this is just fact. Without being one of those "we need to run a white man!" Dems I think it is a losing proposition to pick someone who's been the focus of so much negative attention from the right for so long.

And it sucks, because the reason they demonize her so much is because they are afraid of her, afraid of how effective she is at reaching people. But nevertheless...
posted by subdee at 7:12 PM on April 22

Here's a third strike against Newsom, he's a favorite guest on Bill Maher.
posted by Ber at 8:16 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

If AOC ever does run, watch for the party to unite against her the way it did against Sanders in 2020.

There is a major difference with AOC, which is that she is a registered Democrat, whereas Bernie still refuses to identify as a member of the Democratic Party. I think that's going to be a major difference in AOC's favor with "normie" Democrats who you have to win over in order to win primaries or survive the backlash from Dem Party elites.
posted by jonp72 at 8:17 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

She's a much stronger candidate than Clinton was but what they have in common is years and years of being demonized by right wing media.

But really think about why this would be a problem for a democratic candidate. It wouldn't. It wasn't for Hillary Clinton. There was never any reality where republicans in 2016 were going to vote for Hillary Clinton. The problem was that she sucked at being a democrat, so a lot of democratic voters just didn't vote. We have got to lose this fantasy that there are republicans that the democrats can reach across the aisle to and bring in. That is just not real life anymore. So who gives a fuck if the right wing media demonizes the democratic candidate for president? They will demonize any democratic candidate for president, not to keep republicans from voting for them, but to motivate republicans to vote against them. Republicans are never going to vote for a democrat, I don't give a fuck how big a nazi they are.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:24 PM on April 22 [5 favorites]

So, we're in the middle of a political realignment, of sorts. Trump is not acting "conservative", in the small-c, "keeping things the same as the way they were" sense of the word. The mainstream Democrats, nowadays, find themselves as the small-c conservative party, the defenders of the neoliberal status quo. Which is fine by a lot of them! The status quo is working great for them, the only problem is they have trouble winning elections except when Trump fatigue has set in strongly enough, for enough people, that "vote for a boring white dude who will be all Business As Usual" actually looks like an attractive proposition.

The fundamental problem the mainstream Democratic Party has failed to address, or even really recognize, is that the status quo is fucked. It cannot be maintained or defended. You cannot pivot to a center which cannot hold. And from climbing housing prices to climbing medical bankruptcies to climate change, there are a thousand or more different ways the status quo simply will not, cannot hold. Trump, like it or not (and you shouldn't) speaks to this! He's taking a wrecking ball to the status quo. His "solutions" will be catastrophic beyond imagining, but voters are sort of like software beta testers: good at spotting problems, terrible at figuring out what the solution should be. They don't know what to replace the doomed, dying status quo with, but they can see that Trump is doing something and Democrats are doing nothing, and they are correct about that.

The only hope, and I mean that literally, is to offer a different, better vision of radical change than MAGA does. And then deliver on it, somehow, despite all the structural barriers, despite all the Republican obstinacy and sabotage, despite the fact that it's a lot harder to build than to destroy. AOC and Bernie at least grasp the importance of the first part of that, of offering a better, more positive vision of a changed world. Can they actually deliver on it? That's the big killer question, to me. That was my biggest concern about Bernie in 2016; he had a vision, but not a plan for how to implement it. The absolute worst thing AOC could possibly do is run for president on that vision and then fail to really move the needle towards it, due to all the entrenched obstructionism (and by the time Trump and Musk are busy butchering and re-staffing the federal government, there will be such layers of obstructionism as will make the Obama years look like a period of harmony, unity and bipartisanship). The wave of disillusionment that would result from her harnessing all the enthusiasm she's harnessing right now, and then proving unable to deliver the goods, would cripple the progressive project for long enough that it's unlikely, in my estimation, that the United States of America would last long enough to ever get another shot at implementing it.

The other folks under discussion - Pritzker, Walz (and Newsom, but that should be obvious) - I'm not convinced they fully grasp or are willing to openly state how just absolutely fucked the status quo is. In which case, they can't win an election; they can only hope Trump loses the election all by himself by just exhausting the country's appetite for change. Which is more or less what happened in 2020...but as the status quo continues to deteriorate, peoples' appetite for change will continue to grow. On the plus side, win or lose, they don't cost AOC her shot. She'll have to figure out when the moment is right to strike; she has to run not when she's the most sure she'll win, but when she's most sure she can deliver on her promises after winning. This tour she's on with Bernie has done her a lot of good in terms of building her confidence and her speaking ability (besides the general value of letting people who are extremely frustrated right now feel heard); I just hope it hasn't made her overconfident in her ability to deal with the opposition she'll face. In the middle of a sea of cheering people, it's easy to feel like you can do anything, nevermind that the sea of people cheering is just 1 percent of the local population.

2028 would be a long ways away even if there were sane people running the federal government, though. There aren't, so "a lot can happen between now and then" feels like an absurd level of understatement. I'd like to meet the person who's done so well at predicting the twists and turns of the past ~10 years that they feel absolutely confident making definite predictions about the next few...that sure ain't me.
posted by mstokes650 at 10:59 PM on April 22 [8 favorites]

> The fundamental problem the mainstream Democratic Party has failed to address, or even really recognize, is that the status quo is fucked. It cannot be maintained or defended. You cannot pivot to a center which cannot hold. And from climbing housing prices to climbing medical bankruptcies to climate change, there are a thousand or more different ways the status quo simply will not, cannot hold.

This. And also the part about having a program to actually deliver the change. I do not see the D Party, in its current form, as being capable of that. Yet I think there is reason for hope, if Trump and allies fail to make it impossible for meaningful elections to happen.

Trump is on track to re-create for 2028 the conditions that existed in 1932. I have never been a heighten-the-contradictions guy myself, and I really do not want to live through the next 3 years and a half, if that's how they're going to be. But if the Rs do that, and fail to ensure that they cannot be de-elected, there will be space to reform the D Party (kudos to David Hogg, may his primary campaigns bear fruit in '26) so that it can rebuild something like the New Deal coalition (only with brown people this time) and finish the job of putting capital in the harness to pull the wagon, instead of hogging the driver's seat.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:25 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]

He's not perfect by a long shot but if we're using the quality of their enemies as a yardstick, the DOJ is currently going after Pritzker over Illinois's laws protecting undocumented immigrants/the state's support of Sanctuary Cities.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:04 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

> The fundamental problem the mainstream Democratic Party has failed to address, or even really recognize, is that the status quo is fucked. It cannot be maintained or defended. You cannot pivot to a center which cannot hold. And from climbing housing prices to climbing medical bankruptcies to climate change, there are a thousand or more different ways the status quo simply will not, cannot hold.


The actual evidence of this is pretty weak, I mean I guess it depends on what direction you are pointing. If it's climate change, then sure, but then the majority of Democratic politicians aren't doing jack about it, any more than Republicans are.

If you mean economically. It's not true, and that's why Bernie can't actually indicate the changes he thinks needs to be made, hence why everyone is flailing and Trump is throwing stuff at the wall.

If you believe that '...debts are climbing', you are reading Republican framing of the economy.

In reality:
personal bankruptcies are about 65% the average -ie: extremely low.
housing defaults are bouncing off all time lows as the number of people who own a home is near an all time high.
auto loans, even in the face of rising prices are 97% current.

Actual medical debt in the US:
"Approximately 14 million people (6% of adults) in the U.S. owe over $1,000 in medical debt and about 3 million people (1% of adults) owe medical debt of more than $10,000."

so tearing up the entire US and asserting that the 'status quo' cannot hold over 3 million people is....something. And more people than 3m have auto loan debt greater than $10k.

Helping people with debt and housing is a good thing, and it should be extremely targeted. If that's worth blowing up the entire economy over, we'll just have to disagree. No-one having any medical debt would be great as well. Single payer would be great.
Not requiring an auto loan in the US would be sweet, because public transportation is good in the major cities would be a real budget and climate win.

There are not significant numbers of Democratic politicians working towards those goals.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:46 AM on April 23

I mean, most people cannot afford to buy a house. If you can, great; for you, the economy is awesome. You are the people the democrats are appealing to. Are there enough of you? It would appear there are not.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:55 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

Yeah the economy is great if you're already doing great. What it isn't, is good for literally anyone else. Or for you if even a single thing about your life changes!

People keep wanting to tell me how fucking awesome the economy is. Meanwhile, I make six figures and am looking for a second job because that salary is not enough to support all of the people I need to support, most of whom need support because they got utterly and forever fucked by this shit-ass country and its "great economy."

So, I'm sorry. I don't give a single solitary fuck about the "indicators," this shit is broken and it sucks ass and it needs to be better, and anyone who tries to tell me how great and fine it is can do one.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:05 AM on April 23 [6 favorites]

@The_Vegetables you are looking at the wrong things.

The existence of the billionaire class is an existential threat to representative forms of government. The degree of inequality that has arisen in the last 50 years is an existential threat to the future of representative government.

The old saying about "if a thing can't go on forever, eventually it will stop?" A thing that can't go on forever is the limitless accumulation of wealth and power by individual private actors, in a society with a representative form of government. The obvious way for the stopping to happen is for the private actors to use their power to replace the representative form with an oligarchy, where they are the oligarchs.

So, I'm calling you 100% wrong there, or rather so far off-base that you are not even wrong in your analysis. Rather like all of the people who expected a 2nd Trump term to be no big deal, based on the fact that things held up sort-of-ok the first time around.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 10:19 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]

The stock market is not the economy. Tell me the economy is good, and then walk the streets of LA, and tell all the people living in tents and sleeping under cardboard that the economy is good.

I have massively talented friends in the game and VFX industries who can't find work. Those that do have work mostly can't afford to buy houses. Tell them the economy is good.

We can't say the economy is good if we're averting our eyes from all the folks that are suffering, working multiple jobs,barely making ends meet, or not making ends meet.

It's this myopia that makes democratic rhetoric ring hollow, and we have to attack it head on, with fearless honesty.

We need an economy that gives people meaningful jobs, and rewards them with a basic level of economic security.
posted by chromecow at 1:21 PM on April 23 [7 favorites]

Thank the stars young people are coming forward.
posted by olykate at 7:45 PM on April 23 [1 favorite]

On "the economy is good", there was a Bluesky post where someone, one of those idiots who posts FRED numbers constantly, pulled the curtain back and let loose that the FRED numbers were fucking phone polls. Asking 60,000 Americans, famously normal and cool about their income, how much they made in a month without any evidence required. By phone. To gauge consumer confidence or something along those lines.

It was like looking into the open reactor at Chernobyl. That's one of the "economy gud" metrics.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:29 PM on April 23 [5 favorites]

On "the economy is good", there was a Bluesky post where someone, one of those idiots who posts FRED numbers constantly, pulled the curtain back and let loose that the FRED numbers were fucking phone polls. Asking 60,000 Americans, famously normal and cool about their income, how much they made in a month without any evidence required. By phone. To gauge consumer confidence or something along those lines.

It was like looking into the open reactor at Chernobyl. That's one of the "economy gud" metrics.

What do you propose as an alternative source of data? Vibes?

There are some people on Bluesky who will object to anybody referring to the economy as good, whether it's under a Democratic or GOP administration, because it boils down to "How can the economy be good when capitalism still exists?" You can be critical of capitalism & still want reality-based data about whether the economy is doing better or worse.
posted by jonp72 at 9:20 AM on April 24 [2 favorites]

because it boils down to "How can the economy be good when capitalism still exists?"

OK but what about when it boils down to "How can we know the economy is good when the metrics by which we measure a successful economy really only pertain to how it treats the already-fairly-wealthy"?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:10 PM on April 24 [1 favorite]

What do you propose as an alternative source of data? Vibes?

I am not someone in that field, so I don't know what they should use. I do know that running a phone screen selects for people with phones and a willingness to pick up the phone, which immediately skews this towards older people in addition to whatever else is being skewed for/against like homelessness.

Political polls have a yardstick by which to adjust their measurements, weights, etc every election. There is no such yardstick for these phone screens, yeah? And the political polls have been wrong in brutal ways for like... 10-15 years now?

The answer these screens were giving was probably wrong. We not only have "vibes" (which is to say, Lived Experience) to support that take we have the various concrete social metrics like deaths of despair, though sadly I'm not seeing a lot of post 2020 data (which, that graph is both WILD and also from the Republican half of a joint committee and almost assuredly the propaganda number).

I can't find a lot of post-2020 data, the one graph I used to be able to find was for 2018-2023ish and it was flat, with a slight decrease in 2023. But that's a slight decrease for, when looking back at the graph above, a HUGE INCREASE that really took off post 2008.

A good economy would not be doing this to this many people.
posted by Slackermagee at 3:43 PM on April 24 [2 favorites]

take it from the wsj :P
The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People - "The highest-earning 10% of Americans have increased their spending far beyond inflation. Everyone else hasn't." (or the fed! Almost all wealth is owned by top 50% of Americans. Tax cuts may deepen divide, experts say.)
posted by kliuless at 1:49 AM on April 25 [1 favorite]

> Pritzger, Pritzger, he's our man, if we'd run Pritzger he would have mopped the floor with Trump.

Pritzker's speech in New Hampshire drives presidential campaign buzz - "The Illinois governor drew wide applause as he urged Democrats to abandon efforts to compromise with 'a madman' when he spoke in a key state on the road to the 2028 presidential nomination."

Pritzker was most searing in his condemnation of what he cast as the Trump administration¡¯s infringement on the rights enshrined in the Constitution, stating that it should be easy for Democrats to say, ¡°It¡¯s wrong to snatch a person off the street and ship them to a foreign gulag with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law.¡±

¡°Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now,¡± Pritzker said to a standing ovation accompanied by whistles and cheers from the audience. ¡°These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.¡±

Calling out Trump¡¯s ¡°xenophobia¡± and thirst for power, the Illinois governor said Democrats must ¡°stop thinking we can reason or negotiate with a madman.¡± His hope, he added, is that Republicans who enable Trump ¡°feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history,¡± their portraits will be relegated ¡°to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors.¡±

Turning to his own party, Pritzker argued that Democrats have spent too long listening to voices who ¡°would tell you that the house is not on fire, even as they feel the flames licking their face,¡± and called out politicians ¡°whose simpering timidity served as a kindle for the arsonists.¡±

Nearly six months after Kamala Harris¡¯s loss to Trump in the presidential election, the 2028 Democratic contest has no obvious front-runner. While Pritzker and the other likely contenders have demurred on questions about their White House ambitions, Democrats nationally are frustrated with their leaders in Washington and are looking for a new standard-bearer to chart the direction of their unpopular party.

posted by kliuless at 1:06 AM on April 29 [2 favorites]

Rather like all of the people who expected a 2nd Trump term to be no big deal, based on the fact that things held up sort-of-ok the first time around.

This is the doubling-down of denial, a failure of character that was never honest about past progress (i.e. conservatism). They bought into an absurd premise to restore a harmony that never existed, a divine deliverance echoing religious traditions that never had democracy and is obsessed with banning sin (or any personal expression). All these voters required was someone to mirror their emotions to form a trust bond with their cult of authority, to replace any notion of trustworthiness, which allows them to claim superpowers. Effective leadership of the boring kind, which makes steady progress and prevents disaster we can't yet see, appear as impotent next to a charismatic charlatan. This is authoritarianism, and any disagreement between varieties stem from how they differentiate classes of people in their doctrines, a basic human folly that gives so many flavors of the same rot.
posted by Brian B. at 9:49 AM on April 29 [1 favorite]

Pritzker and Ocasio-Cortez: A billionaire and a former bartender emerge as Trump resistance leaders - "Ocasio-Cortez's next political move seems less certain than Pritzker's. She is seen as a potential primary challenger to Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader from New York, and she only recently became old enough to be constitutionally eligible for the presidency."

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, argues Pritzker could be more attractive as a ¡°traitor to his class¡± in the tradition of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. An East Coast patrician, Roosevelt authored the New Deal¡¯s federal expansion to combat the Great Depression of the 1930s.

¡°How powerful would it be if a billionaire was the one helping to lead the charge against corrupt billionaires and corrupt billionaire corporations that are trying to crack the Constitution and loot the American people?¡± Green said, adding that ¡°continued silence¡± on ¡°billionaire issues¡± should disqualify Pritzker. ¡°We have to be speaking to the shake-up-the-system vibe that people want to see.¡±

Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, which typically backs centrist Democrats, countered that Pritzker could bring a ¡°more stable¡± version of Trump¡¯s argument that his wealth and success is an asset. Trump¡¯s biggest liability, Bennett said, is ¡°chaos¡± that negatively affects people¡¯s lives.

¡°People are very mad at Elon Musk, but not because he¡¯s rich,¡± Bennett said of the Tesla CEO who is leading Trump¡¯s Department of Government Efficiency. ¡°They¡¯re mad at him because he¡¯s vandalizing our government and doing it in a destructive way.¡±

A relative of the governor, Rachel Pritzker, chairs Third Way¡¯s board of trustees.

Ocasio-Cortez is often criticized by more moderate Democrats, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who has also positioned herself as a thought leader in the party. Slotkin recently suggested the word ¡°oligarchy¡± didn¡¯t resonate with working-class voters. It was an implicit rebuke of the Ocasio-Cortez-Sanders¡¯ tour.

Shortly after Slotkin¡¯s comments about oligarchy, Ocasio-Cortez posted on X: ¡°Plenty of politicians on both sides of the aisle feel threatened by rising class consciousness.¡±

Bennett said Democrats who emerge as party leaders, including the 2028 nominee, will be those who offer solutions for voters¡¯ frustration ¡°over their needs not being met.¡± It¡¯s a notion that Green insisted is indistinguishable from criticizing the billionaire class, along with the tax and labor policies that drive wealth and income gaps in the U.S.

huh, penny pritzker is his sister...
-Ackman Slams Harvard for Failures, Calls to Remove Pritzker

also btw...
-Gov. JB Pritzker appoints brother-in-law to U. of I. board
-Retired Lt. Col. Jennifer Pritzker on Trump's Efforts to Ban Transgender Troops

oh and...
-House Democrats' old guard prepares to fight the youth revolt
-Connolly stepping down as top Democrat on Oversight Committee
-Inside the already chaotic fight to replace Gerry Connolly
-Scoop: Holmes Norton passes on House Oversight bid
-AOC "weighing" bid to be top Democrat on House Oversight
-House Democrats wait on AOC's big Oversight decision
-House Dems privately brood about shedding committee leaders
posted by kliuless at 7:42 AM on May 6 [1 favorite]

-Scoop: Senate Democrats to host Ezra Klein as retreat special guest
-AOC opens the floodgates for a chaotic House Dem free-for-all
-Inside the whisper campaign to elevate Robert Garcia
posted by kliuless at 10:32 PM on May 7 [1 favorite]