Gavin Newsom is Not a Progressive
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/11/gavin-newsom-is-not-a-progressiveOpen linkView original on lemmy.world342
Comments290https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/11/gavin-newsom-is-not-a-progressiveOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Do I like seeing him fuck with Trump? Yes.
Is he a dirty neo liberal? Yes.
Would I support him in a primary for President in 2028? Probably not. I sure hope someone better shows up.
Would I support him if he won the Democratic primary? Yes. Assuming we get elections. Assuming the DNC hasn't fully fractured and a third party candidate cannot reasonably win.
Would he fix our country? No. See item 2.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Its not hard, people.
Good take. Maybe the Kamala protest abstainers will have a fresh enough dose of Trumpism to remember that halfway-kind-of-decent-sometimes is better than literally-the-worst-possible-decision-at-all-times. I hope we still have elections. I hope we are not stuck with Newsom as the only choice. But if we are, he IS the only choice, and even though he's not nearly a progressive, he is far closer to it than whatever the GOP rolls out with in 3 years (whether it is Trump again, Trump Jr., Vance, or a new piece of shit far right authoritarian). We need to make sure he wins, and that means getting your asses to the booth. All of us. Even you.
Goddam. You guys sure love hoping someone else learns lessons. You ever hope democrats learn a little something?
I very clearly said that I hope we are not stuck with him. Hoping that Dems get their shit together and act right or at least get out of the waybof those who do is a constant state for me.
No, they're the ones who failed to win that election. They're the ones who willfully did everything they could to avoid taking principled positions and connecting with voters. Will they do it again? You betcha. Go ahead and be mad at millions of people, or demand a bit more from the couple of hundred of your "leaders" whose entire job it is to win elections.
Wish I had your faith in American voters.
I'm not sure how to take your comment in this context. Do you have more faith in the dem party to run popular and successful campaigns? Whether you have faith in the voters or not, you still need to get them to vote for you.
So, you think that if the Dems run a candidate with principled stances and popular positions that people would support them.
I have no such faith in the American voter. They can't tell the difference between principles and propaganda, and they have no idea what's good for them.
Aw shucks pardner, you've convinced me to vote against my conscience! Adding my vote will surely put us over the top. What's that? We need to convince millions more? Well, okay, sure seems like it might be easier to scare a few politicians into doing what's right, but I'm down to hear your plan. The plan is to gaslight and browbeat people who recognize the moral bankruptcy in the Democratic party until they just vote for them anyway? Can I at least pretend that genocidal dementia patients like Joe Biden are actually "the most progressive president in history"? I can? Damn, I'm really understanding the attraction now!
I also have noticed that literally 0 of the "we can't vote for Democrats, stop voting for them, that is the way to progress" strategists have anything to say about candidates to support before the primary, protest organizations to join in the meantime, anything generally productive that is outside of the general election they're so gung-ho about giving their input to.
Right now would be the time to be looking around for good midterm or primary candidates who aren't corporate whores, talking up third parties or reforms that would make third parties viable, all that kind of stuff. Nope. Just "let the Republicans win" in the general election, and then, crickets. And now occasionally popping up to shit on Gavin Newsom when he's tangling with Trump, like a romantic partner who is grabbing on your arm and screaming "stop it!" while you're in the middle of a fistfight. Just fuckin' helping, the lot of them, from morning till night.
Many of the fake "leftist" that refuse to vote, have also never voted and don't know how elections work. Dig around on Lemmy enough and you'll find whole arguments with several hundred people that have no clue what a primary is. I know because I've been involved with trying to educate them. I've learned to just ignore idiots. Similar to other sites, I just had higher expectations for Lemmy.
They aren’t Americans and probably not “leftist”
You mean the same person that refused to say "Genocide is bad, and we shouldn't support it"? The same person who proudly stood behind Biden when was bombing innocent people? The same person who put people in prison for marijuana, then laughed about it when talking about smoking herself? The same person who campaigned with the Cheneys?
I think your definition of "halfway-kind-of-decent-sometimes" might be different than mine. All we're looking for is someone who isn't a monster, and she couldn't even pull that off.
This is why the Democrats keep losing, and have such a low approval rating: They keep normalizing monsters, and can't figure out why the voters don't like that.
I mean someone who will not literally destroy our democracy to remain in power. The bare minimum.
You mean the people from the DNC who pretty openly refuse to have fair elections? The same party that has shit on civil rights for decades? How is that not destroying our Democracy?
You're right. Better to just actively or indirectly (through inaction) support the party that is currently actively revoking civil rights on a national scale, and planning to rig/end elections to stay in power indefinitely. That will fix the broken system.
That's what gets me about this whole thing. There's plenty of core of truth to the idea that the Democrats are very bad, although yes the alternative currently is infinitely worse. There are thousands of things that any given person could do to try to fix that or work for better things in American politics. Refusing to elect Democrats anymore, no matter what, is 0 of them, and will make things quite a lot worse.
It's like punishing your child for bad grades by refusing to feed them anymore. One, it doesn't address the problem, two, it will make even the thing you say you are upset about and trying to fix, infinitely worse.
Functionally, things are the way they are because the people that want to change things for the better do not make up the majority of people yet. Plenty of the boomers are still happy with the status quo since most of it doesn’t directly impact them. Gen X even was more right leaning than the boomers in 2024.
Just looking at the number of people that actually vote, neo-liberal boomers and Gen Xers will still be dictating policy for another decade at the least. If they aren’t progressive, most of the policy getting passed will not be either.
This isn’t even taking into account the way that land has more power than people in the US either. Sparsely populated red states hold just as much power in the Senate as New York or California. The House is currently capped on the number of Representatives as well, meaning that those small red states are over represented and larger blue and purple states are underrepresented.
The best shot at changing anything before another decade passes is by starting locally to each of us. We can try to do what New York City did and implement an alternative voting system in our own cities, that will help immensely to get more people like Mamdani in office. If we garner enough support at the city and local levels, we might even be able to be like Maine or Alaska and get an alternative voting system in place at the state level.
Alternative voting systems are pretty much the only real way third parties will have a chance to get off the ground and have a seat at the table on a national level. The main reason for that is because it helps mitigate the spoiler effect; where your preferred candidate and the safe candidate knock each other out allowing your least preferred candidate to win elections.
Want to help? Get the word out about alternative voting systems and organizations that promote them. Get involved locally.
Underrepresented Fediverse Social Media Accounts:
Involvement Links:
Who said to do that? I certainly didn't. I push for parties that and actions that are actually trying to do something against the current party. The Democrats are the ones that have spent their time propping up and actively supporting the current party.
You started this conversation by advocating for not voting for Newsom if he is the only candidate with a chance against the GOP. If your "other parties" have fractional support of the democrats come general election day, they're not viable alternatives and your vote for them is functionally identical to not voting at all.
By all means, I 100% support advocacy for change, for reform, for new people and ideas in power. But we also have a shitty voting system that means you usually need to pick the least of two evils come election day. And you need to be practical and make peace with that. I wish we had something like Approval voting where there was no push to a two party split and everyone could vote for every candidate or party they like, and I would support voting reform in that direction all day every day, but that is not what we have now.
Hard disagree. The voters very clearly do like monsters.
Some do, sure. But the two major parties have only put monsters on the ballot for the past few decades, so we don't really know how many would pick a non-monster given the chance.
Parties didn't put those politicians on the ballot, voters did. The Democratic party got rid of smoke filled rooms and contested conventions in the 1970's and the Republican party followed suit in the 1980's.
If you are disatisfied with the pols on offer, you have only to look to your neighbors.
lol, you mean the same DNC that said "...the DNC charter’s promise of ‘impartiality and evenhandedness’ as a mere political promise—political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts." ?
The same party that openly rigged the past two elections for the candidates that they wanted?
Rigged how? Do you think they flipped votes? Who got more primary delegates? Sanders? Biden? Or Clinton?
The voters are often just as behind at times as the politicians they put into office. The lion’s share of the voters are neo-liberal Boomers and Gen Xers, of which the Gen Xers are more conservative than the boomers as of 2024.
We’re not going to look much different for ant least another decade unless suddenly a ton of Millennials and Zoomers show up to vote in record breaking numbers.
Changing our voting systems locally and on the state level is the best chance we have at making a difference within the next 10 years, imo. It opens up access for third parties to grow and it lets progressive have a better chance of squeaking out wins against the neo-liberal incumbents.
Ranked choice voting is a good idea, but time will not save us. Millenians are shifting right, just a decade behind other generations.
Yeah it can’t be that people are frustrated about living in a country where they’re in a permanent minority and will never be happy with their government.
Libs and dismissing any criticism from progressives. Can’t name a more iconic duo.
You said people are stupid and lack a sense of nuance.
I pointed out that people are frustrated and don’t give a fuck about nuance anymore, and that’s why we’re fucked.
Sorry I didn’t spell that out for you.
This is the way.
Don't care. He's not a fascist and that's enough right now.
This is a huge problem in mindset in my opinion. Yes he's better than Trump. But I can grab a random person off the streets and they'd probably clear that bar. Our economic and political systems will always pool power into fewer and fewer peoples hands. We need drastic rethinking of how our society is going to work because Newsom will 100% sales out the American people when the rubber meets the profits. The old system are dead. We are just experiencing the symptoms and only wanting to stop the pain. Not cure the sickness.
Do you know what a primary is?
He also wants to win an election in 2028 not pander to left wing donors in 2025.
Not to mention avoiding the mistakes Harris made. It is perfectly clear that it is impossible to veer left enough to stop the left from attacking you for not veering far enough to the left.
It's just as clear it is impossible to veer right enough to scrape a single vote off the republican ticket. The left will criticize, but veer left and at least some will hold their noses and (protest sign in hand) vote anyway.
Newsom is your average neoliberal. As much as I like seeing someone troll Krasnov it's important to remember that neoliberals are not going to help anyone but themselves and their corporate donors.
I’ll take the neo-liberal over the outright nazi fascist, thanks
Well, history has shown that your fellow Americans do not agree with you. There is plenty of time to find a candidate that will actually be popular with voters
History actually shows that crying “that candidate isn’t progressive enough” ends in actual fascism.
I suppose in the same way that tornado sirens always ends in a tornado tearing through a trailer park. But I'm sure that this centrist liberal will finally be the one to beat fascism
Keep doing the fascist’s work for them
Exactly.
Progressives should learn their place and do what they’re told.
It’s not like there’s enough of us to change things.
Who benefits from this anti-Newsom rhetoric? Trump and Co, not progressives.
What’s anti-Newsom about getting progressives ready to hold their nose as usual?
Besides, he’s not even the nominee and maybe making him look bad will get some other liberal the win.
Congrats, you’ve fallen into the divided party trap. Or is the trap what you’re actually pushing?
People with the ability to reason, and if we have a primary, to choose the best candidate.
Yeah but he's one of the few Democrats actually doing something against Trump and co.
What's he actually doing? Having his social media manager write zingers for him? I'm sure Trump is so scared.
He's been pushing back in a lot of ways. I don't like him and would vote against him in a primary, but I'd absolutely vote for him if he wins the nomination.
As to what he's done, here are a few things off the top of my head:
Again, I don't like him. He's slimy. I still will vote for him if he's nominated.
Writing mean tweets, so that's all that needs to be done according to them.
Hmm, who do I support: Someone who I don't necessarily agree with on every issue or the guy actively working to destroy my country and those of our allies? Tough call.
So sick of the division amongst the left. He is far from perfect, but I'd much rather take a neoliberal over a fascist.
Jesus Christ he hasn’t even announced he’s running yet. Why are we already pretending these are the only two alternatives?
We don’t need to choose a neoliberal over a fascist… we can push for someone better.
I’ve never tried to choose the neoliberal but I’ve never not had to vote for them.
If it’s not Newsom then it’ll be someone else I don’t like.
Do we need to start the purity tests already, though? I don't like Newsom and would vote against him in most any primary but I will absolutely vote for him over Trump or any other current republican. I can't name a single republican I'd vote for at this point because they're all complicit.
Yes. People won’t vote against him if we don’t articulate our criticisms against him.
He’s a bad governor who is widely disliked in California. This carnival show he’s putting on is his only claim to fame and it depends on democrats in other states not knowing anything else about him or his record.
Like, I don’t understand the implications of what you’re saying here. That we can’t criticize any politician who’s not a fascist? How is that a reasonable strategy?
I'm not saying that we can't criticize but does it need to start now? Can't it wait until we see who the field of candidates are so we can avoid tarring the candidates before they even start debating? I am mainly worried that the democrats are going to rip themselves apart again before campaign season even starts.
I completely disagree. This is the best time to be brutally honest so that bad candidates don’t launch and it’s easier to have a united front once most voters start paying attention during the campaign.
I’ve lived under Newsom (and to be clear, voted for him over republicans every time) so I don’t need to see him debate or anything to make up my mind about him. He blocked more progressive legislation in California than the republicans here did. He’s also a rich, corrupt slime ball who has nothing but disdain for ordinary people. He’s not a good candidate.
Completely agree with 100% of this. I hate that he's sort of the default "big white guy face of the Democrats." But also, I like that he's at least making some substantive effort to fuck up Trump's attempt to seize control of the country and throw all his enemies into the camps. I wish there were a few more people in power who were doing that. If he's only doing it because he's being a ponce who wants to make a name for himself, fuckin' great, I hope he gets turbo narcissism tomorrow and starts doing it twice as hard.
There needs to be a united front to get Trump out. Newsom is welcome to join in, and at least he's bringing the fight to MAGA and not just whining. And I say this as someone who despises Newsom's sleazy corporate centrist politics.
But I'm going to keep pushing for progressives, and even more, for grassroots organizing outside the Democratic Party. The Dems will only change when events force them to.
How about we start with a primary race? When was the last time the democrats ran a presidential primary that didn't come across as a fait accompli? Maybe 2007?
Primaries haven't even started yet for the fucking midterms. This is exactly the time for purity tests.
With all due respect, as I understand where this sentiment comes from, that is how Trump gained momentum and won.
I think the blue no matter who approach has failed more than worked considering Hillary failed, Biden did win but really it was more Trump lost, Kamala lost (she got a shit deal yeah but still neolib vs unchained Trump should have been a no contest) and going further back Gore and Kerry lost to Bush. Clinton basically was the centrist Republican neolib that got Dems a roadmap that they keep to this day.
The time for half measures is over and the DNC needs to adapt or they will end up like the Whig Party. If you dont believe me look at their approval right now, No one likes the Democrats
Newsom is an establishment figure and telling the next generation of voters this is going to be a candidate for change won't yield the results you think.
Trump gained momentum and won because the people in this country don't know their ass from their elbow in terms of what is happening, and their whole picture of politics is based on confusion and incredibly effective weaponized propaganda.
You presented a child with a pretty unappealing fast food burger that had gone cold anyway, and a big lump of shit laced with (and labeled as) rat poison, and then he selected the shit and ate the whole thing. And your reaction is, "Well the burger should have been better." I mean, it's not at all an incorrect statement. But I feel like the way it played out should be automatic proof that the burger quality wasn't the core of the issue.
I would say the citizens that experienced the fall out from NAFTA that gutted blue collar jobs and created the rust belt would say "the big lump of shit with rat poison" was the Democrats that threw the working class overboard years ago.
Speaking of poison, it is the same reason residents of Michigan would rather vote Trump because the Democratic party and Obama would rather gaslight them about their water being safe to drink instead of charging the corporations that cut costs that polluted the water with federal charges. Obama also bailed out Wall Street and left hard working Americans with a shell of an American dream.
The core of the issue is the Democrats use to be for the everyday man and they lost their way and eroded trust, that will never be gained back. What that leaves voters in fly over states with is a choice to vote their better interest or have a candidate that "tells it like it is" aka lie and get back at the party that screwed them over.
It's not as black and white when you're in the thick of it, as difficult as it is to reason with that base.
The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing people he didn't exist. The greatest trick the Republican party pulled was convincing people that its most unpopular ideas are entirely Democrats' fault.
NAFTA was championed by, majority supported, and voted in by mostly Republicans. It was ultimately bipartisan, but Democrats were significantly more opposed to it than Republicans (of Republican Congress members, only 10 in the Senate and 43 in the House voted against it; of Democrats, 28 in the Senate and 156 in the House voted against it).
This isn't to say that NAFTA is objectively bad policy; most economists argue that it ultimately benefited the whole country. However it did expose US manufacturing to significant competition, reduced bargaining power for manufacturing workers, and shocked communities which were solely reliant on the sector to support them. Larger cities were mostly unaffected due to their more diverse economies, and in many cases thrived off increased trade and lower prices for goods. As a reminder, urbanites trend Democrat, rural folk trend Republican.
The trope that urban liberals successfully screwed over rural conservatives just isn't true. Instead it seems that, at screwing themselves over, urban liberals failed and rural conservatives succeeded.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1031/vote_103_1_00395.htm https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/1993575
That's called being politically savvy and out playing your competition which is why the Democratic party is always in free fall.
All this back and forth leads to this point: The Democrats are not equipped to handle a full assault of our democracy and thinking Gavin Newsom is the guy with some funny parrot tweets is not a real answer.
Oh, I'm not saying anything about Newsom, just trying to dispel some sadly common misinformation about NAFTA. I've yet to form a solid opinion of the guy, but I'm not without cynical biases, so he's got an uphill battle to win in my mind.
When you don’t have a choice that didn’t back NAFTA then you vote for the ones who are currently saying it sucks. Not the ones pointing to obscure economic indicators and saying everything is fine.
Sure. But let's set the record straight: blue collar jobs in the States didn't suffer because "Democrat bad and hate workers!" That's a myth perpetuated by politicians who would manipulate us for their own gain, Republican and Democrat alike.
In meantime we gotta figure out what to do with a ball of shit filled with rat poison.
When choosing between more worse and less worse, it makes sense to vote for less worse.
What’s infuriating is that we can’t vote for better because it doesn’t exist.
It's also relevant that Biden did more for blue collar jobs in the States than anyone since Lyndon Johnson. Along with climate change, it's something he actually took seriously and fought for, and achieved some success with, which made him a massive outlier in the party of Clinton and Chuck Schumer and all those assholes. How he got that through our current congress, I have absolutely no idea.
And, of course, no one really noticed, because our media is awful and people on social media have no idea what they're talking about. Even the "sophisticated" left has still been talking about it as if none of that or the climate action had happened.
A cold fast food burger would have been miles ahead of what we were offered. Democrats wouldn't even say "Genocide is bad, and we shouldn't support it". They continuously gaslight Americans on the economy. They support the bombing of kids, and torture programs. They expand out the Republican's surveillance programs.
It's not a choice of a burger vs shit, it's a vomit vs shit
I think a big issue is that money and religion have deep ties in the US. Taking a hard stance against Israel at that point in time would cost votes in purple states; it was the right thing to do, but it would have lost votes. Given there are full on pacs that track each candidate on how much they openly support Israel I have no doubt they would have used money and influence to push them on it.
I think the issues with the economy were that it was still rocked by Covid and the after effects of it. Not having enough votes in the Senate meant nothing could get passed to help the people. Having the Supreme Court stacked by Republicans meant that even student loan forgiveness was shot down.
Really it’s more like a burger that covered in crap. If we want the burger remade to taste right then Democrats needed to win big in 2024. The opposite happened. Democrats lost House seats, Senate seats, and the Presidency. Any positive change now pretty much requires big wins now in 2026 and 2028 to be big wins for the Democratic Party.
For some perspective on how bad the losses for us were: if Democrats won a big trifecta in 2024, we could have uncapped the House, expanded the Supreme Court and set term limits, done away with the Filibuster to get important legislation passed, and even implemented legislation to tackle Gerrymandering across the nation. Just the uncapped House bit would have made it so elections are won by the Popular Vote.
Yet there seemed enough votes to spend more money on foreign wars, and bailing out their rich friends. There also seemed to be enough political capital to take away the highly popular covid-benefits.
That's why he took that route: So that he could look like the good guy, while not actually fixing the problem.
Only if you think there is nutritional value in the Dems. I sure don't see any.
Why would you expect any of that to happen? They've had the chance to fix these things in the past, and chose not to.
You’re right, as there is always funding available when it comes to international conflicts that relate to US interests, especially when certain Congress members districts make money hand over fist from those deals.
2020 is a prime example of Republicans bailing out their rich friends since they demanded that there be zero oversight for the several trillions of dollars going out to stimulate businesses.
The public is the least likely to get any assistance if there is not a Democratic trifecta, since Republicans notoriously will not cross party lines if it means giving Democrats a “win”. Because Democrats did not have big enough majorities in 2021, they were unable to secure additional Covid aid for people. Namely, having Sinema and Manchin, who are both Independents, did not help as they both refused to join with Democrats on bringing more aid. Meaning it was 48 D - 52 R in the Senate. This gridlocked meaningful legislation from passing.
They tried to pass regularly in the House and Senate, but they didn’t have the votes because Republicans voted against it and Independents like Manchin voted against it. That vote was 49 D - 50 R in the Senate.
So Biden was trying any way he could to get it passed. Biden actually did manage to get some student loan forgiveness passed, but not the mass amount that was hoped for because of the conservative Supreme Court.
I see that there is some value because they are trying to vote in policies that would actually help people, but they lack the votes to actually pass these things. I don’t see that as a fault of the legislators so much as an issue of us previously having given land so much more power than people in this country. When small states like Wyoming have as many Senators as big states like New York or California we end up in these situations where your voice matters more based on where you live.
I do see the Democratic Party itself slowly becoming more progressive as well as with the new influx in voters generally being more progressive than their parents or grandparents. Establishment Democrats are trying to push back against the progressives, since they see it as a threat to their seats, but frankly many of those politicians deserve to lose their seats for being actual do nothings.
Mostly because the circumstances have changed. There used to be more buddy, buddy-ness in Congress, it wasn’t so hyper-partisan or was not visible to the old guard Democrats in Congress. Any guise of playing by the rules disappeared when Republicans broke their own made up rule to let a Supreme Court justice be added to the bench during an election year.
They didn’t have the votes to change many of those things in the past, and up until more of the early-2010s Democrats were still doing Gerrymandering themselves at times.
Agreed. That's why Biden spent his time helping out his military friends, and bombing the shit out of innocent people, instead of helping American voters.
Agreed, and Biden's bailouts were another prime example of the Democrats helping their rich friends too.
Well, that was the excuse they used:
They should have tried negotiating, but couldn't be bothered to. They were busy helping out their friends. Biden also could have extended the covid relief, but chose not to.
Except for all the ways that would have actually worked. He could have just sent out the money, like he did with Israel. But he slow-rolled it, and sent it to the Supreme Court so they could shoot it down, and he could look like the good guy, without actually doing anything
No, they had plenty of votes, but chose to pretend that they were powerless so that they didn't have to do anything. Once again, it was clear that they could get shit done when it came to bombing kids, and helping out their rich friends, but couldn't seem to muster up the energy when it came to the voters.
lolwut? The same party that campaigned with the Cheneys? that said they would keep bombing people oversees? That said they wanted more border controls, and are already backing down on support for LGBTQ+ people?
Yes they did. They just didn't care because it wasn't what their donors wanted.
First, criminalizing homelessness is fascism. If you can't take a stand for the homeless how can you expect anyone to take a stand for you? You thibk he won't throw you under the bus if it's politically expedient? Second, do you intend to repeat the same song and dance that got Trump elected twice? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Third, why are you compromising from now? Like come on it's still 2025, even if you're going to vote blue no matter who, now you should be projecting strength not compliance.
Literally the only time I hear this is from people on Lemmy who are trying to criticize some potential ally by being embittered.
Nobody is talking about voting for Gavin Newsom. We're talking about it being good that he's irritating Trump by taking concrete steps to preserve our democracy. You would be the guy in the revolution who's constantly trying to root out "counterrevolutionaries" in the ranks and snitching people to the secret police because they're not revolutionary enough, right during the run-up to the big battle to see if the movement can even survive.
The article is pretty explicitly talking about that, and the parent comment of this thread is responding to that by saying they'd "much rather take a neoliberal over a fascist." If you're not talking about voting for Gavin Newsom, you're in the wrong thread.
Back in 2023, when this article was written when we were trying to figure out who to vote for, it made perfect sense to talk about that. Now that people are talking about how to not get thrown into concentration camps for being a Democrat, people are talking about something different.
The fact that one of the most infamous of the "anti Biden all the time" trolls elected to suddenly become nail-bitingly concerned about Newsom's progressive credentials, and repost this thing from a whole nother pre-CECOT era as if it was relevant, doesn't change what people are talking about presently, present tense.
I'm aware that you would like them to be talking about various holes and nitpicks in Newsom's agenda and reasons why he is deeply problematic, and change the subject away from reasons why he is in the news, present tense. Who knows, you may succeed, it worked gangbusters in the last election and I see no reason to think it would stop working now.
I disagree with your argument, but more relevantly this whole comment chain is predicated on the assumption that "Newsom is not your friend" is a position worth debating. If you don't agree with this assumption, the place to make that point would be a parent comment, maybe a reply to a parent comment. As it stands your response has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.
I'm aware that it has nothing to do with what you're talking about. I'm making a whole different point, directly addressing what you're talking about but from a different point of view (distinct from "what 'we' are talking about" in your parlance). That's generally how it works.
Neoliberals Don't oppose fascists.
He will work with the fascist to come up with a compromise that the fascists can live with. That probably means sacrificing vulnerable groups and rallying around right wing talking points.
He is right wing. Gavin newsom is just right wing. the fact that there's a uneven deeper more belligerent right wing out there doesn't mean that he is somehow an alternative to it.
This attitude is how you ended up electing Trump.
Its bonkers that you guys are spiralling into a dystopian shitscape day by day and just cant bring yourself to acknowledge that any alternative has to be better.
This is how I feel. I can’t stand neoliberals but some people on here are delusional for saying they won’t vote for Newsom if he is nominated.
It's not only about voting, but the complaining.
It seems like the problem in the US is getting people to give a fuck. By spreading this narrative that the democrats are just slower fascists or whatever your just encouraging progressive voters not to vote.
Well then maybe the Democrats should do somthing to counter that claim. Maybe something like not supporting fascism, and actually fighting against it when they have the chance.
I’ve been voting for those alternatives for a quarter century and it hasn’t stopped the dystopian hellscape from happening.
That's not really how voting works though.
An election is a poll or test or the collective will of citizens at a given point in time. Granted, in the US you have the electoral college fuckery overlaid on that but still ...
Voting Blue but complaining about them to your compatriots is not the way.
Protesting about Gaza outside Democrat conventions in an election cycle is not the way to secure better outcome for Palestinians.
As long as. I am forced to vote Democratic I will complain about it because it’s bullshit and our government is stupid by design.
So your plan is to encourage others not to vote?
Seems counter productive.
There aren’t enough people like me to make a difference either way.
Progressives and socialists and weirdos are woefully outnumbered in this country, as shown by literally every election in my life.
Even if every single one voted we’d still lose and things would continue to get worse.
That is not true. Slower fascism isn't appreciably better than faster fascism. The you of four or eight years in the future doesn't have any less of a right to not live under fascism than the you of right now. If by choosing the "better" alternative you throw away your ability to actually stop fascism you're missing the forest for the trees.
It's disingenuous to characterise imperfect alternatives like Newsom as "slower fascism". That's a propaganda narrative.
In this case choosing the better alternative means preserving your ability to actually stop fascism.
Did you see the other headline today where your actual president mentioned avoiding elections by starting a war ?
It's this type of "Harris is imperfect therefore the same as Trump" attitude that brought you to this juncture.
Well you still didn't refute it, so you should do that if you disagree with my propaganda narrative.
And where, pray tell, is that stopping? How do you intend to do it? I mean do you remember the wins the far-right got under Biden in red states? You're clutching your pearls without offering a realistic plan to ultimately stop fascism. If your favorite neoliberal can't fix American society such that the fascists don't simply come back stronger four years later, you're just kicking the can down the road and should let the people with an actual plan get to work.
Yes, and who exactly managed to fumble their campaign so bad they lost to this well-known fascist?
And this is all before we even look at Newsom's actual policies. The way that guy treats homeless people is straight up fascism, full stop. If you can't take a stand on that, why the fuck should anyone else take a stand for you?
Oh please. You don't even have the concepts of a plan.
The Democrats refusing to acknowledge the desires of the voters, and actively screwing over workers is how we ended up with Trump. The Democrats are "better", but only in the sense that they aren't going to fix the problems that led to fascism. They've shown over and over that they'd rather support fascism, then fight against it.
Oh fuck you, you tell the left they can't critisize these people during elections and now we're not supposed to critisize them aftet elections too? When are we supposed to ask for things that keep us from dying then? You're part of the problem.
It's really simple.
You criticise the government of the day, whoever they may be.
You do not criticise your own side when they're not in government or running for election.
Leftists: "Democratic politicians are feckless. They need to get on social media to call out Trump's bullshit on daily basis! When is a leader going to step up?!"
Somewhere, a finger curls on a monkey's paw.
Calling him out on social media is absolutely not what I want and is definitely feckless.
He threw trans people under the bus, and there's no way in hell I'm voting for that.
You Americans don’t learn, constantly punching left, nobody is good enough to be an ally. While the right is unified and eating your lunch
This is true to an extent, but when you look at the history of the moral majority (new right movement) and what actually unified the right, it should give you some context about how the Dems aren't really doing themselves any favors by distancing themselves from progressive values. The right were always willing to offer some concessions to what were once considered fringe voters (and now is essentially the base of the Republican party) in exchange for their vote.
I say this as someone who is almost always willing to vote blue no matter who, continuously catering to the wealthy and failing to follow through on promises is going to be the nail in the coffin for Democrats (and possibly American democracy in general). Midterms will probably be their last chance to get it right (if we're even allowed to vote) and they are definitely not off to a good start by giving the cold shoulder to Mamdani.
It's very hard to battle voter apathy and "both sides" disinformation when Democrats will not even acknowledge that much of what progressives are asking for is pretty reasonable. Establishment Dems seem to believe once they're accused of cultural marxism (which btw is a term that was popularized by the same people that created the moral majority/new right) they will lose centrists voters that might help them gain an edge over the competition. Meanwhile they seem to be oblivious to all the support on the left that they're absolutely hemorrhaging.
Some of that support is going to the right (and those are the people Gavin Newsome seemed really be worried about reaching with his podcast that "reached across the aisle" to some absolutely vile people), but a big chunk is being lost to people who just no longer see a point in bothering to vote for an establishment that seems to intentionally exclude and dismiss them.
Punching Newsom is punching up. Telling voters they are wrong to criticize him in regards to economics, Zionism, LQBTQ rights, and social safety nets IS punching left.
He's not on the left though. He only ran as a dem because he is in California and Republicans have no chance there
You want me to go though his entire polical history to show how he's only on the side of whatever he thinks is popular instead of being principled?
So yes you do on a thread about this article?
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/11/gavin-newsom-is-not-a-progressive
Or you just want it from other sources?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Newsom
You want more?
I believe what I believe, and whoever shares my values, will get my support. Compromising on my values to get some kind of "strategic alliances" is something I don't do. If you look across the world and across history, that generally doesn't end well in the long term.
Bruh what do you think political parties are?
Unions, national alliances, society... It's all people compromising on their individual values.
Good for you for letting perfect be the enemy of good, bet you feel so vindicated as the world burns down around you.
And where did partisan politics bring us to? The world is burning down around us even without my help. I think this validates my point.
I dunno, I'd say the left tried it your way in 2016 and 2024 and how's that working out?
As long as you vote for someone I don't care whether you choose the candidate that I would vote for. There's no wasted votes, I've voted 3rd party when the major candidates aren't someone I can vote for in good conscience.
If you abstain on "principle" because there isn't a politician that perfectly aligns with your values then yeah, you're just dumb and you're part of the problem.
About 60% of the country votes in the general election, much less in the primaries, and much, much less in local elections. People that don't vote because they can't be assed suck, but the ones that sit on a high horse and scoff at the system that they play a huge hand in perpetuating through some misguided moral high ground are literally the worst.
Don't split. I don't like the guy much if I have better options, but anytime he's punching right I'm for him.
Nope he’s not. But he’s not as bad as trump.
He might not be a progressive but he's not a Russian cum rag, so speaking as a member of a (for the moment) allied country, he is lightyears ahead of your current guy.
No fascism is better than fascism. Hopefully if he runs and wins he actually fixes the problems that led to fascism. He needs to tax the wealthy at 98%.
Neoliberals like himself are a huge cause of where we are right now.
He will never do that, unless he has a sudden and complete change of heart.
What heart?
Friend I don't give a fuck I just don't want to live in hell anymore. I'm going to be first in line slamming my fist on the table for a progressive but apparently we need to be at Gavin Newsom before we can ask for a progressive. Lemmy and Current Affairs isn't the average American. We suck. That's abundantly clear to me now. You know what? If Mandani or similar figure was running for president I'm all in. I'm all in on that no matter what. I'm in for the most progressive candidate at all times. Unfortunately right now I just need to not be under threat of everything completely falling apart and not being fixable. Maslow's hierarchy I need that first foundational level to build my pyramid on. I don't necessarily mean this to convince anyone, sometimes you just have to yell into the void because it all feels so bad.
Damn, .ml is starting their crap early. They already got trump back in, now they are working to get more of the GOP in power by fomenting infighting....reruns suck.
Thinking that an unliked party putting forward a candidate, who's only nominating quality is a second order connection to Obama, lost because of a triad of leftist servers on lemmy is genuinely delusional.
More referring to their CCP overlords' general efforts. They are just the mouthpieces and bots.
I'm not. If there's a Bernie or AOC like candidate vs Newsom, I'm voting for the Bernie AOC candidate. I've played it safe the last 3 elections I, no longer care if it hurts Dems chances because Dems have had their assses handed to them and were already in hell. I want someone who is going to fight Republicans and help get policies we actually want and they will fucking despise
I voted for Bernie every time. It didn't do anything. This is where we are. I'll vote for the most progressive candidate who is on the ballot, but if it's Newsom versus Trump I'm not going to purity test gatekeep.
As amazing as a Bernie , AOC America won’t let them win. America is too racist, and misogynistic to ever let that happen.
The path to progressivism does not run through assholes like Gavin Newsom. "Lesser-evilism" has brought us to Trump!
Pretty sure greater evilism brought us trump.
It's another way of looking at it. You're always going to have a fascist element in society who loves the "greater evil". Maybe we should demand more than "not quite as bad" to represent the opposition. Every time the "lesser evil" manages to win and then disappoints people, it demoralizes its own electorate. Every time the dems move rightward on issues, they push the "greater evil" even further right. This is how "lesser-evilism" helps bring us to where we are now.
So, I don't think you are entirely wrong, but I think you (and by extension, all americans) are out of luck on that front. There is not a single democratic candidate who, if elected with a supermajority in congress and a supportive supreme court, that would turn around the economic situation in the US from the course it's on.
You can get some wins with social issues and foreign policy, and tinker around the edges of the economy, but even if Sanders or AOC became dictators tomorrow, their stated goals, while being light years ahead of Trump or any Republican, would not reverse the decline in living standards for the majority of Americans.
For the issues most Americans care about most, their pocket book, lesser evil is all there is or will be for the foreseeable future.
The lesser evil gets more evil every cycle. Foreign policy is the least likely to change between administrations. We are watching how an executive can wield power in spite of the courts and legislature.
Let's be clear, the courts and legislature could stop this, they choose not to. They are captured. When/if a Democrat reaches the White House again they will not have half the power that Trump wields.
(The courts are a little iffy, but I'm still confident the legislature could stop it if they wanted)
Could they? By what mechanism?
You're not wrong
It is more nuanced like that. You and I are not the average American voter. We can't assume all voters will act like us. We have to play the field and represent our true ideals as much as possible in balance.
Show me the average American voter. I know a lot of people, but I've never met the average one.
I assume you think that's a gotcha to me, but "average voter" is a phrase, not a specific person. It's meant to describe the general zeitgeist/trend of what most people are doing. Most people are not strong progressives by leftist Lemmy standards. That's fairly non-controversial. I'm trying to engage in good faith here.
I don't mean it as a gotcha. It's meant to make you reconsider what I see as an unhelpful way of looking at people. If you think in terms of averages instead of in terms of people, I think you lose sight of what you're trying to achieve. You can think in terms of average (or common) problems people have, and speak to those.
I appreciate what you're trying to do.
He only looks good compared to the opposition.
He's rather brazenly pro-Israel. That is not a winning strategy for a Democratic candidate. Israel lost the public referendum, with something like a single-digit % of Democratic voters supporting the genocidal state. Time to accept this and move forward.
AIPAC and none of that shit matters if a significant segment of your voting base will outright reject you.
Which part of the article is incorrect?
The part where it said Douglass won the debate, when Lincoln got far more cheers.
Apparently old articles are bad now, even though it's not against the rules.
They want to keep the VBNMW blinders on.
Unless the blue is a progressive, then they'll slander him all election long. Ask Bernie and Mamdani.
...you expect the dems to run a progressive?
I fully expect to see a repeat of 2020. The party establishment will be split between Elderly Nepo-Ghoul With Fanatical Partisan Following and Young Pretty Boy Who Says Progressive Things To A Room Of Millennial Age Investment Bankers.
On the edge of the debate, you'll see a few genuinely progressive leftist voices saying things like "We should be against genocide" and "Homelessness is easily solveable if we put forward even the least amount of political capital" and "Granting DC statehood is the most obviously smart and moral Act any future Congress can pass". Maybe even a few "Medicare 4 All is still a good idea" die-hards shouting from the extremely cheap seats.
And then one (or both) of the insider candidates will pick up a few of the more popular slogans as their own. This, while denouncing any of the fringe voices as Anti-White Racists, Politically Toxic Far-Left Anti-Capitalists, Eco-Terrorists, and Fat Ugly Unfuckable Losers.
Come primary day, said fringe leftists will do shockingly well in some of the early states. At this point, the centrist candidates will panic, drop the kabuki of intra-party squabbling, align behind whomever the current Party Elder tells them to select, scream that a vote for Fringe Candidate is a vote for Fascism, blanket the airwaves with a deafening smear campaign, disavow every nice thing they said up until this point, and maybe squeak in to the convention by a few points on a technicality about who gets to be Superdelegates.
The Convention will be a coronation of a rotten corporate homunculus. Any leftist disgusted by the process or the annointed candidate will be denounced as a Far-Right Foreign Plant designed to undermine the fundamental principles of democracy itself. Said rotten homunculus will pick a Token Minority/Progressive as their running mate, then immediately dump that person to the sidelines and campaign exclusively with the reanimated corpse of Rush Limbaugh.
Trump wins by a ten point margin in 2028. Leftists are blamed for the loss. Democrats vow to purge their party of anything resembling progressive values or human decency even harder. By 2032, they're running a Bitcoin Billionaire in an uncontested primary, because it's unreasonable to trust an election process that's been infiltrated by Hamas.
This is exactly why they'll run him.
OH boy I sure do love purity checks. It's worked out so great for us in the past.
Why is this shit always all or nothing, goddamn. It works for maga because they have no nuance and it's all groupthink, but the rest of the nation is far more complex and won't just go for a hard left progressive in the same way. It needs to happen but it won't happen in a single election.
I am in no way endorsing newsome, but at least he's doing LITERALLY ANYTHING.
Exactly, people tried that shit with Carney up here and we all knew we were not getting a progressive PM but we sure as hell didn't get a right wing mini trump.
Could we have gotten better? For sure but desperate times man, desperate times...
Yeah I might not vote for him in the primary but its not a deal breaker.
Maybe he's not a progressive, but it's great to finally see a prominent Democrat loudly opposing Trump. Too many are obsessed with undermining their own party while letting the US go to hell.
He threw Trans people under the bus. He can fuck right off.
Hey don't forget unhoused people!
Hopefully, the Democratic Party will go the way of the Whigs, and take Newsom with them. I want a genuinely good party whose mission is to overhaul America in all ways. UBI, a renewed Constitution, universal healthcare, the extinction of ICE and border patrol with minimized police, ect.
The America we have is a sick creature, that cannot be saved by Geronocrats.
Gavin Newsom offers more pain and suffering to trans and queer folk.
Not to mention the homeless considering he personally went out of his way to destroy the few things they own.
No shit
2023
There's a reason it's coming back around to the fore, I suspect. Because it's time to play the favorite game of "This left person isn't left enough! Let's attack him!"
I mean yeah Gavin Newsom is kind of a POS. I don't even like the guy, he's not particularly left-wing and I wish the Democrats had more better standard bearers than this guy. But what the fuck, he is fighting against Trump and that's a good thing. Supporting Gavin Newsom for sticking his thumb in Trump's eye is absolutely in no way incompatible with supporting more genuine left-wing people (including supporting replacing Newsom with someone better as soon as that becomes feasible.) Just replacing him with "let's let the bad guys win instead" is fuckin' stupid.
The point of reposting the article is that Newsom is using Trump to mask his own shittiness, so it's important to remember who exactly we're looking at right now. Newsom is not what America needs, no matter how much he tries to convince you otherwise.
I know, I know. Just like
BidenKamala Harris wasn't what America needed right now. It was super important for everyone to hear, and keep in mind and remember. I sure do appreciate you working so hard to keep the most important things to focus on front-of-mind for everyone, thanks so much.Uh... Literally yes. We are currently living in the timeline brought about by the fact that neither of them were what America needed. That is, in fact, my point.
Here, let me draw you a pie chart of what happened in the election:
I actually 100% agree with you that modern Democrats are horrible. Like I said at the beginning, I definitely don't like Newsom, and then you saw fit to lecture me about how I need to understand that he's not all that good. The problem is that our political system rewards people for being dogshit, and punishes them or casts them out if they are not. So yes, it's not real surprising that most of the Democrats are shit. IDK how people who seem so informed about politics and talk about it so incessantly keep being surprised by that apparently.
We need to fix our political system. There are a million ways to do that. Some people are working on them very hard. We need to be in the streets, right now, we need to be working hard to make a future before we all wind up in the camps. Sure, let's replace Gavin Newsom WITH SOMEONE THAT WILL BE BETTER. Just shitting on him randomly is not going to improve the system. Neither did it for Kamala Harris, neither did it for Biden.
I voted for Bernie. I voted in the primaries. I've been to protests. I've contacted my congresspeople. I did some volunteering in this last election. I honestly don't really know what to do. But it constantly pisses me off to see this lazy and entitled mindset where people are just going to sit back and let the whole place slide into the fucking ocean because our "left" party hasn't reached the point, independently, that they feel like it needs to have reached before they'll feel comfortable supporting, and so who cares what happens even when people are straight-up dying at the hands of the government.
My sibling it's not going to get there on its own. It's American politics. It's fucking horrible. The DNC will not redeem itself just through people withholding votes. They'll shrug, walk across the aisle, and keep making six figures. They don't give a shit.
Tell me: What activist organization can I sign up with? What can I do? I'm genuinely asking. I already know that spending time online shitting on the Democrats will accomplish fuck-all to save the country. It's just you and me wasting our ever dwindling allocation of remaining time wasting our fucking breath.
So, okay, you're lecturing me on what I need to understand. Tell me: Who should I sign up with? How should I get involved? How can I fix this? If Gavin Newsom is a POS, then who should I be supporting and working for instead? And what on God's green earth is the point of spending any energy at all shitting on Newsom in the meantime, to suppress by one little sliver some of the outrage when Trump puts him in the camps because he's "not a progressive" and that's super important to remember right now? I mean, fuck it, don't answer that last part, you don't need to. But what should I do?
I disagree with your chart, but let's not get into that.
True, but what it will do is keep the good things he's doing now in perspective. Half this very thread is a demonstration of why that's necessary; he's gunning for more influence in the party and a 2028 presidential run and both are capital B, capital T Bad Things. It's not a full solution, but that's neither here nor there.
Any local leftist organization that's actually doing things, when it doubt choose the more militant one. Frankly the time where supporting political candidates was a worthwhile affair is over; from now (or really since January) on it's the people vs authoritarianism and that fight will be won or lost by bodies in the streets. Look into the examples of Euromadian and the Arab Spring for what will be necessary here. Neither were won (for some definition of "won" regarding the latter) by politicians getting votes.
The neoliberals absolutely don't want anything of the sort happening, because then they might have to actually answer to the working class. They'll hold back any such effort in any way, just like they always have, and it's within this context that saying "Newsom is actually pretty bad, y'all" accomplishes something. The neoliberal black hole uses people like Newsom (and, for a less recent example, Obama) to suck all efforts at resistance and redirect them into dead end electoralism. And when I say "dead end electoralism" I don't just mean that the Democrats don't represent the working class; I mean that democracy will have either been saved or destroyed by the midterms, so a conclusion will have already been reached before the ballot box starts to matter.
I guess the community doesn’t actually have a date rule on posts…. Which it should.
Rules that improve the discourse of the community from the users' perspective isn't really how lemmy.world does things. Most of the big communities seem to have mods that vigorously enforce things no one wants, and don't bother to enforce things that people would like to see.
Well, I don’t disagree with that at all. But you’ve banned me more times than I can count so you’re a bit of a hypocrite.
Sorry, do I know you? I'm extremely sure I have never banned you. Are you just following a "how to stir shit with somebody who used to be in a moderator role" checklist or something?
PTB, are you saying you’re no longer moderating any communities?
I used to moderate some communities. I still do but I used to too.
When did I allegedly ban you, and from where?
Yes, it's still a good read. They also reposted it today and it's going viral on socials.
https://x.com/curaffairs/status/1957510456157040993
Reddit just called me a Republican plant for not liking newsom. Before the primaries have even started. Pisses me off
Remember when we were told that we could criticize Dems during non-election years?
Or primaries were the time to have debate, but I guess that too has gone out the window with the DNC tiping the scales since 2016.
Nope. But I don't list to those trying to control me.
I vote, and not for fascists.
Exactly. Like, I'm not going to be happy if he gets nominated, but I will vote for him. But before primaries is the time to debate and find the best candidates
Clearly you are in favor of an oceanic based monarchy.
Poseidon?
It's the "if you don't like Biden you're a Russian troll" all over again. It's started.
It's happening here too
Perhaps. But I'd rather have this guy than a pedophile rapist.
Leadership will pick the least objectionable neolib to promote the shit out of, and they'll end up gambling - again - that voters care more about sticking it to Trump than achieving real relief from our capitalistic hellscape.
Newsom's only redeeming qualoty is his ability to get under Trump's skin. Literally everything else is focus-group tested neo-liberalism.
Early to be predicting anything but dems are fucked if Newsom is gonna be their guy.
If you want someone better then they need to elevate their profile by being as openly defiant and pissed at Trump like he is. I don't care if Newsom's acting insincere he's at least doing something to push back instead of writing another strongly worded letter. For the meanwhile stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.
newsom could have just not done a photo op while clearing encampments.
between that and pandering to conservatives on trans rights I see no reason to trust the guy further than I can throw him
Don't care. Way better than fascism and besides, the tweets are hilarious.
Can't trust anything written by prager
CLOSE ENOUGH. for fuck’s sake if you wait for perfect you’ll get stuck with shit like trump again.
Why is wanting things to get better instead of stagnating or getting worse somehow impossible to understand?
When the Duopoly exists to ratchet us twoards fascism then the only way out is to abandon the Duopoly.
Voting / politics is a chess game. Sometimes you have to plan ahead and work from behind and sacrifice some positions. Refusing to play the pieces you have (even from a losing position) is just letting the opponent win.
If there’s a better primary challenger than Newsom, a Progressive candidate, I’m all for them. I want them. I don’t want Newsom, but if it comes down to him or another trump clone, Newsom is good enough to at least keep us from societal collapse.
Refusing to vote for him because he’s not a perfect fit is just giving the enemy a win. See: all those who refused to vote for Harris and now we have trump.
There’s no viable 3rd party candidate. Probably never will be.
Lmao i saw this same comment in 2016
Just save this post and you can use it every 8 years until we are killing each other for clean water
Ok. So how do we “abandon the duopoly?” Honest question. If you have a viable suggestion, I am all for it. Because refusing to vote is what trump wants you to do.
I think your view of "perfect" might be different than most people
Ok then let trump’s successor win.
Well, maybe the Democrats could put up a candidate that the voters want, for a change.
But that’s not happening. So now what?
Then we're fucked. Start looking at parties and organizations that are doing something to help out, instead of simping for a party that is actively supporting the fascists.
Hold on there partner, it can get so much worse.
Worked well the last time. Oh wait.
The USA does not need a progressive rn. It needs someone who can stop the fascists. Newsom has the best chances of doing that.
No he doesn't. He would lose
And Newsom is stopping them by?
This sort of dipshittery is exactly why the democratic party keeps trotting out center-right nobodies that fail to energize their base, and why actual progressives like Mamdani are doing so well despite widespread attempts by the left AND right to pretend he's not.
To be as polite as possible on the matter? Shut the fuck up, and take your lies elsewhere.
Prager? Is that the Prager U guy?
Damn this comment section reads like it's sponsored by the Newsom 2028 campaign.
History repeating.
Today Texas Democrats will be present for the session that will gerrymander their state, they could have stayed out of the state to keep it from passing, but the decided to return and allow it to pass.
The gerrymandering that Gavin says will happen in California is going to be voted on in November, it will probably not happen.
This chain of events will result in Republicans gaining extra control in the house/senate, because of the choices and lies made by Democrats.
I will say this. They aren't waiting until November 2026 to vote on it. So they're at least pretending to take this seriously.
But I'll also say that some right-wing court is going to decide the ballot measure is unconstitutional. And the California Dems are going to throw up there hands, announce collectively "Oh well we tried!", and then find a way to blame Transgender people for the Permanent Republican House Majority.
probably wont happen, what makes you say that?
It's been the cycle for the last 40 or so years
The way we stop the cycle is to stop it
Backing big oil list my vote
As a Californian, Newsom is just the other side of Trump's coin. He has no principles. He puts his finger in the wind before he does anything. I'd vote for literally any other Democrat first. It's not about him being a Progressive or not. It's that he'd pursue literally any position if it was advantageous to him, including hard right ones.
Listen, I know we are the tiny bubble, so posting this here has no negative effect — but 2028 has to be about people on the right and left joining together to repudiate fascism and totalitarianism. Who cares about the past under these circumstances. I hope that Newsom’s lack of prog cred gives him cred with the pugs who hate Trump. Or are lukewarm on Trump.
The Harris thinking Cheney would sway voters pipeline again? Oof.
not pictured are all the ignorant morons that believe billionaire news media that sanewashes the people those pictured in hoods follow.
reality has nuance, removing it hurts us all.
The right does not think this is fascism. So, there goes that fantasy.
There has to be economic pain so bad that they can't refute it anymore. That's our only hope.
That or Trump dying before the end of his term.
The right wants this. You are hopelessly deluded if you think they will lift a finger to prevent it. Double if they have to work with the libs they despise.
the "right" that you refer to doesn't exist, because the overton window has been slammed really fucking far right. There is a sea of idiots somewhere in the middle, Trump was able to take advantage of that, telling them he would fix it all quickly. That lie will only become harder to ignore as these same idiots struggle more and more to afford groceries.
These are the people that are not hard right, but they are hard dumb. Reality and struggle is the best teacher and they're about to get a lesson they have never had before in their safe relatively comfortable American lives.
By just crossing them all off as 'the right' and that they want fascism is foolish and self-defeating. Yes the far right DO want this, but everyone that isn't some semblance of 'left' are absolutely not the only ones that don't.
Blanket statements provide no value, only serve to remove nuance, and the removal of nuance only serves fascists.
There is a hot car with an infant inside and parent no where in site. Should you break the window and save the child? Breaking a window is bad so we shouldn't do it. They just shouldn't have locked the baby in the car. I'm not going to vote for vandalism.
-protest non-voter
Which is why he’s probably going to be the nominee and if you don’t vote for him then you’re terrible.
'Vote blue no matter who' lasted long, I see.
Ah, so it's not about the Gaza Strip now, it's Newsome is feckless.
I swear if Bernie Sanders was back we'd be getting posts like this on him, or Jesus himself.
I don't want to be conspiracy minded... but the sheer attempts at driving division when we have a literal fascist takeover and yet somehow the democrat is as bad if not worse is starting to smell.
You mean people can have more than one opinion at once?! How unthunkable!
I've had multiple people on Lemmy tell me that Bernie Sanders is a Zionist, and they can't in good conscience support him.
And yes, it's fake. I mean, some of it might be stupidity or useful-idiot-ness. But some of it is absolutely just people deliberately trying to hurt the left, and it's succeeding very very well.
Obligatory “water is wet” post.
Sorry to Steven but with a last name like that, you gotta work to get me to trust you. If Jesus came back as a Prager, I'd be the first to sell his ass for a shekel.
He also thinks children shouldn't be allowed to transition genders.
Ending purity tests doesn't mean we can't criticize or demand better of someone.
I agree with that...? People should be allowed to transition but with parental/guardian permission or are legal adults (18, in the US). Is that considered right-wing take? I thought I was a moderate!
He thinks children shouldn't be allowed to transition even with parent/guardian permission.
By the way, are you aware that transition is most effective when done before or during puberty, which for most people means well before 18? It saves a lot of money overall on surgeries and such, as I understand. Hunter Schafer transitioned as a teenager, and you if you look up photos of her you can see that it worked very well for her.
Wow, never good enough is it. This is why progressives fail to accomplish much.
We know. He's a sociopath
Sadly so many people are okay with ignoring it because it's not trump
He's not worse than Trump. So is the solution to not vote? Putin, is that you?
Edit: the Russian astroturfers are strong in this thread.
here's a terrible dem candidate we shouldn't vote for him in primary
what are you Russian?
The only tool in the establishment Democrat defender toolbox is pillory all opposition as Russian disinformation bots or shills. It's been their trusty go to for a decade now. They can't stop beating a dead horse
Where else would people vote for him?
So there's not gonna be a primary?
And this is amazing how quickly people resort to personal or racism
Why, what did he do? I keep hearing hyperbolic statements with no facts that make me think Russian bots are responsible.
LIBERALS BAD, WINNING BAD
Am I doing it right?
So?