House Democrats’ anxiety rises after wins by Mamdani-backed candidates: ‘Are we going to let them take over the party?’
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/mamdani-house-democrats-primary-electionsOpen linkView original on lemmy.todaySyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
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https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/mamdani-house-democrats-primary-electionsOpen linkView original on lemmy.today
154 replies
"Are we going to let them take over the party?"
They fuggen better
They don't have a choice. They are part of the machinery at this point.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."
-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, leader of the Democratic party at its most popular and most powerful
They should try to heed the wisdom of their predecessor, or they can instead demonstrate how far the party has fallen.
Delano*
His wife was Eleanor, which I think is why people fuck up his middle name all the time.
Who was a brilliant god damned mind in her own right!
They're not going to "let them" do anything. The progressives are taking over the party whether the establishment want them to or not, because the progressives are the ones with their voters' needs in mind, who serve their constituents over corporate donors.
The mandate from the masses, the consent of the governed, all those lofty ideals that underpin democracy give the advantage to progressives. The only way the Democratic Party establishment holds onto power over the next few election cycles is by abandoning democracy.
Democratic elections happening and selecting candidates that aren't from your carefully prepared inner circle? Unbelievable! It was the their turn?!!
Guards!! GUARDS!!!
They let Trump take over the country...
People who voted for Trump or chose not to vote let Trump take over the country.
That's not fair to voters. Two elections in a row the democrats put forward candidates who were way too far right, and essentially told everyone to suck it up and vote for them anyways. You can hardly blame people for not voting. I'm not American, but I don't know if I would have voted in election either.
You’re in dreamland if you think Biden and Harris are far right.
I'm in Canada. Most of your democrats would have to run as conservatives here. And even Obama was drone-striking kids in the middle east, so maybe the lenses through which we look at the world are different.
Deal with your residential schools and get back to me about improving our country after.
Maybe you should brush up on your history before tossing around comments like that. (And that's not giving a pass to residential schools)
What part of history should I brush up on?
The part where the last residential schools shut down in 1996?
Thirty years ago?
It’s not that they are far right, it’s that they are barely left if not dead center.
I mean they did help commit a genocide you can't really get any further right than that.
This is why American politics are fucked.
If Harris was president I guarantee you Israel would at least be restrained like they were when Biden was president.
There’s a reason that fuck Netanyahu wanted Trump to win and it’s not because the two parties are the same.
What restraint? Under Biden they killed countless and completely destroyed Gaza. Israel got everything they wanted from Biden who need I remind you supported Israel for 40 years while in the government.
Like every other politician until last year?
But things ramped up a hundred times after Trump got power.
Center right*
Leftists think they’re right, right wingers think they’re communists.
Right wingers think airplanes are sky demons. So?
No they don’t.
And what about the democrats who refused to put Trump in prison for trying to overthrow the government and raping children?
@YoureHotCupCake @SatansMaggotyCumFart Huh? The democrats didn't refuse to put the asshole in prison. There were impeachment hearings. The maggots didn't want to put their violent-rapist daddies in prison (other than Cheney and Kinzinger).
You mean the trials that got put on hold because Americans decided they didn’t give a shit so they voted Trump back in?
Those trials?
That's not what happened at all. He was convicted on 34 counts, but Cannon refused to do her job and pass sentence.
Americans didn’t elect Trump?
Sitting presidents don’t get a pass?
Voting machines elected Trump.
Conspiracy theory.
Yes, the ones that should have happened, didn't happen and weren't going to happen because Biden hired a Republican to be AG. Those trials.
Oh man you mean the most complicated case the us justice system has ever seen didn’t get wrapped up nicely in four years?
The horror!
And Chuck helped in the name of Israel
Agreed. Them, too.
The fact that their impulse is to get their donors opinions instead of their constituents is why they need to be primaried.
Don't let the door hit you in the ass.
All these Bloombergcrats just piled into the party a few years ago, then realized Epstein wasn't around anymore and decided to bail.
Exactly, the only question anybody needs to be asking them is who's interests do you actually represent? Because it's become increasingly obvious that donors of certain Dems have basically hired them to fumble the ball and enable Republicans stay in power.
I think American Oligarchs realized decades ago that creating the conditions that lead to voter apathy and provide credibility to "both sides" arguments, would probably be a cheaper and more effective strategy than convincing a majority of people to actually vote against their own interests.
Not to mention this threat to leave the party bullshit is basically the same as the threat to leave California and NYC bc of wealth tax. Fucking go then and don't let the door hit you on the way out, because you're probably responsible for ~95% of the problem. All you've done is exploit people and help weaken democracy.
Anybody who believes it makes a lick of fucking sense to keep pretending the U.S. is the greatest country in the world and social safety nets are unnecessary, (while most Americans are now struggling to afford groceries, let alone healthcare and education), has already switched teams. They might as well put on their "corporations R people 2!" jersey and own who they've been representing this whole time.
YUP. And the most infuriating part is that, since about Reagan, the left bave been the ones that been told we must acquiesce to centrists, that we couldn't win elections without, "moderates," that we had to accommodate Clinton and the third-way crowd.
Now, after a decade of slow declined followed by a decade of rapid collapse, it's clear that the centrists can't win in this political landscape. Do the party leaders see where the wind is blowing, listen to the voters, follow the progressives' victories, and tack to the left? Nope! They act as though pushing for social spending and welfare programs, AKA what the Democratic party stood for since FDR, is some sort of betrayal.
Moving to the right? "Look, we need a big tent, but we're all on the same team!" Moving back to the left in the slightest? "Fuck you, I'm quitting the team."
Democrats have been self sabotaging in a doomed attempt to play catch up with the right since Reagan's election because they mistakenly thought Carter's defeat was a reflection of true public opinion. By moving closer to the center and trying to distance themselves from the mudslinging and reputation of being "radical socialist/communist/marxists/pc/multicultural/woke/etc." and catering to corporate interests, they thought the could replicate what the right did to reach the common man and being people under that "big tent."
Except, Reagan's election was actually due to batshit levels of manipulation of public opinion in addition to the propaganda/advertisement campaign funded by a coalition of wealthy and powerful corporate interests. Literally the man who created the concept of a tax shelter, and had been undermining democracy and progress in the United States since FDR's New Deal (and likely long before that), got Reagan elected and became his first CIA director.
Mainly just a bunch of rich assholes with too much hoarded money and power who despised the idea of being taxed to help pay for public resources and services.
Meanwhile, while the Dems were falling for propaganda and losing their own support while trying to cater to corporate interests and bring everyone under one big tent, behind the scenes, Republicans were literally being coached by political strategist and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation Paul Weyrich, to never give an inch and never compromise.
And now here we are in 2026, with the federal government on the verge of complete collapse and corporate interests holding all the money and power necessary to take over if/when that happens.
No more pesky taxes, regulations, consumer protections, safety nets or labor laws. Ultimately the last nail in Democracy's coffin.
Hmm, let's see
Not a word there about constituents.
Let them take over? You must not be familiar with how a republic works.
Well therein lies the difficulty of the timing of this matter. If the Dems decide that democracy isn't working out for them they might be open to Trumps plans to dismantle the democracy.
Seems like they already are.
@Akasazh @AshMan85 Is this a test because if they do that, we'll never know about it.
Like Sandra Day O'Connor voting with republican scotuses to give the election to GWB not Gore ... I learned that near her or after her death. Grrrr
Status quo democrats right now.
This gif might be the best thing to come out this year.
I hope we're going to get a lot of use of of it.
"Let them" ? Excuse me?
Mother fucker in a real democracy YOU don't have any say in the matter. What you're seeing happen is the will of the people. Yes, you will "let us" vote for the candidates that we want to vote for.
Try to take that away, it's about all we (barely) have left. See what happens.
American political parties aren't public institutions, their inner workings are beholden to nobody but their paymasters. It's a rotten problem so old everyone's stopped noticing the smell
The most charitable reading would be "Their positions are winning votes. Are we going to stick to our conservative positions and let them drive us out the party or are we going to adopt their progressive positions in order to retain power?"
I'm not too optimistic though. They might sacrifice principles, but I'm not sure their pride could stomach accepting that their stubborn attempt to win over the right was fundamentally flawed. Nor could their donors stomach it.
Considering all the times they’ve literally worked to attack more progressive members of their own party, even when it would lead to clear loss, I’m not giving the DNC any charity.
Centrists have lost all generosity and instead dessrve only animosity. Worthless conservatives pretending that they aren’t.
Oh I agree with you.
Starting from charity is just my method of analysing statements, before proceeding to argue against it. That doesn't mean I consider it likely. In fact, I generally find it easier to spot the flawed premises (such as humility to admit mistake and integrity to put what's right over what's profitable) required to support that assumption.
If I start from the negative position, I find it hard to reason my way out of cynicism (probably because cynicism comes naturally to me) and reach a nuanced position. I also found that a "negative by default" stance is bad for my mental health.
I get that, but at this point they’ve already shown their faces. The bar is too low and they still can’t clear it.
You already did, by refusing to listen to constituents. They’ve taken over, and that’s good.
"...Let them take over the party?"
We ARE the party. We've been the party.
Imbeciles.
"Oh my God! What if they take over and start doing things that actually benefit people?"
Won't somebody think of the rich donors!?
sharpening guillotine blade
Mmm rich donors.
"them" are the constituents and if they're taking over the party, it's working as intended.
Really just yelling the quiet part to the nosebleeds, aren’t they?
It was never about helping their constituents. The moment someone outside of their inner circle becomes popular, the facade drops and it’s all about voting ‘correctly’ and the popular person ‘stealing’ the vote.
At least they pretended to not be vicious ghouls who don’t care about actual humans when they skipped over Bernie to hand the election to Trump.
It makes me sad that we will never see Bernie debate Trump.
They're goalies for the oligarchs.
Yes
The only correct answer.
I agree! FUCK THE CORPORATE DEMS!
Controlled opposition cries that actual opposition is taking some Ws. Keep them crying. Or just hang them.
Ideally? Yes! This needed to happen when the Tea Party took over the Republicans, it's long overdue!
"Many of us believe, as I do, that if you’re a socialist, you’re not a Democrat.”
Why thank you, no I am not.
Let's hope they don't get a say.
The Democratic Party is a private institution that is not obligated to follow the will of their voters. If their divergence from national policy polling is not enough to prove that, it was stated directly by their lawyers during the lawsuits related to their suppression of the Bernie Sanders campaign.
I absolutely agree. I want to be clear. I hope the DNC gets no say on the future of the American left. They fumbled it.
The DNC exists largely to block the will of the voters, especially anything even vaguely leftish.
TPOASIWID
Get fucked Josh, also...
The name of your party, would disagree with your assessment. Also, the fact that your party used to represent the Jim Crow south and opposed civil liberties for non-whites, while, thankfully, it is now the one championing (at least comparatively against the Republicans) racial civil liberties and equality, means that your party has changed before and changed for the better. It changed to more closely align to the definition of the word. It can and will continue to change becuase, famously, change is the only thing that is permanent. And hopefully it changes to align even closer still to that definition. If you think you are representing equality while championing capitalism, corporatocracy, military dominance, and supporting apartheid and genocide states, well you need to either get a reality check or lose your job. And if your party is full of asshats like you, it might need an overhaul.
The idea of a moderate Democrat standing up and fighting back for anything is so patently absurd at this point.
Both parties have tried to make America Rhodesia 2.0.
This what you get got not listening. Cry some more. I look forward to the downfall. Socialists will rise because the DNC fell deep into greed.
If there was ever any doubt that the DNC was bought and paid for this ought to remedy that, when faced with a popular platform they fear how their opposition’s adherents
Maybe all Dem centrists can finally move to the Republican Party where they belong
So close to a revelation...
It's all fucking power plays. They get it, but giving their base what they want means taking a step back and these ghouls want the power and money more than they want a healthy republic.
The current Democrats have the same morals as the current GOP, it's only the fact their base would totally rebel that keeps them from sucking Trump's toes.
Fuck these lazy politicians sitting there towing no fucking line and making tons of money. Yes. They will change your party your tired politics of all for me a none for thee needs to go.
Rather than meeting voters where they are, leadership dems plot to suppress would-be future leaders. Same playbook they used on Bernie in 2020.
If anything, we probably have Bernie to thank for sussing out this party behavior. We might not have known otherwise.
And 2016.
Keep going. This is the only way you're going to get any change short of all-out civil war.
Not your choice. Sucks to suck
Lmao no you stupid idiots, you killed the party through years of hard work.
Lack thereof.
What's crazy is the Democrats in power could have protected their seats with just a modicum of spine when it comes to trump. Something just slightly more than a strongly worded letter would have kept many casual "I-don't-follow-politics" voters blinded. But they are so incompetent that they couldn't even do that. And now they are surprised when they get challenged on it?????
It's not a lack of spine. We've been saying it for a while now. They don't serve the voters.
If that's what the people want, yes.
If you want to win the next election, I'd advise you to seriously consider it.
They'd better
AIPAC and fascist Israeli interests are not welcome. Bye Felicia
No, they won’t let us.
Step out of the way.
"Top Democrats" looking more like "Bottom Democrats" every day now. 🤣
"Let"
Who is the party? The constituents or the blowhards at the top and the army of consultants suckling off the teet of their donors? Great litmus test to admit Democratic voters don't matter. Let's see how many wanna commit to that.
Let them..... lol.
They mispell his name as "Madmani" in one paragraph and have no way to submit a correction 🤦
It's kind of hard to believe that one wasn't deliberate, or at least a freudian slip.
You sure should.
Democrat Socialists should just form a new party on their own.
Bad idea. The system in the US is so bad that more than two parties aren't viable and the brand recognition of the Democratic party is so huge that it's better to take it over.
Counterpoint, there wasn't always a dem and Republicans party. There used to be different parties in the two party system. If the brand recognition is good, but it's seen as bad, then making a new party to turn the existing one fringe isn't such a crazy idea. Let's see if it's actually necessary though
More than one is barely viable. The idea of a two-party system hasn't been practical since Obama won in '08. Gerrymandering and voter caging has isolated the minority party in nearly every state. US is a confederacy of single-party dictatorships, for the most part.
Form the 3rd party .. with a completely different name ... Call it the Upgrade party
If you can't take over the Democrats, then you can't politics.
The problem is that the current two parties have so much money coming in from our oligarchs. That's why the Republicans have turned to fascism because they were even more susceptible to corruption than a lot of the Democrats.
I don't know if there's a single Republican that isn't beholden to our oligarchs. Maybe there is but I'm just not aware.
I am aware of a couple like AOC and Bernie, who as far as I can tell are really not beholden to the oligarchs.
And that's also true of this new social Democratic movement.
The problem is that the oligarchs gives so much power to those that they're able to corrupt that it is an uphill battle, even with the support.
The propaganda countering real progress is so strong because it is so friendly supported by our oligarch.
So I just don't find a statement like yours fair. Because it's such an uphill battle and an unfair battle. If it was a fair battle I would agree. They should be able to win if they get support.
But even if they get support, the oligarchs are able to throw so much money against them that I don't know if we can take over the party. I hope they can but I don't know if they can
Just call themselves the New Democratic Party. Maybe make their colours orange.
You sneaky Canadian.
Why?
To break free of all the existing notions of what people think the Democrats are about.
Nah, the tea party, and later maga, showed us the way. You can get tangible results taking over the party pretending to be on your side.
Socialists should actually just have a revolution and rewrite the constitution to prevent reactionaries like the DNC and GOP from ever holding political power ever again.
Without securing a popular mandate through an election? People are tired of elites rewriting the rules, how exactly is a vanguard going to be viewed as legitimate?
Well obviously a revolution cannot succeed without mass class consciousness, and secondly, vanguard parties are made up of the working class, not elites. You can look at the Worker's Party of Belgium for an example of how to build a modern vanguard party within a capitalist system that maintains the trust of the working class. For example, their members are not allowed to live on more than the average Belgian wage, even if they are high earners. The extra money gets put back in their coffers to perform mutual aid work, such as their large network of medics and doctors.
I think the younger folk taking over the democratic party is a good idea. We all turn more conservative when we get older (especially if we now have more "money" to protect) and the democratic party skews on "dotard". Just to be clear though, fuck trump.
The entire idea that “we all turn more conservative with age” is completely flawed and very likely completely made up to try to validate that insane ideology and act like conservatism is a wisdom we might gain with age.
Basically, don’t put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. If you wanna go that way do not try and use others to excuse the poor, ignorant choice.
Personally, I was at my most conservative in the fourth grade. Age has only pushed me to the left bit by bit. It seems the further along I was in my brain's development the less sense conservatism made.
Yup. If you’re the kind to be intelligent then you’ll grow out of it with new information. If you’re the kind to be hateful you’ll grow into it with exposure to weak propaganda you still fall for.
If anything I've grown way more socialist with age. Mostly through life experiences. I've been a construction worker, a construction manager and now a CAD Specialist. And through all that, I've seen the average worker get fucked over countless times, through wage theft, vacation theft, getting fired for standing up for health and safety, getting fired because the manager needed a scapegoat. All just in persuit of endless growth, to buy some CEO a 3rd vacation home in Turkey.
I've seen workers get nickled and dimed and downright cheated, after completing a job in record time, but the companies alway need more profit, no matter the human costs.
I haven't grown more conservative, I've grown angry at the capitalist system, and the only cure is complete ownership by the workers.
Reagan Brain
Good one!
Watch there be a record low voter turn out this year as moderates don't want to vote for communists and left-wings are upset because the progressive candidate in general isn't the exact flavor of manic socialist dream politician that they wanted.
It's almost like the 2 party system in the US garbage
One party*
But hopefully that'll change
Yeah you have a party that actively hates us, our friends, our country and democracy itself and another one that isn't perfect so let's burn down the whole motherfucker right?
Both of your sentiments have truth to them. The solution is something like Ranked Choice Voting, no? Of course, we'd need enough representatives able and willing to implement that change.
Too many of my fellow Americans fail to see how big of an impact the outdated plurality voting system is. They don't see how the math of plurality voting is ruining things, especially in serving the billionare Epstein Class instead of We the People. Reading about Duverger's Law and seeing how the wealthy exploit it is too boring for them. It's easier to get caught up in the D vs R puppet show than to find the roots of the problem and pull them out. Stop Plurality Voting in the US, state by state!
It would be pretty absurd for centrists to see that choice and refuse to vote for the not perfect party, wouldn't it?
That's the comeuppance your first comment was fantasizing about isn't it?
I wasn't dreaming of any comeuppance.
Ain't that some bullshit that every time they win the primary I have to "hold my nose" and vote for their coprophagic ghoul, but when DSA sweeps the primary it's "damn, I hope you had fun driving away moderates"
Most leftists don’t vote anyways.
most people don't vote.
Apparently a lot of people disagree with you, but sadly this is a highly possible outcome. It's also exactly how the far right propaganda machine will spin it.
People get butthurt when they hear the truth but someone has to say it in this echo chamber.
There are worse ways to earn a paycheck I guess.
I'll vote MAGA before I vote for this.
Ah the mating cry of the centrist liberal.
Saw right through me ;)
I like you #namechecksout