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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23685 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Zohran Mamdani won three US House of Representatives seats last week. Claire Valdez in NY-7, Brad Lander in NY-10, and Darializa Avila Chevalier in NY-13 each won the Democratic primary after being endorsed by Mamdani, knocking-off two incumbants in the process. These are all 80-20 Democratic districts, so there is no realistic chance of any of them losing in the November.

Darializa Avila Chevalier is the one still making headlines a week later. She is, as far as anyone can tell, an actual communist. Rumors are that she personally founded Columbia University Apartheid Divest when she was a student there in 2016. Her stance on policing? She's against it.

Center-left politicos are currently melting down that someone like this won and is being accepted by the party apparatus. Credit to them for denouncing socialism I guess, but did they not know who their base is? Did they completely forget all of those "defund the police" chants from 2020? Did they not know that those people vote Democrat?

Some people want to kick Chevalier out of the party, bless their hearts. This wouldn't work even if it were feasable. Democrats need votes from leftists to be competative nationally. A party at war with its own base cannot stand.

I question the idea that progressives and socialists are the Democratic Party's base. The last three Democratic Party Presidential candidates have been Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris - definitely not socialists, and also not real progressives in the modern sense of the term "progressive". Progressives and socialists are loud online, but they don't seem to make up a dominant fraction of the Democratic Party's voters. The Party needs their votes - well, it needs as many votes as possible - but that doesn't necessarily mean it would gain more votes by shifting "left" than it would lose by shifting "left". It might or it might not.

This was the fracture that started with Bernie v Hillary in 2016. The progressives and socialists have all the energy, but the party is arranged so that the Inner Party controls the mechanisms, and has functional veto power over the commons. The progs and socs might not have the power to win, but they can absolutely cause a mess if they're feeling betrayed or uppity enough to cause a Democrat Party civil war.

When the old squad doesn't have that fresh squad smell and you need a new squad. In a way I wish Mamdani and his wing of the party good luck. The reactions of the purple blob are quite entertaining.

Everybody feels betrayed by the establishment right now. Not undeservingly. So it is not surprising that antiestablishment sentiments are thriving, especially in the places where the pie not only stopped growing, but is actively shrinking.

Some people want to kick Chevalier out of the party, bless their hearts. This wouldn't work even if it were feasable. Democrats need votes from leftists to be competative nationally. A party at war with its own base cannot stand.

Disagree. All either party, donkey or elephant, actually needs to do to win elections is to be normal enough to win the center. The far left and far right are both small minorities, and they'll probably hold their noses and vote for their party anyway to prevent the "nazis"/"commies" from winning. (See: Christians voting for Trump.)

Unfortunately, you appear to be right when it comes to winning nominations. It's a really broken system - it's gotten so bad that the incredibly strong incentive of winning elections isn't enough to keep the parties sane.

Thats not thé typical failure mode of Republican nominations; Ken Paxton for all his many baggages is not actually that extreme a candidate for Texas republicans.

"Normies" on the Democratic right will never vote for Republicans; it's socially unacceptable to even think about it. The Democrats' right flank is secure, so they can safely move left to keep the highly motivated socialists happy. Strategies aimed at the center don't work for that reason.

No party's "flank" is ever "secure". If you move leftward, you're inevitably going to lose some people to the other side. That's just the nature of aggregating millions of different opinions. Now, I agree that the Democrats seem to believe what you just said, and that's why we ended up with Trump twice.

If I had a nickel for every time someone bitched about how a politician's policy was terrible, and I suggested "Well, you could vote for the Republican", and they looked at me like I was suggesting they consume their own children, I'd at least have enough for a can of soda.

Yeah, my circle of friends is certainly similar. But consider that we probably don't generally hang out with the median voter. :)

Yes, but independents, undecideds, and casual voters might decide to abstain from voting or vote for Republicans instead of voting for Democrats if the Democrats move further toward cultural and/or economic leftists.

I think you’re more or less correct.

Historically, a cooperative opposition could get support for pet issues, pork spending, that kind of stuff. Today Congress has delegated or abdicated a lot of those levers. At the same time, stumping against the other guy is more important (electorally…) than ever. So you’ve got a bunch of partisans with no incentive to run towards the center.

I want to say this has been true since the 2008 crash, but that might just be my youth showing.

I gather that I am a bit older than you and I would point to TARP as a major inflection point.

This seems most correct. In the Trump era, there's less willingness to (publicly) swing over to the other side by Dems who are disappointed with their own politicians' performance. I'm sure many will do so privately yet I'd guess in lower numbers than years past.

So the risk for Dems is mostly that their candidate is so off-putting or blatantly unqualified that voters stay home. But (moderate) voters staying home would mean that the more extreme wing, by actually showing up, is driving more of the outcome. In safer blue districts, you'd expect this would mean the extreme candidates can win unless the GOP opponent is able to eke it out.

I dunno, I haven't seen a situation where some Dem candidate is so bad that it actually activates more of their base to come out and cast a vote against them in protest. I bet some local elections it has happened.

Although it is 'odd' that I notice alt-right figures like Nick Fuentes flogging the "Trump/Other righty politician is too friendly with Israel, we must vote Democrat to punish them."

You never, ever, EVERRRRR see a lefty extremist going full "Vote for Donald/The Republican candidates down the ticket to teach our side a lesson!"

I'd say this has resulted in somewhat of a 'dual strategy' where the Democrat establishment, which historically has a tight leash on its own national-level candidates, will let extreme candidates run without interference at lower levels, whilst yanking the chain and ensuring that such candidates can't reach the point where they are contesting less safe, more critical positions. I also think this strategy is starting to get away from them.

There was a lot of talk about the establishment blaming Bernie-bros for doing exactly that in 2016. Not sure how credible.

I can’t decide whether I buy into the national vs. local strategy explanation. It could work; lower levels are a lot more visible than they were in 1992. If it were true, though, what’s the mechanism for tightening the leash? Are there a bunch of midlevel Dems who mellowed out to get a Senate seat?

@Dean convinced me, at one point, that Obama’s campaign basically hollowed out the Democrat back bench. I think that (and the ensuing Trump whiplash) might be enough to explain the issues.

Not sure how credible.

Barely.

High estimate of 12% of the Bernie bros actually pulled for Trump is not nothing, but not quite a credible threat (to be clear, I don't think Fuentes' calls to vote Dem are a credible threat either).

If it were true, though, what’s the mechanism for tightening the leash? Are there a bunch of midlevel Dems who mellowed out to get a Senate seat?

I'd normally guess its simply funding and access to party resources to run a campaign, but in reality I'd bet they will straight deplatform or cancel them with kompromat.

Which is the approach they've applied with Platner, it seems. How many times has a Democrat pol who was gaining momentum gotten hamstrung by "allegations" and "leaks" when they run afoul of the national party line? I can think of a few offhand.

You never, ever, EVERRRRR see a lefty extremist going full "Vote for Donald/The Republican candidates down the ticket to teach our side a lesson!"

I think there were plenty of us who did this in 2016, and then again in 2020, both after the primaries, if you wanted to see the democrats go in the bernie direction after being disappointed by obama and democrat supermajorities in 2009. Although the culture war issues shifted such that I just abandoned the democrats anyway instead of trying to push them in any direction.

Actually the Fuentes strategic vote-for-democrats angle didn't really make sense to me at first, as someone who never really had much hope in the republicans in the first place, and am still just wanting to see the current democrats punished, wiped out, and remade as something else. But then I realized it's almost an identical feeling for him and other young guys as the 2016 era bernie bros: they actually want to see a lot of the current republicans wiped out and remade as something better, and are looking strategically to the future: 'if hillary wins, the democrats are actually more fucked long-term, she'll be the automatic candidate again in 2020, some goof is her VP next in line, no more competitive primaries for a long time, people learn the wrong lessons, etc.'. 'If vance & rubio aren't severely damaged, then there won't be an open competitive primary with any oxygen for something better / more extreme in the republican party for a decade or more'.

Maybe it's always guys in their 20s who are more willing to make moves like this. Though as you guys mentioned, for a lot of people who could never stand the social stigma of switching to voting republican, the usual (more cowardly IMO) path is just to try to loudly vote 3rd-party as punishment to at least be slightly strategic as a voting block.

I will say that having Labour win in the UK was almost certainly better than having the Tories limp back in, even if they had an anti-immigration leader. They would have been under constant attack from a Left who could plausibly claim that they would be able to fix voter concerns in a nice and sensible way and voters just need to get the Tories out.

That was Keir Starmer's whole platform, and it's failed totally. Now, the Labour government has done a lot of damage - decriminalising homelessness this morning, so now we can have our own tent cities! - but they've actually tried reasonably hard on immigration and (in a sense) on public order, and failed totally. Which has produced a much stronger sense of 'the current system is completely broken and needs radical (R)eform' than anything the Tories could have got a mandate for.

It feels kind of perverse to say "I hope my guy loses" but losing isn't always a terrible thing. I suspect Trump 2020 would have been a far less powerful president than Trump 2024.

It feels kind of perverse to say "I hope my guy loses" but losing isn't always a terrible thing. I suspect Trump 2020 would have been a far less powerful president than Trump 2024.

Sometimes to win a war you have to choose to retreat from certain battles

"I dunno, I haven't seen a situation where some Dem candidate is so bad that it actually activates more of their base to come out and cast a vote against them in protest. I bet some local elections it has happened." - Arguably a variation of this has happened in California local elections with Chelsea Boudin and various SF school boards members. You can at least piss off folks enough that they will vote to recall and that at least is some message.

Yeah, I've pointed out that particular case before, where rank incompetence is enough to get you removed if you make your local community's lives noticeably worse.

Although Karen Bass is seemingly testing the limits of that premise.

Of course, Chesa got a high-paying, high prestige job RIGHT after getting booted, so the Dem machine takes care of their own too.

Although Karen Bass is seemingly testing the limits of that premise.

Only if you believe the count was honest

That's partially my point. if you can massage the numbers then even rank incompetence isn't necessarily enough, it might require literal criminal charges.

I suspect Chicago has been that way for a longgggg time.

I would never vote for Trump, for sure, but the Republicans haven't sought moderate votes with a presidential candidate since Romney. I would have absolutely voted for someone like Rubio over Harris in 2024.

Well, no one's been the Republican nominee since Romney other than Trump, who has a unique gravitational pull over the Republican party but is deeply divisive. He also won more than a few moderates in 2024 -- enough to swing the election in some key constituencies.

I would also note that the Obama attack energy against Romney can be attributed to the way Republicans reacted to Obama's first term -- if anyone in politics has been demonized unfairly, it's Barack Obama. I disagreed with him on things, but Republicans treated him like the coming of the antichrist. Both McCain and Obama ran remarkably clean campaigns, although I think McCain would have made a better president. (Far better than Romney, as well.)

I think the real thing here is not that the GOP doesn't want to seek moderate votes, but that Trump uniquely energizes both his supporters and his enemies. I think it'll be good for American politics that he's a term-limited old man who won't be with us for all that much longer (natural causes, of course -- he's 80), because he has too much of a gravity well for his actual competence at governing to justify.

I recall how Romney and McCain were smeared as right wing extremists. The Romney campaign publicly asking the Obama campaign to please decrease the use of Nazi and fascist rhetoric and imagery to attack him.

We had moderate Republican candidates. We know the vitriol they get and how gracefully they lose. Trump didn't appeal to the center and was equally smeared as a fascist, but he got more votes than Kamala.

I don't contest any of that, and I certainly appreciate that being toxic is clearly the winning strategy for both sides, especially in primaries.

But I would vote for a Romney-like over Hillary or Harris in a heartbeat.

So you voted for Romney and McCain?

No. I thought Obama was good abd vastly superior in 2008, especially with Palin as a proto-Trump and even more with Obama's Iraq war opposition since I view that war as a huge error. I greatly regret not voting for Romney in 2016, though in my defense I think that Obama and Romney were both basically good choices. Today, I do not believe there is any scenario in which the Democrats present me with a good candidate, but the Republicans keep giving me Trump. It would take very little for me to vote against a Sanders-esque Dem nominee - probably literally anyone except Vance or with the last name Trump.

So there is no pleasing you

In a British accent That's not right...

Maybe, but there is also not much criticizing me that I would not swing. McCain was an old man hawk with a populist side kick - the obvious wrong choice. Romney was a good choice but this is the coin flip of centrist vs centrist - okay, I lean Dem based on this, but, I mean, I dont think we will ever see a candidate on either side as good as either of these guys for at least a decade. I think it has been extremely correct to vote against Trump every time, thougb I cede that has handlers did a pretty good job on his first term - unfortunately, Trump inmediately undid all the good of TCJA in his second term.

If you thought Obama was a centrist, the "there is no pleasing you" just expands.

Obama is a radical.

Hillary was a radical, far to the left of her husband.

Biden was a corpse, who's regime was run by radicals.

Kamala is a radical.

More comments

I voted for both; never voted for Trump.

Chevalier openly called for "Death to America" and for ending western civilization!! Letting her ANYWHERE near any sort of political power is like giving Brenton Tarrant a machine-gun. Frankly, I don't think I belong in a nation where such a specimen can be elected. It certainly is no longer the country I grew up in.

Did she? Or was it just a group she founded, after she had left?

I don't think she can be kicked out, seeing as how she's DSA not Democrat. But I also think she's not going to do much more than make a few fiery speeches, possibly try a few stunts and get slapped down for them (like early career AOC did) and settle down to cultivate a political career (like AOC did). She was selected by the same king-makers (the Justice Democrats) who got AOC and a slate of others elected, so my take on all this is: (a) it's New York, this sort of stuff will run locally but not nationally and (b) she will not, in fact, rock any boats; she'll work on keeping her seat by keeping on the right side of the college-educated white liberals who elected her.

If I'm being cynical (no, me?) expect an appearance in a couple of years time at the next Met Gala with her own designer togs emblazoned with the right-on messaging just like Sandy from the block 😁

The DSA win has already flipped Newsom on the wealth tax (he opposed it before, he supports it now); Hakeem Jeffries has already feted them. The Democrats know this is the future of their party.

Possibly. Getting seats in Congress, yeah, but are there any DSA senators and not just House of Representatives? As for Newsom, I think he realises California is where his bread is buttered, even if he runs for president it'll be a Kamala-style result, so keeping on the good side of the edge cases until he can wangle some kind of move away from California into the higher echelons of the party (if there is such a thing). I wonder if he'd be interested in running for the Senate? But given the backlash against Scott Wiener, this is risky and demonstrates why he'd have to stay on the good side of the crazies.

DSA winning seats in select local districts is entirely possible. DSA as new third national party and being relevant on a national scale? I don't see it, and if any DSA affiliate did manage a run for national office (like AOC and the presidency, something often wistfully mentioned) I think the person would have to considerably soften their policy positions. Go all-in on "new, high-paying, union jobs" (which we all know are now a dying if not dead breed) and economic populism, cool it on "Stalin was the greatest person who ever lived, I find it really hard to pick my favourite between him and Mao".

but are there any DSA senators and not just House of Representatives?

By my count so far there's Platner in Maine plus AES in Michigan, though the latter still has to win the primaries. Am I missing anyone else?

Platner in Maine

The guy everybody was losing their life over? I think it'll be very damn interesting to see what he does once he sits his backside into the seat, and if he just votes with the mainstream Dems or decides to get up on his trotters and call for the People's Socialist Revolutionary Republican Democracy Democratic Republic right this second 😁

The DSA is not going to be a third national party; it is taking over the Democrats. And with the Democrats it gets the Democratic juggernaut. Policy positions don't matter because the Democratic right flank is secure -- no matter how far left they move, they won't lose people to the Republicans, because it's simply socially unacceptable for people who have gone Democratic to ever vote for Republicans.

no matter how far left they move, they won't lose people to the Republicans, because it's simply socially unacceptable for people who have gone Democratic to ever vote for Republicans.

Even if it's socially unacceptable, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen (I'd guess it happened pretty significantly in 2024). And things that are socially unacceptable are socially unacceptable until they're not. Depending on just what a DSA takeover of the Democratic party is like, I could see that changing pretty quickly. I just hope it doesn't get to that point; people are naturally very excited/depressed right after a particular election result, but I'm hopeful that this doesn't portend a trend.

The DSA might lose the Democrats some seats in New Jersey (some of our most Democratic areas are also our most Jewish, and not squishy Palestinian-supporting Jews either), but I'm fairly sure that in general, the social unacceptability of Republicans is deep-seated and effective. The success of Graham Platner --- death's head tattoo guy -- polling ahead of Susan Collins (squishy Republican, often breaks the party) in the Maine Senate race demonstrates that.

Susan Collins always polls behind a democrat at this point in an election cycle, I wouldn’t read too much into that democrat being graham platner.

Newsom is triangulating, not flipping. He opposes a state wealth tax that is actually on the ballot and has a real chance of passing; he supports a national wealth tax that is entirely theoretical and will not be passed anytime soon (hopefully...). This allows him to deflect future primary criticisms of him being in the pockets of billionaires by saying it's just the badly implemented and foolish state level tax he opposes.

He doesn't actually care about wealth taxes as a policy one way or another, except insofar as they help or hinder his way to the White House. But his current strategy balances the competing stories he's selling to donors and primary voters in a reasonable way.

Well he kinda is in the pocket of billionaires, just not all the billionaires. But the tech and Amazon-type golden goose needs to be kept alive and not slaughtered to open it for more eggs, and Newsom is smart enough to realise that. So Keep California Safe For Moguls, and the rest of the country has no moguls (except maybe Noo Yawk) and he doesn't care if the Easterners are stupid enough to kill their geese.

He doesn't actually care about wealth taxes as a policy one way or another, except insofar as they help or hinder his way to the White House. But his current strategy balances the competing stories he's selling to donors and primary voters in a reasonable way.

All accounts of Newsom I've heard from Democrats who would be close enough to him to know - which isn't many, to be fair - has him pegged as an empty suit with no beliefs of his own that will say whatever is necessary to gain power. This was criticism levied against prior Democratic POTUS candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, neither of whom succeeded in their runs. Presuming that these accounts about Newsom are true, surely Newsom himself knows the relatively low recent success rate of Democratic POTUS candidates with this kind of personality. So I'm left wondering what his play for the POTUS is, since it's been considered essentially common knowledge that he would run in 2028 since at least 2024 (the oft-repeated claim that Trump's election in 2024 means the end of democracy in America notwithstanding). Perhaps he will shock the world and just not run in 2028 and is playing 4D chess to set himself up for a successful 2032 or 2036 run?

While I have heard the same I would also have caution - Newsom from what I can tell is like Vance, lots of accusation about phoniness/empty suit/whatever and it's convincing enough that people close to them and on the same side agree.

On the other hand plenty of people disagree and think they got the stuff. This is in contrast to the classic empty suit: Hillary, who seems privately hated by everyone.

Additionally Newsom is legit charismatic, in a way that Vance, Harris, and Clinton are not.

So I'm left wondering what his play for the POTUS is

Honestly I don’t think he would even make it out of a fair Democratic Party primary. He would whiff it big with the Deep South, which is the most important region in Democratic primaries. Now given the recent track record I think there’s a good chance he gets a rigged primary and wins that, but he would flop in the general against basically anyone. He’s the white male Kamala Harris.

He’s the white male Kamala Harris.

Among the California electorate, he's consistently run 7 or so points ahead of Kamala. That's still a touch below the average Democratic politician--Kamala always did extremely poorly, even among California Democrats--but he's a stronger politician.

he's a stronger politician.

Oh he definitely is, but his attempts at rebranding recently have been laughable - "I'm a dyslexic Irish Catholic rebel from a hardscrabble upbringing where my mom worked three jobs! (and meanwhile my dad introduced us to the Getty family and I got to go to school with their kids and hang around with them and get the patriarch to fund my businesses, but it's not like I'm privileged or anything)".

Moment he goes national and tries the "I understand the hard lives of middle class people, I was one myself" he will be slaughtered. Sure, Gav, ordinary lower-middle-class folks get to shut down SF City Hall for an entire day to oblige the wedding of their billionaire pals:

Stanlee and his team carpeted the entire rotunda of City Hall with bright teal and pink Persian rugs, completely transforming the space. “We draped all the archways on the second floor and first floor with turquoise and rose pink velvet drapes with 12” long gold thread fringe,” he explains. “We hung in waterfall fashion off the grand staircase railings, from top to bottom, thousands of pale pink dendrobiam orchids. Large stone urns on pedestals filled with pastel roses were through the rotunda and a top the staircase. I wanted to channel Ann,” Gatti says. “The colors, patterns and fabrics were a nod to Ann.”

...“San Francisco’s City Hall is designed to inspire awe—a symbol of the city’s power and resilience after the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, with its white marble detailing and soaring dome that looms more than 300 feet overhead,” Hamish notes. “But despite the architectural magnificence—and the panoply of state, with Nancy Pelosi officiating and Governor Newsom and Mayor Breed in attendance—the ceremony managed to feel extraordinarily intimate and personal, with Tobias’s charming vows and his passionate kiss that dislodged Ivy’s crown!”

ordinary lower-middle-class folks get to shut down SF City Hall for an entire day to oblige the wedding of their billionaire pals:

As a very limited defense, anyone can rent out SF City Hall for weddings. See https://www.sf.gov/private-events-at-city-hall ; it's even relatively affordable, for a San Francisco venue. (In fact, I got married in the same space! Despite tragically not being a billionaire pal of Gavin's, and having nowhere near the pull to get Nancy to officiate/get stock tips from.)

More comments

  1. It's worth noting that, whatever their other faults, Kerry and Hillary did survive the primary process and get nominated. If his model is "I have the most control over the outcome of the primary process; the general election will be decided on economic macrotrends," then it makes sense.

  2. The other Clinton was the ur-triangulator, and he was very successful, though the political climate now is sufficiently different that it's hard to draw useful generalizations from it.

  3. Newsom isn't optimizing for Democrat-as-President; he's optimizing for Newsom-as-President. It's impossible for him to sell himself as a principled left wing ideologue or a committed moderate reformer. Given his biography and character traits, maybe he's making the calculation that, win or lose, baldly embracing reptilian cunning and ambition is a better strategy for him than trying to win people over based on trying to sell another narrative.

Yeah, my view is that he was really obligated to Biden who swung the party behind him and supported him all the way during the recall election that failed. Newsom might have managed that on his own, but Biden's support was the signal that everyone better settle down and stop making waves for the rest of the Dems.

So I'm left wondering what his play for the POTUS is, since it's been considered essentially common knowledge that he would run in 2028 since at least 2024

Ambition, since he is a politician. Vanity, since he's Gavin. Yearning for more, since the governorship is as high as he can get and that's term-limited. Manoeuvring for influence and moving into a position where he's a string-puller in the party at large, perhaps. He's still young in political terms, maybe if he figures the Clintons are on the way out eventually he wants the new dynasty to be the Newsoms?

Also in the news, Scott Wiener gets harassed out of a trans pride parade.

I can't find the full version of the video, but there's a bit where someone says something like "You've done a lot for the gay community, but...", where the lot is stuff like protecting 24 year olds who have sex with 14 year olds.

THAT GUY isn't far left enough anymore.

It's worth noting that even the San Francisco subreddit mostly thinks that harassing Wiener like that was a bad thing.

The people who genuinely think that this harassment was a good thing are a small minority in the overall "leftist" coalition.

The vocalisation doesn't sound sincere at all to me. It sounds like a right-wing activist LARPing as a leftist.

  • -11

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties. "Surely they can't be like that in reality/Whoops..." The lead-in to the "but we hate you!" screaming by the maker of the video was 'in your wildest dreams' stuff:

"Scott, I think your legislation on trans issues and your legislation specifically protecting queers on sex offender registry is fantastic. Like, I really applaud you for that and I think you deserve to be here for that".

You did not just say that. Tell me you didn't. Imagine a GOP politician getting praised for protecting people on sex offender registries 🤣

(There was also criticism of his housing policy and aligning with YIMPYs (sic) before launching into the stuck record you've been terrible you've been terrible you've been terrible stuff).

"Scott, I think your legislation on trans issues and your legislation specifically protecting queers on sex offender registry is fantastic. Like, I really applaud you for that and I think you deserve to be here for that".

You did not just say that.

That is indeed my contention. That a leftist didn't say it.

Yes, indeed. No True Scotsman would ever say that. No True Scotsman would open an account on X back in 2009 and post about "vote for Connie Chan not Scott Weiner!", and (possibly) be a sex and intimacy coach/therapist.

Purely a right-wing MAGA voting conservative!

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties.

Uh, yeah, because a lot of that isn't conservative caricature. Sometimes conservatives come up with a strawman position that it turns out the left actually holds, but much of the time conservatives are actually merely NOTICING.

Shhh, Nybbler, we are not supposed to NOTICE because nothing happened, nothing at all, and if it did it was the right wing fascist bigot haters who did it, and if it wasn't then it could have been, and anyway it was a good thing it happened!

The amazing thing is how the extremists really do sound like the conservative caricature of the lefties. "Surely they can't be like that in reality/Whoops..." The lead-in to the "but we hate you!" screaming by the maker of the video was 'in your wildest dreams' stuff:

AIUI, there is talk of a problem among the Republican campaign staffers that it's hard to do attack ads because people think literal descriptions of Democrat rhetoric and policies are insane exaggerations. E.g. the "Yes, fuck you, we literally mean no more police at all" candidate for the House.

Kamala's 2019 run was an absolute gift to the Republican campaign because all they had to do was run the ad with the clip of her solemnly nodding about "absolutely, gender reassignment surgery and treatment paid for by the taxpayer for illegal immigrant criminals in jail, I am fully for that".

Golden. And she walked herself into that one because she misjudged that pandering to the progressive extreme was the way to go, forgetting that "it's Joe's turn now" and that she was giving way too many hostages to fortune. She did get her reward as his VP but that was as much "well he said he was gonna pick a black woman, might as well be her" as anything else.

Clearly a crack squadron of secret false-flag right wingers are attending protests solely to push random internal schism stuff

It's not about pushing internal schism stuff. It's about trying to tar and feather the Jews and any pro-Israeli sentiment as pedophile-coded. And yes, that reeks of rightoid mentality. Leftists do not think or talk that way.

The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded, so just like they don't oppose Israel or the Jews because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded. The way the left phrases these things is they're against sexual abuse of the vulnerable and against the colonialism of marginalised groups like Palestinians.

  • -15

just like they don't oppose Israel or the Jews

They're in the news going hard on this since October 7.

It was the leftists screaming anti-Semitism, my friend. You can't No True Scotsman your way out of this.

Leftists do passionately oppose pedophilia- often defined in nonstandard ways, but still.

As usual, it's who, whom. Leftists are totally fine with George Takei getting introduced to the wonderful world of gay sex at 14 by a camp counselor, but God forbid a man in his thirties should date a college girl!

Gay sex is different from straight sex, so it’s not a double standard at all- just bad values.

Yeah. So much of the Epstein stuff and I'd argue the whole '17.9999999999 years sick fuck' manifestation is more Left-wing than Right

The leftists don't passionately oppose pedophilia because doing so is low-class and right-wing coded

Which leftists do you know? The ones I'm in circles with love talking about "the Epstein class".

In the same way they love body- and homo-shaming when it can target the outgroup. "The Epstein Class" feels like a good soldier to send to war - same reason it gets spammed by twitter posters from third world countries with mass, normalized child rape.

Most of those same leftists will turn around and say it's a human right for 15 year olds to have access to books that tell them how to get on Grindr, even though that sort of thing is almost exactly what Epstein actually did.

I think that's as strong evidence that leftists care about opposing pedophilia as Republicans' calling out voter fraud in recent elections they lost is evidence that they care about opposing voter fraud. These are just easy weapons lying around to pick up and throw at enemies, nothing more, nothing less. That's even before getting into the fact that, almost certainly, Epstein and his ilk account for less than 0.1% of all pedophilic crime that happened during the time period when they were (are?) active and are almost certainly dwarfed by activities done by much lower class people that those same people conspicuously try to ignore or downplay.

"The Epstein Class" is a right-wing shibboleth. An actual leftist would say "the capitalist class" or "the bourgeoisie."

While they're often talking about largely the same group, the worldviews are quite different: one world model runs on sexual blackmail, and the other on asymmetric bargaining power enabled by control of capital.

  • -16

In my hard left coastal city, blues LOVE talking about the Epstein class in exactly those words

Have you been on social media in the last year? Redditors love their Epstein references

Leftists (meaning, here, Democrats and affiliated groups) are very eager to call out the Epstein class and variations of it that do center specifically on sexual immorality; this can be seen in everything from Reddit comments to statements by national Democratic politicians. Though it's less a belief in a conspiracy of sexual blackmail driving history and more a belief in the inherent corrupt perversions of the rich.

"Actual leftists" using your more materialist framing exist but have essentially no power.

Some Dem politicians that have used the phrase "Epstein class" include Jamaal Bowman, Graham Platner, Jon Ossoff and Ro Khanna who, according to this, coined the term. New York City DSA, at least, also uses the term.

I saw a longer clip from this recording with a pretty epically ridiculous line. Paraphrasing:
"You can't call yourself QUEER if you don't support Gaza!"

O__O

It's just another variation of "injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere" applied absolutely and with minimal thinking. Exact same phenomenon as anthropogenic global warming - i.e. "climate justice" - activists being virulently pro-Palestine, to the extent that Greta Thunberg, the biggest celebrity to come out of the anti-AGW movement, is now more in the news for her anti-colonialization-by-Israel activism these days.

It made me laugh. I don't like Mr. Wiener so seeing him hoist on the petard of the exact same protests etc. levied against conservatives, this time by the T part of the LGBT alliance beshrewing him (during Pride Month, even!), was deeply satisfying to my worst instincts. Alas. Let me weep for my sins.

There's always some entertainment in seeing somebody get Rowling'd but enabling people to die on the particular absurd focus on Palestine is probably not a good idea

Palestine maybe not, but ol' Scotty there could not do enough for the trans cause - he co-authored that family law bill seeking to include so that "if you don't affirm your child's new gender, you are a MONSTER and should HAVE NO RIGHTS you horrible ABUSIVE BIGOT and we are gonna get the judges to TAKE CUSTODY AWAY FROM YOU for the child's safety" (it got watered down in subsequent readings) so I am enjoying seeing him get the same "boo hiss fuck off we hate you" treatment he was happy to dish out to those who did not hold the Right Think Opinions On Dead Kids, such as parents who might have wondered "hey, how come my son is now a daughter? can we talk about this?"

(I know custody cases tend to be a steaming mess where kids are pawns in the parents' battle to destroy each other, and throwing changed gender orientation of a minor after the parents split up into the mix is just dumping chum in the water, but come off it Scotty).

From a leftist perspective, Scott Weiner has a questionable record on Israel. He’s funded by J-Street and supports providing Israel with “defensive” weapons.

Given the opinions of the base, one really would expect the left-flank of the party to take a harder line on this.

tl;dr: the left is in an existential crisis because of Israel.

I wanted to write a post on the recent shifts in lefty rhetoric. The big one is 'This isn't Woke 1.0 anymore'

To define a few terms for convenience sake. The 'base' is the politically active far left portion. The 'establishment' is the more 'moderate' one. Popular examples of viewpoint representatives of the 'base' online are Vaush and BadEmpanada. Popular examples of the establishment are Contrapoints, PhilosophyTube and Destiny.

The big shift from the base can be described thusly: Performative woke stuff is out. You can no longer signal that you are in favor of soft social causes that are otherwise irrelevant to broader critiques of capitalism and colonialism or similar lefty theology. This might hold interesting connotations for transgenders as an untouchable priestly class in leftism. But in practice this just means that there have been some genuine changes at the grass roots level. And they are putting Palestine first as a purity test. The base is making this adjustment due to a series of genuinely devastating political losses.

You can say it begins with the Biden admin not standing up to Israel after Oct.7. The base got to feel what it's like when their representatives and institutions don't go along with them. This was a thing the base really cared about. But the establishment ignored for, at the time, seemingly no good reason. Come election season, Harris doubled down on this 'don't ask don't tell' position on Israeli overreach. This made the base even madder. If folks remember a few weeks back, the infamous 'Election Autopsy Report' that the DNC didn't want to release, the base was projecting whole heartedly that they lost because Harris was soft on Israel-Palestine. So not only was the base getting ignored, they also believed they were losing because of it.

To make matters worse, Trump started doing things this term. DOGE, along with the USAID thing happened. It was the first sign that the left as a whole was starting to lose grasp on just what was going on. The first symbolic defeat they've felt in a long time. The right was genuinely running a victory lap waving around all the ridiculous lefty causes that had been receiving millions of dollars. Hating Musk and lighting Teslas on fire was, as far as political activism goes, ineffective at actually achieving anything, even if just rhetorically or cathartically. Alongside this ran legislative defeats like the passing of the OBBBA and the ICE apocalypse alongside Trump admin actions against colleges and campuses. Those were principally establishment defeats, but the base got to pay the price.

Lets put ourselves in the shoes of the base. After having been gassed up through propaganda that Trump was going to make the sky fall down, there are now people from their ranks that are dead. Some jailed for a long time, and others permanently damaged, either physically, mentally or professionally from participating in lefty activism, with nothing to show for it. At the same time the base has not just been losing internally to the establishment, but they've also been watching the establishment lose externally to the right.

What's worse, they're now competing for space online against the likes of Theo Von, Tucker Carlson and similar, who have been filling the moderate 'I like healthcare and dislike Israel' void on the right/center. At the same time they have no leverage over the more extreme right wingers that occupy X and alternative streaming sites. This is a far cry from the 2017-2020 years where the left could exert pressure on the media landscape at will. A clear example of their loss of power.

Now, why can't the establishment just mend things with the base? Why are they huffing and puffing about the extremists in their own backyard? Why can't they give them institutional cover like they once did? Outside of the right genuinely becoming stronger due to a lack of censorship, there is a one word answer: Israel. The establishment can't compromise any more on Israel. They have to vote yes when Israel asks for arms. They have to stand up and clap for Netanyahu. And the base is redefining itself around the singular cause of Israel bombing children in Gaza being a bad thing.

There's no more intersectionalism. There no more 'sit down a black woman is speaking'. The base has slowly realized that organizing around words and ideas is stupid. You need something concrete as a barometer. And they are slowly enforcing that the actual program is not gay sex, protesting for black criminals or men in womens sports, but dead children in Gaza. And if you don't get with the program, regardless of who you are or identify as, you can be dismissed on those terms.

Will this last? I don't know. The establishment has usually managed to reign everything in come election year. But it might be that with changing demographics on the ground, and the reckless actions of Israel, that the American left is genuinely swirling down the drain of a third world communist toilet because they can't say no to infinity immigration and Israel.

The left was a coalition of jewish oligarchs who wanted to flood the west with migrants and dismantle western civilization and leftist who want the same thing. The issue is the Jewish elite have no interest in dismantling wall street and are hard core Jewish ethnonationalist. Uniting a principled leftist with Jeffery Epstein's pro Zionist billionaire friends over their united hate for straight white people was doomed to failure in the long run. Their fundamental values and motivations are incompatible.

Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that could be said that I didn't to not get banned. But it's a very interesting dynamic compared to on the right.

See you on the other side king.

Oh look. It’s that time again. And again. Yeah.

Given your continued flagrant violations of the rules, we are banning you permanently.

Have a nice day.

Outside of the right genuinely becoming stronger through X, there is a one word answer: Israel. The establishment can't compromise any more on Israel. They have to vote yes when Israel asks for arms. They have to stand up and clap for Netanyahu.

Why?

I can shed some light on this, the TLDR is that theres a massive generational divide on israel and the democrat establishment is mostly made up of older people who overwhelmingly support israel and the base is mostly younger people who overwhelmingly don't.

Now you might ask, why does this generational divide exist? Well, the basic disagreement is about whether jews count as oppressed or oppressors. Boomers and gen x grew up in the shadow of the holocaust, when there were still many holocaust survivors around to tell their stories. This caused these generations to slot jews into the same slot as blacks and other minorities. Whereas by the millennials and especially zoomers most of those people were dead and also israels behavior much more resembled the colonialism they were taught to condemn in europeans so they slot them as whites.

Hope this helps you to understand the difference in opinion between the base and the establishment democrats.

Noted. One would assume though that such a generational divide is exactly the sort of factor that would compel more political compromise though.

Is it? History is replete with examples of the older generation digging in their heels and not allowing change until they pass away.

Because they have power and can't afford to be that stupid.

Israel may be unpopular, but Palestine is genuinely run by an evil regime that would behead every American if they had the power to do so. And it's not just a bad regime, its popular. If you have power you can smile nicely at the "queers for Palestine" people, but you still have to keep the reality in your head that not only would those people be beheaded in Palestine, you probably would too

So the establishment is widening a rift in their own party because... The evil Palestinian regime would otherwise behead every American if given the chance? Which would somehow be more likely to happen if the dems stopped bending the knee for Israel?

I can see the vague emotional outline for 'Palestinians are radical muslims and that flies on the face of lefty progressivism' but trying to connect that to any genuine geopolitical reality feels like a real stretch.

Granting for the sake of argument that this is true, there are lots of groups in the world that meet that criterion (the easiest example for reductio ad absurdum probably being any assorted Islamist militia in Africa), without the US subordinating every other national interest to supporting whoever happens to be fighting against them.

Disinterest is an option everywhere. In Israel the results would be worse for Islam.

I’m not asking why these Dem leaders are not taking a clear stand with Hamas against Israel. I’m asking what perceived tangible political risk is there in them parting ways with the Israel Lobby and refusing to yield to them anymore.

I’m asking what perceived tangible political risk is there in them parting ways with the Israel Lobby and refusing to yield to them anymore.

All the people with money and brains seem to still like Israel. Or at least understand that it is a significantly lesser evil than the regional alternatives.

That’s not the issue at hand. OP claims the Dem establishment has no option but to keep giving all the support to Netanyahu’s government that it demands in the form of military intervention, arms shipments etc. For me it’s not clear why that is. Even if all the people with money and brains seem to still like Israel, which seems like a rather big stretch, the political situation at hand does not necessarily need to follow.

All the people with money and brains seem to still like Israel.

Paul Graham and Nassim Taleb would suggest otherwise.

Regardless, it seems more like the people with money who like Israel are willing to basically devote their entire fortunes towards supporting Israel whereas the people with money who don't like Israel have other priorities.

The voter base hates Israel, but the donor base still generally likes Israel (at least the theoretical concept of Israel, not necessarily the current government). Imagine the political blowback from pissing off

  • The Media,

  • Big Tech,

  • Big Finance, and

  • Lawyers

All at the same time.

What's the potential political risk in refusing the aid the war aims of the current government then? It's not the concept of Israel that is the matter at hand here.

They’re fine with letting Arab Muslim refugees into America. Why would they have objections to letting Arab Muslim refugees into Israel?

They probably have an Aversion to seeing lots of beheadings

If they had such a strong aversion to beheadings they wouldn't have enthusiastically supported Al Qaeda taking over Syria

I’m also curious. The establishment has chosen to do this but I haven’t seen any particular reason why they would have to do it. They just seem to really want to do it.

If you don't know why, it's probably old and complicated and involves real national interest, which is why you don't know about it.

So, for instance, as to why we "have" to sell Israel weapons, it's because that was part of the deal Carter brokered for peace between Egypt and Israel, a peace that has lasted nearly fifty years now. We also "have" to sell Egypt like 80% of what we sell Israel. That's the deal, from the Realpolitik '70s. Egypt leaves the Soviet Union as main sponsor, Israel leaves France as main military sponsor, and they buy American and agree not to use the US guns on each other.

So, we don't have to do shit. We can withold weapons from the Israelis, but that scotches the peace deal with Egypt which puts the Suez in play (and so on down the line of international consequences). Also, the weapons we provide tend to be the most targeted and high-tech. The Israelis make much of their own hardware, and are plenty rich enough to get reasonable options from elsewhere except for our best stuff. The idea that the US military hardware is the only thing between Israel and defeat is ridiculous and ahistorical. US military hardware is what stands between the Palestinians and an Israel that doesn't have Patriot missiles, but can build their own artillery. Not sure that's better for anyone.

Which is why we keep voting to do it.

We can withold weapons from the Israelis, but that scotches the peace deal with Egypt which puts the Suez in play (and so on down the line of international consequences)

Well, supplying Israel with weapons led to the Houthis blocking the Red Sea so...

That's not true and you have to know that, otherwise this conversation is pointless.

Whatever the aims or results of the Iran operation, it wasn't because Israel has Patriots. And that situation wouldn't be improved if Egypt, Israel or both decide to leverage the Suez every time they get mad at each other.

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US military hardware is what stands between the Palestinians and an Israel that doesn't have Patriot missiles, but can build their own artillery. Not sure that's better for anyone.

I think a lot of people don't realize (or don't want to acknowledge) that if Israel were to be unable to effectively defend its population from terrorist rockets and mortars and missles, their reponse wouldn't be capitulation or negotiation. It would be annihilation. As it would be for pretty much any polity in existence whose civilians are being relentlessly targeted and killed by a militarily inferior opponent.

As it stands, Israel has the breathing room to be more judicious in their attacks, even if it really doesn't look that way to the uninformed, who call use of more than one JDAM "indiscriminate and unproportional carpet bombing". But without the Iron Dome, I think we'd be reminded what carpet bombing really looks like, and I wouldn't blame them (or anyone else) in their operational situation.

Israel has a population equivalent to the population of Denmark if we subtract Palestinians and ultra orthodox. Israel's natural resources are meager. If Israel was subjected to the same sanctions as Russia they would fold like a house of cards. There is no way Israel can be sustained while having hostile relations to all its neighbours and while being sanctioned by the west.

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Some people want to kick Chevalier out of the party, bless their hearts. This wouldn't work even if it were feasable. Democrats need votes from leftists to be competative nationally. A party at war with its own base cannot stand.

It's rather worse.

Leftists (defined as people sharing these views or sympathetic to them) are small minority of the population, but they form large part of D activists and organizer cadres, the party officers and NCO's who make the party actually work on the ground.

The party needs 1937 style purge, but such operation needs Georgian genius. Watch for new man/woman/nonbinary person coming from Atlanta.

Are you subscribing to the interpretation of Dreaded Jim that the Great Purge of 1937-38 was a manifestation of left political singularity?

The insane activist types are where all the energy is. Yglesias-style slow boring can't compete for low-information voters in the modern media environment. Cut the leftists out and the vibes die.

It is worth remembering that Yglesias doesn't actually disagree with the activist left's goals, he just wants them to keep those goals on the DL until after they get elected.

The whole point of his "Popularism vs Populism" bit was that left wing activists would be better served by trying to boil the frog slowly rather than turning the heat up all at once.

Yglesias explicitly does not support the "Palestinian Cause" (which he sees, in my view correctly, as the destruction of the Jewish State and the reversal of the displacement of Palestinians from what is now Israel proper). The activist left are river-to-the-sea Palestinian maximalists, and right now they are saying that this is their most important issue.

He also explicitly opposes, apparently sincerely, the standard leftist positions on public order, market-rate housing, and frankly almost every economic issue except climate where he has expressed an opinion.

The only area where Yglesias explicitly supports leftist goals and only disagrees on tactics is climate. On open borders, he is personally in favour (but acknowledges that this is not an electorally viable position for the Democrats, and favours compromise with the electorate) whereas it is the organised left which tends to hide the ball while de facto supporting open borders through non-enforcement. He probably also agrees with a bunch of unpopular left-wing views on issues around race and sex, but they are mostly issues where the left have won and are playing defence, and therefore the activist left find it hard to give a crap.

The current incarnation of the populist right is fundamentally single-issue on immigration, so from your perspective Yglesias and the far left agree on the things that matter. But that is a function of how you see the issues, not how they do.

Yglesias explicitly does not

On historical grounds I conclude that Yglesias is closely aligned and simply lying about it.

(The only reason I don't say "totally aligned" is that even he and Klein can't possibly be stupid enough to throw themselves under the bus.)

Eh, I can believe Matty is still trying to do the Obama technocratic progressivism thing, like a Japanese solider holding out on a remote island decades after the War, but the problem with openly coming out in favor of tactical lying is that people tend to hold it against you forever.

I don't think Yglesian popularism necessarily involves tactical lying (although all politicians, populist, popularist or otherwise do a lot of it), and I don't think Yglesias personally is engaging in tactical lying about his political views. He definitely hasn't "come out in favour of tactical lying" in the sense of saying that elected Democrats should be saying more things that are not true. He is smart enough to know that enough things are true that you can make almost any argument by selectively emphasising true statements.

The essence of popularism is to talk about your popular policies and not about your unpopular policies. That can involve lying, but it can also involve ignoring awkward questions, whataboutism, agenda manipulation, and all the other not-technically-lying things that are staples of political communication. And, of course, it mostly involves saying true things about your popular policies while using the other set of staples of political communication to get heard. Once you put it this way, it really is just common sense, but common sense which the internal politics of the Democratic Party makes controversial.

The thing Yglesias is mostly pushing back on when he talks about popularism is Ford and Hewlett Foundation funded advocacy groups making Demoratic candidates and electeds say unpopular far-left things as a flex in intra-left factional politics, which (unlike doing unpopular things which are either nonpartisan good ideas or advance a left-wing partisan agenda) is all cost and no benefit.

He definitely hasn't "come out in favour of tactical lying" in the sense of saying that elected Democrats should be saying more things that are not true.

He tweeted literally that back in the day. Can't find an easily linkable version now, but something like "Yes, advocates should fight dishonesty with dishonesty. That's an honest view." I mostly remember because people have been throwing it in his face for a decade.

I'm sure he deeply regrets saying it now, whatever his feelings on the topic.

I don't think Yglesias personally is engaging in tactical lying about his political views.

Matt Yglesias has said, historically, that lying for political reasons is good. Article on the topic with a few extra links.

I don't think Yglesian popularism necessarily involves tactical lying (although all politicians, populist, popularist or otherwise do a lot of it), and I don't think Yglesias personally is engaging in tactical lying about his political views.

He has, he knows it, and he's not even good at it.

Stacy Abrams will go down in history as a writer of adequate love poetry and brutal dictator, clearly.

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