Progressive Politics

2819 readers

508 users here now

Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)

(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

199

Why establishment Democrats still can’t stomach progressive candidates like Zohran Mamdani (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani? The answer, it would seem, is the entire establishment. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate has surged in the polls in recent weeks, netting endorsements not just from progressive voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders but also his fellow candidates for the mayoralty, with Brad Lander and Michael Blake taking advantage of the ranked-choice voting system in the primary and cross-endorsing Mamdani’s campaign.

With the primary just around the corner, polls have Mamdani closing the gap on Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor of New York. This has spooked the establishment, which is now doing everything it can to stop Mamdani’s rise.

Take Michael Bloomberg, who endorsed Cuomo earlier this month and followed this up with a $5m donation to a pro-Cuomo Pac. The largesse appears motivated not by admiration for Cuomo – during his mayoralty, sources told the New York Times that Bloomberg saw Cuomo as “the epitome of the self-interested, horse-trading political culture he has long stood against” – but animosity towards Mamdani and his policies.

Mamdani wants to increase taxes on residents earning more than $1m a year, increase corporate taxes and freeze rents: policies that aren’t exactly popular with the billionaire set.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

The contract is that because we share a party we share control of that party and it's direction.

If that contract is breached, well we really don't have a party.

The cudgel of "it rubs the centrist on the skin or it gets the trump again" only works if centrism can win elections, and that's entirely the fucking point: it can't. And when centrists occupy some of the most progressive districts to them cross the fucking line and vote with Republicans, what exactly is the fucking point?

Centrists do own the Democratic party, but if their business isn't being responsible to the people in the big tent, they've violated the peace treaty the tent represents. If they're going to demand that politics need to be done their way to win elections, they actually have to win elections. Otherwise there is no coalition worth having with having with them.

Internal to the Democratic party is a social contract between factions, and one of the parties in that faction seems to think they can violate that contract with impunity.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Uh, I don't share the Democratic party. Sure, I vote any time I can to direct them to suck a bit less, but it's not because I think they represent me. The treaty is that whoever votes in their primaries decides who their candidate is. If you're not voting in their primaries, you have no control.

If the majority of the people really wanted a progressive candidate, they could get one by showing up in force to the primaries. Primary voting participation is like 15%, it would be easy to sweep that if people actually showed up. Get every leftist to show up to the primaries. If they still lose, that's just democracy.

Stop treating the DNC as a traitorous ally. They are not an ally. They are a tool used to effect future material conditions. The tent represents a collection of demographics with a common enemy that they pool their votes to defeat. Leaving the tent only makes that enemy harder to defeat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Uh, I don’t share the Democratic party.

You just got done saying you vote blue no matter who a few comments ago.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago

Frequently, answers are found by reading the entirety of a passage.

Stop treating the DNC as a traitorous ally. They are not an ally. They are a tool used to effect future material conditions.

load more comments (1 replies)