House Democratic lawmakers reportedly used a closed-door meeting earlier this week to vent their frustrations with progressive advocacy groups that have been driving constituent calls and pressuring the party to act like a genuine opposition force in the face of the Trump administration’s authoritarian assault on federal agencies and key programs.
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“Forcing recorded votes is possible. Frequent quorum calls are possible. A wide variety of dilatory motions are possible. In short, harassing the majority is possible. If they think it’s a bad idea, say so. If they say it’s not possible, they’re lying.”
I like how politicians voting is considered a time out. It’s their job, jfc.
“But if our votes are recorded, our
voterscorporate donors will know we voted against them!”Right? This is about providing political cover to centrists who take money from the same oligarchs as conservatives. They just want to pretend they are on our side.
Hay man, they’re on our side! When it hardly matters.
They actually can’t force votes though, so we’d be getting the same votes and we already knew whenever Republicans stepped out from the ranks such as the Hegseth confirmation where 3 of them abstained but he got appointed anyways. Recorded Votes doesn’t stop the Trump admin. The Dems are effectively powerless without 13 Ind + Gop to impeach and remove him or his cabinet members or corrupt federal judges.
Leeja is cool but her opinion was that they’re running their tiktok accounts wrong and they were born in the wrong year.
What specifically would YOU do to stop what the Trump admin is doing?
Lmao, I can’t believe that’s what you got from the video. That was not remotely her point. Her entire point is that the Democrats should be using everything within their polical power to obstruct and delay everything the Trump Admin is trying to do. She gave multiple examples of exactly how they can do that. That’s the bare minimum the Democratic Party should be doing. I already participate in local community organizations.
What is it YOU think is in their political power? Specifically.
People didn’t vote dems into power and that is why we are in the situation we have now.
Here’s an entire comprehensive list. Which was, again, discussed in Leeja Miller’s video…
The Democrats are responsible for losing this election to an unpopular fascist by failing to represent the demands that the majority of their constituents were demanding. Start demanding more from your representatives.
You have incredible patience.
So you want them to do the things they’re already doing to delay votes that will happen in short matter regardless of what they do?
Reminder that only simple majority of 51 breaks filibuster for cabinet and judge confirmation hearings since 2013 and 2017 respectively. The DNC stalled for 30 hours because they were allowed to by the GOP, and the hearing still went through as planned. Nothing can stop this.
It sure is neat how powerless the minority has suddenly become.
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Democrats have had less than 50 for over a decade, nothing sudden about it.
Simultaneously,
They just want money and plausible deniability. Any one of these Dems can just be bought like a repub
Wow I can’t believe those fake congresspersons on that parody news site would say that. Thank you for bringing this into real political discussions. /s
Vote a little harder next time it’ll save us
It would have saved us, yeah.
Progressives need to start their own party. The establishment DNC is so entrenched with big donors and lobbyists that it is unable to serve the people. Their balancing act of appeasing both the right and the left is just serving to alienate everyone because the final policies get so diluted. They have become too stuck in the quagmire of their own doing. I don’t see the DNC being able to change any time soon and through their inaction, will only enable more devastation of the country.
The new Progressive party should align with the DNC as the opposition during this administration but simultaneously run more like minded candidates in the next elections with their own separate fundraising campaigns. That’s the only hope I have for meaningful change to happen.
There’s a free app called 5 calls. It helps you to call your representative with a script. Progressives need to get on this. I’m aware it’s a pain, but the script makes it a lot easier especially when you get an answering machine instead of a person.
It’s rather naive to think that phone calls will change anyone’s mind in office. Money speaks, not phone calls.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
https://act.represent.us/sign/does-calling-congress-really-work
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
It’s rather naive to throw out centuries of political theory because you can’t be bothered to write / call / show up.
Following centuries of political theory have led us to this point.
In fact the only thing they pay attention to more than calls is people physically showing to their offices.
Not really. The only thing they pay attention to is the amount on the check.
If calling really changed things, I’d be getting emails from TheDemocrats asking people to jump on a phone bank. All they are asking from me is “More Money to fight Donald Trump!”
Do you not get those texts? I would understand if you blocked them but they are definitely being sent.
The problem is you get the NDP/Liberal vs. Conservative effect when you do this. If you have 30% of the population vote for your Leftie, and 30% vote for the other Leftie, in a given congressional district, the Republican can win with 31%, despite 60% voting against the Republican. We need RCV before we can do this, and people need to understand that they MUST put the other party as choice 2 or we are back to ending up with a Republican.
This is why a new party needs to be built from the ground up, starting with local races that are uncontested or use ranked choice voting already.
That is indeed a problem that needs to be resolved, and likely through ranked choice voting. But as a country, we tend to focus too much on the presidential election. Change will have to start in the congressional elections - both at federal and state levels. The issue of votes splitting will be a lesser issue in these elections except in a few large districts. That will also be where smaller fundraising campaigns would go further.
Change starts at the dog catcher. That’s how the maga morons did it. They ran for every single down ballot race, all the way to the bottom.
If Democrats are so scared of splitting the vote, they don’t need to run a candidate. It’s not like they’re particularly interested in winning anyway.
I fail to see your point. That sounds like you have a 61 majority for the Republicans. The “Liberals” are aiding the Republicans getting power, as the article points out.
Also the Democrats are a pink washed far right party, by standards outsidr the US.
They just need to put the Trump party last (or whatever the shittiest party is at the time)… They can put anyone they want 2nd
100% agreed, it’s time for a new party. Republican-lite is killing our nation.
Tell this to Bernie and other progressives. Seriously, if we call and email them, they might decide they even enough support to do such a thing.
The Democratic party is dead.
The DNC leadership are elected by people who are elected by us. Almost no one votes in those elections… Probably no one even knows they exist. But a well timed strategy of getting like 50 progressives to show up to each election and vote for progressive leadership is all it would take to replace every liberal in the party leadership with progressives… No reason to leave 2 conservative parties intact
So like, how do we do that? How do I help organize that?
Can you clarify, who are you talking about?
Aren’t there already other progressive parties? Look how they’re doing.
You should check out the Axios article they cite before you write them all off. The supposed “gripefest” is just Dems talking about how they’re recieving hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day.
So the Republicans can act like an opposition party but they can’t? Have they had their heads buried since the beginning of Obama’s term? Or is this their snide way of confirming complicity?
The rich want to end democracy. They dont want to stop Muskler.
And almost everyone in Congress and the Senate is rich.
I’m definitely using Muskler from now on. That’s good
I said this in /r/law and was told that my level of cynicism is unrealistic and I’m arguing in bad faith
The democrats were this ineffective during the GWB era as well. Then after America gets sick of Republicans because their policy is terrible and predictably causes calamities of varying magnitudes, only the people who didn’t go along for the ride with the Republicans thrive politically afterwards.
For instance, one of Obama’s main draws in the 2008 primaries was the dude wasn’t drawn into being pro-Iraq invasion.
The feeble wimps will all be seen as such if this era ever ends, and the public will turn to whomever consistently opposed the petard throwing before it hoists the one who threw it.
Democrats are officially a dead party.
“Disgraceful and humiliating surrender from these Democrats as they continue to hit your inboxes and messages begging (spamming) for money.”
That’s all the careers care about.
The US needs a left-wing Party.
This has been half a century of Fascists vs neoliberals, center-right “free to be LGBTQ as you die of poverty in the gutter” vs so far right we’re building Concentration camps.
Unfortunately our people have been poorly educated by design as well as brainwashed into believing profit comes before humanity. " Herp derp Anything less is socialism and therefore evil!"
This is only “freedom” for the rich to trample the poor. Freedom without social responsibility is a rampage. We need revolution, revolution that does far more to Wall Street than merely occupy it , or we need to accept living in hell until the capitalists destroy the climate enough to destroy civilization all together.
Don’t worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we’re failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
This isnt the usual ebbs and flows of history, There is a very literal deadline of humanity’s own greedy making.
Don’t worry, just a few more decades of the same at most for nature to do what we’re failing to. This will end within a human lifespan, the choice is if it will be with or without a habitable planet for Humans.
That’s the plan. That’s why billionaires are buying up properties in places that are currently too cold and remote for masses of people to want to live there (Montana, Greenland, etc).
They know climate change is real and it is 100% reflected in Homeowners insurance rates in FL and other high risk places. I’m fairly certain that it’s not the leftist types that get into starting insurance companies.
Also, the whole Covid thing… I am pretty sure there was a concerted effort that would cull our numbers a bit.
So yea, we’re all going to die probably — unless you’re rich enough to afford to move to somewhere that will have a more hospitable climate when we cross the 3 degrees Celsius threshold next year.
Let’s start a new party called the Modern Future party.
Yeah I have completely lost faith in the Democratic Party. Seems like they don’t mind Trump because he benefits their wallet.
If only the fought as hard as they spam & griftIt really pisses me off that the ONLY outreach I saw were requests for money. Hundreds of them (many may have been scams, not sure).
The Democratic Party doesn’t get paid to win elections.
It gets paid to run campaigns.
The Republicans have decided that that is unreliable and have simply gone with open corruption.
100% this.
Louder for the folks in the back, please.
They have to raise money so they can spend money to raise money. Then they’ve raised twice as much money even though they only have half of it.
Or… Just act at all…
Any of the ones who are upset about Progressives pushing them to act like an opposition party needs to be primaried and kicked out, if they can’t be convinced. We need more primary challengers to actually change the party, like the republicans have and continue to do.
They will get rid of primaries. They already did it last year
Last year they didn’t really have presidential primaries because of an Incumbent, something both parties do all the time. But there were still Congressional primaries. And local primaries. Saying they’ll get rid of primaries when there was a reason to not have a presidential one, even if you disagree with that reason, is very much misunderstanding how primaries work.
I mean, they threw it out and nominated whoever they wanted. There WAS a primary-- Harris wasn’t in it. RFK was making Super Bowl ads for it
With all the anger over the Gaza situation, they waited until the last possible moment and foisted her on us so that there’d be no time force debate
Yes and that was shit and they should have figured out a way to do some kind of primary. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be a real primary in 2028 or that there won’t be congressional primaries in 2026, which the congressional ones was what I was talking about. The only thing that would guarantee not having primaries is an official Dictatorship being created and the dissolution of congress and Trump being declared King or saying there will be no more elections.
Yes and that was shit and they should have figured out a way to do some kind of primary
They will do it again. One of the few things democrats actually do is make excuses.
Majority of dems are literally just there for a pay check, and now they have to work for it?! Oh no… Anyway…
Hey! They’re not just there for a pay check! It’s also the legal insider trading and other benefits
Constituent pressure? How frustrating!
They didn’t seem all that frustrated in the Axios article which is the source of all of the information in this article, although I’m sure thousands of phone calls a day would get old fast.
mutes the line
When they win elections, they refuse to use power to help people, but instead blame Repub obstruction. When they lose they wag fingers, but mostly just go along with Repubs (ie, confirmations) and they FUNDRAISE. Then they use that funding to defeat left dems in primaries.
I’m telling you. The DNC is a sunk cost. You’ll keep contributing to it thinking is valuable but when it’s time to cash in they’ve already cashed out. At least the RNC spends it’s political capital, mostly on shitty culture war shit, but they don’t let it disintegrate into nothing.
If I could teach the DNC two words to use against the opposition it would be, “so what?” I mean, they use it on their constitutes all the time so it should be nothing new.
“There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.” - New DNC head
It’s a good thing we can all agree on what the definition of good and bad is, and how its applied in our society right?
" There are a lot of good billionaires out there…"
Let me stop you right there pal. There is no such thing.
No, no, a good billionaire is a dead billionaire.
But then they’re not a billionaire anymore.
They might even have been a multi billionaire with multiple heirs so now you’ve just more billionaires!
Nah.
Seize their means and make them work a minimum wage job.
The time for civilized resolution to this problem has come and gone. Billionaires decided they want to live in a “might makes right” world. Fine by me. We’ll just have to show them what that looks like when the teams are split 120,000 to 1.
