Electoralism is a dead end, is the pretty obvious take away

Saying Biden can do better instead of calling him "shit" so your opponents can't use your own words against you is smart. She made a stupid mistake.

Nobody said she has to lie. You can believe Biden is s*** and not publicly say it like a dumbass when you're trying to win a Democratic primary.

It goes from this to needing to be "pragmatic " aka dont actually do s*** once you get into office

The reality is you need both pragmatism due to the current power structure and grassroots coalition building.

The reality is electoralism goes nowhere

I see what you're saying but I disagree that Bernie basically deserves the status otherwise widely attributed to him. People spent years thinking that he's a rebel or some real outlier in congress with special more pro-working class ideas, and he's clearly not. If anything he's a regular politician who's pragmatism leans into helping workers, not the opposite of an outlier politician whose pragmatism leans into the establishment. I think he's basically just as much of a democrat as they come minus some nuance, in the same way that someone like Hawley or Cotton is basically just as much of a republican minus some nuance (Hawley will side with Bernie on """populist""" things like education, anti-war, child tax credits, family programs, but then revert otherwise to typical GOP policy). For people who place more faith in democratic institutions, if they want to say Bernie is the "best they have" currently, then sure, maybe that's the case, but I still think Bernie is an incredibly disappointing politician especially in that his pragmatism (not just his but the rest of the "progressives" in congress) is always one sided; they will take huge amounts of s*** thrown at them and just gulp it down and stay silent and always vote in line with the rest of the party, but will virtually never actually use their relative voting power to do anything. It's not as if this is unheard of - people like Manchin & Sinema withholding their votes have made them the most powerful people in the democratic party. Why? Because NO ONE ELSE withholds their votes, not even the supposed "progressive" protest wing. They just allow the party to do whatever and then bring up their own policies every so often and allow themselves to get s*** over. Jimmy Dore was completely right about this in the forcing M4A debate, despite him getting s*** all over for saying so since people didn't want to admit he was right in calling out people. This strategy works - it's not something which crackpot Dore created; it's literally how the Tea Party managed to take total control of the GOP under Obama, and yet progressives in Congress are hard-pressed to even do the bare minimum half the time.

The thing is... I don't think progressives hold as much power as the media portrays them to have or the left thinks they have. Many on the left don't want to play "politics" or accept the reality of how much influence progressives actually have right now. The most vocal hold the "die trying" attitude.

People on the (relative) left have no power because they don't really want to. When Trump got elected the entire GOP was against him and it took less than 6 months to flip the entire party into a monolith with him as a kingmaker. People like Hawley & Cotton who represent small segments of the GOP have made certain ideas semi-mainstream within the party simply through latent influence. Manchin & Sinema are two people with incredibly poor approval ratings who have managed to become some of the most powerful people in washington overnight by simply saying "no lol" to being asked to vote for things. Even compared to the singular entity of Manchin, if you count up the supposed progressives in Congress (House & Senate) and look at the margins needed to pass legislature, that voting bloc should have similar power to someone like Manchin. Of course, I'm not surprised they don't in reality, because I'm not particularly convinced any of them especially have strong convictions in that manner to begin with. If people on the left really wanted to gain power there is a clear path both electorally in terms of policy support and framing and congressionally in terms of strategy, but they clearly don't actually care enough to follow it.

Man, please tell me this clear path to victory when we can't even get Pelosi out of here, lol.

honestly just look at issues polling. all they need to do is stop pandering to white cosmopolitan/urban liberals, drop virtually all social talking points and only talk about the core economic issues which are popular, if anything just mix it with regionally localized populistic rhetoric. if people running are going to be smeared they also need to start leaning into it like republicans do. for people in congress already they really don't need to worry about being replaced/primaried just statistically no matter their actual approval rating; so use that to the advantage of stealing tea party voting strategies. however i realize this saying this as well that this is virtually impossible because of the social landscape which the dem party must essentially report to. so basically i agree with what synopsis said earlier that electorialism is doomed, but i disagree on the reasons of why

Most progressives are more aligned with centrist Dems than they are with leftists. Lefties have just been trying to use them as a surrogate for their beliefs within mainstream politics.

all the fighting going on

Ahh Ole Barry Masks for thee but not for me

So this f***er isnt forgiving any of my loans ?

😂

the comments: ooooo this mean mask no work

Obama got vaccinated in March

It's been mask off for us you losers.

it’s cause of the new guidance wanting everyone to mask up again.

Infrastructure Update: Passed the Senate 🗳

Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer leaving a budget resolution meeting at the Capitol on Monday

Hello guys

Part of the reason I haven’t updated in a while is because I’ve been waiting to see what happens with this infrastructure situation

If you remember, the White House had introduced an American Jobs Plan and an American Families Plan back in April

The components of these proposals have basically been taken apart, argued over many times, and restructured into 2 separate proposals using mostly the same framework

After months of negotiations, The Senate voted 69-30 Tuesday to approve a $1 Trillion infrastructure package called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or HR 3684

The plan includes $550 billion in new spending over 5 years and would be funded in part using unspent funds from the previous American Rescue Plan and enforcing taxes on cryptocurrency

While negotiators said that the cost of the plan would be offset entirely, the Congressional Budget Office predicted it would add about $256 billion to projected deficits over 10 years

This vote is unique in that it managed to include 19 Republican Senators. A cornerstone of the Biden campaign platform was to restore bipartisanship in Congress, which many people had considered impossible

It will go on to the House now, where it will likely face intense opposition from both fiscal conservatives and progressives

A Bigger Bill

Perhaps the bigger story this week is an even larger $3.5 trillion spending plan that Democrats in the Senate voted to advance immediately after passing the $1 trillion infrastructure deal

They’ve planned to advance on a “two-track” process with infrastructure.

The first component being physical infrastructure. Meaning roads, bridges, pipes, ports, power grid, and broadband internet which are all included in the $1T package.

And a much larger proposal that will focus much more of the Democratic agenda on social policy, climate, and taxation reform that they have called “human Infrastructure”

Much of the opposition, and even many voters have argued that health care, education spending and investments in green technology are not “infrastructure”, whether they agree with the policies or not. As a result, the bipartisan package had a lot of the “human infrastructure” elements removed, to the anger of the Progressive Caucus.

Many of these provisions will likely be moved into this $3.5 trillion bill, that they expect to pass using budget reconciliation, like the American Rescue Plan back in March.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the chamber will not take up the smaller bipartisan bill unless the larger budget bill has also passed the Senate.

The process is far from over, in fact it has only started. The 50-49 vote was not to pass any proposal, or even to confirm the contents of one. This vote was a first step to put the bill on the track to an eventual vote, and the beginning of negotiations over what will be included in the final draft.

In the coming weeks you will see a lot of Congresspeople talking about what they will not support, and even threatening to blow up the whole deal. But make no mistake, all Democrats: progressives, moderates and conservatives; will have their reelection prospects determined by whether this agenda is successful or not