Resonosity

I agree with pretty much all of this. You have to weight it all.

Corporations should not own and operate such critical infrastructure like the railroads I agree. Same as the grid, water systems, natural gas/district heating (ha if that'll ever happen), parking spaces, telco, etc. There are just some things that should be owned by the masses because they're used by the masses.

I think the bill was weaker the first time around so that Dems could get Reps on board, and then I'd like to say that it wasn't even a bill to get the sick leave. The article I posted points to Biden's administration specifically and the Transportation and Labor departments. Likely pressure on the backend to get railroads to cave.

Oh I didn't hail Biden as a hero at all for him stepping down. He waited until the last fucking moment. And it was so fucking cringe when Kamala and the DNC would thank Biden for his service... Like wtf his own ego got us there in the first place???? Why couldn't he have stepped down earlier and given us an actual primary???

But then when he did step down, the timing was so critical that in order to not lose more of the base, Dems had to go full Kamala. I think holding a primary at the DNC probably would have angered donors a lot more since the primary would have been stolen from the American people, and who knows where that would have gone given the sentiment people had towards Biden.

I didn't agree with the Biden dickriders at the time either. Many of them would use the comparison of voting for a ham sandwich over Trump, but that sentiment, vote for me because I'm not them, is so lame and doesn't really inspire any motivation in the Democratic party's base. It's the same rhetoric that Kamala used, and imo that rhetoric is what contributed to her campaign failing. You need a carrot as much as a stick to persuade your base.

This whole past election cycle was botched absolutely. But I want to get to the bottom of why we got here in the first place, and my focus has been to blame and scold the political careerists in the Democratic Party proper who have taken up power and who don't want to let it go, even if it means breaking from the centrist establishment to court pro-labor and progressive values and supporters.

Biden is to blame, Kamala is to blame, Hillary is to blame, Obama is to blame for why we're here now. People are tired of their party not giving the concessions they said they would, and not fighting the fight against rising fascism and extremism. We need a strong counter weight to what Trump represents, and centrism is not the answer.

I honestly have no clue how you constructed your conception of "leftists".

Leftists != Tankies != Blue MAGA/Anon != Progressives

Biden did great things while in office. However, the Left has the liberty to continue pushing the current administration to go farther and implement more policies in line with their ideals. This is a force that counters the Right.

Biden did not go far enough on Gaza, and neither did Kamala. The same goes for corporations like those in the Oil & Gas sector that raised their prices following oil demobilization during COVID, as well as those that kept their prices high even years after like those producing consumer goods. Could have gone farther.

When the existing administration makes no concessions to those in the base that voted for that administration but not as their first choice, they have the right to criticize and call out the administration's failure to represent them.

All of this would be fixed, or at least alleviated if we abandoned our political duopoly in favor of an electoral and congressional system that allowed for more diversity in government. Ranked choice seems to be taking off in many states.

Oh, and Kamala was great at the beginning. She took over for Biden, then chose Tim Walz. But then her administration attached itself to Biden, the person that spawned her campaign since the Democratic base utterly rejected him following the debate, and then went after the Right in hope of gaining more votes, taking their own base for granted.

Now that we have the full scope of Kamala's campaign, she ran on much more conservative values than Biden did in his campaign leading up to the 2020 election.

This nuance is not something you'll see in the mainstream media, perhaps not even on Lemmy. But this is the realm that hopefully progressives like me and some Leftists operate in.

Your mindset is honestly the same that many ignorant people share regarding science and the scientific method. Things can be true for different reasons and at different times.

Oh I agree. He likely made all of those concessions because 1) he wanted to rally the base following the 2020 primaries, and 2) to stick it to the establishment Dems. Seems like Biden has grown to be quite the grumpy old man to those in the party.

I agree with you in Gaza and the border. Biden has shown no backbone to Netanyahu, and his administration introduced a border bill that echoed a lot of Trump's sentiments.

On the whole, it's hard to make the call on whether Biden or Harris would have been better to run against Trump, but all that matters now is that we continue the message that establishment Democrats got us here by chasing centrism instead of progress. We need to root out a lot of people who actually do the politicking in the party because if those people aren't out, we're doomed to make the same mistakes.

Hasan Piker put it well the other day. If this were a game of sports, underperformers would be benched pretty aggressively. If this were a job, underperformers would be put on a performance plan (hopefully) or fired straight up.

There are people consulting Democrats that have failed time and again since 2016, hell even 2008. They need OUT.

Crazy because Biden actually came back after that and won a contract for railworkers, including paid sick leave that was so influential around the time Congress passed the contact the first time around.

Other than that though, I agree. Too little too late for Democrats. There were so many wins under Biden's administration, and none of it was ever messaged to the American people.

Don't forget that Biden was the first president to walk a picket line. No other president had ever done that in America's history. That single action won over the UAW.

Then, Biden fought back against the railroad corporations and won a contract for workers that includes PTO and other basic labor necessities.

Then, Biden reduced fentanyl overdoses, something that no president has done in like 30-40 years.

Couple this with BBB and IRA, you have a much more progressive president than what people give water to it.

Copium

And the rich.

Pretty much lmao

When you mean "all", I wonder who you group in that conception.

Not all of us believed Kamala would win. A good group of people were calling out Kamala's shit since the DNC, and everything since. With the direction of the campaign, you had a good chance to predict Kamala's underperformance.

Let's not kid ourselves here.

Fuck, I've been putting off getting a new laptop, but hell this is probably going to influence that decision.

Probably should get on it and buy it now ahead of day 1

When fully capable adults do stupid things, like campaigning to a voting base as grotesque as Trump's, I blame them for doing it.

Democrats, or at least those in their establishment bubble either on TV, on podcasts, at the DNC, or on the congressional floor, will believe anything they want to that'll pass on blame and hold to a superiority complex that they're never wrong. Power corrupts and all that.

Inspiration is absolutely required when you outside of the representative Democracy have lost hope in the economy, society, or planet. Apathy is much more destructive than idiocy, even when the latter is in favor of fascism. Apathy is what lets fascism and idiocracy prosper. There needs to be a counterforce should we keep the alternative at bay.

Democrats did not take Trump's potential to do the above seriously enough, either in his rhetoric to espouse fascism or cast mis- and disinformation. And now we have to deal with their failure.

I voted for Harris. Most leftists I know also voted for Harris.

Doesn't mean we can't be critical. She took every wrong turn after getting handed the keys to the campaign. Including not supporting a ceasefire and cease of arms transfers until the last few days before the election.

Maybe if she would have advocated for that at the start, things would have turned out differently. But then again you can say that about many things her campaign did wrong.

This was her's and the establishment Dems' campaign to lose, and they did with flying colors.