House Democrat steps down from leadership role over party's support of Biden's reelection
Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota is leaving his position in House Democratic leadership over his party’s support of President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid.
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Strange. I mean it has been obvious all along that the Democratic party would support the incumbent. I would be really surprised to see another candidate come forward with the charisma and funding to be a serious contender. That candidate would most certainly not be this guy.
Everything you mentioned hints towards AOC. Maybe not funding but she could come up with by asking for voter support.
AOC would not be a serious contender at all. She’s way too extreme. Nobody can win without centrist support at this point, and AOC is not capable of winning that.
Not to mention the hurdle of the first woman president on top of that. Not saying I agree with that being a hurdle of course, but in reality it is.
A career criminal (with chronically bad spray tan) and host of the apprentice managed to do it, and he thinks you need a license to buy bread. I think she could manage and for her to be the first woman president would actually be a meaningful harbinger of change.
I mean, at that time he wasn’t a criminal (at least publicly, we all know in hindsight he definitely was), but I honestly think the only reason Trump won was because he was running against such a hated person. Democrats made a massive misstep in rallying behind Hillary in that election, just like republicans are making a mistake rallying behind Trump in 2024.
But, that doesn’t mean that the moderate voter base isn’t important. That was the exception to the rule in my opinion.
Honestly, I don’t really like AOC. I agree with her a lot of the time, but I find her extremely disingenuous. How can you truly fight for the working class when you lived a life of extreme privilege? (EDIT: I was wrong about this. I either feel for misinformation, or misattributed something I heard about a different politician to her. Either way I was wrong.) She can get away with saying extreme things, because there’s zero risk for her. She has no actual power to act on what she says, and she knows her voter base will eat it up. That would change if she were to make a serious bid for the presidency, and I think like every politician she would compromise her “values” for more power in an instant.
lived a life of extreme privilege
What fucking propaganda have you been consuming? AOC lived a life of extreme privilege? Her father was an architect, she went to public school and was a bartender when she got elected, sounds pretty working class to me.
AOC is both extremely privileged but also a communist bartender.
We can reconcile this: her critics are full of shit
How can you truly fight for the working class when you lived a life of extreme privilege?
That's ridiculous. Can someone not fight for LGBTQ rights of they aren't part of the community? For POC rights if they aren't POC? For women's rights if they aren't a woman?
It's bullshit anyway, AOC's background is the definition of working class, this dude is just in here spewing bullshit propaganda.
I am not spewing bullshit propaganda, I was mistaken and already realized and admitted that well before you made this comment.
Lol, the fact that you corrected it is good, but you were spouting bullshit propaganda. They have tried to pain her as rich by showing her house and calling it a mansion. It was a normal house. They tried to paint her as inexperienced for office as she was “only” a bartender. It’s just propaganda. You fell for it. You passed it on.
I'm a well-off middle-aged white male, I guess I should just give up my convictions about how people should be treated equally and fairly. And when I say "equally" I also mean taking into account generational privileges and opportunities that are not received equally by all people.
But fuck me, right?
Fellow cishet white male nerds assemble! Let’s discuss how there’s just nothing we can do. We can have our servants feed us grapes if we get bored.
I get your point, but I don’t think it applies to this specific situation. My point is that I don’t believe that anyone from the wealthy or ruling class can genuinely advocate for people within the working class. That would have a direct negative impact on their own self interests. I can be straight, and still advocate for LGBTQ rights without that having a negative impact on me.
They'll run their media machine of slander on whoever happens to run. In a sense it's largely up to the media how effective that is. I saw a recent polling graph on here showing the composition of the dem base. The progressive flank is lager than the liberal and moderate one combined now.
AOC is not a monolith, nor is she beyond corruption, but I think she has the education, youth and talent to lead a generation back into politics. I'm unsure how being a bartender in the Bronx to fund your house keeper mother is privilege or living with three other people in DC and shopping for bargain shoes, but perhaps I'm missing something there. Also, I think she has tons of risk. Specifically being primaried from within her own party or from people out to stalk her (which has happened) but OK.
Who would you like to see run for president that's better?
Edited: said the same thing twice about polling, so deleted an instance.
I would've said John Fetterman before his stroke. But that's almost exclusively because I'm Pennsylvanian and married to a Brazilian like him lol. Outside of that he's seriously had great stances and been absolutely uncompromising in stances that make no sense in 2022.
I’m wary of polling in general (see almost every poll leading up to the 2016 election), but I agree that is likely the case. However, the Democratic base is still not big enough to win elections without drawing from moderates who could swing either way.
I’m really glad you challenged me on my view of her being privileged! I had heard that she attended either Yale or Harvard and had the entirety of her education funded by her family, but after looking into it that’s clearly not true. I either fell for misinformation, or misattributed something I heard about a different politician to her. Either way, I was wrong.
When I say she has zero risk, what I mean is that she knows her progressive views will resonate with the vast majority of her constituents. But if she were to run for Senate or President, that would no longer be the case.
As for who I would rather see run for president, the answer is nobody. I can’t think of a single public figure or politician who I actually trust. I’m pretty cynical about politics at this point, but I truly think everybody involved in politics is self serving and corrupt.
This is the real reason why Dems won't bring her in. People will make excuse after excuse. Your first main point was disproven and you just come up with another.
I never understood the hatred for Hilary Clinton either. She may not have had the charisma we seem to elect these days but had a very effective organization. I believe she would have been quite effective
Was it for ACA? Was it being the first woman with a chance at President? The email thing and the Benghazi thing were mostly slander from the other party and would happen to any candidate.
Do you really think AOC could survive being tarred and feathered in this political environment, regardless of whether she deserved it?
Maybe next time around, when Caesar Trump is no longer a possibility and Rhonda Sanity has fallen apart
Trump won because people didn't show up to vote for Clinton, because no one is inspired by these people. They were inspired to vote for Biden only because Trump would have been horrible for another four years, not because Biden was what they wanted. If only they showed up to the primaries...
The Clinton bashing campaign was a Russian active measure (they spent military resources on propaganda operations) designed to keep Obama's head of the state department out of the presidency while they were planning to invade Ukraine. The emails thing and the Benghazi thing could ONLY have been levied at the former head of the state department. In this political environment, survival is a matter of being able to keep your staff paid.
Frankly, the precision of your errors makes me doubt their authenticity.
She's extreme only because they have successfully pushed the overton window so far right. Anything that actually helps people has been branded as too extreme at this point.
AOC would not be a serious contender at all. She’s way too extreme.
Extremism isn't the problem. Having her name already turned into the GOP's Pavlovian Minute of Hate is the problem.
They're going to call everyone devils and light crosses on fire regardless of who is the nominee. They think fucking Biden is a socialist and that guys meal ticket his whole fucking life was being peak middle of the road NeoLib. Maybe them turning the insanity to ten is what's needed regardless. In the same way the left flank gets stuck voting for Joe, the middle right can vote against a ranting lunatic saying to burn books and take away birth right citizenship. The die has been cast regardless, so having a strong, whip smart dynamic leader like AOC is genuinely the thing we need to beat these christofascists back into their holes. We can no longer try to placate these lunatics and run out the clock every election. They'll stumble into success eventually if we keep ceding ground to the right.
Oh no, don't get me wrong, my argument isn't "We should compromise and go further right", it's more "If we can grab someone who hasn't had a smear campaign run on them for half a decade, we should." I'd love to see AOC in the White House, I just worry that the well has already been poisoned, so to speak, for half a decade now. She's been the GOP boogeyman #1 for some time, and some of that soaks through to 'centrist' swing voters, unfortunately.
AOC's been targeted because she's talented. There isn't a second sleeper AOC who's just as charismatic and politically talented, but no one's ever heard of them. The amount of targeted smear campaigns in conservative media will correspond closely with how much potential the GOP thinks someone has.
Can you point to an effective female federal politician who hasn't had a shear campaign run?
Duckworth?
I mean, there will always be some smear campaigns in a politician's past, but AOC has been a very, very prominent target. Like, anytime you see Fox News playing, they've always got a picture of her looking angry for the mandatory Two Minutes Hate. A non-negligible amount of people are easily convinced by repetition - AOC is their most common target, and has been their most common target for 5 years. She has a lot more antipathy built up against her than probably any other member of the Squad. AOC was their replacement for Clinton hate. Only Ilhan Omar is really comparable in terms of being used as a GOP boogeyman.
And I mean, like I said, this doesn't at all mean that I'm opposed to an AOC candidacy. In a line-up like we had in 2020, I'd've voted for her even over Bernie. Not over 2016 Bernie, though. But that doesn't mean I'm optimistic about her chances.
Yeah AOC is up there with Clinton in getting smeared by the right wing media machine.
Sure wish we'd quit selecting our candidates based on what Republicans might like.
Ah, I hear ya! Who would you like to see run that you think could effectively dodge that sort of poison pill status?
Who would you like to see run that you think could effectively dodge that sort of poison pill status?
It wasn't a factor when the party selected Clinton. It's only a factor for AOC because she's a progressive.
Nail on the head. I get the feeling that she's still tracked for 2028, assuming we aren't living in the neo-confederacy by then. I can't fucking stand having to wait another 4+ years for a candidate that I can just be comfortable expressing support in. What would America or the world even be like if Al Gore didn't have an election taken by the supreme court? Feels like a future they just can't stop taking from us because some enlightened centrist is going to say "you can't win without the middle." Fuck the middle. It's progress or fascism. They need to pick a side already so we can get to getting. If they need anymore time to decide than we don't want them.
No clue, honestly. Most convenient would be a sudden and meteoric rise from a regional sensation to a national one, like Obama in 08 or Bernie in 16, but one can't count on that, of course. I've got a 'wait and see' attitude as to the 2027-8 primaries, see who declares or seems interested in running before sifting through.
God, I hate that I'm thinking about primaries half a decade out from now.
She’s not extreme. She’s a liberal woman who came from a blue collar background. That’s literally all it takes to not be a real contender right now.
Politically, she’s pretty moderate, like every other dem in congress.
BUT SHES A WOMAN
AND SHE HAS OPINIONS!
SO EXTREME!
/s
I think what people are saying is that Democrats need a candidate that appeals to Republicans. She's 'extreme' from the perspective of a Republican.
Biden is a milquetoast moderate democrat and the republicans think he’s radical.
If a democrat ran in a conservative platform they’d just shift further right and call that person a radical liberal.
anyone to the left of "PUT GAYS AND TRANS PEOPLE IN CAMPS AND KILL THEM" is considered radical by conservatives.
I'd say the same about Biden but if you were campaign manager or whoever makes these decisions would you put up against Trump? 70 million people voted for the guy and you need some of those votes. I'd put up someone who could pass as a conservative among conservatives.
Republicans wouldn't even be worth pissing on if Congress votes 14a3 to ban Trump from office. It would make room for Biden to retire too.
I have to say I agree. I like most of her proposals and I’d probably vote for her but she’d bring out the crazies for Drump. We really need a centrist like Biden until the crazies crawl back into their holes
It'd also bring out the young voters who may not otherwise vote because nothing is being done. A "centrist" will always side with the corporations, yet we have massive issues they are just making worse. They don't inspire young voters.
There are no centrists in the US because we have two right-wing parties.
I also don't think she'd through away the good will she has from other progressives that support Biden running again