Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg’s plan to spend $20 million to primary older Democratic incumbents in Congress has sparked intense anger from some lawmakers.

  • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    What the FUCK did they think would happen after the most catastrophic election loss in a generation? The DNC and Democratic leadership should have enough of a sense of the gravity of the situation we’re in to resign in shame. Instead they have the audacity to complain?? Seriously, understand how big of a failure you’ve been a part of and actually DO SOMETHING to help solve it.

    • freshcow@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This is the same Democratic party leadership that ran Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s campaigns. The same Democratic party leadership that cares more about stopping Bernie Sanders than about stopping Donald Trump. They know who’s side they are on, and it’s not the same side as you and me. The Democratic party is unfortunately rotten to the core, and it’s all about the money. Imagine the concept of regulatory capture applied to politicians broadly and you will understand the modern Democratic party and the state of our government. We need a party built from the ground up to represent the working class, whether it be from the ashes of the Democratic party or otherwise. Primary them at every turn or run independent campaigns where feasible. The other challenge is that mainstream media is owned by the same corporate masters, so it will be an uphill battle regardless.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This is the same Democratic party leadership that ran Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s campaigns.

        Hogg has been vice chair of the DNC for like two months…

        How is he responsible for what the old guard did when almost all of them got the boot months ago?

        • freshcow@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I should have been more clear. The post I’m replying to said “what the fuck did THEY think would happen”… which I took to mean the (presumably older establishment) dems that are whining about Hogg’s call for primaries. That’s who I’m talking about.

  • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    I think it’s safe to say that the ancient Democrats who’ve been holding onto their seats by sheer force of incumbent political influence, contributed to turning Hogg into a school-shooting survivor. Obviously Republicans bear more responsibility thanks to their gun/violence fetish, but these Dems wouldn’t be so angry if he hadn’t touched a nerve. They’re clearly afraid of young people with new and rational ideas.

    I hope these young’uns keep at it, their passion and drive is inspirational. Since the geriatrics in power clearly can’t smell their own bullshit anymore, fuck em. No one is entitled to power, you have to earn it like Hogg has through his dedicated activism. His organization has helped pass more than 250 gun safety laws, for example. He’s actually doing shit.

    • atmorous@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Not only that they’re afraid of both the real left and real right of young who can vastly transform the country for the better if they worked together

      Which they are doing already. But if they do it even more on every level then that will be HUGE transformations every day not weeks or months or years or decades

      The greatest strength the younger generations have is adaptability and having a clearer mind of what to focus on as a collective

      They strength themselves, and even more so with others

      • BertramDitore@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        That’s a great point. The party is only hurting itself in the short and long term by not welcoming younger candidates and trying to elect people who are actually willing to wield their power by trying shit out, rather than just further entrenching themselves by wielding their political influence. That’s the difference, the younger generations are willing to try out new policies and see if they work. That’s how this whole fucking system is supposed to function. Try something out, if it doesn’t work then too bad, you lose the next election and continue working on your ideas while the other party tries their shit out to see if their ideas work. We’ve strayed so far from that, that everyone is just accustomed to the government not trying big things, and nobody trusts that the other side would ever govern or compromise in good faith.

        That’s why their anger is so frustrating to me. They’ve been there forever and done jack shit, and whine like children when someone young comes along and acts more mature by offering to fix the shit the elders have refused to.

  • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Every Democrat seat should face a primary. Every year. No party funds should be spent until after the primary or all people on the ballot should get the same party stipend.

  • TomMasz@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The “intense anger” tells you this is absolutely the right thing to do.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    “What a disappointment from leadership. I can think of a million better things to do with twenty million dollars right now,” swing-district Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.) told Axios.

    “Fighting Democrats might get likes online, but it’s not what restores majorities,” she added.

    The issue is we get majorities and then nothing gets done with depresses turnout.

    We don’t want to primary these old conservatives, we’d much rather them represent their constituents, but they’ve shown time and time again they won’t.

    We’d rather they get out of the way and resign, but they won’t put the future of the party over their own personal power.

    So fuck em.

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I agree about “fuck em”, let’s get out with the old and in with the new.

      But what majorities are you talking about? I keep seeing this repeated all over the internet- the sentiment that Democrats get nothing done when they have control. The problem is that I’m 33 years old and the Dems have only had control of the federal government for a few months of my life, and that’s when they passed the ACA. I can’t really make a judgement on what the Dems do when they’re in power because they largely have not been.

        • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          They had control of the Presidency and the House of Representatives. I never said they didn’t have that- I said they didn’t have control of the Federal Government.

          The Senate was tenuous. Just having 50 Dem Senators (well, that’s not true either because you need to include Independents to get to 50) isn’t good enough- you need 60 votes to have a filibuster-ptoof majority. The Dems just barely scraped that together in 2009, complicated in part by Ted Kennedy’s seizure and eventual death and Al Franken delayed in getting seated due to recounts. They only had 60 votes (still including Independents) from September 24th 2009 - February 4th, 2010. 4 months of controlling the federal government.

          That is why when the 2008 financial crisis happened and the Dems wanted to pas a stimulus package in 2009, they had to get Snowe, Collins, and Spectre (who would leater switch parties to get them to 60) from the Republican side in order to get that passed.

          They absolutely did not have control of the Supreme Court at any point in the Biden administration and the Republican SCOTUS shut down a lot of what the Biden administration tried to do. I remember checking every day for months to see how they would rule on Student Loan forgiveness, for example.

          This is why they have the perception of being powerless- because they’ve pretty much never had the power. The Republicans love people who say the Democrats are useless. They love saying Biden didn’t do what he promised when he DID and the GOP-dominated Supreme Court reversed it. They love being able to stall Democrat legislation and blaming a Democrat president. Everything the Dems have done outside of those 4 months have required careful compromises and negotiation with the GOP to pass.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            They had control of the Presidency and the House of Representatives. I never said they didn’t have that- I said they didn’t have control of the Federal Government

            They also had 50 D senators and Harris as the tiebreaker…

            They had the whole federal government for two years but didn’t get shit done because suddenly the guy who campaigned on being a literal “senate whisper” who said he could get R votes wasn’t able to get every D vote.

            If you can’t understand 2021-2023, stop trying to cover earlier too.

            • mpa92643@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              We don’t have a parliamentary system where a party can kick out an elected member for not supporting the party’s agenda and replace them with someone else. Each member is individually elected to represent their state or district. For better or for worse, they get to decide what is best for their constituents and their constituents get to respond in the next election.

              Joe Manchin was the major impediment in 2021-2023. He mostly supported the party’s agenda but had some sticking points. He had to be onboard with whatever passed given the razor thin majority.

              I saw all these screeds about how he should be kicked out of the party, but the objective reality is there is very little you can do to pressure a centrist Democrat from a state that voted for Trump by 50 points. The only option available was to placate him and come to a compromise (which he ultimately agreed to for major climate change reduction investment).

              The reality is that the Democratic Party is not monolithic, it has some centrists who don’t support some of the more ambitious goals of the party. If you want bigger action, you have to have a bigger majority. Slim majorities give small wings of the party outsized influence on policy.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                We don’t have a parliamentary system where a party can kick out an elected member for not supporting the party’s agenda and replace them with someone else.

                1. That doesn’t mean no pressure can be applied, if it does then Biden is a liar and ignorant of how our system works… Why didn’t you speak up when he kept claiming he could apply pressure to get Republican votes? But regardless of if it could have worked, Biden refused to try public pressure

                2. The fact that we can’t kick them out of the party is why the new DNC is advocating to primary them out.

  • TemplaerDude@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Any other job where you fail as hard and as often as those old fossils do, you get the fucking boot. Why do they think they’re entitled to their fucking seat? You fucked up and have been responsible for having the world’s worst person elected twice now. Time to go.

  • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Frankly this is a good idea in the long term despite a possible short term loss.

    The Tea Party hurt the Republicans in the short term, but they took over the party and purged the liberal elements. They replaced Eric Cantor with a speaker who does everything they want. They’re a monolithic block now and have been winning out on their strategies ever since.

    AOC ousted 10-term congressman Joe Crowley in a primary by a huge margin. A few more of those couldn’t hurt.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Hogg is 100% right and they are just whining like babies when they should be doing their effing jobs.

  • BigBenis@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If you were confident that you’ve done right by the people you represent then surely you wouldn’t be threatened by challenges to your incumbency.

    • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      ??? Really you think that’s what the donors think when they send money to the DNC???

      “Here’s my hard earned money please do what ever the fuck you want with it, efficacy be damned”

      That actually explains a lot tbh. You might be on to something here!

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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        8 months ago

        “Here’s my hard earned money please do what ever the fuck you want with it, efficacy be damned”

        I mean, that’s the response they expect from progressives.

        • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Yea fair. I came around to it while typing my comment. I appreciate the insight it made me come to other enlightening conclusions.

  • Jaysyn@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    has sparked intense anger from some lawmakers.

    Who gives a shit. What do potential voters think?