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PollJunkie's avatar

https://x.com/_rotimia/status/1943309009236156896

This is why I’ve never liked Dean Phillips. He comes across as sanctimonious—though perhaps less so than Fetterman—and constantly tries to scold Democrats over protests, Iran, and similar issues. Now, he says that all Democratic Socialists should be excluded from the Democratic Party. He primaried Biden from the right actually, preaching austerity, and then complained about not gaining any traction.

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Aaron Apollo Camp's avatar

Running democratic socialists out of the Democratic Party would guarantee that a left-wing third-party with a lot more traction than Jill Stein's grifting operation would be present at every election, which would mean large Republican majorities and perpetual GOP control of the White House. The Democratic base is less of a monolith than the Republican base is.

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Buckeye73's avatar

No one should be run out of the Democratic party. However anyone openly referring to themself as a Socialist is guilty of political malpractice and needs to be called out on it.

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michaelflutist's avatar

And how do you expect articulate folks like AOC to respond to it? Waste of time in very progressive districts.

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Buckeye73's avatar

She could call herself a populist or a progressive. Calling yourself a socialist is a loaded term that will hurt you and will hurt your party in most of the country.

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michaelflutist's avatar

You can think she should call herself whatever you like, but that won't change anything.

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ArcticStones's avatar

It changes the discourse – and in this age of sloganeering, that matters.

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michaelflutist's avatar

Of course it matters, but you might as well piss in the wind. Expecting avowed socialists like AOC to stop calling themselves socialists because of whatever argument you want them to consider is a total waste of time better served by just accepting that some members of the Democratic Party's left wing will continue to call themselves that and some of them will continue to win elections while others will naturally lose.

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ArcticStones's avatar

Hear, hear! This is one of my main gripes against Bernie Sanders – especially since, by any objective measure, he is a Social Democrat, not a Democratic Socialist. Throwing around the term "Socialist" does a lot of damage to Democrats.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

I’ve never been more glad he ran for president in 2024. These are the people who have wrecked our party. These are the kind of people still in office right now that need the boot from voters in upcoming primaries. At this point I’m basically coming down to the opinion of primarying everybody except swing seat reps. The good ones will survive, the bad ones won’t.

Part of the reason Trump won in 2024 was how well he did in deep blue districts and some of that is because our reps there aren’t representing the people effectively or running real campaigns. Our voters stayed home in 2024 or voted for Trump in dark blue seats. If that isn’t a clear signal that safe seat Democrats aren’t pulling their weight and that we need to change that dynamic, I don’t know what is.

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Mike in MD's avatar

2024? The good thing about Dean Phillips' campaign then is that he made an ass of himself for the whole country to see, then didn't seek reelection so that we don't have to take him seriously or rely on his vote for anything.

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dragonfire5004's avatar

Thanks for the catch, fixed it. Absolutely, the problem is there are more Dean Phillips Democrats in office right now. Who they are can be left entirely up for debate, but not whether they exist. They’re there right now and need to go.

It’s not even policy disagreements either, so it’s not always a left vs moderate battle because there have been progressive Democrats with this exact attitude problem too while in office. Phillips was a down the line Democratic Party vote in office.

It’s this attitude that no one else other than those who think like them should be included in and lead the party. That is what needs erasing and is toxic irrespective of what wing/ideology they come from. We need to win more votes from people who don’t think like us (from the left, right or middle), not less!

If you can’t even acknowledge that basic truth, you’re hurting our party’s ability to win elections and need to be replaced.

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HumanFromJersey's avatar

Is he really the one who came off looking like an ass though? My take is that Phillips running for president was by far the most noble thing that he’s done during his political career. He spent a long time trying to convince more prominent party members that Biden couldn’t be reelected and that they should challenge him, and only when they all turned him down did he run himself. It’s not like he covered himself in glory during that candidacy, but he was absolutely right on his main point: Biden wasn’t fit to run for another term. So many in the party knew that and did nothing.

I don’t like what Phillips is saying now. I don’t think we’re any worse off without him in The House. I don’t think he’s distinguished himself as particularly intelligent or charismatic.

But I do really admire his willingness to throw away his political career on a hopeless race, because he felt that someone had to challenge Biden.

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michaelflutist's avatar

Agreed on all counts.

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Avedee Eikew's avatar

He is part of the grift circuit now.

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YouHaveToVoteForOneOfUS's avatar

Yeah, you can’t really take anything he says seriously anymore, if you ever did. People talking about or themselves actively sowing division within the Democratic Party will always find a friendly microphone, because the Dems in Disarray narrative is the always and forever friend of those who want the party to lose.

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

It's not just here that sane people of all shades of lefty...realize the importance and value of having everyone in the tent. Sure feels that way sometimes, though (and the social media algorithms are feeding it like mad).

Less voters is not the path to victory, unless I really have forgotten all the maths I used to know (I have frequent nightmares where I've forgotten Differential Equations concepts ahead of the test),

I genuinely appreciate everyone's contributions here, be they centre-left full-blown socialist, or wherever else y'all might land. We need each other, this is all hands on deck.

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PollJunkie's avatar

Agreed. "United we stand, divided we fall."

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