Gorgeous weather here in Copenhagen. I have been walking home from school with my 4 year old granddaughter (rather than taking the bus or Metro) and it is just so much fun. She wanders home with numerous detours so it takes forever but I was always in such a rush with my own kids that I love how tranquil it is to take our time.  Plus, she lives in this beautiful city so we walk thru a part of the former royal Danish estate on our way -

 

On to crass political talk. Some disgruntled Dems are blabbing about Schumer to media:

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Mills’ exit has intensified criticism of Schumer’s intervention in primaries, with some Democratic senators calling his support for her a 'miscalculation' driven by political inertia. Lawmakers and candidates in other battleground states, including Michigan and Minnesota, are openly rejecting his leadership. The episode has become a cautionary tale about the risks of backing establishment figures in an anti-establishment climate

Haley Stevens

Michigan

Preferred candidate of Schumer

Faced anti-Schumer sentiment; challenged by progressive Abdul El-Sayed and Mallory McMorrow

 

 Mallory McMorrow is running an overtly anti Schumer race and Haley Stevens (like Mills) is collapsing, so that’s another Schumer miss BUT Schumer also pushed Sherrod Brown into a Senate run.

Reading online (primarily Bluesky but also Tik Tok and Huffington Post – I try to read all kinds of liberals) there seems to be this myth that “populism” is both a brand new (and scary!) idea in the Democratic Party.

This may be a regional thing – maybe NY, New England and California Dems were never populists but there have always been Great Lakes populists. Sherrod Brown is one. So is Marcy Kaptur. Hell, OBAMA ran as a raving populist in Ohio in 2012 and no one complained that the rabble were taking over the Party.

As Joe has noted on this on this very blog, Jon Ossoff is running an overtly populist campaign, as is Talarico in Texas. It ain’t just El Sayed in Michigan and Platner in Maine.

I think the “scary populist takeover!” theme is just another way for centrists who refuse to admit they are centrists to punch Left, because it isn’t an accurate depiction of the history OR the existing Democratic Party, let alone some brand new “insurgency” that must be quashed.

 

 

 

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TBone Dinosaur6 months ago

All net! 😆 🤩

https://bsky.app/profile/maddenifico.bsky.social/post/3mkxpvweo3s2a

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Scott H6 months ago

Stevens is running to the right of the Hot Dog Princess Slotkin. She was craptastic to begin with purely from a campaigning perspective. In some ways she's a reminder of Porter in CA in that what she did in a Congressional District didn't play well outside of that district and it shows.

McMorrow's entry was seen as a way to sorta split the middle between the odious Stevens (oops, she's "Talented!") on the right and El Sayed on the left (I network with a lot of housing justice people in MI so gets tons of material on the race).

But everybody knew McMorrow was as WelcomeFest friendly as Slotkin without the "boldness" (willingness to say "fuck" from time to time).

Remember folks that the Blue MAGA "Vote Blue No Matter Who" was never about liberalism but only shouting at and punching anybody to the left of Bill Clinton or Bloomberg.

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Busted Knee6 months ago

Our party had a hostile takeover by the old socially liberal Republicans. Well off educated professionals used to vote Republican. They are Democrats now. Inherently their economic interests are not compatible with the bottom 80% of earners. Like billionaires their aren't enough upper middle class to win an election.

Our problems are fixable by sticking it to them good and hard economically and putting their political and cultural power in line with their numbers. Since they will not give up their god given right to rule over the rabble we are stuck with hoping things get bad enough people stop asking for a better life to keep the status quo intact and then enact a bunch of social policies and crow that it makes them superior humans and justifies their predatory position in life.

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Busted Knee6 months ago

I keep pointing this out because unless the professional class gives up it's power we are going to get guillotines and worse. It won't just be the billionaires that go. The entire upper middle class is going to find out the hard way just what people know about them.

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Scott H6 months ago

"Socially liberal, fiscally conservative" people back in the day used that trope as an excuse to vote (R) and their kids, the ones who flock to cities to displace people and suburbanize the cities, are no different. 1989 Moderate, Pro-Choice (R) who slap a (D) after their name.

I fought them tooth and nail in 1989 but now these same people in other online spaces find all kinds of ways to tell us to stfu because any questioning of what they do or the direction they lead the party is construed as SUPPORTING FACISM!!!!!

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Busted Knee6 months ago

I grew up in NOVA, NW DC, and MOCO. For the longest time everyone we knew was Republican. Also pro choice, pro civil rights, didn't care about homosexuality. But taxes needed to be cut. The poor and working class were to blame for their own situation and should not get handouts. The help should be cheap. You deserve a European vacation at least every two years. Social security is going bankrupt and should not be enough to retire on or live comfortably.

Then Clinton came and magically everyone was a Democrat! Their views did not change. 400k is not enough income and should not be taxed, social security should be cut, and don't you dare spend money on those lazy assholes who didn't go to college that's on them. If you dared say something about possibly paying more taxes or doing something for working people you'd get "you're a fascist, why do you hate black people, you want to get rid of gays" and it would be shutdown.

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Busted Knee6 months ago

That dynamic is in over drive here. Out of the top ten highest income counties in the US 1,2,5,7 are all in NOVA and all deep blue. That wealth comes from defense and intelligence money, data centers, consultants and others that rob the lower income areas of the country blind. Mention this and you are a fascist.

The problem these people have is people see the con. You have a party of the 1% willing to tolerate bigots for power and a party of the 20% who screams everyone is a fascist if they don't get their way. 80% of the population is screwed and honestly I don't blame them for not voting. They shouldn't. Fixing this requires people living less high off the hog and admitting they are the problem. Hell will freeze over before that happens.

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Scott H6 months ago

I too grew up there, earlier time frame, but more importantly, went back there for a job after grad school in 1985 and yup, you've just described what hit me full force and never let up until we moved to Central Misery in 1996.

What you and I describe from that area informs so much of what I see here in "blue" Denver a generation-and-a-half later. Same (white) people saying pretty much the same things only using different words and adopting right-wing messaging tactics to continue neolib/Reaganomic/displacement activities all in the name of Progressiveness!

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Busted Knee6 months ago

Years ago I worked in one of the big four consulting firms. We were full out DEI and bragged about it supported PRIDE and more. We also made good money by outsourcing and looting anything we could set our eyes on. If you brought it up the standard response was "we are so socially liberal and we all went to school so we are owed this and morally superior" despite ruining lives. I watched white women wear pink pussy hats protest Trump and then go right on to make six figures supporting putting kids in cages say to my face "I'm owed a six figure income and it's not on me that this happened. Those people did it. I need my check."

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Sepideh M6 months ago

This message was much catchier when REM did it as the song "Exhuming McCarthy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZDGkqXCkSA

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mister mixAuthor6 months ago

New York did not have many populist Democrats when I lived there. The Republican Party was still a force in New York politics during the late 90’s and early 00’s, but it was essentially a centrist party that wasn’t crazy. Democrats and some of those Republicans essentially formed a uni-party that governed with the same set of beliefs. Then, a bunch of nutty right-wingers took over the Republicans, and most sane Republicans left the party to be Democrats or “blanks” (independents).

That’s why AOC’s victory was so shocking. The establishment had very little interest in populism, and there still aren’t many of them in Western New York (Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse).

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Kay W.6 months ago

But NY has the Working Families Parrty right? Was that a factor?

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mister mixAuthor6 months ago

Not where I lived. The same Democrats ran on the WFP line and the Democratic line. It may have been more of a factor downstate but in WNY it was just a way to send a bit of a message to the Democrat running.

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Busted Knee6 months ago

That's the state of play here in VA. Our Democrats are the old Republicans. The GOP went crazy. If you make six figures your a Democrat. If you are working class you don't vote. Frankly I don't blame them. We suck.

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mister mixAuthor6 months ago

Our New York Republicans were pretty socially liberal and wanted a social safety net before they went tea party or MAGA or whatever you want to name the disease. New York is an incredibly wealthy state. It wasn't a big sacrifice to have halfway decent social programs.

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Scott H6 months ago

Lemme pose this question to you as a new arrival here on Ostensibly Democratic Colorado:

How does the "wealth" compare to NY? I ask because while this state has an obvious track record over the last 15 years in the "socially librul" department, it's still as 1989 Republican as you can get despite the incredible amount of capital that's flowed into this place coming out of the Great Recession.

We could afford a helluva lot more "halfway decent social programs" but the voter pushback on that remains the same as it ever was.

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mister mixAuthor6 months ago

There's no comparison. New York City makes Denver look like Hooverville in terms of money. Up in Western New York, we were just supplicants to NYC, even though Rochester had gone through a phase where there was plenty of money and social programs (Kodak, Xerox, Bausch & Lomb were all "good citizen" companies). The D Party knew that in order to win statewide elections, they had to provide for WNY, and they did. Kathy Hochul is governor because Cuomo gave the Lt Gov job to someone from WNY for the same reason.

Also, having grown up on the Plains and lived in the Rocky Mt. West before, Republicans out here are way more conservative. A NY Republican circa 1970/80/90 was pretty much a Democrat in ND/SD/WY/MT in terms of their positions on most issues.

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