The winner of my House district’s primary, Cait Conley, is the candidate the Democratic establishment wanted. And I think she can beat Mike Lawler in the general, although of course a lot can happen between now and November. But I’ve bumped into some younger progressives in the district who swear they will not vote for her, because she’s not pure enough on one issue or another. And I don’t disagree with them as far as the issues are concerned, but House Democratic majority, folks. The bigger, the better. Vote Blue No Matter Who.
Now I think some other people need to hear that same message. See, for example, After wins by democratic socialists, centrist Democrats unite to push back by Matthew Choi in WaPo. (I appear to be out of gift links, but maybe you can read some of it.)
Thirteen Democratic House members and candidates announced their support Thursday for a centrist initiative aimed at pushing back against the party’s tilt toward democratic socialism. …
… “They should not be the face of our party,” said Jessica Killin, a Democratic candidate running in a competitive Colorado district. “We need to be organized and clear in our vision.”
Killin is one of the 13 who signed on to the “Promise to America” initiative that commits candidates to a set of centrist principles, including capitalism, fiscal discipline, strong borders and pride in the United States.
Yeah, that sets up such a strong contrast to Republicans, right?
Part of me does appreciate that Republicans are absolutely going to seize on the flakier DSA candidates and hang them about the necks of every Democrat running everywhere. Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of the Mamdani-endorsed candidates who won on Tuesday, is a bit much even for me and will probably serve nicely as this year’s “defund the police.” But it appears I’m not the only Democratic voter who has had it with the centrists. Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times,
Many Democratic primary voters, however, are in no mood for defensiveness. As they see it, they’ve been failed by a cautious, compromising establishment, and they’re going to overthrow it. The Democratic version of the Tea Party is here, with dramatic implications for the midterms and possibly the next presidential election. As Mamdani said at a rally at Brooklyn’s Kings Theater last week, people are asking when the race for 2028 begins. “It starts now,” he said.
then later, Goldberg writes,
That means the 2026 midterms could end up being a giant national experiment that tests the populist left’s theory of victory. For years, it has argued that Democrats have failed because, in thrall to corporate interests, they let themselves become the party of the status quo. Unable or unwilling to galvanize voters with an economically progressive alternative to the right, they’ve offered only timid, business-friendly incrementalism. Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, the organization that recruited Avila Chevalier to run for Congress, told me that too often, the Democratic Party “tries to stymie big and bold ideas” in favor of technocratic pragmatism. “I think what voters have really made clear, particularly this past year, is that they are desperate for bold, visionary leadership,” he said.
What I’ve been saying for at least a couple of decades.
See also A Far-Left Freedom Caucus Would Be a Nightmare for Jeffries by Paul Kane at NOTUS. It begins:
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) has a message for the far-left Democrats who won in Tuesday’s primaries and are all but guaranteed to join Congress in January: tone it down.
But Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), the liberal icon whose 2018 upset win inspired this movement, had a very different message directed at the old-line Democrats: welcome these incoming progressives with open arms, or else they’ll spark ideological clashes.
This is worth reading. It quotes AOC,
“My hope is that they are not met with the hostility and the cruelty, frankly, that I experienced, and I think that a lot of that can inform what happens afterwards,” she added, noting that they should be respected for having won their districts just like everyone else.
I hadn’t realized she’d been dissed so badly when she first came to the House in 2019. But, yes, the DSAers were elected like everyone else, and should they win in November their constituents expect them to deliver what they ran on, or at least be seen trying real hard. Once again, it looks like the centrists are the real clogs in the machine who insist their timid, incremental approach is the only legitimate one and everybody had better get with their program. And the centrists will still be the whopping majority in the House, so it’s not like they’re going to lose control in the near future.
Update: Josh Marshal comments on this very same theme. See ‘Centrists,’ This Is on You.
Quote of the day:
The Promise to America organization, headed by a guy who ran WelcomeFest 2025, is not here for voters. The pablum promises and attacking the left are a reassurance to donors. The subtext is: “don’t worry, we’re not going to tax the rich or enact meaningful regulation.”
No. Hell no. Candidate quality matters. Surely you can see that from the cluster$#&@ that the right has become…?
I would never support, say, a guy who bragged about killing brown people, got a Nazi tattoo, only covered it up once caught, and who worked for Blackwater. That guy is a Nazi and you never support a Nazi, even if they have a D next to the name.
The democratic majority means nothing if it is electing more fascists.
If you honestly think Graham Platner is a fascist then you're too much of a dimwit to take seriously. Go away.
I'm more concerned about sanity rather than color red/blue or skin. We all get a little crazy on occasion. As a former life partner long deceased would say, you can visit la-la land but never live there. Too many of the present group in power from the uber-con(job)-con(vict) wing of the republican party seem to not understand this part of the job.
Public service is a job. For a lot of us, their most important job is to STAY THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. The present group has no idea. Like the National Guard at the Basin of Fallibility. We were never trained to kill time there. We had armories to do that in or summer camp sites. We bothered only each other there. Most of what happened there stayed there. At least we hope it did.
Elect wisely.
Note: I have fortunately repressed much of my very long time wearing military garb. Green garb. All green. Green trucks, clothes, even green underwear for those with status. The boots were black and polished not all camo-ed up. Yes, we had green socks.
The cooks only got dehydrated eggs to cook at summer camp. So, every morning we got scrambled eggs. Once or twice in the two-weeks camp they would add food color to the scrambled eggs for variety. Green food color of course.
I understand the army hasn't been able to decide whether to go with green foliage camo or beige desert sand camo, so now they are mixing it up so it doesn't work anywhere. But I can see camo combat boots becoming a real fashion item.
<i>But I’ve bumped into some younger progressives in the district who swear they will not vote for her, because she’s not pure enough on one issue or another. </i>
A great way to feel virtuous while your party remains in opposition for the next century. It is likely impossible to find a candidate with whom you agree completely. Some policy positions are impossible to support but unless it's a life–or–death matter, the old adage "Tossing the baby out with the bathwater" applies
You are unlikely to have St Francis of Assisi or Nelson Mandela as your candidate. After a quick scan, that Politico piece on Darializa Avila Chevalier looks like a hit job. I'd want to see the actual quotes.
I have always thought that this advice makes sense in a lot of situations
One of the things I have learned from reading secondary sources on historical cooking is that you should never trust a secondary source that does not include the primary, since you have no way of knowing what liberties the author may may have taken in his “interpretation” of the recipe.
David Friedman
How to Milk an Almond, Stuff an Egg, And Armor a Turnip : A Thousand Years of Recipes.
I find this very true in all sorts of situations. Come to think of it a great one is Putin calling Trump "brilliant" during Trump's first presidential campaign. What Putin seems to have said is "?? ?????" which can be translated as "He's brilliant" but seems more akin to "He's colourful", or "He's flamboyant". May Putin have meant "He's as brilliant as a peacock's tail"?
Donald Trump seems to have won the last election by promising fairly radical changes[1]. My guess is that a major reason Harris did so badly is that people were fed up with the status quo she offered nothing new or different.
Every Democrat who is saying' Let's not be too radical", or saying something about those "mad, Marxist, Fascist, Communist, Nazi, far–left, revolutionaries"—have I missed anyone?—are supporting the Republicans.
1. In a way he kept his promise just not exactly as a lot of people expected. I am not from the USA but I do not remember him promising algae in the reflecting pool.
In the Josh Marshall commentary linked in the post, he says "I think Chevalier doesn’t have any business in Congress." But he'd vote for her anyway, if he were in her district, for the sake of the majority. I honestly don't think the Politico piece was a hit job. Chevalier is just plain out there.
Without seeing the actual statements I will still think "hit piece" but I am not from the USA and don't follow this sort of things closely.
Chevalier sounds like a moderate leftest in Canada. I don't think Politico wants to see a "real" Canadian leftest, that is, what we consider a moderate in Canadian terms.
BTW, I was impressed to see your software produced 'What Putin seems to have said is "?? ?????"' Apparently it cannot handle Cyrillic letters. My post was using Russian Cyrillic.
Meanwhile in Iran…. they are trading strikes, Iran on a cargo ship (no injuries reported) US on Iran, Iran on Bahrain. At stake is control of the Straight of Hormuz, which Iran wants as a prize in their victory. And the right to charge fees and control (restrict) traffic.
IMO, Trump is eager to bring gas prices down in the US. He's been threatening big oil with investigations for price gouging. If Trump or Iran shuts the Straight, oil prices will shoot up. If insurance companies and/or shipping companies get nervous about safety, traffic through the Straight will be reduced. There seems to be a surge of traffic exiting after four months of being bottled up, but are ships entering to fill up? I have not read numbers. But it costs a lot of bucks to leave a ship worth 700 million idle at anchor for months at a time.
I would not bet on gas under $3 any time soon. If Trump screws up the end of the war, it may be next year.
I'd bet that the main issue motivating "younger progressives in the district who swear they will not vote for [Cait Conley]" is Israel/Gaza.
TikTok voters – plz pardon the stereotyping there – saw uncensored video of Israel massacring civilians in Gaza, daily, using US planes and bombs. TikTok voters then saw them US Congress react to this by forcing ByteDance to sell the US part of TikTok to a Zionillionaire (Ellison) to apply "appropriate oversight" (censorship). That Bill was introduced to the House with 54 Cosponsors (32 R, 22 D), and passed with 352 Yeas (197 R, 155 D) and 65 Nays (15 R, 50 D) – a rare display "bipartisanship".
In 2021, Biden had reversed a 2020 Trump Executive Order of similar intent, but in 2024, Biden signed the "PAFACA", adding insult to the injury of his inability or unwillingness to do anything real to constrain the IDF in Gaza.
A few years ago, the primary litmus test for Progressives was social issues (tilting on the last few letters of "LGBTQ+"), but the carnage in Gaza changed that. I don't think it's possible now to qualify as "Progressive" without some kind of active, explicit stand against Israel's murderous expansionism, and by extension, AIPAC's corrupt influence over Congress.
"Young Preogressives" won't vote for Lawler, though: his vote for PAFACA shows which side he's on. OTOH, if there's a Green (or other lefty) candidate in the race, they will get a lot of votes…
You are right about Israel/Gaza. For some of these young folks this is the only issue they care about. None of the fiascos coming out of the Trump Administration register with them.
Right now I believe there are three candidates for our House district, who are Mike Lawler (Republican), Cait Conley (Democrat) and Effie Phillips-Staley (Working Families Party). Phillips-Staley came in third in the Dem primary, and for the record I voted her for myself. I don't know if she'll be on the ballot in November, however. The bigger picture, though, is that while Conley herself is what we might call "soft' on the Palestinian issue, a Democratic majority could be more helpful to the Palestinians than a Republican majority. There is a Palestinian House member, Rashida Tlaib, who would have a bigger voice in the House were she part of a majority. I have also read that support for Israel is eroding among Democrats. So ironically a vote for Conley could benefit the Palestinians, if indirectly.
Went down to the centrist convention. they’re all shaking and crying, I heard one guy say “I’m starting to think a better world IS possible.” the lady next to him slapped him in the face
– Amy Brown
The whole "centrist" label is BS. If you want to retire 'rich' from any profession, you study who succeeds at it and who fails. And how. For an English writing major, your best hope is to pen a best seller. You will barely keep from starving as a teacher. The most profitable path for a geologist is to extract petrolium. If you can stomach what you're doing to the environment.
A "centrist" Democrat is a politician who is willing to sell out the working class to serve the upper class. Low taxes and non-intrusive regulation. In return, you can retire with a cushy lobbyist job (after a one-year mandatory wait) at around 2 million per year, mostly to sell your name and increase the perceived level of influence the K-Street firm wields. You can also do well before that with insider trading.
The 'radicals' are not extremists as most issues go, relative to what Congress achieved under FDR's direction. But they tend to share one feature that terrifies the 'centrist.' They won't take big money in their campaigns. Not from corporations, special interests, or wealthy individuals. They won't sell out. That kind of integrity threatens all the legalized corruption in politics at every level.
Something else. We've seen an erosion of voters from both parties to register as Independent. For a time, it was Republicans who could not stomach the Tea Party extremism, which morphed into even more extreme MAGA. There are conservatives with values about equality and fair play. A lot of them can't stomach the GOP as it is, but they aren't Democrats, either. They could get behind someone who won't sell out the working class easier than someone fully committed to MAGA fascism.
Years later, the shift to Independents swept away a lot of Democrats, some of whom are frustrated with an emphasis on hot-button social issues (which are important) like women's rights, non-binary rights, immigration (Dreamers) and racial equality. All fine, except they are willing to finance genocide in Gaza because they're paid to look the other way. And keep taxes low, and cut deals for pedos if they are connected. (I do not think Epstein was a GOP-only sex freak.)
There's a historical parallel in the shift in the Democratic party in the mid-60s. Dixiecrats had the same role in the party as the 'centrists' maintaining a racial status-quo that allowed the South to oppress people of color through local domestic terrorism. Radical 'hippies', largely from the North and West wanted to move the party to embrace real racial equality and enforce it with federal teeth. Voter sentiment led the move to codify reform, which led to Republicans embracing racism as a political tool.
IMO, we have to call the issue out for what it is – greed. If the DNC won't write and live by a plank that bans big money in politics, the Democratic voter can take power from the party through the power they have to elect candidates in the primary. Bounce the ‘centrist’ on one issue – Big Money In Politics. Make it nothing about where you are on the political spectrum EXCEPT on that issue. Make every 'centrist' candidate declare where they stand on a simple pledge about taking money from AIPAC, from corporations, and special interests. The second clause in the pledge should address profiteering from their term in office after they retire. (Lobbying, by any name).
Politics should be the LAST career a person would select to get rich. I personally like the idea of a 'successful' person from any field, including business, entering public service. But after they leave, their finances should be under a federal microscope for a decade looking for the appearance of impropriety. I think the issue very dear to my heart is on the rise with voters and it can resonate with a wide swath of voters.
I like this post a lot. A real lot.
If I say something that resonates, thank you. More importantly, spread the ideas that can change things if they become mainstream. I don't want credit – you may plagiarize shamelessly.
In 2015, no professional mainstream politician was using the word 'corruption', including Bernie Sanders. Now the concept of legalized bribery is in the public forum. It needs to be a litmus test of integrity and a lack of integrity should end your career in politics.
And we are putting a bulls-eye on incumbents who have sold out. They are understandably outraged. Whether they are retired by the electorate or not, we're going to take away the prize of a cushy post-political-life reward making millions for their prior service to multi-national corporations. I almost feel sorry for them. Almost.
The general idea that government doesn't work for us has to crystalize on a clear concept. End big money in politics. (Campaign finance reform.) End profiteering while in office (No stock trading by members of Congress) No payoffs after you leave office (Watch the finances of retired members of Congress for the Appearance of Impropriety – tax illegitimate income at 100%.)
If any of these constraints are too tight, don't run.
I'm thrilled that DSA candidates won in NYC. It's a proving ground or incubator to see if they can grow the progressive base and become a major force in Democratic politics. Paul Waldman (sorry no link) recently wrote about how the Hakkim Jeffries and James Carvilles are revolted by this, and how they don't get that this is how politics is supposed to work – if a party is so out of touch with its base and unable or unwilling to deliver for them, then they better get out of the way for those who will. The entitled attitude of the established Dems is appalling.
It's not just NYC. I learned that Democratic mayor Karen Bass in LA, will be facing a DSA challenger, a former ally of hers.
I expect that it's going to be mostly establishment Dem types who wil dominate Congress after the mid-terms. The mess they will inherit will be colossal, and it's unclear how much they'll be able to achieve, apart from investigating Trump and his enablers. I think this is going to pave the way for more DSA gains in 2028.
I think this is the Paul Waldman post you're referring to: The New York Election Proves That Primaries Are Good.
That's the article. Thanks for looking it up!