• sudoshakes@reddthat.com
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    5 hours ago

    I’m gotta get downvoted and cause a stir with this. Here goes anyway for the all of 5 people it might reach.

    I would love. FUCKING LOVE for a candidate like AOC to get elected president of the United States. Love it.

    HOWEVER.

    Until there is enough power transferred in the senate and the house to candidates that would remove the current structure of how we elect the executive office; they are not electable.

    See, you read that sentence thinking what I said was an opinion and pessimism. It was not. It was based in the statistics of how Americans vote and how strong the votes in various states are in a first past the post electoral system that uses an electoral college.

    As it stands, and Nate Silver backs this math as well, the electoral college requires a moderate democratic candidate to overcome a 3.7 point disadvantage. That might sound small. It isn’t small. It’s the margin of victory in many races so, you effectively need to more than double the current margin of victory for a candidate, and so it when further left candidates have a harder time than that.

    Jeff Jackson could make a run for office in 2028-2032 and be a candidate that historically could get elected. Statistically.

    AOC is just not electable in the current structure of the electoral college and state first past the post voting that still persists in most states.

    You run the virtue candidate and lose the election.

    The same was true of Harris in 2024. Not because we don’t deserve a black woman president or that she couldn’t do the job.

    She wasn’t fucking electable in this racist, sexiest voting base.

    I get we want better candidates, but you can go too far and effectively give the election to the fascist asshole, and frankly the country can’t have that happen again post Trump. It will be the end of democracy as we know it if It does.

    I know that isn’t what folks want to hear but the math is the math.

    • Nouvellalia@lemmy.world
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      50 minutes ago

      You talk about statistics and you say you would love her as a president, but then you call her a “virtue candidate”, and your real opinion is showing. You may as well have called her DEI.

    • Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Its pretty clear kamala was not the choice. She never sided with Palestine or went against biden. She ran as “not trump” thus advertising her rival. She was not chosen in a primary. She never had a chance because Biden didnt back down quickly enough to get a cohesive message through.

      The DSA has amazing press right now and the people are begging for change. Mamdani is overwhelmingly positive for a test run, so the people are legitimizing the DSA as an option. AOC could win.

    • droopy4096@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      there’s more nuance than that. If AOC support is coupled with heavy (and popular) DSA representation in both chambers she may actually stand a chance. So the focus right now should be elsewhere which is not to say AOC endorsement should seize, but that for that to become reality a lot of things have to fall into place. Also, just as Bernie’s “failed” candidacy did AOC challenge will force DNC to acknowledge it’s leftmost side and incorporate it’s agenda.

  • kurmudgeon@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    Here we go again. Dems willing to lose everything to try to become the party to get a woman in the White House first. I’ve heard this story twice now, can they just stop until America is ready for it? AOC is great, but she’s way, way more useful as a senator right now than she would be as a president. We all the strong leftist senators we can get.

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Honestly we need her in the Senate for at least two terms before she’s president, once she’s served her terms as president she’ll be stuck as powerless as Obama probably feels rn, let’s milk having someone like her for as long as possible, and that starts with her taking that feckless shit head Schumer’s Senate seat.

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      Fuck everything about this; strike while the iron is hot or be ruled by pedofascists forever. You won’t get another chance. You do not realize the danger we are all in.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      6 hours ago

      No legislator is more valuable sitting as one of 100 for a decade or two than taking their turn as president.

      • CrimeIsLegalNow@ani.social
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        9 hours ago

        Nah. Retiring after a presidency is a tradition, not a law. Hit them while you have momentum from midterms (hopefully).

        Then if she still wants anything to do with this trash fire she can just go back to being senator.

        • xtr0n@sh.itjust.works
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          8 hours ago

          It’s probably a tradition for a good reason. I suspect that 8 years of being president is exhausting and leaves even the best of us spent physically, mentally and emotionally (current golfer in chief being a notable exception)

          • Obviouslywrong@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Obama is still young enough that after a long break now he could do another Senate term or a relatively brief federal judge shipfor 5to7 years comfortably.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Red Star, whose member Megan Romer is one of DSA’s two national cochairs, has expressed “serious doubts” about throwing its weight behind her, citing a lack of “political and practical alignment with DSA.” Marxist Unity Group and Springs of Revolution have questioned moves toward an early endorsement and stressed the importance of holding socialist elected officials accountable. Liberation, a much smaller Maoist caucus, has rejected the idea of making her the standard-bearer of the socialist movement.

    Well, those people are fucking idiots…

    Luckily no organization is going to be able to just name a candidate.

    Whoever it eventually is, will have to win a full 50 state primary. And even if the DSA is outspokenly against her (or any other progressive) it just won’t fucking matter.

    Progressive policy is what’s popular and what voters are eager to flock to. Not fucking Maoism.

    No one wants Maoism, and the people ignorant enough to think they do, shouldn’t be listened to under any circumstances, they don’t even know what terms they’re using mean, or even worse they do and actually want Maoism…

    Holding that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”,[38] Maoism emphasises the “revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures”, which Mao termed a people’s war. Mobilising large parts of rural populations to revolt against established institutions by engaging in guerrilla warfare, Maoist Thought focuses on “surrounding the cities from the countryside”.

    Maoism views the industrial-rural divide as a major division exploited by capitalism, identifying capitalism as involving industrial urban developed First World societies ruling over rural developing Third World societies.[39] Maoism identifies peasant insurgencies in particular national contexts as part of a context of world revolution, in which Maoism views the global countryside as overwhelming the global cities.[40] Due to this imperialism by the capitalist urban First World toward the rural Third World, Maoism has endorsed national liberation movements in the Third World.[40]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism#Components

    It would literally be a bunch of MAGA storming cities and killing anyone that has an education, Jan 6th on a national scale, with plenty of public executions, just like under Mao.

    The fuck is the DSA doing letting self identified Maoists into their tent?

    • lunatic_lobster@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      All of the groups mentioned in your quote from the article are opposing AOC because of her stance on Palestine not being strong enough. It has nothing to do with her “not being maoist enough”.

      A ceasefire in Gaza is extremely popular among the electorate, so this stance is pretty solid according to your “flock to progressive ideals” argument. Linking to the wikipedia page on Maoism to make your point here makes absolutely no sense. Especially considering the liberation maoists are stated as being “a much smaller maoist caucus [within the DSA]” right there.

      If you want to make an argument that there should be no hesitation in endorsing her despite her support for the iron dome and support for Biden/Harris with them “working tirelessly” behind the scenes on a ceasefire, be my guest.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        What’s crazy is there’s 31 different flavors of communism that doesn’t require unquestioning loyalty to a supreme leader, and tankies can all just easily choose to support any of them.

        Keep every last good thing they claim to support, and just ditch the roving gangs of murderers and literal tanks crushing anyone that doesn’t 100% agree with them…

        But they won’t, because the lust for violence is why they’re tankies in the first place, instead of any of the rational flavors of communism. They’re not tankies for the communism, it’s just a path to acceptable violence against an out group

        • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
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          8 hours ago

          They’re not tankies for the communism, it’s just a path to acceptable violence against an out group

          Ironically this can be applied to a lot of your common folk fash supporters too. Some people just want to watch the world burn and don’t really care what path they have to take to get us there.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            There’s less than 1,000 billionaires in america, and they control over $8,100,000,000,000…

            They don’t need to be murdered though, you don’t get to be a billionaire without commiting enough crimes to be jailed for life. It’s just our legal system is a joke and they have more resources than the government.

            1. Seize their resources

            2. Prosecute them and give them a court appointed attorney

            3. Nothing, we literally have to do nothing after that.

            No roving gangs, no guillotines, throw them in the same ocean they throw us.

            Completely ethical and moral, and that shit matters. Because how you start a new society influences it the entire time it exists.

            Once their wealth is gone, all the underlings will be scrambling to turn states evidence, no one hates billionaires more than the people who have latched onto them to siphon off wealth. The ones who actually have to interact with them, clean up messes, and know where both literal and figurative bodies are buried.

            The only thing that puts billionaires out of reach of consequences is their billions we just have to remove that and let nature do the rest

            • HasturInYellow@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Its the first step of your plan that is really the sticking point. They really don’t like doing that. And they have a lot of ways of avoiding it and harming those who tried. I love the way you frame it all but there is no way that that is going to happen peacefully. They would pay for roving gangs themselves to stoke fear long before they allowed it.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                I don’t think you understand how numbers work…

                There’s less than 1,000 billionaires, there’s like 330,000,000 Americans

                That’s 1 billionaire against 330,000 Americans…

                Do you have any idea how many guns 330,000 random Americans have?

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      Luckily no organization is going to be able to just name a candidate.

      Whoever it eventually is, will have to win a full 50 state primary. And even if the DSA is outspokenly against her (or any other progressive) it just won’t fucking matter.

      Uh that’s not how that works. Any candidate needs people to organize and get out the vote for them, and for a leftwing candidate those tend to disproportionately come from the hard left. This means that for someone like AOC, the DSA might not be essential but it’s really nice to have.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        with the left

        Buddy…

        In 1978 the CCP split from Maoists, because the Maoists were too extreme

        Do you have any idea how many people died because of Maoism?

        Jung Chang and Jon Halliday contend that implementation of Maoist thought in China was responsible for as many as 70 million deaths during peacetime,[118] with the Cultural Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957–1958,[119] and the Great Leap Forward. Active campaigns, including party purges and “reeducation”, resulted in imprisonment or the execution of those deemed contrary to the implementation of Maoist ideals.[120] Some historians have argued that because of Mao’s land reforms during the Great Leap Forward which resulted in famines, thirty million perished between 1958 and 1961. By the end of 1961, the birth rate was nearly cut in half because of malnutrition

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoism#Criticism_and_implementation

        Seriously, do you have any idea what Maoism actually is?

        They’re authoritarians. That’s not “the left”.

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          1 hour ago

          In 1978 the CCP split from Maoists, because the Maoists were too extreme

          And because of it, I get to hear you lot constantly whining about how China is bad because it has billionaires. Well, guess what the ones who didn’t want reforms to allow billionaires were called 🙄

          I am not a Maoist, and I’m critical of them, however, Maoists do not believe in directly copying every policy Mao ever did. The more relevant movement to look at is the Black Panthers, who were Maoists, and who American Maoists are more likely inspired by than Mao himself.

  • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    She is gonna get sooooo much Republican funding

    This will guarantee a Republican victory

    Ok. Now downvote me because math

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Am I awful for suggesting El sayed with AOC as vice instead?

    There are too many misogynistic shitbags and the race is too important.

    I want AOC to be our first female president, but 2028 seems like a bad time to risk it. 😕

    Woulda preferred she ran in 2024 instead of Kamala.

    She’s got my vote either way. Just, shit ain’t stable, and plenty of the folks that don’t support Donald Trump will never vote for a woman president.

    Sigh.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      shit ain’t stable

      Shit being unstable is exactly why we need change. Decades of frustration with neoliberal stability is why things are unstable and why Trump became a thing in the first place. We even had the most centrist old white male saltine cracker we could find for four years trying to restore the stability of the pre-Trump neoliberal order, and what happened? Voters went straight back to Trump.

      That’s not an endorsement of AOC specifically but just saying I don’t think that logic makes sense. If we can’t outline a real alternative to both Trumpism and neoliberalism, and actually deliver on affordability, then Trumpism will just keep returning with different faces. Trump should be the wake-up call that there’s problems with just maintaining the status quo.

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      If you don’t put up an AOC with huge numbers then you’re gonna get a John Ossoff or a Gavin Newsom and they’ll either continue to do Joe Zidenism or Trump will win a “third term because fuck it”

    • unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth
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      10 hours ago

      It’s not that clear. Hillary won the popular vote by several million votes. Hillary Clinton - yes, that clusterfuck of a candidate. Yes, there were plenty of misogynists who voted against her on the basis of her being a woman. Many also voted for her because she’s a woman.

      • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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        6 hours ago

        Yes, there were plenty of misogynists who voted against her on the basis of her being a woman.

        Or, y’know, because they’re Republicans. Anyone with misogyny as an overriding political belief system isn’t an available vote for Democrats. They don’t just want a male leader, they want a misogynist that will validate their feelings and shield them from consequences. And the Republicans will always provide that to them, with or without a penis in the pants.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      Actually the woman thing is very much unsubstantiated. Were there any exit polls pointing to gender being a significant factor? Given that even MAGAts can elect women into Congress every now and then, I think even the misogynists of America will just deal with it. If anything a Muslim president would be an even bigger risk.

      • Carmakazi@piefed.social
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        10 hours ago

        I think the opposition will find or invent levers to work against any candidate, even the most normative one they can find. The identity mud-slinging followed the propaganda, not people’s sincere beliefs. And the propaganda followed the opposition to socialism.

        I’d worry about strong policy messaging before how palatable the human being is to the worst among us, because I don’t think the latter’s a winnable fight.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          6 hours ago

          And importantly you don’t need to win the worst among us, just the better 51%.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          10 hours ago

          I don’t think there’s a significant difference between El Sayed and AOC on a policy basis. If I had to say something El Sayed would probably be the more principled anti-Zionist, and he doesn’t call himself a scary socialist, but for the most part I don’t think the median Dem voter cares about policy positions on that level. I’d go for AOC just not to risk a Dem seat tbh.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Hey show me some stats to chew on. I am not out here stating facts just my gut feeling. Why I lead with an apology.

        I’d love it if it were true, but my personal experience leans towards El Sayed getting a statistically significant proportion of the votes any woman wouldn’t.

        That’s a problem that needs to be addressed, but like, I am sorry ladies. It needs to be addressed after we secure your right to vote/right the ship meaningfully.

        I digress. I’m here for it. I just worry.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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          8 hours ago

          That’s the thing: There are no stats showing that a candidate being a woman is a significant disadvantage in American elections. It feels like it should be, but there’s just zero evidence showing it is. It doesn’t even show up in post-election polling. Meanwhile I couldn’t more recent data but a significant number of Americans across the political spectrum does not like Muslims.

          Edit: Found more recent data. In any case I think the point makes itself; if we’re choosing by whose demographic palatable to the American electorate (which is probably not the best method) then it’s AOC all the way.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      There are too many misogynistic shitbags

      Doesn’t matter who runs, fascist propaganda will attack them. Similar concerns about Obama, although not as severe because fascism was less out in the open.

      The times are calling for real progressives. I think that’s the only way to overcome the fascists. Not with Right Wing Lite™ like Newsom.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      El Sayed isn’t DSA. AOC is.

      If El Sayed wants to join the party they are more than welcome, but you shouldn’t expect DSA to endorse someone not DSA.

    • Obviouslywrong@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      She wasn’t even old enough to be president when the primary started. It’s not a rush. Following the traditional get experience in Congress and federal cabinet position is better.

    • Guy Dudeman@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      I think you’re right, and you can call me a “Bernie Bro” all you want… If you compare Abdul’s prowess in terms of public speaking on the fly with AOC’s you will see a big difference and Abdul wins hands-down. He will also get the misogynist vote, which yes, is important, as we saw in 2016.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        This has been my biggest critique of AOC for the previous 4 years. After her tussle with Pelosi and getting banged up in that, she started taking only much safer media pieces. She stopped going on basically any media where journalists would challenge her, and also only took “forum” type questions where she had the mic and the questioner didnt.

        So there was a solid 3, 3 and a half years of that, and she got soft. She lost her edge from 2017. But Bernie brought her back out with their combined tour. And since then she’s been sharpening her edge. She still wont take contested media spaces. But she’s doing better.

        Ro Khanna has been far better at taking controversial media. Same with El Sayed. AOC needs to sharpen her game here.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I’d be so happy with 2 years of El Sayed / AOC leading to 2 years of AOC / El Sayed. At least at this moment in both of their track records and given the current state of the US.

        You ask me this in 2022, I’m here for AOC 100%, In just sour on how my party treated Kamala. I don’t trust them to do AOC justice in a campaign after that.

        • TheFogan@programming.dev
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          10 hours ago

          You ask me this in 2022, I’m here for AOC 100%, In just sour on how my party treated Kamala. I don’t trust them to do AOC justice in a campaign after that.

          I think with Kamela it’s a lot more complicated there though. She basically had the drawbacks of both being a newcomer and an incumbent at the same time.

        • Guy Dudeman@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I think it would be rad to have the scenario you talk about… the two of them, but they switch roles.

          Kamala tried, but she was never a favorite of anyone even during the primary.

        • foggy@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          More of them will. That’s my point. Especially if fox news keeps sexualizing him.

        • Guy Dudeman@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          I think you’d be surprised. All you have to do is listen to him to know he’s on the up-and-up. I think they would respect his confidence. Whereas AOC is already the new “most hated woman in politics” now that Hillary and Pelosi are out of it, in their minds. She has no chance.

          • crandall@lemmy.today
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            9 hours ago

            I gotta agree, as much as racism and misogyny overlap, I think a lot of people will vote for someone brown before they’ll vote for a woman.

  • soratoyuki@piefed.zip
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    7 hours ago

    I really disagree with DSA’s AOC obsession, especially given how not reciprocated it’s been ever since her initial endorsement. I obviously understand the desire to endorse a candidate you agree with because you think they’re going to win, but I don’t think AOC has a viable path to winning the nomination, much less the presidency.

    I also understand the appeal of endorsing a candidate doomed to lose because their a good messenger for your beliefs and you want to work on shifting the Overton window, but I don’t think AOC (almost certainly a social democrat) is a good messenger for socialist politics. Her vote to fund the Iron Dome and staged crocodile tears afterwards immediately disqualify her tbh. Plus, now there’s the new revelation that she’s dialed back on her willingness to confront the Democratic establishment, which makes a lot of her recent endorsements (or lack thereof) make more sense.

    She’s in the bad-messenger and doomed-to-lose quadrant of possible candidates. The biggest red flag (and not in the good way).

    And I know people are going to say to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I get that. I’ll happily vote for her in the primary and general. But a DSA endorsement is a huge time and effort commitment that could be better used on candidates in other races that are openly socialist and/or viable.