The stance puts Kennedy — who’s mounting long shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard bearer in 2024 — out of step with most of his party.
The stance puts Kennedy — who’s mounting long shot bid to unseat President Joe Biden as the Democratic standard bearer in 2024 — out of step with most of his party.
That’s silly, since there is literally a progressive Dem caucus, and it has more members in 2023 than in the past 60 years.
The party doesn’t always succeed in shutting out progressives. They’re just willing to prop up anti-choice candidates if that’s what it takes. Congratulations on Cuellar.
The party is focused on winning elections, and that means catering to messaging that is popular in districts that exist. People vote, and you don’t always agree with the people voting.
Democrats aren’t Republicans. They’re a coalition with varied ideas, not a group marching in lockstep.
And that involves propping up centrist candidates when they’re in danger of losing primaries? Sounds like they don’t care who is popular, just who isn’t progressive.
The most radical members of parties control primaries of you don’t do that, which leads to blowout losses in contested districts (where the party will prop members up) and ever-increasing radicalization in other districts.
Do you like that the Republican Party is marching in lockstep toward fascism? Because what you’re arguing for is why they are.
So why have primaries at all, then?
Your assertion that centrists are even remotely interested in stopping fascism is completely ridiculous. If centrists fought fascism instead of fighting progressives, I’d have less of a problem with them.
Primaries predate the obscene gerrymandering of 2010, which led to where we are now. Prior to this gerrymandering, both parties were more representative of local population.
Democrats got the shit end of the stick, and have a more robust party system due to already being a coalition part, thus the collapse into dedicated districts harmed the party less.
For a really detailed look at this, I highly recommend “Why we’re polarized” by Ezra Klein and “What’s our problem” by Tim Urban (the latter being more an examination of the “groupthink” problem tied to polarizaion)
I’m not sure what you define as “centrist” or “fighting fascism” but that seems like an irrelevant take in the ran scheme, given how the actual politics works.
Jesus Christ, I didn’t know you were actually opposed to getting rid of primaries altogether. I mean, granted, it tracks, but I didn’t expect you to come right out and admit that you believe party leadershit should decide without the input of voters.
It’s neat how you went from “OMG YOU WANT FASCISTS TO WIN” to “meh, fascism is irrelevant” when it stopped suiting you.