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‘I hate Democrats, but I love Abdul’: voters who left over Gaza return for progressive push
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
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If it’s this easy to win them back and the Democrats couldn’t even bother, who’s the real idiot? They thought they could discard these votes and found out they couldn’t. Figure out how to continue treating them like people with understandable sorrow about the genocide in Gaza, or keep losing 🤷♂️
There can be more than one idiot in a given situation
Words to live by
there are idiots, and then there are idiots with power. i never understand the people who protect the idiots with power and blame the idiots without.
"Vote for me cause if you don't then you're an idiot"
Good luck with that bro. No wonder genocide supporting Democrats keep losing
You've hit the nail on the head for why so many people have been upset and frustrated with how terrible the dems are. They'd rather lose votes to stay center than do anything that keeps voters voting for them
It's the USA, there is Right and Far Right, you've never ever had anything close to a left wing.
From were I stand (in Europe), it looks more like Hard Right (hardcore Neoliberals) and Fascists.
Mind you, here in Europe it's also shifted in that direction, just not as much as the US (except in the UK and Germany)
What makes you think they were genuinely trying to win? They have no interest in changing the status quo. It's been very good to them.
And that’s why they were genuinely trying to win. Centrist Dems are all about the status quo. This isn’t the status quo.
didn’t seem to be bothering them that much. the democrats have shown no onus to fight for the status quo. now progressives? watch them sweat to stop that from happening. the progressives already won in a land slide? watch as they keep spending money and time and effort into undermining him at every turn.
trump removes person hood from immigrants? thats a stern letter. fuck the democraric party
That’s the Democrats’ corpo faction
The progressives and the democratic socialists are the one who are fighting tooth and nail to make things better for us
the DNC is the corporate faction. they are spending all their money to harass their own base. and until they are all replaced, it will continue to be their DNC.
you don’t remove the corporate faction by voting blue no matter who.
you remove them by voteing blue only when it’s a progressive
I get the impression that the people who pay them thought they themselves would be alright either way, which is why the establishment Democrats for all their talk about how crucial it was to defeat Trump, repeatedly made politically choices of the far-right kind (supporting the Genocide in Gaza, cozying up with the Cheney family) that antagonized many of their natural voters.
Mind you, Trump is so spectacularly incompetent that even with all the very explicit things he's doing to help the wealthiest (most notably in terms of taxes) he might very well still hurt their interests more than he helps, them by turning America's greatest trade partners against anything American (most notably Canada and the EU).
Yeah, the Democrats want to lose. Everyone who voted for Trump or abstained is helping them.
I say we should foil their plan by getting them elected against their will. Last time America elected a Democrat, the stress of the job gave him cancer. Be proud of yourselves, Americans; you killed Joe Biden. And you can do it again to the next bastard!
Everyone is an idiot. The Dems, the voters, the pollsters, the Republicans, everyone. Me included.
I'm not
That's exactly what an idiot would say!! grips tinfoil hat more tightly
It's also what a genius would say taps head
Nobody is immune to propaganda.
Abdul and the other progressive candidates winning the nominations this year are not because "the Democrats" are trying when they weren't before, it's because the electorate came out to vote in the primaries when they did not before. The nominees are selected by the voters who come out during the primaries. So when the electorate isn't showing up to pick the nominee, then they shouldn't complain about the party "running" bad nominees.
Im kind of with you, but are you suggesting the DNC would support progressive candidates if more voters showed up to vote in the primary?
the old guards do not want more AOCs or even bernees in congress. they only allow 1 of each in the houses because they give them something to hide behind as a pretend to be on the "left".
No. I'm saying stop talking about what the DNC or Democrats want, because it doesn't matter when the voters show and tell them what we want. Too many people say they'll vote when the party gives them someone to vote for. That's backwards and exactly what the establishment wants.
The Establishment Democrats have a lot of power. Haley Steven's only lost the Michigan primary by 1% after outspending Abdul El-Sayed over 10x. That means roughly, Haley Steven's spent over $10 for every vote compared to Abdul El-Sayed $1 per vote. She absolutely was being propped up by both the Israel lobby as well as Establishment Dems and that money went to waste. That money could have been way more useful in the general, but the DNC has been burning all their cash on fighting progressives instead. It's gotten to the point where the DNC is millions of dollars in debt and had to put up their physical building as collateral while the RNC has over $100 million in their warchest leading up to the midterms.
It is very important to talk about the Establishment Democrats because they are doing their best to lose all political power by dunking on their left flank instead of combating the Republicans. They would truly rather rule in hell than serve in heaven and they're gonna drag us all down to party with Lindsey Graham. As much as it sucks, the DNC still has a lot of power they are exerting that needs to be addressed before they cause the situation to become unsalvageable.
Are you saying the DNC was directly spending money on Haley Steven's campaign? It was understanding the DNC chair Ken Martin is vocally against the DNC supporting any one primary candidate over another. That was even one of the points of friction between Ken Martin and David Hogg.
I didn't stop at saying "don't talk about what they want," I said show up to dictate to them what we want instead of just sitting around talking about what they want.
The fact is, Abdul wom because he received more votes. Not because of spending it establishment support, but because the people just voted for him. Don't wait for the party to flip and bless a progressive, just go vote the progressives onto the ballot, and the establishment neoliberals will continue to see themselves replaced.
We all know the DNC works to suppress candidates they don't like. Most famously, the DNC worked directly with the Hillary Clinton campaign to crush the Bernie Sanders campaign. So when Ken Martin claims "We are investing in a year-round distributed organizing operation capable of supporting races at every level of the ballot.", I feel it's pretty obvious what he means. The Establishment Democrats have historically been very weak opposing the Republicans while fighting tooth and nail against their own progressive wing. They are not spending money raising up candidates like Abdul El-Sayed or Francesca Hong, but neither are they simply waiting for the candidate that wins the primary. The DNC has a type and they are spending money to get that type of candidate through primaries into the general.
Abdul almost lost the primary despite very obviously being the best candidate for Michigan. This is because his opponent had an absurd amount of money. Money does influence elections and the DNC is beholden to their donors. The common voter can very clearly see these relationships and it depresses voter turnout whenever money wins. I agree with you that it is important to vote for progressives that are on the ballot, but you are framing these races as if the common voter has the same amount of influence as the establishment neoliberal. The DNC is the referee and it is blatantly bought and paid for.
"Just go vote" is not good advice because the opposition is spending absurd amounts of money to place obstacles in front of the populace. People like you and me who spend time talking about politics on lemmy are more politically active than the common voter. We need to help remove those obstacles so that everyone can vote for who they'd like instead of trip over manufactured concerns like electability.
Am on mobile, and at work so this won't be very well formatted and I don't have time to read your whole link.
I'm aware of what the DNC has historically done, particularly with Hillary and Biden, I even just stated as such in another comment.artin is talking about having nominees in races all up and down the ballot in the general election.
Remember Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy? To have a nominee on every ballot, challenging the Republicans for every seat instead of giving up on some.
Your previous comment says DNC is spending all their cash and are bankrupt but your link says they've had they're best fund raising year, without holding the Whitehouse, in party history. Also with small donor contributions up 77% (compared to large donor contributions only being up 30%). So at least from what I have gotten through, I don't see how your link justifies your position (acknowledging that I haven't read the whole thing yet).
I don't care that Abdul almost lost the primary, because he didn't lose it. That means the voters are now overcoming the big-money campaigns backed by groups like AIPAC to get better nominees on the ballot.
I didn't say just go vote. I said talking without voting is a losing strategy. We can talk IRL with people all we want, but if we don't back it up with votes then the establishment learns to pay lip service without action. We have to fire the status quo by voting them out. And yes, we have to talk amongst ourselves and our peers to get each other to vote.
I think it is important that Abdul almost lost because of stories like Francesca Hong who almost won. Money plays an outsized role in these elections and the money the DNC is spending is most definitely being focused on raising Establishment Democrat candidates. Sure they are raising money and contributions are up, but they are spending money faster than they are raising it to the point where they are in debt.
Spending money is important to increase influence. I think it's a good thing to spend money to try and unseat Republicans. But when we hear stories of Establishment Dems getting endorsed by other Establishment Dems, like Gov Tony Evers endorsing David Crowley in Wisconsin or Gov Gretchen Whitmer endorsing Haley Stevens in Michigan, this comes with fundraising and financial contributions from the establishment. This comes with buying ads for the establishment pick. It is a signal from the DNC to the voter base to unify behind a preferred "electible" candidate.
Abdul's victory is a good thing because it means that people can beat out money. It is also a cautionary tale of how far the Establishment Democrats will go to fight their progressive wing. They already know what the people want which is why Ken Martin released that anemic 2024 autopsy report that was clearly edited to omit key progressive issues.
I am disputing your original claim that it doesn't matter what the DNC wants. It absolutely matters what they want when they are the ones running the races and influencing elections to get their preferred candidates theough the primaries. They are actively trying to direct the voters instead of listening to the what the voters want. The DNC is absolutely the biggest problem that leads to depressing voter turnout. My problem with your original claim is the idea that we can tell people to vote for who they like without talking about what the DNC is doing. The reason people don't vote Democrat is directly a result of the DNC spending all their time and energy putting up terrible candidates.
To put it more simply, the Establishment Dems are attacking us. We ought to be defending ourselves.
How is firing them in the primaries by electing a different nominee not defending ourselves? What other actions are you suggesting?
Your original claim was to ignore what the DNC is doing and to stop talking about them because what they are doing does not matter. I am saying that people should focus on the DNC and continue to talk about what they are doing because they are the biggest obstacle to getting Democrats elected.
ok, are you advocating for anything besides talking? Taking without voting doesn't get results. I did clarify that I meant don't just talk about them.
Our major disagreement is on analysis. I agree with the idea that we should be talking to voters and trying to convince them to vote Democrat, but your analysis leads you to ignore or avoid talking about the DNC because you don't think they are the main concern. I think we should be protesting the Establishment Dems outside their public offices and disrupting public events they are at to be more in their faces about how they are screwing up the moment. Candidates and people in positions of power should be speaking out against the Establishment the way David Hogg did. He took the scandal of being ejected from the DNC to propel the progressive movement forward with his Leaders We Deserve organization that helps get progressive candidates like Mamdani in NY or Alawieh in Michigan through the primaries.
But what I think should happen or am advocating for is not the core of the issue in our discussion. You think it is safe to ignore the DNC and Establishment Democrats because they do not represent a majority. I think it is unsafe to ignore the DNC and Establishment Democrats because they still have sizeable influence and power despite not representing the majority. You seem to think that the Establishment Democrats will learn their lesson if enough voters tell them what they want. I have seen Establishment Democrats run the same neoliberal playbook for almost 20 years and I know the current leadership will never learn. The Democratic party is hemorrhaging voters faster than you or I can stop the bleeding specifically because the leadership loves shooting themselves in the foot. You think we should focus on the voters and the leadership will come around. I think we should focus on the leadership and the voters will come around.
In case you didn't notice it during the Hilary Clinton vs Bernie Sanders primaries, the DNC has mechanisms like super-voters that allow them to override the will of voters.
If I remember it correctly they even went to Court to make the case (which they won) that the Democratic Party doesn't need to actually be Democratic in their candidate selection process.
in case you didn't notice, Hillary won the nomination thru pledged delegates alone, she didn't need a single superdelegate vote. Because she won the popular vote in the majority of primaries. Also, then DNC changed the rules for 2018 so that superdelegates.dont even get to vote at the convention unless the pledged delegates can't elect a nominee in the first round.
I'm not saying the DNC did/does no wrong then or now (media collision and superdelegates stumping for Hillary during the campaign both come to mind). But it is not the case that superdelegate swooped in at the convention and stole the nomination from Bernie. Ken Martin is against all the favoritism and machinations showed in favor of Hillary and Biden.
And yes, as private organizations no party is required to have a democratic public vote to select their nominees. But our elections are stacked in favor of the D/R duopoly so our best option is to show up in the primaries to dictate the direction we want, as we have seen happening this year.
Looks like slightly less people showed up, actually (typical for a non presidential primary):
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2024/states/MI.html
https://apps.npr.org/primary-election-results-2026/states/MI.html
Michigan has open primaries and there was one uncontested Republican running this year, look at the total votes in 2024 vs 2026 and not just the blue numbers.
Yeah comparing to 2022 would be better. I can't seem to find that on the NPR site, though it doesn't appear to list the actual turnout percentage, just the number of votes. I have this site but it doesn't break it down by party and doesn't have 2026 data yet. It shows 27% primary turnout for Michigan in 2022 and 24% in 2024.
https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/
With turnout that low in the primaries, it really shouldn't take a big surge for progressive voters to tip the scales away from neoliberal incumbent/establishment candidates.
True.
But there's more than one perspective. Do you, as a political party or government as a whole, abandon an ally you have all sorts of ties with because a sub-section of your voters don't like that country anymore? I mean the answer is yes if you know you'll lose enough voters to lose elections, but there's no way they could have known that.
The proper method is to start drawing lines with the ally and see if they cross them. Biden essentially did that. Maybe not as aggressive as necessary. He did verbally state he was against what Israel was doing. He did float arms shipment cancellations to Israel. He did try to broker a peace deal. These were reasonable steps. What was unreasonable was a ton of voters expecting a full disconnection from Israel or they would not vote or vote 3rd party, which would only help a much, much worse president from taking control and giving Israel/Netanyahu two big thumbs up to do whatever they wanted.
Given the, you know, genocide, the answer is "yes.*
Yeah, it's not like there was a whole mass movement saying exactly that.
Which they did, every single time. Where are the consequences?
Ronald Reagan got the IDF to stop firing on Beirut after a 20 minute phone call. That's a reasonable step; what Biden did was theater.
Yeah, it’s because of the Democrats’s corpo faction
They are ones who write sternly worded letters and do nothing to stop trump