I know people like this. I grew up with people like this.
They will express genuine, deeply-rooted outrage at an issue, and then file it away in the memory hole under "All politicians are bad anyway" when they go to vote Republican in the next election.
[approving inexplicable pug noise in defiance of the basic dictates of natural selection, lung functioning, and God himself]
Never had a problem with a pawb.social user, a good lot o7
Government drones gone rogue
It won't be me because I'd be dead 💪
Us semi-sane folk have to stick together in these trying times! You aren't alone, comrade!
Considering it was a three-way race, I feel like this is a bit of a doomer take.
I agree that a Mamdani victory in New York City does not translate to socialist enthusiasm everywhere else in the country. But I do think it accurately shows two things:
Moving the Dem party is possible through the democratic process, if you actually fucking show up and vote in primaries.
Democratic socialism, as a term, is no longer the poison pill it once was in general elections. (Thank you Bernie, for walking for forty long years so my generation can hopefully run 🙏😭)
In addition, I suspect that Mamdani's victory can be replicated in many cities.
There's not going to be a demsoc victory in fucking rural West Virginia anytime soon, no matter how loudly some Very Serious Commenters talk about how the only thing needed to appeal to the proletariat is going further left. Nor is it likely that purple states will be voting in demsoc candidates anytime soon - though, if a demsoc runs in the primary, one should vote for them, and if they manage to actually win the primary, that is a very, exceptionally hopeful sign for an appetite of the state's electorate for a demsoc victory in the general.
But Mamdani's victory also genuinely shows that the only reason that neoliberals and moderates have such a stranglehold on the party is because we let them. If we stop simply letting them, as we have in NYC, we can make a broader left-coalition Dem Party, wrested from their ghoulish gerontocratic hands.
We can't make the Dems demsoc overnight. But we can demand a much larger voice at the table.
This the same Dem base that consistently votes in neoliberal and 'moderate' fucks every fucking presidential primary, and most congressional primaries?
The DNC is filled with shitheads and morons, make no mistake. Our most recent - and devastating - loss to fascism is overwhelmingly (though not exclusively) on their fucking heads. But this is a situation that has been set up by decades of the majority of American voters either refusing to fully engage with the civic process, or engaging in support of milquetoast middle-of-the-road shitheads who fit their suburban anxieties.
"Oh, but it's just because billionaires push propaganda!" Yeah, you can say the same thing about why Republican voters believe the dogshit they do, and it doesn't excuse them either.
Maybe the country is just not that fucking left.
And that failure of the electorate to embrace an even slightly-left position may have killed the country at this point.
Mood, between being half-blind to design to begin with, and the increasing refinement of AI images, I've posted a few myself by accident.