Farleven

Have you seen what companies will pay for speaking fees? If you want to belly up to that trough you've got to demonstrate that you will sell your soul for the privilege.

They may get the rest of their terms in office, but their path to reelection may be a whole lot harder than they expect after pulling this stunt.

I think they're vastly underestimating just how fully they are honking off voters. Primary voters are always far more engaged and I'd say far more likely to hold grudges. There's already a lot of energy for primaries against the old establishment candidates, this only adds fuel to that fire.

Or he's planning to quit and just being quiet about it. He's already on the record complaining about how tough it is to be a senator and he really seems not to like the job.

He'll be hit with a well funded primary and almost certainly lose. He's following the Sinema path of honking off all loyal Democrats in a purple state. He's either deluded enough to think he can win with just indy votes or that GOP voters will actually vote for him over one of their own.

Heck, if they are all retiring, there is no plank being walked. They're just giving us all a big middle finger as they do a mike drop on democracy.

We've got take this war to the primaries, and go after every Dem that's been willing to make life easier for Trump up and down the ballot. So many think we won't have the guts to do that, and we need to prove them wrong.

The good news is that means there are going to be 8 open primaries that we can fill with Democrats that will fight for their voters, as much as I wish they could all have the indignity of losing a primary, we've got a much better chance to fill empty seats with good Dems than fighting incumbents.

Granted if I was in an open primary state, I'd never have become a registered Dem. I only did so I could vote for Bernie, but I've stayed so I can vote against the surrender monkey wing of the party in every primary I can.

That's why I only fight for the Dems that do fight for us, no donating to or helping the national party, only good candidates, at least until they break free of the corporatists and centrists. Someone is going to fill those seats, and I'm not going to surrender the fight.

It sucks and it sure isn't sexy, but we've managed to move the party a long way in the right direction. Don't give up just because we haven't gotten rid of all the corporate shills yet, we can only get rid of them if we keep fighting them.

I feel your pain, but I've come from the other side, the system is so rigged against third parties that it's basically wasting your vote, and I worked in third party campaigns for years. The best play is to find good Democrats and back them, fight hard in the primaries, and help realign the party.

If she doesn't run for president, I do dearly hope she runs for Schumer's seat. Granted, I strongly suspect he'll retire rather than face the voters again. I a bit saddened by that because he really deserves to get stomped in a primary.

It doesn't have to be a big win, but in a case like this it needs to be something tangible you can walk away with, not an empty promise to hold a doomed vote in one chamber, which is the same as getting nothing.

Even if he didn't set it up, he certainly did nothing to discourage it. Either way, it's failed leadership. You don't go into a shutdown without a clear end game, and that end game should never be 'we'll accept getting nothing'. You know there will be pain and consequences but you hold for a win.

True, but we can't let that slow us down either. Some people can't be talked sense to, so we have to go around them, and I think more and more of the public is willing to listen. In fact, the old establishment trying to fight us gives us authenticity points with the public.

To me it's evidence that if both factions of the party to work together and we can win big next year. That comes down to being respectful and being willing to work with each other, even when we disagree. It also means we all have to be willing to compromise, BOTH progressive and centrist.

In NY it was Centrist vs Progressive vs Republican, of course it was never going to be a blow out for Mamdani. Pulling off a majority under those circumstances was a huge win because he was essentially fighting a divided Democratic electorate.

Different races, different results. In NJ and VA it was Progressive voters + centrist voters > Republican voters. Neither of those candidates made a point of throwing progressives under the bus, and managed huge wins.

Yeah, those types certainly exist, and they do suck ever so much. I've met plenty of reasonable centrists in other places, but there are always insufferable ones as well. I don't sweat it too much, best to focus on the people that will listen rather than those determined not to.

Funny how that works, eh?

Then they blame voters for not showing up for their lackluster candidates after they do everything they can to tank the ones that would actually make a difference. Right now, we really need 'vote blue no matter who' and it absolutely needs to cut both ways.

I fully agree he should not be our next President, but he is useful in this fight against Trump and I'll give him some points for that, but only that. It's so clear he's just doing this so he can be President, but he just wants the title, not to fix what's wrong with the country.

Probably so, though Trump is now a big fish, he was kind of mid tier back in the day. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Epstein hadn't bagged some bigger fish, smart men of solid wealth who stand a lot to lose but have a lot of power till the facts are out.

If Trump goes down, the cult goes down and that's the only thing keeping the GOP in power. Even those not linked to anything Epstein did will lose big when the house of cards collapses, and the smarter ones know it. That's why they've been doing everything to stop it getting out.

I think he's contemplating his mortality again after his latest checkup. The worry for me is since he knows he can't get into heaven, he's brushing up his resume and hoping to be a upper level minion in hell.

Don't know about that. They got Roe overturned and since then I don't hear too much from them on abortion, at least nationally. They're much more into kicking Trans people lately, well that and accusing everyone of being an Antifa terrorist.

I get the sentiment, but you've looked at who's running the states, right? You'd never get 66% approval from all of those bodies in our lifetimes. We'd be better off requiring a 66% public vote, cut out the middlemen.

There's a lot of good ideas and good energy here. Don't forget to work your primaries next year! Find the candidates that are willing to recreate the country into what we need it to be and support them, get them to the general election so we can really vote for a better future.

Overturning citizens united is just a starter. Term limits are window dressing. We've got to figure out how to prevent politicians from being bought by moneyed interests or else nothing else will matter. That's a hard nut to crack though.

Exactly this. This court will eagerly block everything that needs to be done to save the country. If we don't have the votes to impeach and remove the obviously corrupt ( Thomas and Alito at least ), then expanding the court and starting bigger reforms has to be near the top of the todo list.