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Nothing to Lose: Uncontested Races in 2020 — BallotReady for Organizations
In 2020, 70% of races went uncontested. The winners didn't even have to compete. See where these occurred, and what you can do to prevent this in your community.organizations.ballotready.org
Looks like about 75% of all partisan elections
I just got my Dem primary ballot in Colorado. Not a single race on the ballot has more than 1 person.
Nothing to Lose: Uncontested Races in 2020 — BallotReady for Organizations
In 2020, 70% of races went uncontested. The winners didn't even have to compete. See where these occurred, and what you can do to prevent this in your community.
Looks like about 75% of all partisan elections
So, is this the fault of the Democratic Party? That is, the establishment? Or do we actually need people to run in these races?
Because don't get me wrong, I share your frustration over uncontested seats. MOST DEMOCRATS DO. But we can't make people run. We can only encourage people to run and support them (with MONEY 💵💵💵, they will need MONEY, hence why it doesn't make a shred OR lick of sense to shame Democrats for asking for MONEY) when they do. Other than that, there's nothing that my ass can do from where I live. All the seats I can have direct influence over are covered.
Uncontested is not the same as abandoned. One is an unfortunate reality; the other is you looking to assign blame.
We'll then what the hell do you mean? You keep insisting this power exists, name it.
Did you know that Clinton broke his toe when he kicked the helmet?
no one actually knows what you are talking about.
you need to say what it is you think a president can and should do in order force the senate majority leader from the opposing party to do something that is not in that opposing party's best interest.
And I get that. The point I'm making is that we shouldn't just accept anybody with a "D" next to their name, because we don't know everyone's true intentions.
Obama's brief supermajority didn't include Nazis. It did include some who were pro-life, some against environmental protections, some against gay marriage, some against gun control, etc. If we dial back the hyperbole can you say if that's acceptable? If it's not acceptable can we stop calling back to Obama's term as if he could've performed a miracle?
Those senators caucusing with the Dem majority made sure that Republican bills that a majority of Dems didn't agree with would not get a vote, even if they individually agreed with GOP positions on some bills. It also allowed judges to be appointed with whom they didn't agree with on every issue. With the purity test some of y'all want to impose, that majority would not have existed.
If they are the only electable candidate against a Republican and don't take positions worse than the Republican, what is the logic in giving the seat to a Republican instead?
I agree with this. Part of the problem is finding people to run though.
I've been told throughout my life, at least when I became slightly more socially aware, that I should run for local office. But then I come to Era and see that "progressive candidates are unelectable."
So why the fuck should I waste my time?
There's plenty of good folks out there who know their communities, know the problems, and have the heart, but there's no systems, coaching, or apparatus to get these people in seats of power. In fact, the larger majority seems to fundamentally disagree with these people's ideas and vision and are actively hostile towards them.
So, what do we do about that?
The Democrats are sent money, they don't spend it on recruiting people for these positions. The number of uncontested elections has risen over time as the party has turned to top-down strategies.
Yes of fucking course I blame the party for not getting people to run. That's their job! Finding candidates to run in elections, endorsing the strongest one, and then getting them to win the seat! That's literally the ENTIRE. POINT. of a political party. If they can't find people to run because these positions pay like shit, so nobody except rich entitled Republicans are willing to fund their own runs for the positions then the Democratic party needs to say that! They need to find people regardless of whatever barriers are there because that is what a political party is there to do!
The national party can't shrug their shoulders and say nobody wanted to run when they didn't ask people, didn't offer to set up campaigns and give staff when they have all the resources
You'd think the party in question might have money to put towards fixing these issues! Very strange that it goes unaddressed and it's a "people" problem.
I feel you, friend. And I have to say, I honestly don't know the answer to this. If I did have a bone to pick with the Democratic Party, it's that the national apparatus really does have a hard time listening to the local grassroots. And I don't just mean progressives here when I say grassroots, even local lifelong Dems have issues communicating with the party at large.
I will say, the Democrat who has come closest to answering this question hails from Georgia. And people need to shut the fuck up and let that Black Woman speak; she's saved democracy once already.
The vast majority of us don't vote in your district. So our opinion on electability doesn't matter. Run if you want to. I am sure the experience alone will improve the discourse here 1000 fold.
What's gagging me right now is that you seem to think that local Democratic parties aren't already doing this! Have you ever volunteered for the Democratic Party? Attended an event? Shit, given up your email or, heaven forbid, your phone number to a canvasser!? If you have, then you would know that most state parties spend a LOT of their time and resources BEGGING and PREPPING people to run.
I don't mean to shade you, but it really is that drastic. If you truly don't know how high a priority sourcing potential candidates is for Democrats, then I don't know how to continue this conversation with you.
You have these neoliberal, establishment dinosaurs such as Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi who fights harder against progressive candidates moreso than against Republicans & Trump. Wonder why?
The party mainly exists to stop any real movement to the left & is the GOP's greatest ally in preserving the capitalist oligarchy. Why else would they endorse & support candidates like a pro-life, NRA supporting asshole like Henry Cuellar over Jessica Cisneros, a progressive?
I'd probably not listen to Era. It is not representative of anything useful as far as national or local politics are concerned. The listening should be within your community and not here to declare if a progressive candidate has a chance in your area.
In 2008 when Obama was elected and had power, and we didn't yet quite understand we were dealing with a political opposition that woke up to the fact that they could literally stonewall everything we threw at them and not get dragged out of their seats, figuratively and literally, yeah sure. That's okay. Compromise and all of that. It's coo'.
However, it's 2022 and Roe v Wade just got overturned in part because of a lot of these weak-ass conservative Democrats. Not only was it overturned, but it was overturned by a court that has made it clear they are gunning for other civil rights next, a court that was primarily installed by a party that now supports an insurrection attempt on our capital and is all around fascist in character.
Forgive me for having a higher threshold for who we should and should not be supporting right now.
I think loyalty to Trump is on a different dimension than policy issues. Trump himself is a fickle person who isn't consistent on every policy position or even has a position on some policies. I think 20-30% of the country is loyal to Trump and committed to owning the libs and don't care greatly about the actual policy issues as long as their lives aren't affected. They still need an additional 15-25% who prioritize Republican issues over pure Trump loyalty to win.
All evidence seems to indicate CRT actually was a highly effective wedge issue.
What the Polls Really Tell Us About How Critical Race Theory Affected the Virginia Election
One thing is for sure: The CRT panic successfully scared a lot of white people.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorses Rashida Tlaib for Congress
DETROIT – On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her endorsement of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Detroit) re-election bid for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. “Representative Rashida Tlaib is a tireless advocate for the residents of Michigan’s 13th Congressional District,”...
www.arabamericannews.com
Come again?
Dinosaurs like Schumer and Pelosi are "Party First" and, look, I DON'T always like that. I especially don't like it from Schumer, because at least Nancy occasionally proves her competence. But it is what it is. If you're not in the party, they won't support you. If you are, they almost always do.
I don't want to because A.) I've got other career dreams that I would have to put on hold, and B.) I am genuinely unelectable in Georgia, and probably most of the country. All someone has to do is pull my ResetEra posts about white supremacy and I'm fucked lol.
Yes, I've attended rallies for Hillary. I attended rallies for Chris Murphy from when he was my local representative through both his Senate campaigns. I've sent campaign texts, I've talked to Selectmen, I've been to town meetings, I've voted in municipal elections with less than 20% turnout. I do my fucking part and don't you dare throw that at me. I am bombarded by emails from the DNC, Biden, my state and Federal representatives asking me for more money because of the $10 I occasionally send
I'm allowed to be mad at my party
I ain't throw shit at you cuz. Be mad at the party if you want to.
But don't spread lies. I'll clock those. Post haste.
I don't disagree.
But a lot of your engagement in this thread has been specifically saying voting is useless and doesn't do anything. That isn't the same as trying to make the point that Dems should be better.
These "useless" Dems have, in fact, materially helped millions of people whose causes you claim to care about. Surely you can understand why coming into this thread, on a day when despair is high, to specifically advocate not voting for them is greeted with hostility.
Hint: it's not because I/we love the Dems and think they're perfect. It's because we have to live in the world as it actually exists, which means doing what little things we can to help vulnerable people, even if it's not "perfect."
I imagine we'll see a flood of videos coming of police brutality as night time hits and these fuckers start crying about "you're out past curfew/blocking the road/etc, so now we can shoot you in the face with a bean bag".
That's fair. I think A is true for many people who might otherwise consider running for office. Good luck with your career.
So I'm a liar now too? Seriously?
You asked for how we're abandoning elections, I gave you hard numbers that are getting worse and said it's up to the national party, who gets most of the resources compared to state and local organizations, to fix them, because the national party before was the head of an organization that was able to get people to run at a higher rate. Where am I lying.
Candidates left of those Democrats in now-red states would not have been elected back then if they took the positions you wanted, so I don't understand why they must be held responsible for what's happened in 2022. In 2022 if you hold them to a higher standard they still won't be elected with those positions in those states, and unfortunately those states have disproportionate representation.
The only thing that would fix it under a democracy is to either convince people in those states about your positions or reform the undemocratic aspects of the current system to take away power from the minority. That would mean prioritizing voting access, redistricting reform, campaign finance, etc over all other issues. The big tent would be a purity test only on the issues of democratic governance and allow people with differing opinions on all other issues into the tent until the country is a functioning democracy. Then reform the tent on the actual issues once popular policies can actually pass.
Eh, I highly doubt that anyone in real life is going to know who you really are or care what you've been posting on a video gaming forum, especially when you're posting under an anonymous/made up username, unless you let it slip out by accident or something.
This again goes back to the point I've been reiterating over and over:
Electing Democrats does not necessarily protect the vulnerable, because we fundamentally live in a country that is so ass-backwards that people in the party that aligns closest to my goals nonetheless either agree with some of the ass-backwardness (just not so much so that they'd debase themselves with identifying as a Republican), or literally cannot be given the power to lead unless they run on ass-backwards platforms in the areas they do run.
So instead of lying to people that voting for Democrats will definitely fix things, we should be honest and say it's nothing but harm reduction, and that the benefits we do get from doing so are bonuses and aberrations. And that, in the meantime, we should probably be doing other things, in terms of civics and social justice, to move this country to a place where we can consistently elect Democrats that aren't as ass-backwards as the decision made today.
Younger Democrats have been doxxed as gamers, Furries, and everything else (not that these are bad things; just that it's happened). You better believe Gaf or Kiwifarms or some other fucking Nazi cell would salivate at the chance to brand a Black woman running for office as an anti-white firebrand, and frankly I don't have time to tell disingenuous and fragile white people to fuck off when I've got other things in my life I wanna do lol.
It reminds me of this book I got from the topology of terror in Berlin. It has a timeline. From January 1933 to summer the timeline is absolutely insane.
Pretty disgusting to still be a "Actually the President can't do anything about anything, take a civics lesson 🙄" guy after all this. You've seen Democrats fund raising off Roe v Wade being on the line for years now, you've watched them do nothing about it when they've been in power, you've seen them get advanced notice that the Supreme Court was going to do this and move like lightning to pass laws protecting the goddamn judges, and you're coming into threads spending your energy on the "Give me your fully costed plan for what precious President Baby should be doing, then" routine. Pretty fucking vile, if you ask me.
i will not say what will get me banned so insead…
abosuletly 100% fuck america. what a sorry fucking piece of shit country with a stupid mother fucking political system
i hope these old fucks die an extremely painful death.
that's the nice version
abosuletly 100% fuck america. what a sorry fucking piece of shit country with a stupid mother fucking political system
i hope these old fucks die an extremely painful death.
that's the nice version
If only the head of the DNC were to admit that they did this, it lead to Trump winning and that they regretted it
Democrats abandoned rural America: Won't happen again, says new DNC leader
Tom Perez can only hope that the Democratic Party has hit bottom.
www.latimes.com
This is a story that's repeated in rural areas across the country. Where there's no local resources available for the Democratic party it's the state and national party's job to step in with resources and campaign expertise. Again, this is what a political party is there to do.
Right! If the Democrats truly cared about us & our rights, why didn't either Carter, Clinton, Obama or Biden codified Roe V. Wade into law a long time ago? Why haven't they pulled a FDR or a LBJ to force their party to pass legislative bills with progressive policies to help benefit this country instead of corporations that they serve or always giving the military more money?
Because the majority of them are not on our side! The majority of Democrats are nothing more than corporate, neoliberal/establishment Democrats who are just like Republicans that are working for corporations instead of us, their citizens. They're both one & the same, both right-wing (Democrats are center-right while Republicans are further right). It took me a long time to figure that out & put two & two together.
And corporate, mainstream media isn't any better. They're just as vile, & they only care about having big ratings over integrity.
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I hear you and want to honor your frustration. In some of those instances that were brought up, though, there legitimately is not anything else the president could do. I wish Obama had done more PR campaigning about the Merrick Garland situation but ultimately he couldn't force McConnell / the GOP senate to hear his confirmation.
Multiple people have responded to your posts asserting this throughout the thread and yet you refuse to engage with it. Why are you here? Why are you posting about it repeatedly if you don't want to discuss it?
I substaintally explained the differences in material outcomes for vulnerable people and you only barely engaged with it after getting called out, only to come back around and do this "both sides are the exact same" shit again?
Why are you here? Why are you posting? You are ignoring attempts at actual discussion of the points you raise in favor of spinning the same dead-end, nihilistic, give up now tune over and over again. Why?
If only the head of the DNC were to admit that they did this, it lead to Trump winning and that they regretted it
Democrats abandoned rural America: Won't happen again, says new DNC leader
Tom Perez can only hope that the Democratic Party has hit bottom.
This is a story that's repeated in rural areas across the country. Where there's no local resources available for the Democratic party it's the state and national party's job to step in with resources and campaign expertise. Again, this is what a political party is there to do.
So here's where we come back to my money-making argument, and it's good that you picked an article from the year 2017, because look at the Democrats' funds compared to Republicans:
It takes funds to do a lot of this shit, which is why, again, it never has and never will make sense to me why we shame Democrats for asking for money. Comparatively, Democrats are fucking broke.
What's also useful about you choosing an article from 2017 to make your argument, is that I can point out that even now, in 2022, Democrats still face the issue of uncontested seats even after diagnosing the problem themselves. Now, of course, you can counter that you think Democrats are just that noncommittal. The only rebuttal to that I would have is I just am not that cynical. Democrats can want until the cows come home. We can ask. We can beg. We still need people to want to run. And to that I would ask, if you're a young upstart watching how young Progressives demonize the party, why the fuck would you run?
Can I add something to this?
Despite 50 years and a few trifectas, they too never managed to pass a federal law about abortion, either.
Police about to show a lot of courage that was missing at Uvalde
That's the truth but it only makes sense to people spending significant time paying attention to politics or participating on campaigns. Neither progressive nor moderate Dems have cracked the nut on how to get people out to vote consistently but harm reduction is a very dour message especially to people who infrequently vote or don't vote. Only a small minority of voters care about 100% honesty and that minority isn't enough to win you election.
Harm reduction is a strategy in selecting the least bad winnable candidates in regressive districts and tolerating them in your party's tent. Harm reduction is not a message that those candidates should be putting to voters.
This was addressed before. Clinton couldn't codify Roe v. Wade even if he wanted to because he simply didn't have the votes. The campaign slogan was "safe, legal, rare" specifically because they wanted to avoid losing the centrist vote.
It wasn't even up for debate during Carter's presidency. Carter himself supported the Hyde Amendment and his views on abortion weren't widely different than Fords. It just wasn't the same divisive issue it's today.