Thats the ratcheting effect
I would encourage everyone to watch the video of her speech. The title of this post is incredibly misleading. And takes points out of context.
So abandon economic justice and civil rights.
Is there anything left?
Elissa Slotkin can fuck off.
Detailing her plan, Slotkin – a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency…
Oh, she can really fuck off.
Edit:
“I can’t do what she does because we live in a purple state, and I’m a pragmatist,” she concluded.
This is code for not rocking the boat.
The Democratic Party is so full of collaborationists. Just shows how democracy and capitalism are incompatible. The bourgeois class just buy the politicians.
First part of article title is a bit misleading I think. She thinks “Kings” is a better term than oligarchy because it’s more relatable. She has a plan to fight kings. She does seem to think wokeness is weak though.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has urged her Democratic colleagues to stop attacking the “oligarchy” on Thursday, arguing that the word did not resonate with most Americans and should be replaced with “kings.”
Detailing her plan, Slotkin – a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – argued that the Democratic Party needed to lose its “weak and woke” reputation and “fucking retake the flag,” adopting a “goddamn Alpha energy” inspired by Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell.
“She said Democrats should stop using the term ‘oligarchy,’ a phrase she said doesn’t resonate beyond coastal institutions, and just say that the party opposes ‘kings,'” wrote Wren, who reported that Slotkin was planning to deliver a series of speeches in the coming months about her plan.
She’s sorta right. ‘Oligarchy’ is a big college word that Joe Bumblefuck doesn’t understand.
Aristocrats is a good word, but again: “duh?”
Therefore Dems just need to start harping about “rich fucking parasites”
Elissa Slotkin IS the oligarchy. She is the Hot Dog Princess. Her grandpa owned BallPark Franks—subsidiary of the Tyson Foods megacorp. Every time someone eats a hot dog, Elissa gets more passive income than most folks earn from a year’s labor.
She sucks, I voted for Harper in the primaries but the Dems are full of neo-libs like her. It’s hard to see that party go more liberal even with Sander’s and AOC’s help
They actively work against Sanders and AOC. Both are the enemy to the average corporate-whore Dem.
I didn’t realize hot dogs got so expensive!
Except at Costco.
RIP the Costco Polish dog.
She also is only in office because she kept district hopping to avoid getting primaried until she was up for a senate seat, whereupon the Democratic Party pushed out or made concessions to all the other better candidates so they would drop. She’s widely reviled.
Calling it now. newsom’s VP pick.
Among the shittiest hot dogs on the market. It’s Nathan’s or Hebrew National, everything else is garbage.
Nathan’s make me extremely sick because they are sweetened with sorbitol.
Huh, thanks for this. I have family that swears by them, but they also make me sick. I didn’t realize they had sorbitol. I had wondered why their brand was so disagreeable to me.
There are places in the USA where you can find smaller, more local hot dog makers.
The best I’ve had are Hippey’s Franks from Denver, Pennsylvania.
Ream’s in Elburn IL. Superb
Better than Hebrew Nat?
ETA subsidiary of ConAgra
So much better than Hebrew National, Ballpark, Nathan’s or any national brand. Bigger, more and better flavor.
Well I just need to road trip a couple thousand miles and get a good dog. It’s been YEARS.
I don’t think it’s just a US east coast thing. See if there are any local butchers near you and check out what they sell. Or, look for local, independent meat companies.
We don’t have indie butchers or meat companies near, anymore, but I’m going out of town in a couple of weeks so I’ll see if where I’m going does. They probably do.
Hebrew national > Aren’t sausages mostly pork?
Hot Dogs can be pork, chicken or beef, or even a combination. Hebrew National is all beef. I prefer all beef wieners myself.
Dem Senator Says Party Needs to Stop Attacking ‘Oligarchy’ and Focus on Losing
FTFY
Of course. They don’t want to fix things, they just want to be the ones getting the benefits.
“Not resonating with voters”
Bernie and AOC’s “Fighting Oligarchy” campaign is pulling in more people to their rallies than attended Obama’s in 08.
Don’t peddle that horseshit you Liberal traitor.
She’s so full of shit. The number 1 issue in every 2024 poll of swing voters was the economy and inflation. That’s why Trump won. When people think the economy sucks, the incumbent party almost always loses.
All this bullshit about “woke” is just another attempt by the ultra wealthy to distract from economic issues, because they know the solutions for them hurt their bottom line. She and her GOP allies will do anything to stop us from improving labor rights and economic conditions for ordinary people.
She’s a lying weakling backstabber.
No CIA member is ever liberal.
Neoliberal
OK but that’s not what they said, is it?
Way to advertise what side she’s really on.
Let’s get back to our controlled opposition roots.
No, she can fuck off.
The oligarchy is killing us, and spinning language won’t change that. Meanwhile, ‘woke’ just means ‘social empathy’, which is ironically the solution to many of the problems the oligarchy is causing (and they’re not shy about this – Musk recently said empathy is bad).
We need more ‘woke’, not less. And being butthurt that the fascists are using ‘woke’ as a slur against us is childish and easy to ignore if you’re not too simple to get it.
Fuck this. I’m woke and proud of it. We all should be.
Woke means understanding we live in an oligarchy in my mind. MAGA calls people sheep while complaining about them being woke in the same breath. They don’t even understand the language they use.
They don’t even understand the language they use.
They don’t have ideas. They just use words as pretexts for bullying and oppression. They worship force.
Woke is not weakness!
It’s funny, because the “Wake up, Sheeple!” line used to be what conservatives screamed at liberals for failing to understand their latest Ayn Rand inspired diatribe.
Then liberals adopted the “Wake up!” phrasing to describe structural racism, the enormous socio-economic cost of the Military Industrial Complex, and the inherent class warfare of privatization schemes. That caused “Woke” to fall out of fashion with the right.
Now it’s totally lost any context. “Woke” just means being visually queer coded or insufficiently religious. Its barely more than a slur.
specifically it was used by AA people in the start, now it has been co-opted by the right wingers and perverted, much like they did with “punisher”
Fine. Then come up with a plan to educate conservatives. Because this thing where the state legislates new norms (e.g. bio men in bio women’s sports) is NOT making sense to them. They are freaking out because they don’t understand it. And we can’t just make laws to make them accept it.
From their perspective they are losing their country. We can laugh and call them backwards, but that won’t help. There HAS to be a plan that is better than, f-you wake up.
We don’t need fucking conservatives to win anything in this country. I’m sick of cowards acting like they just won by 10%. They barely won this election, barely won control of the house, and the main issue in the election for independents wasn’t trans people or minorities, it was the economy.
The economy sucks for ordinary people because the ultra rich have been raiding it since COVID. And everyone, even conservatives, know that’s true. Americans hate these big corporations. Slotkin and her allies know that, and that’s why they’re trying to distract from it.
It’s disgusting how ready some of you are to throw your own neighbors under the bus so you can try to win over a couple fascist votes… Who will never vote for you. You will never win them over. They aren’t going to believe that you suddenly hate gay people and minorities. You will just look like a dishonest weakling to them, and they’ll be right.
We will win the next election by targeting independents with an economic message. If you want to lose then go ahead and make it about “woke” like a complete coward.
“The hell is a dang oligarch?”
“Means hillary can tell you what to do”
Why the fuck is everyone pretending they’re too stupid to know what an oligarch is? Just a couple years ago they said it all the time in reference to Russia
They’ll pretend they’re stupid so they can continue on with believing they’re not horrible people, but they know
That’s a big problem that switching from ‘oligarch’ to ‘king’ won’t solve. Using different words is a very simplistic answer, when what we’re fighting here is not a language barrier but a wide cultural one.
The real issue is complex and multifaceted: conservatives have been highly propagandised through increasingly insulated media bubbles to the point that now there’s very little that can penetrate them, and switching up a few words will not get them to listen. They’ve been taught to be distrustful of facts and reality, and to believe that compassion is weakness.
I don’t know how to fix this, but watering down our language will not help. That’s been tried many times, and it always backfires.
And from personal experience, even if you find common ground and get them to recognize something is bad, they’ll sit back down in front of Fox News and revert to the norm before any of it matters. I had a “law and order, national security” type conservative acquaintance who right after the Trump classified documents story broke said Trump should go to prison for it (he also had to add that Hillary Clinton should go too). I’m certain he voted for Trump this time around. And he’s had nary a peep about the multiple war plans chats. They aren’t gettable if you just find the right issue or use the right words. If they’re going to change it’s going to happen on their own and over a long time.
There has to be a relentless flow of propaganda to keep them spun up. We need to shut that down.
Fuck conservatives. They don’t need to be educated, they need to be beaten. There are more people left of center than right, we just need to prove we’re actually going to fight for them. All of them. Not 80% and then we’ll start to strategize on how many “urban” voters we can lose to pick up white suburbanite conservatives.
They don’t need to be educated, they need to be beaten.
You cannot educate someone who refuses to learn, especially those who reject reason and knowledge. They support fascists because they worship force. They will continue laying waste to everything around them until their murderous shitshow is comprehensively defeated. Throwing sweet reason at them won’t achieve that.
That’s why I get impatient with those who suggest that the way forward is to tinker with the voting system, or to amend the Constitution some more, or to educate the populace. The fascists are at war with us right now. We need to pick our collective ass up off the ground and resist by any means necessary and stop pretending that the system is going to save us, or (like the DNC) that Trump will eventually piss off enough people that the Democrats can win another election, despite all the rigging and voter suppression.
This is an existential situation, the building’s on fire, now’s not the time to be talking about redecorating.
Just to drive this point home for the quiet listeners at the back of the house, I’ve had very long conversations with conservatives (I’m in a red area) who actually get more distrustful the more you relate to them. I’ve been told to my face that nobody cares that much about other people, and I was clearly only pretending to in order to make them listen to me. That it was obvious, because nobody cares that much. That empathy can only be manipulative, and is never real.
It took me years to understand this isn’t a contradiction, but that since they can’t imagine caring that much, I must be fake.
My whole outlook changed once I realised that. It’s insane, but many people literally can’t envision caring, and they think you’re fake and just want recognition for doing so.
Several of these surveys take on a different meaning once you realise there are fundamentally different perspectives like this.
e: and this is one of the biggest divides with conservatives. Simple word choice will not bridge this gap.
I’m not sure about this. People with money spent a lot to tell everyone that these things are problems. If we spent the same amount of money to say the opposite, opinions would differ.
…well they are backwards, they’re only about one-third of the electorate, and they will never ever vote fascist-light; meanwhile there’s another unrepresented third of the electorate just waiting for anyone to offer them something worth voting FOR…
We don’t need more “pro-israel centrists”
The reason Dem turnout in generals is depressed, is our choices are CIA war criminals like Slotking or a republican.
She is the problem, not the 99.9% who don’t want an oligarchy
I completely agree, but it’s also likely a reasonable representation of her Michigan constituents. It’s not a terribly diverse state.
I mean Michigan was the epicenter and main stronghold of the Uncommitted Movement; there’s obviously a good amount of support for progressive Palestine policy there.
Michigan has the second highest population of people from the mideast in absolute numbers, and the highest proportionally.
While racial background doesn’t determine support for a cause, it’s not surprising that people would turn out in higher numbers to advocate for the lives of people more closely related to them.
You’re pointing to a Mossad coordinated disinformation campaign as evidence that Michigan is a good spot to look for popular national support? The campaign designed to create a wedge issue in the 2024 election by simultaneously driving disinformation down politicians’ throats while stoking anti-Israel sentiment among progressive communities?
I’m not saying it’s a bad take because obviously I can’t prove to you that Mossad played a part, but think about the result of the “Uncommitted Movement” and who in Israel benefits by having Trump in office.
Disclaimer for the incoming troll replies: I’m not pro-genocide, I’m simply in favor of choosing the best of possible outcomes, of which Harris was clearly a better outcome for Palestine. Can you even imagine her announcing the Riviera of the Middle East?
Good to know there are still Americans who haven’t learned a goddamn thing from November. This situation is directly the result of Democrat-voting Americans crying about the lesser evil while shutting down all attempts to make it not evil.
You’re pointing to a Mossad coordinated disinformation campaign as evidence that Michigan is a good spot to look for popular national support?
God not everything you don’t like is a foreign disinformation campaign.
I’m not saying it’s a bad take because obviously I can’t prove to you that Mossad played a part, but think about the result of the “Uncommitted Movement” and who in Israel benefits by having Trump in office.
Uncommitted wasn’t about giving Trump the White House, but about getting Harris and the DNC to stop supporting the genocide and then win in November. That obviously didn’t work out because rather than support them or even stay silent people like you kept shutting them down and dismissing their concerns about both the election and their loved ones being brutally murdered by goddamn modern Nazis.
Can you even imagine her announcing the Riviera of the Middle East?
No, but I also couldn’t imagine her winning, which is exactly the problem here.
But demanding opposition to genocide and neoliberal policies is purity testing!
Why can’t the left just accept liberal capitalism instead of purity testing human rights?
Surely the problem is with leftist individuals who hate liberalism so much they must secretly support Trump.
It couldn’t be any systemic or material issues that have compounded over decades, leading to populist sentiment and opposition to the status quo, as people demand solutions to the cost of living crisis that they’ve seen only ever get worse. It was surely not a mistake to not run of overwhelmingly popular democratic socialist policies that would’ve directly addressed those issues, or run on no weapons embargo despite it’s overwhelming support. The DNC did nothing wrong, it’s all the voters fault, especially those anti-genocide ones. Who cares if they had loved ones killed by Israel, they should have known better, it’s a simple trolley problem.
/s (this kind of sentiment is so annoying)
Stalin, I hate engaging with commies, but I can’t resist a good pun.
The left doesn’t have a cohesive platform, nor any political power. Your indignation is not righteous, and your sentiment does not inspire. US politicians are generally idiots, yes, but I disagree that calling for a more moderate path in the face of a populist criminal was a bad take. We are seeing it play out in real time, and we’re all in the same boat so I hope you’re enjoying the ride.
That ‘more moderate path’ has been an abject failure, as evident by the election.
Neoliberalism ideology is what has paved the way to rampant fascism in American politics. Neoliberalism, and even liberalism for that matter, will never be a successful opposition to fascism. Being beholden to corporate interests, at the expense of the voters interest nonetheless, will and has only ever normalized if not accelerated fascist policies.
The only way to have a genuine opposition to right-wing populism is by running on a platform of left-wing populism. Ignoring the material harms people are experiencing and aware of is a losing strategy.
Left-wing populist positions are overwhelmingly popular, they are even popular with independent and Republican voters. Those positions directly benefit everyone in the working class. The only issue for the neoliberal administration in charge of the DNC is that those policies come at the expense of billionaires and massive corporations, the people who fund their convention and races to secure their interests over the general population.
Human rights is nonnegotiable. If anyone is willing to throw a group of people under the bus for any reason, they are no ally.
If the DNC prioritized running on those popular policies and actually attempted to earn as many votes as they possibly could by offering concessions to as much people as they could, they would have won. Trump would not be president. We wouldn’t be funding one genocide while ramping up concentration camps for ‘enemies within’. But the DNC has proven themselves to priorities their corporate backers over the people. Only a small few like Bernie, AOC, and The Squad are genuinely interested in opposing the fascism of the Republican party. If they gain control of the DNC, we may have a chance out of this through legislation and reform. If the DNC continues to prop up corporate interests over progressives, then the way out will become much much bloodier.
Fascism does not compromise. Appeasement is the problem. Opposition is necessary.
Edit: after seeing your other comment, I’ll provide polls that support my point, on the large support of both on the weapons embargo and on left-wing populist policies.
Progressive policies that a majority of Americans support
Here Are 34 Polls That Show A Ceasefire & Weapons Embargo Help Kamala Win
Kamala Would Have Won With A Weapons Embargo
Democrats’ Working-Class Failures, Analysis Finds, Are ‘Why Trump Beat Harris’
2024 Post-Election Report: A retrospective and longitudinal data analysis on why Trump beat Harris
How Trump and Harris Voters See America’s Role in the World
Majority of Americans support progressive policies such as higher minimum wage, free college
Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, but not the unpopular ones
Here Are 7 ‘Left Wing’ Ideas (Almost) All Americans Can Get Behind
Finding common ground: 109 national policy proposals with bipartisan support
Progressive Policies Are Popular Policies
Tim Walz’s Progressive Policies Popular With Republicans in Swing States
I’m not God, I’m just a regular person.
I provided instructions for trolls in my post, but you seem to have missed that part in the bits you quoted. Despite my policy on feeding trolls, I’ll repeat that I’m not endorsing the actions of the Netanyahu government.
If you want to put your head in the sand and pretend that foreign intelligence isn’t influencing nearly every flavor of social media on the internet, that’s on you.
I believe your understanding of how voting works is flawed. A vote only matters if it is cast. Withholding votes does not motivate politicians in any democratic system in the world. The math simply doesn’t work.
As you’ve clearly come to understand, the uncommitted movement was an abject failure. That you continue to cling to the idea that it failed due to rational progressives makes me wonder if you are a troll yourself.
Uncommitted is not how political shifts happen in the United States. Increasingly it is single issue voters like you, who don’t like how a candidate positions on a single issue and chooses to abstain or vote for the other side. To be clear, that’s your choice and I wouldn’t fault you for standing on your principles if you weren’t simultaneously complaining about the outcome of standing on those principles.
As it is, you promoted a failed political strategy that, not wholly but certainly in part, led to the reelection of Trump and the MAGAs. I voted for the candidate who would most plausibly bring about a less horrific end to the Gaza conflict. This was NEVER about dismissing concerns about a group of people on the other side of the planet, it was ALWAYS about making the best choice for THIS country.
I think some part of you knows that, but I totally understand being irrationally angry with the world, random internet commenters, whatever. Shit is getting crazy out here, and tbh we all need each other more than ever. Please take my deepest apologies if the truth of what I’m saying is upsetting. Progressivism has never been about getting everything you want in a perfect candidate, it has always been about compromising in order to achieve incremental improvements. You don’t have to align with that view, but your passion certainly would be welcomed.
I provided instructions for trolls in my post, but you seem to have missed that part in the bits you quoted. Despite my policy on feeding trolls, I’ll repeat that I’m not endorsing the actions of the Netanyahu government.
I know, but also don’t care.
f you want to put your head in the sand and pretend that foreign intelligence isn’t influencing nearly every flavor of social media on the internet, that’s on you.
Of course it is, but that’s neither here nor there. The implication that outrage at Biden’s support for Israel is mostly a result of that influence is, however, fucking ridiculous. Why do you believe that people can’t exercise their right to hold their elected politicians accountable without it being a Russian or Israeli plot?
Withholding votes does not motivate politicians in any democratic system in the world. The math simply doesn’t work.
Threatening to withhold votes certainly does, because those politicians are at least ostensibly trying to get elected. That’s why Democratic politicians throw breadcrumbs for their constituents and have a milquetoast-but-better-than-nothing stance on civil rights, and it’s what Uncommitted tried to do.
As you’ve clearly come to understand, the uncommitted movement was an abject failure. That you continue to cling to the idea that it failed due to rational progressives makes me wonder if you are a troll yourself.
I’m trying really hard not to break rule 3 right now. What kind of pressure campaign would have satisfied your rational sensibilities?
Uncommitted is not how political shifts happen in the United States.
Then how do they?
Increasingly it is single issue voters like you, who don’t like how a candidate positions on a single issue and chooses to abstain or vote for the other side. To be clear, that’s your choice and I wouldn’t fault you for standing on your principles if you weren’t simultaneously complaining about the outcome of standing on those principles.
This isn’t the outcome of anti-genocide principles; it’s the result of decades of lesser evil politics, which America is clearly done with. This downfall of American democracy did not start in 2024. Ever heard of the gambler’s ruin? Well welcome to the centrist’s ruin, where you keep betting your democracy until the far right eats it all.
As it is, you promoted a failed political strategy that, not wholly but certainly in part, led to the reelection of Trump and the MAGAs.
Again, what better strategy would you have promoted that would have led to change?
I voted for the candidate who would most plausibly bring about a less horrific end to the Gaza conflict. This was NEVER about dismissing concerns about a group of people on the other side of the planet, it was ALWAYS about making the best choice for THIS country.
What less horrific end? Genocide with rainbows? And in the first place do you seriously think a government that ran on dismissing genocide would be anything but an appetizer to fascism? If they don’t care about brown people on the other side of the world, they don’t care about you.
Please take my deepest apologies if the truth of what I’m saying is upsetting. Progressivism has never been about getting everything you want in a perfect candidate, it has always been about compromising in order to achieve incremental improvements.
Has anyone ever told you you’re patronizing? And in the first place what improvements? Your program of compromise and incremental change has led to, or at least failed to prevent, capital F Fascism in the United States. Maybe try something else next time, if there is a next time.
PS: Now is probably a good time to mention that I’m not American.
I’m bored with you so best of luck in our shared future hellscape. I definitely LOL’d when I saw you weren’t American.
I was more referring to her point about distancing themselves from advocating for diversity. It’s probably not their biggest priority when 73% of the state is white and 61% are Christians. That’s more disproportionate than Tennessee.
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/michigan
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/michigan/
It’s a 50/50 state and the Republican party is overwhelmingly white. 73% white likely means Democratic voters are 50%+ minority. We have to stop pretending we need to appeal to anti-woke Republicans. Even in less diverse states, it’s still a diverse party.
I was only saying it’s possible that’s the message she’s getting from her constituents, which is any resident of Michigan. It was educated speculation, not fact, nor is it my personal opinion of these issues. I’d like to see Democrats become an opposition party, as far from the Republicans as possible, just the same as you.
No CIA member is a good representative of their state.
Maybe they should encourage some more aggressive left wing people to compete against them to broaden horizons of the dabates, like bringing a ‘communist’ along with ‘socailist’ to debate a republican
