US Politics, March 2024: The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.

he's a below replacement level democratic vote in PA.

Pennsylvania is West Virginia's forehead and a couple dangly Democratic earrings. Not sure what kind of ideal Democratic Senator you think is gonna win there.

Pennsylvania is West Virginia's forehead and a couple dangly Democratic earrings. Not sure what kind of ideal Democratic Senator you think is gonna win there.

Seriously. Philadelphia is to Pennsylvania as Austin is to Texas.

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-much-vaunted-guardrails-are-failing

I don't know that this necessarily needs to be shunted off to the containment thread, but it's been illuminating to see folks around me who don't seem to pay close attention to (or at least frequently talk openly about) politics expressing shock and despair that Trump is still likely to win. It's like folks have had this veil of denial or blinders on and, since Tuesday, are suddenly catching on that, "holy shit, this actually is happening again".

by "this" I mean more a sense of that he's actually going to have a legitimate shot at winning again, not necessarily that he will win.

it's basically been a 50/50 shot for a while now, but we're still a long way out from the election

It’s kind of, all of a sudden, “oh, right, national politics! That’s a thing that happens here…”

As has been noted, we don't have one election. We have 50something elections, which then get collated. Most of their outcomes are a foregone conclusion. New York is gonna New York; Wyoming is gonna Wyoming.

So once again We are essentially being ruled a coupla counties in Pennsylvania, Florida, etc.

xp - I think it's more just, "well surely something is going to happen before the general, he can't possibly just glide through unscathed again.. oh, huh, I guess he can".

All those beautiful indictments

Indictments coming up to me with tears in their eyes, saying "We're so sorry Joe Biden made us do this."

I'm in southeast PA right now. So far I haven't seen any political signs or bumper stickers at all anywhere, except for one roadside Kennedy sign somewhere. And half the people look like Fetterman.

Fetterman is a reliable Democratic vote.

so who do you support for the next PA Senate race that satisfies your requirements and can win the state

“who do you think is gonna blah blah blah be reasonable “

no.

"The choice was either to pull it or watch it get stripped out, attacked by Republicans, and ultimately killed," Fetterman said. "This is not the end of this fight and I am going to fight for William Way to secure their funding in the FY25 appropriations process."

I mean how true is this? Sure Fetterman is a disappointment (most senators are though), but everyone here is making it seem like he's doing this unilaterally and a Joe Manchin in sheep's clothing, which he's not from my view. He's not up for reelection this year so it doesn't seem like an action attempting to pander to centrists or the right, perhaps he's being pragmatic and picking his fights?

The Dems have given up on the gay vote afaic.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Thursday, March 7, 2024 12:32 PM (one minute ago)

I'm confused by this statement - Dems have the most pro-LGBTQ+ platform and legislative record (especially considering the amount of time they've been in divided gov or the opposition) of any major political party on Earth. And we're about to have the first Trans congressional rep in Delaware with Sarah McBride. Are they perfect? No, but considering how self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals by ~9%, requiring Dems to win majorities of moderates, I consider that fairly impressive

xp
I guess my genuine q would be: what's the difference between pulling it and it being stripped out?

Perhaps it would be a better show of support to push for it knowing it will fail, and get Republicans to, once again, show off their prejudiced, hateful rhetoric in full view, but perhaps that is not the once winning strategy it used to be and that's the source of the pragmatism here? This subtly of "playing politics" I find very frustrating and distasteful (happens a lot here in California too, but with different issues and budget line items) but I also don't see why this should result in equating Fetterman to a Repub wolf in Dem clothing as others here paint him.

Fetterman is indeed unacceptable to those who prefer to stand in the voting booth and gaze enraptured at their own perfect political reflection in a hand mirror

medicare for all / social security = birth to the earth

xpost No when I stand in the voting booth I’m always in shorts and waving an Israeli flag over my head.

yeah come on let's not go too far. you can object to tables' scorched earth view without pretending Fetterman hasn't been disappointing as a public figure

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

What about Senator Connor Lamb?

I don’t think Oz is capable of disappointing me.

Well Lamb lost the primary so... he should have what, run third party and thrown the seat to Oz?

I guess I don't really understand this discussion

I mean these are dumb choices. Of course any dem is going to be better than any republican. Would a centrist hack like Lamb have been better than Fetterman? Possibly.

more disappointing than Senator Oz?

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, March 7, 2024 2:35 PM (eleven minutes ago)

Sorry, maybe this was a genuine, non-rhetorical question.

In which case: disappointing compared to what I thought I had learned about Fetterman and his politics (often through statements he made on social media or to the press) when he was running for office. I'd also say that I would be disappointed in any senator in any state who made a point of publicly counterprotesting an antiwar or anti-genocide protest -- that in my opinion goes beyond having views that differ from my own and into "this guy is scary" territory.

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

I disagree strongly with his support for Israel, but you can't say he didn't explicitly state he was pro-Israel during his Senate campaign because he did

idk how anybody could react to Fetterman like he isn't a complete sellout. he sold his voters a bill of goods and is now flipping them the bird after an abrupt heel turn.

What bill of goods did he sell? Did he take a position on Israel/Palestine during the campaign that he's now reversed himself on, that I'm not aware of? He was never anything but a working-class white Democrat, basically an east coast Jon Tester. Yes, he aligned himself with Sanders based on economic/class issues, and/but none of that has changed that I know of. People are making up a John Fetterman to fight with because they're mad about Gaza.

xp
yes, I meant to mention that part of the disappointment down to my not learning about his views in full. But that's why I included the bit about him counterprotesting. It's one thing for a Democrat to support Israel — that wouldn't surprise me — it's another to make a spectacle of yourself waving a flag at people protesting the deaths of civilians. I found that genuinely disturbing.

it ain't even just Israel. after calling himself a progressive for years, he then came out and said derisively that he wasn't a progressive, and started supporting anti-immigration measures he hadn't previously shown support for, even using the right-wing phrase du jour "there is a crisis at our borders"

rob otm

Perhaps it would be a better show of support to push for it knowing it will fail, and get Republicans to, once again, show off their prejudiced, hateful rhetoric in full view, but perhaps that is not the once winning strategy it used to be and that's the source of the pragmatism here?

I don’t know that this was ever a winning strategy in Congress. Footage of someone voting no is not as viscerally awful as footage of someone having fire hoses and dogs set upon them.

major side eye at Katie Porter popping off about the "rigged" election she lost

I think his spectacle and combativeness are what got him elected when someone like Lamb would have lost to the Trump-backed Oz, so is the same spectacle in the service of being militantly pro-Israel embarrassing? Yes. Can I really complain if I liked it just fine when it was pissing off Trump and upsetting Senate norms, and likely kept the Senate in Democratic control? I don't know.

And we're about to have the first Trans congressional rep

Danica Roem is a Virginia state senator, trans. Rachel Levine is a senior HHS official, trans.

Democrats are not perfect (as noted) but we're at least trying.

or maybe just maybe Fetterman's brain is fucked up from a major stroke and he is not the same person he was before.

hasn't he always been not a bad guy at all but still a child of affluence? didn't he only start really working in his early 30s, and in politics, at that? not casting aspersions! but no ally is entirely saintly

major side eye at Katie Porter popping off about the "rigged" election she lost

Yeah, this is gross and she needs to take another tact.

I am still flummoxed at why, in an era where every elected official is not only trained to avoid drawing attention to themselves on contentious issues, they've also got to witness how swing voters will end the careers of people with 'main-character syndrome', why in the fuck Fetterman would go all-in on projecting his weird pro-Likud/anti-Palestine views to the point where it's now his identity, while also eerily echoing Bush-era reactions to anti-war sentiment. He's had some great votes and pushed some solid legislation during his brief Senate tenure (and I appreciate that he's backing Andy Kim in NJ), but why taint your good work by something so sour and dickish? How is he better off politically?

If you were to poll 1,000 moderate, apolitical swing voters (as in, the people who unknowingly hold the future of our democracy in their hands), asking them "which of these choices do you prefer: making any military support of Israel's battle with Hamas conditional on PM Netanyahu putting a stop to the invasion of Gaza and pulling back the settlements that antagonize neighbors; or giving him what he wants, regardless of what he does to Gaza/West Bank/Golan Heights?", is the second option really so much more popular than the first to where it would justify (in a political, not moral sense) Fetterman's antics? There's no way that's the case.

perhaps he's just fervently pro-israel for some deep seated, non-politically calculated reason; I don't know what that reason would be and I would hope it is not a bigoted reason.

I forgot to add, why do so many elected officials like Fetterman equate being pro-Israel with meaning that you had to be pro-Likud? Can't you be pro-Israel and pro-2-states while also opposing Bibi's shitty party and their fuckery? What's the benefit?

I guess it depends on if you think his behavior is a schtick and behind the scenes he is actually making those kinds of calculations, or if he really is as he seems to be, and therefore is not actually making calculated choices in that way at all... he might just have his beliefs and figure since he got elected he should act on them without really looking for external validation

Is he in the process of being divorced or did I imagine that?

his wife took a social media break and this turned into a rumor that they split up over his Israel position but I think it was a progressive fever dream.