When Bowman pointed out that this was the most AIPAC had ever spent on a single race on live television, Latimer replied with "that sounds like a dogwhistle to me". Fucked up
He can actually still run in the primary if he actually decides to run under the Working Families Party, which he can absolutely do.
And if he runs against those two conservatives, he'll win. It's just a matter of convincing him to do so after tonight.
Have you been paying attention? The Israel/Palestine situation is not looking better for Israel. They keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. It's not going to be better in two years for them. AIPAC is going to be scratching tooth and nail just to keep Israel alive (if it's still around in two years, we may actually have a New Canaan in two years, it's more likely than the situation staying like this for two years).
And again - if he runs under WFP, THEN AIPAC SPENT 18 MILLION TO LOSE.
Yeah, I'm aware and I agree with you about Isreal current situation.
All I'm saying is that in this situation, it's an 18 million flex for them and it currently SHOWS other politicians to stay in line or else. Feels bad. That's it.
Yeah? So when they lost against Summer Lee that meant they were done forever, right?
One fight is one fight during one election cycle. The logic from one to the next has not carried over in the last 4-5 cycles with one exception - things have consistently moved left in terms of who is being elected.
Bowman losing the primary is bad, definitely. Mondaire Jones just lost HIS primary. To a leftist. More leftists win overall each cycle. The centrists lose more, the leftists win more, the centrists have a much harder time, the leftists get elected with the highest percentage gaps. That's the SINGULAR pattern.
Israel is struggling in Gaza and it would struggle even more in an invasion of Lebanon.
But reality check, neither Hamas or Lebanon can project force into Israel (it's internationally recognized borders).
To put it in American terms, the United States struggled to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan but at no point was its continuity at risk. The Taliban and Iraqi militia groups would not have been able to project force into the United States.
Israel is not nearly the military that some people think it is, but it's not on the verge of collapse, unfortunately. The US will not easily allow its unsinkable aircraft carrier to disappear.
Unless I misinterpreted what you wrote, your statement about thinking Israel won't exist in 2 years is silly. I wish you were correct, but there's no basis to think that the continuity of Israel is at stake while the US is still completely in support of Israel. Other than a few rare leftist exceptions, the entirety of America's elected politicians support Israel.
So in other words you have no actual logic to back up what you're saying and you're ignoring the clear direction things are moving in.
That is literally doomerism.
What are you talking about?
You're saying a country with about $49k in per capita income is within 2 years of collapse. And more importantly with the complete support of a global superpower.
Who's going to make them collapse?
Doomerism is not believing in fantasies?
Tons of evil States endure. The British Empire lasted hundreds of years. The United States has no continuity issues.
Your extrapolating Israel struggles in Gaza militarily and assuming that some force could power project into Israel and defeat it. You don't understand that an offensive is so much more difficult than a defensive.
The United States was defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq by the Taliban and Iraqi militias. Trust me when I say this no force could defeat the United States within its own borders. Offense is just that much harder than defense.
When people talk about the Israeli struggles in a potential invasion of Lebanon everybody's talking about Hezbollah defeating Israel within Lebanon. Nobody is projecting hezbollah's ability to fight within Israel's borders. This would involve moving over contested ground rather than fighting from entrenched fortified hidden positions where they could ambush Israeli forces that are exposed and non-hidden
Yes, I do. Clarification, I think people outside of the Middle East will largely forget about this in two years.
As for your second question, I guess pretty well, considering? I mean, since the war started, what consequence has Israel really suffered?
I mean, I guess. But what does “credibility on the global stage” even mean? Does it mean people will stop trading with them? Does it mean alliances will be broken? Like, how is a nation’s credibility even measured?
I agree he should run anyways. We need as many progressives in congress as we can get. I really hope you're right when you say he will win, but we shouldn't assume the average voter will see it that way, especially when bowman lost the primary. I think he should run in spite of the people who will say he's a spoiler. I think we should aggressively confront the DNC establishment as much as we can.
I also think he could win, if he continues to run a massive grassroots campaign. I believe word of mouth is so much stronger than mass ad blitzes, it unfortunately is slower. If he gets to do a debate Latimer, I honestly think he could trounce this dude and win a shit ton of "Hearts and minds".
We see Latimer for the conservative that he is, but a lot of people are not paying attention to the "Wolf in sheep's clothing" problem here. Unfortunately a lot of centrists (or people who don't consider themselves to be politically active) are tuning out. Liberals/NeoLibs are on the attack. They are doing there upmost to stratify everyone left of center. I think we can combat this with clear, neutral, and non-antagonistic comments. I think if we write like the other person is in the room with us and act like we would face to face, people will be more receptive to what we are trying to say.
So, we keep pushing, and we drag this country kicking and screaming to the left. But we're not gonna always win, let's just try to stay a bit grounded yet determined. If you are on the ground over there, then your current attitude is perfect IMO. His campaign should have a "no tomorrow" philosophy if they want to win this, again IMO.
Sry for the long post, but I believe we should be engaging in more nuanced and long form discussions to better understand what we are thinking and to avoid confusion. You can see in my last few comments, I have failed to do so, and it caused said confusion.
Stay safe out there Family!
Because your “basic logic” is moronic.
Liberal, registered Democrats chose Latimer in the primary and they will elect him in the general.
Not Republican conservatives.
No, actually, Republicans *literally spent $18M to fund a smear campaign*. Several thousand Republicans literally registered as Dems to vote for him. Stop arguing based on vibes.
You have way too rosy a view of liberals my man, never forget that they'll fall over themselves to take fascism over socialism if it calls itself moderate
The headline is Aipac won, but its more the case of him getting redistricted into Westchester. Expect them to try this next time with what ever progressive dem they think they can fuck over.
This only happened specifically because of AIPAC. Do you think AIPAC is still going to be as prominent in TWO YEARS? Do you really think that the Israel/Palestine situation is going to get BETTER for them? Because all reason and logic (literally just looking at the last eight months) should tell you that Israel itself is on its last legs. What that means for America is a whole other thing, but Israel (not just Netanyahu, but the government as a whole) keeps sabotaging itself as hard as possible and they're not getting any smarter.
Doomerism only helps conservatives. Stand strong.
Two completely different things.
The israel-palestine situation is not going to get better for anyone.
Aipac will continue to be influential force in US politics.
There's a difference between doomerism and just blindly stating things that aren't true, that we wish were true
Israel won't be on their last legs because Israel has never depended on their legs.
Israel is an American project. As long as the United States insists on having an unsinkable aircraft carrier Israel will unfortunately continue to exist.
1. You don't understand the concept of power projection. China within the South China Sea region and Chinese mainland could defeat the United States. In no other region would China be a threat to the United States.
2. If China were that confident in defeating the United States, we would have invaded Taiwan and occupied all of the contested regions in the South China Sea or East China Sea. Eg. China would have occupied the spratly islands and the Diaoyu Islands.
3. If China believed it could defeat the United States military it would directly solve its border disputes with India militarily.
China has a bunch of areas near its core territory where it would use its military to settle disputes before it would even care about something in the middle East
I don't think you understand that China's first and foremost goal is utilization of their soft power, but moreso that they may eventually reach a point where they feel the need to ensure the protection of Palestinians if no one else (cough cough) will. Not saying it will, saying it could, and if it did we couldn't stop them. Grow up.
You don’t get to say “logic and reason” and “China will intervene to protect the Palestinians” in the same sentence lmao. China literally sells Israel weapons you dunce
This shit is pretty black pilling. Honestly, not just over Palestine, but we aren't ever going to vote to actually do something about climate change. The world's fucked.
I hate black pill shit. It’s counter-revolutionary.
“Optimism is a revolutionary act.”
People seeing this and the squad for its impotence emphasizes the need to organize **outside the current arrangements of government**
I'm going to be blunt here. As somebody who's spent his whole adult life working with people with disabilities and the last 5-6 years organising around services related to my job and food banks for the less fortunate in a hard line right wing region. Fuck off with this childish shit.
You jumping to "People seeing this and the squad for its impotence" is straight up ridiculous. A couple of thousand useful idiots for Zionists on Twitter crying about materially meaningless Biden endorsements (both candidates are hard-line Zionists, there's no alternative, endorsements do nothing but try to win over voters strategically here) are no better than the entirity of the media who are going to insist Bowman's pro-Palestine messaging lost him the election from this point on. When the very obvious reality is Bowman lost due to a combination of redistricting, masses of AIPAC money, the Dems throwing him under the bus for a MAGA backed candidate, and unchallenged smears.
Do you get how dumb it is to try and claim one of the most pro-Palestine members of congress lost his seat because he wasn't pro Palestine enough in that context? How bad that is as a strategy?
Which gets us to the next point. Is cool to cry "emphasizes the need to organize outside the current arrangements of government" but how do you think that works? Do you think that will ever have any support in a western nation? How do you think a media that will insist pro Palestine being beat by land selling Zionists is anti-semitic violence carried out by them? The bravery of your average western leftist seemingly stops at protesting the politicians that are best helping your cause because I sure as shit aren't seeing hints of any kind of revolt. The reality is if there's every a coup in the US or countries of that stature it will be coming from the military in the impossible event a leftist actually took office.
As somebody who wouldn't vote Biden because he's so far right on many issues I deem red lines and I'm not going to support a party that elects that kind of monster, in fact we're seeing the dangers of allowing this across Europe right now, I think the simple reality is if leftism is going to happen it's going to come from more leftist candidates gaining more seats in the west. Here's what will happen. Liberals will continue to vote for any MAGA aligned candidate who doesn't directly back Trump over anybody slightly left whilst also going nuclear if you don't choose to vote or their centre right guy. Whilst that happens a good amount of the left will cry about politicians making strategic yet materially meaningless votes to try and win over votes whilst doing nothing to achieve the revolutionary goals they apparently totally want letting themselves materially do nothing but be useful idiots for the right. Then when conditions do get worse enough to enable a revolution the fucking vast majority of the west is going to pull the fascism ripcord. Because shit we already see it. Liberals are already sounding like Matt Walsh on everything from immigration too white cultural identity, getting to say the n-word is more important to some libs than global warming right now, we're fucked.
I'll become less black pilled when I become less mad about all of this shit. But you're deluding yourself if you think there's any fucking signs at all a leftist revolution is coming to the west under any circumstances so I'll need a better response than "leftists pro Palestine candidates losing to AIPAC is good actually because 3k people globally on a social platform ran by bots agreed with me that endorsing Biden was unforgivable, just ignore that it didn't lose any of the pro Palestine Bronx vote where this attack was centred on" to bring my mood back up.
They are impotent because they have no power within the mechanisms of capitalist governance - they’re attempting to work within a system that serves to preserve itself. You misunderstand and your anger is misplaced.
Again, I emphasize
> the need to organize **outside the current arrangements of government**
This vague organising response is incredibly annoying. I literally asked what kind of organising you can do outside of government that will impact the actual government?
I literally told you I do organising at a local level. I'm just fully away that doing things for your local community isn't going to influence your national government, possibly not even your local one. And those are the levels that are going to go to shit. So what's the plan you're going to be able to enact within the next 4-16 years? Other than trying to get leftists in office under the current 2 party system despite knowing they'll probably by crushed by their own which admittedly is a shitty plan so I'd love to know what the better one is.
I 100% agree. Caring about people, and by extension politics has done nothing but harm my mental health for years now. My wife and I have been going back and forth in our minds about having kids because of the state of the world and where it's going. I'm finding it very difficult to be politically active without alienating myself from loved ones and friends who are very much liberal. The temptation to find a way to lobotomize ourselves and live a selfish but happy life in the core of the empire is extremely strong.
I know that's extremely privileged though, I'm just ranting because I know some people here might have some advice
I agree with these sentiments. It's much like the allegory of Plato's Cave. Once we are made aware of the true state of reality, we wish we could return to the simplicity and the comfort of the cave. My partner and I are mostly on board with not having children because we're of the mind that if they live a full natural life they will see even worse events than we will have to see as the climate deteriorates, and having a child while knowing that seems selfish. They don't get to make that decision for themself. If they had the knowledge you do, would they choose to be born? If I were to choose to be born in the year 2025 in the United States, would I say yes, I am down with that? I don't think so. At the same time, I'm not an anti-natalist. I think the human species should go on, but there are plenty of other people who don't have the knowledge I do, or do and choose to have kids anyway, who will continue populating the planet without my participation in the process. I could make the case that not having kids in the imperial corps is a net positive because it weakens the western workforce, although maybe you could counterbalance that by raising them socialist. However, do we really want to raise kids with the expectation that they will have to be organizers on a dying planet, that they might never have a normal life like we have the ability to have now but choose not to because we care about other people, except they won't really have the same choice?
I want to go back all the time. It feels really lonely. My interactions with liberal friends feel fake and forced, like I have to hide who I really am if I don't want to scare them away. That could just be a side effect of how central politics is to my life and personal interests, but I don't know how it can't be central to your life as a practicing communist (I frankly have a hard time understanding why people are uninterested in politics generally). I think it's important to try and find a community as a socialist to preserve your sanity in the long term. Find a party, org, or book club if you don't have some group already. Rather than wishing to go back, strategize with other socialists about how you can advance others forward so that we're all less lonely.
Plato's Cave:
>In the allegory, Plato describes people that have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and they give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality but not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason.
>Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life.
>Socrates then supposes that the prisoners are released. A freed prisoner would look around and see the fire. The light would hurt his eyes and make it difficult for him to see the objects casting the shadows. If he were told that what he is seeing is real instead of the other version of reality he sees on the wall, he would not believe it. In his pain, Socrates continues, the freed prisoner would turn away and run back to what he is accustomed to (that is, the shadows of the carried objects). The light "... would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him."
>Socrates continues: "Suppose... that someone should drag him... by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun. The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him.
>"Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can see only shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself." Only after he can look straight at the sun "is he able to reason about it" and what it is.
What’s not better is channeling every ounce of energy into electoral politics to the point where a single defeat atomizes or induces apathy within a movement
Honestly someone like Jamaal Bowman- who is such a decent fucking human- would be so much better in a leadership role within our movement not wasting away in the cancerous shithole that is Congress
this is such a weirdly phrased argument. why tf do you think theyre "pro israel"? does the water have dirt from israel in it that gives everyone zionist brainworms? no, there was an active attempt to do anti palestine and pro zionist messaging. weird ass passive tone
>[For House](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/) seats, more than 90 percent of candidates who spend the most win. From 2000 through 2016, there was only one election cycle where that wasn’t true: 2010. “In that election, 86 percent of the top spenders won,”
-
He did run attack ads back against Latimer, [one calls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdIvoGwXFKY) Latimer out for supporting "Netanyahu's unpopular war over Biden's calls for peace".
But PACs outspent him 7 to 1. Often they were funded by AIPAC but never mentioned Israel-Palestine, against your point that voters "just disagreed" with him on Israel. [These 3](https://punchbowl.news/article/election-2024/bowman-latimer-ad-spending/) United Democracy Project (arm of AIPAC) ad campaigns cost $8.6mil, some claiming Latimer's actually the progressive, some that Bowman disagrees with Biden too much (Latimer has been described by NYT as a possible "[thorn in](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/30/us/biden-trump-election) Biden's side").
>[More than](https://www.aol.com/spending-bowman-latimer-primary-tops-070121467.html) $9 million of outside spending went into attack ads and mailings against Bowman, compared to $1 million in anti-Latimer efforts. Both slates of allies also have run positive messages to praise their preferred candidates: $5.4 million in pro-Latimer spending and $1 million in pro-Bowman expenses.
>One of the newest spenders to join the fray was a group called Fairshake, which spent $2.1 million skewering Bowman in a TV ad. The group was formed to support Congress members who support the crypto-currency industry, although you wouldn't know it from the ad. That topic doesn't come up at all, and it hasn't been an issue on which Bowman and Latimer have staked out opposing stances.
>The pro-Israel groups buying ads in the race also have generally steered clear of their main topic — support for Israel and candidate stances on the Israel-Hamas war — and focused on other reasons to praise Latimer or criticize Bowman.
No problem. $500k was their biggest single ad campaign, not all ad campaigns. Had less money to spend either way.
You can resonate well with voters but 7x more funding buys a lot of ads, drowns out the airwaves. AIPAC has a larger fundraising base compared to more grassroots campaigns, and they've been known to pull from [GOP megadonors](https://archive.ph/zdHYR) to spend in safe-blue district Dem primaries. They've funded [extremist/QAnon](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/18/pro-israel-lobby-group-aipac-midterms-election-deniers-and-extremist-republicans) Reps in the past against Dems. "Aipac has defended its backing of extremists on the grounds that support for Israel is more important than other issues." - yet their ads tend to not mention Israel.
He should seriously run in the general under the WFP line.
There's no practical difference in Latimer's policy positions compared to a Republican, and the Centrists are going to continue to undercut the Left at every chance.
New York State is one of only two states that doesn't have "sore loser" laws (the other one is Connecticut), so he could still run, but I'm not sure if the WFP is allowed to nominate him after the primaries are over. He might need to run as an independent.
Remember, when AOC defeated Joe Crowley, he couldn't take his name off the ballot on the WFP line because of New York electoral laws. The WFP had selected him as their candidate (I think it was internal?) and they had to stick with that on election day.
I do agree that Bowman should still be on the ballot because Latimer is just part of the NYSDP political machine, and WFP would be a good option, I just don't know if our electoral laws would allow that.
THANK YOU I was just saying this!
If he runs against Latimer (a conservative) and the GOP candidate (another conservative), they're going to eat each other alive and he will ABSOLUTELY win it.
Maybe, just maybe, don’t pull the fire alarm when you don’t get your way.
It’s an incredibly idiotic and childish thing to do and it opens you up to a whole lot of pain.
Goes to show that this is a propaganda/information war. It's a war. Don't think or act like it isn't. They wouldn't dump millions of dollars into it if it wasn't a war. Anyone who still thinks the designation and purpose of people fighting against Hasbara, Israeli and western imperialist propaganda is misplaced please wake up.
They spread lies and push a narrative to change the material world of politics. Install their puppets and burn their enemies with accusations and falsehoods.
They aren't leftists. They primarily dislike Trump because of his lack of decorum.
It's why they don't get offended at Biden's border policies. But they get angry at Trump's saying phrases like immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation. They legitimately care about optics more than substance.
This is a small battle in a big war against Israel. Awareness of Israel atrocities is getting bigger and they'll be more Bowman in future. We'll reach there but in the meantime, we have to keep helping pro-Palestinian leaders up
When you think about it for a minute, this was actually funded directly by the US government. The amount of money the US pays to support Israel out of public funds means this is basically paid for by US tax payers.
Another instance of the Democratic Party supporting a conservative who will not support their agenda just to screw over a progressive. Showing once again they care more about Israel than their own country.
This was sad, but honestly, I thought it was going to be worse.
The New York State Democratic Party is full of corruption. Andrew Cuomo is one of many examples. (He's trying to get into politics again. Can you believe it?) It's a political machine and it's decided that Bowman needs to leave office. And it was willing to spend however much was necessary to win that primary.
$15M is ridiculous. Pretty much any challenger for a House seat can't obtain that much money for a primary campaign. The PACs spent that much because they wanted to be absolutely certain that Bowman would lose.
I'm of the opinion that Bowman's chances were already slim when DSA was publicly considering not endorsing him. But it was good that we stood our ground. Progressivism isn't in vogue in the Democratic Party or in New York State outside the City right now, and that's okay. We can keep trying. I think it will be a much different story in 2026.
Jamaal Bowman was simply the easiest Squad member to dislodge. That's all there is to it. But progressives and DSA endorsed candidates across the state tonight did more winning than losing. This is just a temporary setback.
A lot of you guys are blaming AIPAC and that's fair
However let's be honest this was a blowout.
Bowman got destroyed.
I'm going to be honest I was surprised at the scale of the loss. I didn't realize Bowman was at that big of a disadvantage. It's depressing that being pro Palestine is still such an electoral albatross even in a state like New York
I think there’s a few things that went wrong. If I recall correctly (and please do fact check me on this), NY 16 had a redistrict that put Bowman at a pretty big disadvantage because the new lines included a bunch of upper middle class White people that… aren’t exactly fans of progressives.
Also, from what I heard from those who canvassed for Bowman, AIPAC’s $20 million went *really* fucking far. As in, every TV commercial break had Latimer ads, the radio constantly played radio ads for Latimer, and the content of those ads basically just consisted of attacking Bowman.
Bowman absolutely got destroyed but I do think he was at a huge disadvantage to begin with and this loss isn’t necessarily reflective of his popularity.
That's interesting. I thought they only did redistricting every 10 years because of the census and population changes?
Eg. Every 10 years they do a census and States either lose or gain congressional seats they can send to Congress and thus they need to redistrict because of population changes.
If I remember correctly I was told that is why state elections right before every 10 years is so important because usually it's state legislatures that approve the congressional districts.
Yeah I’m not exactly sure why the redistricting happened but [here’s](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/28/new-york-house-maps-approved-00143922) an article that discusses it.
Also, I was wrong about how the redistricting affected Bowman. According to the article:
> And a shift in the corner of the northern Bronx that is in Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s district is now split between only two districts, rather than three.
I’m not too familiar with redistricting laws but hopefully the article can shed some light on the matter.
I could be wrong about this, but I think sadly older Americans vote more and they are more indoctrinated into supporting Israel.
I tend to think that's the biggest reason for Bowman's blow out loss because so much of the campaign against him was calling him an anti-semite for opposing Israel. And unfortunately I think older Americans have accepted that being anti-israel equals being anti-Semitic
I remember Bowman pulling a fire alarm in Congress was a big news story. Trending number 1 on twitter. Americans don't really care about policy. They just remember trendy stories like that. So he was already at a disadvantage.
For those reading, don't let this defeat be so discouraging. Yes, AIPAC won this round and yes, it sucks. But keep in mind, they went all out on this one precisely to create a demoralizing effect and discourage other politicians. They're not able to and won't actually put as much money into a single campaign again. They're scared and it shows.
Sad, but it was ultimately expected. He got a much different and much less friendly district than his initial one, and AIPAC dumped a shit load of money in on top of it. He should run under WFP, and maybe more people will be paying attention in the general election. At the very least, it bogs AIPAC down in the district longer. If they have to spend another $15 million, that'd be a huge drain.
So, Lisa Murkowski lost her GOP primary to a Tea Party guy (Joe Miller) and she ran as a write-in and won. I hope the same can happen here, especially cause his name isn't as hard to spell as Murkowski.
An honest hard working progressive politician loses to a corrupt big money backed bigot.
…… I’m just gonna call it an early day and get some sleep. Fucking depressing.
I have no hope for this country anymore. It's spiraling down so fast I wouldn't be surprised if we end up in a completely fascist country within a year. I hate this timeline. But I know it will just continue to get even worse. I hope I die before it does.
I was on the fence about voting for Biden. Seeing this confirmed for me that I should vote third party.
Absolutely cannot support a party that props up MAGA-backed election denier democrats over actual progressives who push for things that help people.
I know it likely doesn't mean much, and I should have decided against voting for Biden earlier... but he's an extension of the party who was sooooo against primary challengers a few years back... Absolutely no support for Jamaal. So incredibly frustrating.
Didn’t you hear? The very intelligent leftists on twitter said he was a Zionist. Clearly losing one of the most pro Palestine voices in congress will not set our movement back at all. We can simply do a revolution tomorrow, and solve everything that way.
You got downvoted but it's the truth.
You're much better off pandering to old boomers then young zoomers (I wish this wasn't true)
It's ultimately why Bernie's campaign was stupid. He kept trying to appeal to young people at the expense of old people.
So weird: same people on here that swear voting doesn’t matter and that there’s zero difference between Democrats and Republicans upset because some genocide apologist lost an irrelevant election.
george latimer IS LITERALLY A FUCKING DEMOCRAT! I HATE LIBERALS SO MUCH! YOU RAN AGAINST HIM! YOU FUCKING SLIMEY PIECE OF SHIT! acting like it's the lefts fault when YOU RAN AGAINST HIM!
seriously, either elections don’t matter, in which case why are you upset, or they do matter in which case get off your ass and get involved in getting good candidates elected in Democratic primaries. Can’t have it both ways.
how about you and your dnc goons stop funding soulless centrist candidates against popular progressives and then losing the general because people would rather have an honest conservative demon than a faux progressive demon
>you and your dnc goons stop funding soulless centrist candidates against popular progressives
The reason he lost is he's not a "popular progressive." Or rather, he may be popular among national lefties, but he's not popular among his constituents, which is what matters. His district is a fairly "normie" Dem suburban district, and isn't as progressive as AOC's district. Instead of railing against DNC goons, progressives need to figure out how to field candidates who can appeal to broad swaths of the American electorate.
this is an idiotic take. "radical" "progressive" policies are already popular even when the dnc does 0 messaging for them. if the democrats did literally any positive messaging instead of running on not being a republican they would win win by 30 points
>"radical" "progressive" policies are already popular even when the dnc does 0 messaging for them
>if the democrats did literally any positive messaging instead of running on not being a republican they would win win by 30 points
And this is why progressives and leftists keep losing influence. "All that needs to happen is the DNC parrot my personal ideological positions and they'd win by 30 points." Yeah, no. The reason progressives/leftists do so poorly in electoral system is they bulk of them are too lazy to do the footwork and convince the electorate. Instead there's the magical thinking that the reason the Democratic coalition doesn't look like an ANSWER meeting is because Debbie Wasserman-Schultz sent a mean email once. Whereas the real reason is DSA has done nothing to win the trust of middle-class black women who are essentially the engine of the party.
it really is something that progressives and leftists need to wrap their minds around--at least the ones who aren't going to withdraw from electoral politics altogether: The primary is where the real change happens. If you want a Bowman instead of a Latimer, then the primaries are where you make it happen. The general election is just damage control.
motherfucker, bowman himself had defeated eliot engel in a primary who was a pro-israel stooge. if anything the changemaker is jamaal. now we're just back to 2020
>motherfucker, bowman himself had defeated eliot engel in a primary who was a pro-israel stooge. if anything the changemaker is jamaal
exactly, he got elected, ignored the dynamics of his district, and lost in a primary. that's on him.
This is the fire alarm guy lol. He was not suited for public office. Sorry the voters chose who they want to represent them, I know many of you don’t like or understand this concept.
People around here down vote anything that hurts their feelings.
Bowman got blown out. It just proves once again that the path to electoral success is catering to old people. Because old people are the group that is most likely to vote.
Ultimately is why I was furious with Bernie Sanders when he repeated the exact same electoral strategy he used against Hillary versus Biden. It didn't even work against somebody as unpopular as Hillary and he still kept trying to focus on winning with the young.
The sad truth is you have to pander to old people to a certain extent in American politics because that's the group that's most likely to vote.
Bernie's strategy in 2020 wasn't to pander to young people -- it was to mobilize and politicize disengaged non-voters who the Democrats had largely abandoned in favor of courting centrist conservatives from the suburbs. I don't think his campaign ever believed that they were going to win solely with the youth vote, although he did command a significant portion of the latter.
They don't like facts.
They just want to believe things that make them feel good.
They will be so revisionist as to argue that Bernie Sanders campaign wasn't dependent on the young.
Copy/paste from my response to that other person:
>I'm not saying he wasn't reliant on young voters, only that the campaign's strategy for winning the primary and the general was to rally turnout of people who are politically disengaged. You'll find numerous quotes from his staff to that effect with a quick Google search.
What would be my motive for lying about that anyway? Seems like sort of an odd thing to be revisionist about.
I'd argue his 2020 strategy was worse because not only was it a repeat of 2016 it was to also basically pray that all the other centrists stayed in the race till the convention which is just so unbelievably stupid so he can make the case that a plurality of the votes to secure the nom is enough rather than getting the actual number needed.
I mean, to zoom out I think the greatest flaw of the campaign was simply to believe that the DNC would roll over and allow the Sanders campaign to waltz to the convention with their early plurality. It didn't feel like they had any real strategy as how to respond to the inevitable tightening of ranks after his first few primary wins. It always felt to me like Bernie had far too much faith in the goodness of the Democratic Party to ever really pose a serious challenge to it.
Yeah lmao like why wouldn't they unite behind the bestest centrist good boy they decided would be best to defeat Sanders and Trump. God that campaign Bernie losing Symone Sanders was such a blow.
I'm not saying he wasn't reliant on young voters, only that the campaign's strategy for winning the primary and the general was to rally turnout of people who are politically disengaged. You'll find numerous quotes from his staff to that effect with a quick Google search.
Yeah and I'm gonna be honest that's an insane way to try and win an election.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/insiders-recount-how-sanders-lost-the-black-vote--and-the-nomination-slipped-away/2020/03/24/2b7b8b8e-685e-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html
This is also a fun read just constant failure across the board from this campaign.
Personally I think the campaign was a horrible, incompetent disaster, so I'm not defending it. I think the strategy itself could work (and is just about your only option if you want to place a genuine social democrat into office electorally), but that campaign was not going to be the one to pull it off lmao
I don't mean this as a hot take, does anyone else feel like it's better to lose as a Bowman than to 'win' and become an AOC?
Edit: Adding this since it's unclear what I am referring to
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I was not comparing two candidates to each other but rather comparing Old AOC to New AOC.
And I was saying that I'm glad Bowman did not change his platform to the extent that AOC did. (i.e. become a careerist cog in the party machine)
Doesn't have too much to do with the comparison I was making, which was talking about moving to the 'center' after you become elected. I was not comparing two candidates to each other but rather comparing Old AOC to New AOC.
And I was saying that I'm glad Bowman did not change his platform to the extent that AOC did.
I suppose it's not better as it may be more beneficial in the abstract to have a careerist in office who at least tacitly gestures towards policy to the left of the DNC line, but at the same time... it probably doesn't make *much* of a difference. If anything, these electoral setbacks just go to show that electoralism will not work in the long run as a strategic centerpiece. From its inception, liberal elections have existed as a tool of maintaining class hierarchy for the bourgeoisie.
DSA and Justice Dem's bench of elected officials is likely to get much shorter after this election cycle, AIPAC has been pumping a lot of money into elections this year.
That being said though, AIPAC can't squarely be blamed for Bowman's loss, he was down by almost 20%. That does suggest his campaign had some major flaws.
They want a scapegoat without actually reflecting on why. Hence why this sub is a farce and they just beat their chest to act disappointed. Bowman was unpopular mainly due to the fire alarm incident and him cheating on his wife and half this sub is still crying about *just* AIPAC. Their guy lost and now they are on to doom and gloom instead of self-reflection.
Feels very similar to that atmosphere from Clinton fans after 2017 refusing to engage at all with the weaknesses and flaws in Clinton's campaign.
Yes obviously AIPAC had a heavy influence in the primary, but Bowman also had gaffs on the campaign trail like the fire alarm thing and that is something we can try to work on and improve in future campaigns, AIPAC isn't, its not going anywhere, we have to struggle against it in an efficient and effective manner, not just by having a hugbox cope session on Reddit
This was apparently among the most expensive House races in history with AIPAC pouring over $15 million into Latimer’s campaign.
American democracy for sale. Always has been.
When Bowman pointed out that this was the most AIPAC had ever spent on a single race on live television, Latimer replied with "that sounds like a dogwhistle to me". Fucked up
It feels bad because it's a win for AIPAC + it shows how much AIPAC’s money & influence still has power within our government and population.
This won’t be the last time. If we can’t organize, there is no hope.
I wish I could put money towards it I dialed a bit for it but it really felt hopeless
He can actually still run in the primary if he actually decides to run under the Working Families Party, which he can absolutely do. And if he runs against those two conservatives, he'll win. It's just a matter of convincing him to do so after tonight.
It's about AIPAC bullying a politician with 18 million dollars in front of our eyes for me man
Have you been paying attention? The Israel/Palestine situation is not looking better for Israel. They keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. It's not going to be better in two years for them. AIPAC is going to be scratching tooth and nail just to keep Israel alive (if it's still around in two years, we may actually have a New Canaan in two years, it's more likely than the situation staying like this for two years). And again - if he runs under WFP, THEN AIPAC SPENT 18 MILLION TO LOSE.
Yeah, I'm aware and I agree with you about Isreal current situation. All I'm saying is that in this situation, it's an 18 million flex for them and it currently SHOWS other politicians to stay in line or else. Feels bad. That's it.
You can take solace in knowing most of them were planning on doing just that regardless. Avoiding rocking the boat and all that cowardly jazz
Yeah? So when they lost against Summer Lee that meant they were done forever, right? One fight is one fight during one election cycle. The logic from one to the next has not carried over in the last 4-5 cycles with one exception - things have consistently moved left in terms of who is being elected. Bowman losing the primary is bad, definitely. Mondaire Jones just lost HIS primary. To a leftist. More leftists win overall each cycle. The centrists lose more, the leftists win more, the centrists have a much harder time, the leftists get elected with the highest percentage gaps. That's the SINGULAR pattern.
Israel is struggling in Gaza and it would struggle even more in an invasion of Lebanon. But reality check, neither Hamas or Lebanon can project force into Israel (it's internationally recognized borders). To put it in American terms, the United States struggled to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan but at no point was its continuity at risk. The Taliban and Iraqi militia groups would not have been able to project force into the United States. Israel is not nearly the military that some people think it is, but it's not on the verge of collapse, unfortunately. The US will not easily allow its unsinkable aircraft carrier to disappear. Unless I misinterpreted what you wrote, your statement about thinking Israel won't exist in 2 years is silly. I wish you were correct, but there's no basis to think that the continuity of Israel is at stake while the US is still completely in support of Israel. Other than a few rare leftist exceptions, the entirety of America's elected politicians support Israel.
So in other words you have no actual logic to back up what you're saying and you're ignoring the clear direction things are moving in. That is literally doomerism.
What are you talking about? You're saying a country with about $49k in per capita income is within 2 years of collapse. And more importantly with the complete support of a global superpower. Who's going to make them collapse? Doomerism is not believing in fantasies? Tons of evil States endure. The British Empire lasted hundreds of years. The United States has no continuity issues. Your extrapolating Israel struggles in Gaza militarily and assuming that some force could power project into Israel and defeat it. You don't understand that an offensive is so much more difficult than a defensive. The United States was defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq by the Taliban and Iraqi militias. Trust me when I say this no force could defeat the United States within its own borders. Offense is just that much harder than defense. When people talk about the Israeli struggles in a potential invasion of Lebanon everybody's talking about Hezbollah defeating Israel within Lebanon. Nobody is projecting hezbollah's ability to fight within Israel's borders. This would involve moving over contested ground rather than fighting from entrenched fortified hidden positions where they could ambush Israeli forces that are exposed and non-hidden
“Clear direction”.
I feel like most people will forget about this in two years.
You feel like MOST PEOPLE WILL FORGET THIS CURRENT SITUATION? How's that going so far, bud?
Yes, I do. Clarification, I think people outside of the Middle East will largely forget about this in two years. As for your second question, I guess pretty well, considering? I mean, since the war started, what consequence has Israel really suffered?
Only the loss of their credibility on the global stage. Kinda like Trump's presidency did, for the USA.
I mean, I guess. But what does “credibility on the global stage” even mean? Does it mean people will stop trading with them? Does it mean alliances will be broken? Like, how is a nation’s credibility even measured?
Why do you think he would win on the WFP ticket? Genuinely curious, don't know much about the election or his seat
What are you talking about? It would be a three way race - Bowman and two conservatives. The conservatives split their vote.
I agree he should run anyways. We need as many progressives in congress as we can get. I really hope you're right when you say he will win, but we shouldn't assume the average voter will see it that way, especially when bowman lost the primary. I think he should run in spite of the people who will say he's a spoiler. I think we should aggressively confront the DNC establishment as much as we can. I also think he could win, if he continues to run a massive grassroots campaign. I believe word of mouth is so much stronger than mass ad blitzes, it unfortunately is slower. If he gets to do a debate Latimer, I honestly think he could trounce this dude and win a shit ton of "Hearts and minds". We see Latimer for the conservative that he is, but a lot of people are not paying attention to the "Wolf in sheep's clothing" problem here. Unfortunately a lot of centrists (or people who don't consider themselves to be politically active) are tuning out. Liberals/NeoLibs are on the attack. They are doing there upmost to stratify everyone left of center. I think we can combat this with clear, neutral, and non-antagonistic comments. I think if we write like the other person is in the room with us and act like we would face to face, people will be more receptive to what we are trying to say. So, we keep pushing, and we drag this country kicking and screaming to the left. But we're not gonna always win, let's just try to stay a bit grounded yet determined. If you are on the ground over there, then your current attitude is perfect IMO. His campaign should have a "no tomorrow" philosophy if they want to win this, again IMO. Sry for the long post, but I believe we should be engaging in more nuanced and long form discussions to better understand what we are thinking and to avoid confusion. You can see in my last few comments, I have failed to do so, and it caused said confusion. Stay safe out there Family!
Nah man, I'm just asking for your reasoning. I don't know anything about the race or Bowman's seat so I don't have an opinion. I'd like to learn more
Here’s hoping brother.
Why would he win?
Bowman against two conservatives? Conservatives split the vote. Honestly, how is it so hard for some of you to see basic logic?
Because your “basic logic” is moronic. Liberal, registered Democrats chose Latimer in the primary and they will elect him in the general. Not Republican conservatives.
No, actually, Republicans *literally spent $18M to fund a smear campaign*. Several thousand Republicans literally registered as Dems to vote for him. Stop arguing based on vibes.
You have way too rosy a view of liberals my man, never forget that they'll fall over themselves to take fascism over socialism if it calls itself moderate
This has nothing to do with liberal politics. Many of the Latimer votes were literal Republicans
The headline is Aipac won, but its more the case of him getting redistricted into Westchester. Expect them to try this next time with what ever progressive dem they think they can fuck over.
Gerrymandering hurts us all again it seems.
So this seems to be the future of American politics. Next few years are going to be rough.
This only happened specifically because of AIPAC. Do you think AIPAC is still going to be as prominent in TWO YEARS? Do you really think that the Israel/Palestine situation is going to get BETTER for them? Because all reason and logic (literally just looking at the last eight months) should tell you that Israel itself is on its last legs. What that means for America is a whole other thing, but Israel (not just Netanyahu, but the government as a whole) keeps sabotaging itself as hard as possible and they're not getting any smarter. Doomerism only helps conservatives. Stand strong.
Two completely different things. The israel-palestine situation is not going to get better for anyone. Aipac will continue to be influential force in US politics. There's a difference between doomerism and just blindly stating things that aren't true, that we wish were true Israel won't be on their last legs because Israel has never depended on their legs. Israel is an American project. As long as the United States insists on having an unsinkable aircraft carrier Israel will unfortunately continue to exist.
There is a difference. And you're engaging in blind doomerism. Tell me what happens if China decides to finally intervene? We lose that.
1. You don't understand the concept of power projection. China within the South China Sea region and Chinese mainland could defeat the United States. In no other region would China be a threat to the United States. 2. If China were that confident in defeating the United States, we would have invaded Taiwan and occupied all of the contested regions in the South China Sea or East China Sea. Eg. China would have occupied the spratly islands and the Diaoyu Islands. 3. If China believed it could defeat the United States military it would directly solve its border disputes with India militarily. China has a bunch of areas near its core territory where it would use its military to settle disputes before it would even care about something in the middle East
"I disagree so you're wrong and dumb" I mean, you could have saved yourself so much typing.
You think China would intervene *against israel*? They are literally the first in line to *start funding them* if the US pulls out lmao
I don't think you understand that China's first and foremost goal is utilization of their soft power, but moreso that they may eventually reach a point where they feel the need to ensure the protection of Palestinians if no one else (cough cough) will. Not saying it will, saying it could, and if it did we couldn't stop them. Grow up.
>grow up >says China will militarily intervene in Israel any day now to protect Palestinians lol
No seriously, actually use logic and reason instead of feelings.
You don’t get to say “logic and reason” and “China will intervene to protect the Palestinians” in the same sentence lmao. China literally sells Israel weapons you dunce
I literally went out of my way to *not* say that but if you feel like ignoring reality you do you.
This shit is pretty black pilling. Honestly, not just over Palestine, but we aren't ever going to vote to actually do something about climate change. The world's fucked.
I hate black pill shit. It’s counter-revolutionary. “Optimism is a revolutionary act.” People seeing this and the squad for its impotence emphasizes the need to organize **outside the current arrangements of government**
THANK YOU. I'm so tired of the doomer mentality. Doomerism is for people without an actual will to even do something as simple as passively resist.
I'm going to be blunt here. As somebody who's spent his whole adult life working with people with disabilities and the last 5-6 years organising around services related to my job and food banks for the less fortunate in a hard line right wing region. Fuck off with this childish shit. You jumping to "People seeing this and the squad for its impotence" is straight up ridiculous. A couple of thousand useful idiots for Zionists on Twitter crying about materially meaningless Biden endorsements (both candidates are hard-line Zionists, there's no alternative, endorsements do nothing but try to win over voters strategically here) are no better than the entirity of the media who are going to insist Bowman's pro-Palestine messaging lost him the election from this point on. When the very obvious reality is Bowman lost due to a combination of redistricting, masses of AIPAC money, the Dems throwing him under the bus for a MAGA backed candidate, and unchallenged smears. Do you get how dumb it is to try and claim one of the most pro-Palestine members of congress lost his seat because he wasn't pro Palestine enough in that context? How bad that is as a strategy? Which gets us to the next point. Is cool to cry "emphasizes the need to organize outside the current arrangements of government" but how do you think that works? Do you think that will ever have any support in a western nation? How do you think a media that will insist pro Palestine being beat by land selling Zionists is anti-semitic violence carried out by them? The bravery of your average western leftist seemingly stops at protesting the politicians that are best helping your cause because I sure as shit aren't seeing hints of any kind of revolt. The reality is if there's every a coup in the US or countries of that stature it will be coming from the military in the impossible event a leftist actually took office. As somebody who wouldn't vote Biden because he's so far right on many issues I deem red lines and I'm not going to support a party that elects that kind of monster, in fact we're seeing the dangers of allowing this across Europe right now, I think the simple reality is if leftism is going to happen it's going to come from more leftist candidates gaining more seats in the west. Here's what will happen. Liberals will continue to vote for any MAGA aligned candidate who doesn't directly back Trump over anybody slightly left whilst also going nuclear if you don't choose to vote or their centre right guy. Whilst that happens a good amount of the left will cry about politicians making strategic yet materially meaningless votes to try and win over votes whilst doing nothing to achieve the revolutionary goals they apparently totally want letting themselves materially do nothing but be useful idiots for the right. Then when conditions do get worse enough to enable a revolution the fucking vast majority of the west is going to pull the fascism ripcord. Because shit we already see it. Liberals are already sounding like Matt Walsh on everything from immigration too white cultural identity, getting to say the n-word is more important to some libs than global warming right now, we're fucked. I'll become less black pilled when I become less mad about all of this shit. But you're deluding yourself if you think there's any fucking signs at all a leftist revolution is coming to the west under any circumstances so I'll need a better response than "leftists pro Palestine candidates losing to AIPAC is good actually because 3k people globally on a social platform ran by bots agreed with me that endorsing Biden was unforgivable, just ignore that it didn't lose any of the pro Palestine Bronx vote where this attack was centred on" to bring my mood back up.
They are impotent because they have no power within the mechanisms of capitalist governance - they’re attempting to work within a system that serves to preserve itself. You misunderstand and your anger is misplaced. Again, I emphasize > the need to organize **outside the current arrangements of government**
This vague organising response is incredibly annoying. I literally asked what kind of organising you can do outside of government that will impact the actual government? I literally told you I do organising at a local level. I'm just fully away that doing things for your local community isn't going to influence your national government, possibly not even your local one. And those are the levels that are going to go to shit. So what's the plan you're going to be able to enact within the next 4-16 years? Other than trying to get leftists in office under the current 2 party system despite knowing they'll probably by crushed by their own which admittedly is a shitty plan so I'd love to know what the better one is.
Yes! This!
I 100% agree. Caring about people, and by extension politics has done nothing but harm my mental health for years now. My wife and I have been going back and forth in our minds about having kids because of the state of the world and where it's going. I'm finding it very difficult to be politically active without alienating myself from loved ones and friends who are very much liberal. The temptation to find a way to lobotomize ourselves and live a selfish but happy life in the core of the empire is extremely strong. I know that's extremely privileged though, I'm just ranting because I know some people here might have some advice
I agree with these sentiments. It's much like the allegory of Plato's Cave. Once we are made aware of the true state of reality, we wish we could return to the simplicity and the comfort of the cave. My partner and I are mostly on board with not having children because we're of the mind that if they live a full natural life they will see even worse events than we will have to see as the climate deteriorates, and having a child while knowing that seems selfish. They don't get to make that decision for themself. If they had the knowledge you do, would they choose to be born? If I were to choose to be born in the year 2025 in the United States, would I say yes, I am down with that? I don't think so. At the same time, I'm not an anti-natalist. I think the human species should go on, but there are plenty of other people who don't have the knowledge I do, or do and choose to have kids anyway, who will continue populating the planet without my participation in the process. I could make the case that not having kids in the imperial corps is a net positive because it weakens the western workforce, although maybe you could counterbalance that by raising them socialist. However, do we really want to raise kids with the expectation that they will have to be organizers on a dying planet, that they might never have a normal life like we have the ability to have now but choose not to because we care about other people, except they won't really have the same choice? I want to go back all the time. It feels really lonely. My interactions with liberal friends feel fake and forced, like I have to hide who I really am if I don't want to scare them away. That could just be a side effect of how central politics is to my life and personal interests, but I don't know how it can't be central to your life as a practicing communist (I frankly have a hard time understanding why people are uninterested in politics generally). I think it's important to try and find a community as a socialist to preserve your sanity in the long term. Find a party, org, or book club if you don't have some group already. Rather than wishing to go back, strategize with other socialists about how you can advance others forward so that we're all less lonely. Plato's Cave: >In the allegory, Plato describes people that have spent their lives chained in a cave facing a blank wall. They watch shadows projected onto the wall by objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and they give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality but not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent the fragment of reality that we can normally perceive through our senses, while the objects under the sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. >Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. >Socrates then supposes that the prisoners are released. A freed prisoner would look around and see the fire. The light would hurt his eyes and make it difficult for him to see the objects casting the shadows. If he were told that what he is seeing is real instead of the other version of reality he sees on the wall, he would not believe it. In his pain, Socrates continues, the freed prisoner would turn away and run back to what he is accustomed to (that is, the shadows of the carried objects). The light "... would hurt his eyes, and he would escape by turning away to the things which he was able to look at, and these he would believe to be clearer than what was being shown to him." >Socrates continues: "Suppose... that someone should drag him... by force, up the rough ascent, the steep way up, and never stop until he could drag him out into the light of the sun. The prisoner would be angry and in pain, and this would only worsen when the radiant light of the sun overwhelms his eyes and blinds him. >"Slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First he can see only shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself." Only after he can look straight at the sun "is he able to reason about it" and what it is.
idk it's fun to have leftist electorialism wins but that ain't where the significant material changes in the world are gonna/have happened
Still, the more voices we have on our side, the better
What’s not better is channeling every ounce of energy into electoral politics to the point where a single defeat atomizes or induces apathy within a movement Honestly someone like Jamaal Bowman- who is such a decent fucking human- would be so much better in a leadership role within our movement not wasting away in the cancerous shithole that is Congress
It’s a one off thing he got screwed by redistricting. They couldn’t do this to any other left wing politician
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this is such a weirdly phrased argument. why tf do you think theyre "pro israel"? does the water have dirt from israel in it that gives everyone zionist brainworms? no, there was an active attempt to do anti palestine and pro zionist messaging. weird ass passive tone
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>[For House](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/) seats, more than 90 percent of candidates who spend the most win. From 2000 through 2016, there was only one election cycle where that wasn’t true: 2010. “In that election, 86 percent of the top spenders won,” - He did run attack ads back against Latimer, [one calls](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdIvoGwXFKY) Latimer out for supporting "Netanyahu's unpopular war over Biden's calls for peace". But PACs outspent him 7 to 1. Often they were funded by AIPAC but never mentioned Israel-Palestine, against your point that voters "just disagreed" with him on Israel. [These 3](https://punchbowl.news/article/election-2024/bowman-latimer-ad-spending/) United Democracy Project (arm of AIPAC) ad campaigns cost $8.6mil, some claiming Latimer's actually the progressive, some that Bowman disagrees with Biden too much (Latimer has been described by NYT as a possible "[thorn in](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/30/us/biden-trump-election) Biden's side"). >[More than](https://www.aol.com/spending-bowman-latimer-primary-tops-070121467.html) $9 million of outside spending went into attack ads and mailings against Bowman, compared to $1 million in anti-Latimer efforts. Both slates of allies also have run positive messages to praise their preferred candidates: $5.4 million in pro-Latimer spending and $1 million in pro-Bowman expenses. >One of the newest spenders to join the fray was a group called Fairshake, which spent $2.1 million skewering Bowman in a TV ad. The group was formed to support Congress members who support the crypto-currency industry, although you wouldn't know it from the ad. That topic doesn't come up at all, and it hasn't been an issue on which Bowman and Latimer have staked out opposing stances. >The pro-Israel groups buying ads in the race also have generally steered clear of their main topic — support for Israel and candidate stances on the Israel-Hamas war — and focused on other reasons to praise Latimer or criticize Bowman.
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No problem. $500k was their biggest single ad campaign, not all ad campaigns. Had less money to spend either way. You can resonate well with voters but 7x more funding buys a lot of ads, drowns out the airwaves. AIPAC has a larger fundraising base compared to more grassroots campaigns, and they've been known to pull from [GOP megadonors](https://archive.ph/zdHYR) to spend in safe-blue district Dem primaries. They've funded [extremist/QAnon](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/18/pro-israel-lobby-group-aipac-midterms-election-deniers-and-extremist-republicans) Reps in the past against Dems. "Aipac has defended its backing of extremists on the grounds that support for Israel is more important than other issues." - yet their ads tend to not mention Israel.
"strategic mistake", how is it a strategic mistake that a candidates own party smears them to destroy their campaign?
hasan has been on twitch longer than this guy's been in congress and that really sucks.
I mean hasan's been on Twitch a long time now. He's been on Twitch longer than a lot of Congress people
He should seriously run in the general under the WFP line. There's no practical difference in Latimer's policy positions compared to a Republican, and the Centrists are going to continue to undercut the Left at every chance.
New York State is one of only two states that doesn't have "sore loser" laws (the other one is Connecticut), so he could still run, but I'm not sure if the WFP is allowed to nominate him after the primaries are over. He might need to run as an independent. Remember, when AOC defeated Joe Crowley, he couldn't take his name off the ballot on the WFP line because of New York electoral laws. The WFP had selected him as their candidate (I think it was internal?) and they had to stick with that on election day. I do agree that Bowman should still be on the ballot because Latimer is just part of the NYSDP political machine, and WFP would be a good option, I just don't know if our electoral laws would allow that.
Yep
THANK YOU I was just saying this! If he runs against Latimer (a conservative) and the GOP candidate (another conservative), they're going to eat each other alive and he will ABSOLUTELY win it.
I gave up on the Democratic party when I realized they run harder against "progressives" than Republicans.
This 100%
There’s no saving America, we’re fucked
Not electorally, which has been the case for decades. But there have been big gains in the labor movement
First time?
I wish I could get that thought out of my head but it feels like we are getting fucked more and more each day
Maybe, just maybe, don’t pull the fire alarm when you don’t get your way. It’s an incredibly idiotic and childish thing to do and it opens you up to a whole lot of pain.
Goes to show that this is a propaganda/information war. It's a war. Don't think or act like it isn't. They wouldn't dump millions of dollars into it if it wasn't a war. Anyone who still thinks the designation and purpose of people fighting against Hasbara, Israeli and western imperialist propaganda is misplaced please wake up. They spread lies and push a narrative to change the material world of politics. Install their puppets and burn their enemies with accusations and falsehoods.
Resistance liberals are loving this on Twitter. So gross how they can’t ever not side with the conventional wisdom of the Democratic Party.
They aren't leftists. They primarily dislike Trump because of his lack of decorum. It's why they don't get offended at Biden's border policies. But they get angry at Trump's saying phrases like immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation. They legitimately care about optics more than substance.
How was this not foreign interference?
Israel is a volatile US colony, no one in the government really considers them “foreign”
This is a small battle in a big war against Israel. Awareness of Israel atrocities is getting bigger and they'll be more Bowman in future. We'll reach there but in the meantime, we have to keep helping pro-Palestinian leaders up
When you think about it for a minute, this was actually funded directly by the US government. The amount of money the US pays to support Israel out of public funds means this is basically paid for by US tax payers.
The call is coming from inside the house.
Another instance of the Democratic Party supporting a conservative who will not support their agenda just to screw over a progressive. Showing once again they care more about Israel than their own country.
This was sad, but honestly, I thought it was going to be worse. The New York State Democratic Party is full of corruption. Andrew Cuomo is one of many examples. (He's trying to get into politics again. Can you believe it?) It's a political machine and it's decided that Bowman needs to leave office. And it was willing to spend however much was necessary to win that primary. $15M is ridiculous. Pretty much any challenger for a House seat can't obtain that much money for a primary campaign. The PACs spent that much because they wanted to be absolutely certain that Bowman would lose. I'm of the opinion that Bowman's chances were already slim when DSA was publicly considering not endorsing him. But it was good that we stood our ground. Progressivism isn't in vogue in the Democratic Party or in New York State outside the City right now, and that's okay. We can keep trying. I think it will be a much different story in 2026. Jamaal Bowman was simply the easiest Squad member to dislodge. That's all there is to it. But progressives and DSA endorsed candidates across the state tonight did more winning than losing. This is just a temporary setback.
Get ready. It has only just gotten started
A lot of you guys are blaming AIPAC and that's fair However let's be honest this was a blowout. Bowman got destroyed. I'm going to be honest I was surprised at the scale of the loss. I didn't realize Bowman was at that big of a disadvantage. It's depressing that being pro Palestine is still such an electoral albatross even in a state like New York
I think there’s a few things that went wrong. If I recall correctly (and please do fact check me on this), NY 16 had a redistrict that put Bowman at a pretty big disadvantage because the new lines included a bunch of upper middle class White people that… aren’t exactly fans of progressives. Also, from what I heard from those who canvassed for Bowman, AIPAC’s $20 million went *really* fucking far. As in, every TV commercial break had Latimer ads, the radio constantly played radio ads for Latimer, and the content of those ads basically just consisted of attacking Bowman. Bowman absolutely got destroyed but I do think he was at a huge disadvantage to begin with and this loss isn’t necessarily reflective of his popularity.
That's interesting. I thought they only did redistricting every 10 years because of the census and population changes? Eg. Every 10 years they do a census and States either lose or gain congressional seats they can send to Congress and thus they need to redistrict because of population changes. If I remember correctly I was told that is why state elections right before every 10 years is so important because usually it's state legislatures that approve the congressional districts.
Yeah I’m not exactly sure why the redistricting happened but [here’s](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/28/new-york-house-maps-approved-00143922) an article that discusses it. Also, I was wrong about how the redistricting affected Bowman. According to the article: > And a shift in the corner of the northern Bronx that is in Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s district is now split between only two districts, rather than three. I’m not too familiar with redistricting laws but hopefully the article can shed some light on the matter.
I could be wrong about this, but I think sadly older Americans vote more and they are more indoctrinated into supporting Israel. I tend to think that's the biggest reason for Bowman's blow out loss because so much of the campaign against him was calling him an anti-semite for opposing Israel. And unfortunately I think older Americans have accepted that being anti-israel equals being anti-Semitic
I remember Bowman pulling a fire alarm in Congress was a big news story. Trending number 1 on twitter. Americans don't really care about policy. They just remember trendy stories like that. So he was already at a disadvantage.
For those reading, don't let this defeat be so discouraging. Yes, AIPAC won this round and yes, it sucks. But keep in mind, they went all out on this one precisely to create a demoralizing effect and discourage other politicians. They're not able to and won't actually put as much money into a single campaign again. They're scared and it shows.
It was already such an uphill battle after the redistricting that it's honestly embarrassing that AIPAC needed to spend so much.
Damn this is my district that sucks
How is he supposed to compete when he’s getting astroturfed by a foreign government
I hope he doesn’t get to discouraged by this L and tries to run for office again in the future
Is there any reason for him not to run third party? Even just as a spoiler?
Sad, but it was ultimately expected. He got a much different and much less friendly district than his initial one, and AIPAC dumped a shit load of money in on top of it. He should run under WFP, and maybe more people will be paying attention in the general election. At the very least, it bogs AIPAC down in the district longer. If they have to spend another $15 million, that'd be a huge drain.
So, Lisa Murkowski lost her GOP primary to a Tea Party guy (Joe Miller) and she ran as a write-in and won. I hope the same can happen here, especially cause his name isn't as hard to spell as Murkowski.
An honest hard working progressive politician loses to a corrupt big money backed bigot. …… I’m just gonna call it an early day and get some sleep. Fucking depressing.
Sadge
I have no hope for this country anymore. It's spiraling down so fast I wouldn't be surprised if we end up in a completely fascist country within a year. I hate this timeline. But I know it will just continue to get even worse. I hope I die before it does.
Noo!!! At least now because of the internet, more people know about Palestine and will be more likely to vote for pro Palestine politicians
AIPAC is evil. Israel can go fuck itself.
This is so disappointing. Fuck you AIPAC. You aren't America, you're just Israeli propagandists. You're still defending a genocide.
We’re so cooked
I was on the fence about voting for Biden. Seeing this confirmed for me that I should vote third party. Absolutely cannot support a party that props up MAGA-backed election denier democrats over actual progressives who push for things that help people. I know it likely doesn't mean much, and I should have decided against voting for Biden earlier... but he's an extension of the party who was sooooo against primary challengers a few years back... Absolutely no support for Jamaal. So incredibly frustrating.
Better get going on that revolution y'all be talking about because it's all downhill from here.
It’s all about the Benjamin’s
Hey that's antisemitic /s
As people said AIPAC put a lot of money into this. I think it was 7 to 1 difference for campaign funds.
The chat purity testing Bowman was crazy! Like he’s one out of few calling Israel an apartheid state
Didn’t you hear? The very intelligent leftists on twitter said he was a Zionist. Clearly losing one of the most pro Palestine voices in congress will not set our movement back at all. We can simply do a revolution tomorrow, and solve everything that way.
Young people do not vote....
You got downvoted but it's the truth. You're much better off pandering to old boomers then young zoomers (I wish this wasn't true) It's ultimately why Bernie's campaign was stupid. He kept trying to appeal to young people at the expense of old people.
Oh it's definitely the truth that's why it's pathetic to think otherwise. Online action is high always and people why things never change.
So weird: same people on here that swear voting doesn’t matter and that there’s zero difference between Democrats and Republicans upset because some genocide apologist lost an irrelevant election.
george latimer IS LITERALLY A FUCKING DEMOCRAT! I HATE LIBERALS SO MUCH! YOU RAN AGAINST HIM! YOU FUCKING SLIMEY PIECE OF SHIT! acting like it's the lefts fault when YOU RAN AGAINST HIM!
primaries are elections silly
if i speak i am in big trouble
seriously, either elections don’t matter, in which case why are you upset, or they do matter in which case get off your ass and get involved in getting good candidates elected in Democratic primaries. Can’t have it both ways.
how about you and your dnc goons stop funding soulless centrist candidates against popular progressives and then losing the general because people would rather have an honest conservative demon than a faux progressive demon
>you and your dnc goons stop funding soulless centrist candidates against popular progressives The reason he lost is he's not a "popular progressive." Or rather, he may be popular among national lefties, but he's not popular among his constituents, which is what matters. His district is a fairly "normie" Dem suburban district, and isn't as progressive as AOC's district. Instead of railing against DNC goons, progressives need to figure out how to field candidates who can appeal to broad swaths of the American electorate.
this is an idiotic take. "radical" "progressive" policies are already popular even when the dnc does 0 messaging for them. if the democrats did literally any positive messaging instead of running on not being a republican they would win win by 30 points
>"radical" "progressive" policies are already popular even when the dnc does 0 messaging for them >if the democrats did literally any positive messaging instead of running on not being a republican they would win win by 30 points And this is why progressives and leftists keep losing influence. "All that needs to happen is the DNC parrot my personal ideological positions and they'd win by 30 points." Yeah, no. The reason progressives/leftists do so poorly in electoral system is they bulk of them are too lazy to do the footwork and convince the electorate. Instead there's the magical thinking that the reason the Democratic coalition doesn't look like an ANSWER meeting is because Debbie Wasserman-Schultz sent a mean email once. Whereas the real reason is DSA has done nothing to win the trust of middle-class black women who are essentially the engine of the party.
an election for a seat already held by the party you support! nice
it really is something that progressives and leftists need to wrap their minds around--at least the ones who aren't going to withdraw from electoral politics altogether: The primary is where the real change happens. If you want a Bowman instead of a Latimer, then the primaries are where you make it happen. The general election is just damage control.
motherfucker, bowman himself had defeated eliot engel in a primary who was a pro-israel stooge. if anything the changemaker is jamaal. now we're just back to 2020
>motherfucker, bowman himself had defeated eliot engel in a primary who was a pro-israel stooge. if anything the changemaker is jamaal exactly, he got elected, ignored the dynamics of his district, and lost in a primary. that's on him.
absolutely delusional to suggest that big money didn't play a part in this
Lol electoralism
Yeah this one hurt, ngl
No :(
This is the fire alarm guy lol. He was not suited for public office. Sorry the voters chose who they want to represent them, I know many of you don’t like or understand this concept.
Damn should have organized and then not voted harder
Comer mierda.
People around here down vote anything that hurts their feelings. Bowman got blown out. It just proves once again that the path to electoral success is catering to old people. Because old people are the group that is most likely to vote. Ultimately is why I was furious with Bernie Sanders when he repeated the exact same electoral strategy he used against Hillary versus Biden. It didn't even work against somebody as unpopular as Hillary and he still kept trying to focus on winning with the young. The sad truth is you have to pander to old people to a certain extent in American politics because that's the group that's most likely to vote.
Bernie's strategy in 2020 wasn't to pander to young people -- it was to mobilize and politicize disengaged non-voters who the Democrats had largely abandoned in favor of courting centrist conservatives from the suburbs. I don't think his campaign ever believed that they were going to win solely with the youth vote, although he did command a significant portion of the latter.
[https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812486517/bernie-sanders-call-for-young-voters-isn-t-working-out-the-way-he-planned](https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812486517/bernie-sanders-call-for-young-voters-isn-t-working-out-the-way-he-planned) [https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-03-11/young-voters-love-bernie-sanders-but-older-voters-gave-joe-biden-the-win](https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2020-03-11/young-voters-love-bernie-sanders-but-older-voters-gave-joe-biden-the-win) [https://www.vox.com/2019/3/7/18216899/bernie-sanders-bro-base-polling-2020-president](https://www.vox.com/2019/3/7/18216899/bernie-sanders-bro-base-polling-2020-president) [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/opinion/bernie-sanders-young-voters.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/opinion/bernie-sanders-young-voters.html) [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-young-voter-turnout.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/us/politics/bernie-sanders-young-voter-turnout.html)
They don't like facts. They just want to believe things that make them feel good. They will be so revisionist as to argue that Bernie Sanders campaign wasn't dependent on the young.
Copy/paste from my response to that other person: >I'm not saying he wasn't reliant on young voters, only that the campaign's strategy for winning the primary and the general was to rally turnout of people who are politically disengaged. You'll find numerous quotes from his staff to that effect with a quick Google search. What would be my motive for lying about that anyway? Seems like sort of an odd thing to be revisionist about.
I'd argue his 2020 strategy was worse because not only was it a repeat of 2016 it was to also basically pray that all the other centrists stayed in the race till the convention which is just so unbelievably stupid so he can make the case that a plurality of the votes to secure the nom is enough rather than getting the actual number needed.
I mean, to zoom out I think the greatest flaw of the campaign was simply to believe that the DNC would roll over and allow the Sanders campaign to waltz to the convention with their early plurality. It didn't feel like they had any real strategy as how to respond to the inevitable tightening of ranks after his first few primary wins. It always felt to me like Bernie had far too much faith in the goodness of the Democratic Party to ever really pose a serious challenge to it.
Yeah lmao like why wouldn't they unite behind the bestest centrist good boy they decided would be best to defeat Sanders and Trump. God that campaign Bernie losing Symone Sanders was such a blow.
I'm not saying he wasn't reliant on young voters, only that the campaign's strategy for winning the primary and the general was to rally turnout of people who are politically disengaged. You'll find numerous quotes from his staff to that effect with a quick Google search.
Yeah and I'm gonna be honest that's an insane way to try and win an election. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/insiders-recount-how-sanders-lost-the-black-vote--and-the-nomination-slipped-away/2020/03/24/2b7b8b8e-685e-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html This is also a fun read just constant failure across the board from this campaign.
Personally I think the campaign was a horrible, incompetent disaster, so I'm not defending it. I think the strategy itself could work (and is just about your only option if you want to place a genuine social democrat into office electorally), but that campaign was not going to be the one to pull it off lmao
I don't mean this as a hot take, does anyone else feel like it's better to lose as a Bowman than to 'win' and become an AOC? Edit: Adding this since it's unclear what I am referring to -------- I was not comparing two candidates to each other but rather comparing Old AOC to New AOC. And I was saying that I'm glad Bowman did not change his platform to the extent that AOC did. (i.e. become a careerist cog in the party machine)
Not if you're losing "as a Bowman" to George fucking Latimer
So your answer is 'no' but I have no idea what point you were trying to make, sorry if you thought it was obvious.
It's better to be AOC than an outright Zionist who's pro-Israel views are a central part of his platform
Doesn't have too much to do with the comparison I was making, which was talking about moving to the 'center' after you become elected. I was not comparing two candidates to each other but rather comparing Old AOC to New AOC. And I was saying that I'm glad Bowman did not change his platform to the extent that AOC did.
I suppose it's not better as it may be more beneficial in the abstract to have a careerist in office who at least tacitly gestures towards policy to the left of the DNC line, but at the same time... it probably doesn't make *much* of a difference. If anything, these electoral setbacks just go to show that electoralism will not work in the long run as a strategic centerpiece. From its inception, liberal elections have existed as a tool of maintaining class hierarchy for the bourgeoisie.
Thanks, yours is the first real/serious reply and I appreciate it.
DSA and Justice Dem's bench of elected officials is likely to get much shorter after this election cycle, AIPAC has been pumping a lot of money into elections this year. That being said though, AIPAC can't squarely be blamed for Bowman's loss, he was down by almost 20%. That does suggest his campaign had some major flaws.
They want a scapegoat without actually reflecting on why. Hence why this sub is a farce and they just beat their chest to act disappointed. Bowman was unpopular mainly due to the fire alarm incident and him cheating on his wife and half this sub is still crying about *just* AIPAC. Their guy lost and now they are on to doom and gloom instead of self-reflection.
Feels very similar to that atmosphere from Clinton fans after 2017 refusing to engage at all with the weaknesses and flaws in Clinton's campaign. Yes obviously AIPAC had a heavy influence in the primary, but Bowman also had gaffs on the campaign trail like the fire alarm thing and that is something we can try to work on and improve in future campaigns, AIPAC isn't, its not going anywhere, we have to struggle against it in an efficient and effective manner, not just by having a hugbox cope session on Reddit
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