The Politics Thread

[janea4old]

https://bsky.app/profile/hillaryclinton.bsky.social/post/3lloznbrxks2f

About the Wisconsin Supreme Court race
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/crawford-schimel-wisconsin-supreme-court

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/31/elon-musk-1-million-dollar-checks-wisconsin-voters-supreme-court-election
Musk has been paying citizens of Wisconsin checks for ONE MILLION DOLLARS as a public bribes to get them to vote for and campaign for the conservative on Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Edited yesterday at 05:00 PM by janea4old

[Vee]

Awfully important, especially on the heels of today's horrific news about the CDC/FDA.

 

[Vee]

The GOP has won the FL special election by a much, much tighter margin than they went for Trump. That's good news for down the road, but it doesn't cut to the heart of the issue which is that just winning a couple future cycles is not going to be enough to undo what is being done to the country, not just institutionally but in the information space and how it's poisoned voters.

That work will take a massive new media investment by Dems and seriously constraining the tech oligarchs. And it will be a generational project most of us will probably not see the final or full result of in our lifetimes. But hopefully someone will get started.

[Wendy]

Florida remains Florida, but thank God Elon's cash didn't buy victory in Wisconsin! Congratulations to State Supreme Court Justice-Elect Susan Crawford!

(The media seemed stunned at how quickly this was called. Indeed, it seemed like Crawford wiped the floor with Schimel.)

[MissPhoenixGirl92]

I'm not really surprised at how Florida turned out. Good for Wisconsin though. We definitely need more good news. 

[marceline]

This is exactly why I'm done doing anything for the Democratic Party. No money, no time, no energy. I'm out. I've had enough of the internalized contempt and self-flagellation.

[Vee]

He's right though, because I think he's talking about something different. They fúcked up hardcore over the last year, and I'd rather somehow acknowledge it than have Schumer continue sitting around rubberstamping Trump and pretending everything's fine and that the norms will hold if we all just vote through his budget.

Booker admitting the Senate Dems in particular have failed to meet the moment with any real urgency beats them all whining on background to Politico or Axios about Biden or Harris or minorities and how fúcked they are for being liberal. That's the kind of internalized contempt that really irks me.

Edited 3 hours ago by Vee

[marceline]

"meet the moment"
"urgency"

That's all about vibes and vibes are how we got here.

Schumer is the reason the courts have been able to stop Trump. Not just because the government is still open but because he and Joe Biden stayed laser focused on filling as many judgeships as they could. The screw up was pushing Biden out but people don't want to admit that so they've doubled down on "Yeah, we know we suck." Exactly why would I vote for that?

I'm also not interested in bashing Schumer because he's just the latest scapegoat. In Trump's first term it was Pelosi. During Biden's term it was Garland. Dems can't move forward because a coalition can't work without a basic level of trust and that trust is gone.

But like I said, I'm out. Like so many Black women, I'm #MindingMyBlackAssBusiness and #ReclaimingMyTime.

Edited 1 hour ago by marceline

[Vee]

I think fights have to be strategic, but I also don't think people really care what Dems fight for right now so long as they fight on something. That's why we're seeing the anger and energy we're seeing from the base, and it's not from the deranged dead end left, it's from normie Dem voters, rational people. And in this case, I don't think Schumer has the will. I think he's a good man who's done good work through a long career, but who also thinks that if he just stays the course it'll all work out. It won't and it hasn't, and faced with that his approach seems to be that eventually his friends on the other side of the aisle who he goes to the gym with (this is from his own recent interview) will come to their senses in another 6 months. I think that's indefensible in the crisis we're in. Hell is here and the devils are loose.

So at this point I'll take a change. I don't see how rubberstamping Trump's budget made sense, and I don't see much of anything actually stopping Trump right now. Any minor legal victory is just smashed by the next power grab, because we're beyond the beyond. So while I have zero faith in the current party leadership, i'm willing to try just about anything new short of Bernie !@#$%^&*]in' Sanders. YMMV though and I respect that, because I respect you. And I don't blame you for getting out. I'm pretty much out myself.

[marceline]

But none of this is new. This is exactly where we were eight years ago.

• The white left was celebrating the fact that Trump won and attacking Black Dems (We're seeing that now with the attacks on Jeffries, Clyburn, and Booker.)
• Bernie was doing his white grievance rallies and crapping on Dems
• Leftists were fixating on primary challenges
• White Dems doubled down on chasing the "working class"
• People keep screaming at the Democrats they hate - the ones they refuse to vote for - to save them.
• People who didn't vote right decide to do a pointless protesting. Last time it was the Womens March, this time its April 5.

We already lived through this. None of it is new and it was all unavoidable.