• Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    71
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    4 months ago

    Despite his efforts, Dolan’s message did not gain enough traction. His campaign, funded largely by personal loans, couldn’t match Ocasio-Cortez’s $8 million war chest.

    You people are living in an oligarchy and “who has more money for this season” being a perfectly normal news bit outside of popular sports is completely insane.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      4 months ago

      You realize that “you people” includes you, correct?

      Or are the mega rich treated just like everyone else where you are?

      If so, where is this magical land of fairness?

      • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        31
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        4 months ago

        I do not life in the US. However because of US hegemony and my country being a suck up to the US i have to follow what is going on there.

        But in case there is any doubt. The country i live in, which is Germany is corrupt and authoritarian with a complicit public and private media as well as the “center” parties moving further to the right and helping fascism rise faster than ever before. The “liberal” middle class are to a large extent just self delusional racists and the country will become a fascist hellhole in the next ten years.

        So if you have the opportunity, please help spread awareness about all the shit happening here too.

          • Aux@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            4 months ago

            I don’t know, Labour should win a landslide next week in the UK. And Conservatives will become a party #3 or even #4 for the first time since forever. Tories also ran out of money, lol.

              • Aux@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                4 months ago

                It’s still FPTP here, it’s just that people got sick of Tories. Even billionaires got sick, imagine that.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 months ago

              You mean Keir “Tony Blair without the charisma and leadership abilities” Starmer’s Labour? Fat lot of good THAT pack of ideologically bankrupt liberals are going to do other than freeing the UK from the even worse Tories! 😮‍💨

          • nogooduser@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 months ago

            Hopefully, the UK is going to take a couple of steps to the left shortly.

            If it does, it’s not because the country is moving left but because the right fucked up.

          • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 months ago

            It is, expect everything to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future. Get ready for more humanitarian crises as we in the west increase sending climate and conflict refugees back to countries of origin or 3rd countries for “asylum processing” as climate change really starts to bite.

            Also, I hope you enjoy Cold War 2: Arctic Summer Melt.

        • DandomRude@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          Yes, that’s right. The last European elections at the latest showed impressively that those dull people who are unable to see through the PR campaigns of the powerful are not an exclusive US problem. It is of course absolutely right that we in Europe rely far too much on the Americans and should set stricter limits to their capitalism, which in my opinion is completely out of joint. But I fear that we have already gotten too far into this quagmire. This is precisely why it is all the more important to raise awareness of this and to name those who are actually responsible for falling living standards and growing inequality - the US-type opportunists, the hangers-on and especially the blatant fascists in the ranks of our politicians and our societies. I am not at all convinced that the reasonable people have a shot, but I sure will continue to make an effort.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Eh… There are a variety of end-runs around this mechanism.

          Hiring politicians on as lobbyists or allowing friends and family to sit on private run boards and trusts can create a back channel for money to flow into a politician’s pockets. Public money can be funneled into private profits for which the supporting politicians are also stockholders. And politicians can receive discounted/free services from friendly private sector constituencies. FOX News, the classic example, is a multi-billion dollar network dedicated to running Republican-friendly media. But when corporate lobbyists and political strategists can be found everywhere from the boards of NPR/PBS to the guest chairs of MSNBC to the editorial rooms of the WaPo/WSJ/NYT, there’s really no safe spaces left.

          You can mitigate the direct “bag of cash for favors” effect that, say, John Boehner cutting tobacco lobbyist checks on the floor of the House has produced in the past. But you can’t keep public sector administrators from finding ways to receive kickbacks via private sector channels unless you completely divorce these institutions.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      That’s because billionaires have purchased SCOTUS. The outcome of a single court case has allowed unlimited money from whomever into election campaigns.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      4 months ago

      Jesus fuck you people claim it’s rigged no matter who wins

      If the moderate wins you claim the DNC tipped the scales

      If the progressive wins you claim corpos tipped the scales

      Maybe just shut the fuck up?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        4 months ago

        Jesus fuck you people claim it’s rigged no matter who wins

        Headline: “Person with most money wins race handily”

        Far Left Antifa CCP Tankie on Lemmy: “Damn, seems like the sheer volume of money is determining the winners of these races”

        Reasonable Rational Centrist: “STFU, you stupid idiot! Why can’t you just be happy that the person with the most money won?!”

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            Clearly Jamaal Bowman isn’t as progressive as George Latimer, but Lauren Boebert’s progressive bonafides pushed her through.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          4 months ago

          Yeah, that’s how elections work. If it were in good faith, it’d be a valid complaint. But it’s not. It’s just another thing they pulled from a hat labeled “how can we make Democrats look bad here?”

      • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        4 months ago

        The DNC are not moderates. They are economic far right with imperialist foreign and racist internal policy, but some LGBT rights sprinkled in between.

        And i am quite sure if people like Sanders or Stein would win it will definitely not be because of corporations funding them, more the opposite actually.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    ·
    4 months ago

    It amazes me that primaries are held this late in the year. It’s only four months or so until the election.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      69
      ·
      4 months ago

      Only in America. Other counties campaign for a few weeks. The US turns it into a 12 month fund raising and media spectacular, with primaries at the halfway point.

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        4 months ago

        A while back, HR 1 For the People Act promised to remedy much of the issue but it never got a vote in the senate because Republicans held the Senate Speaker until the next congress was formed.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          And because, having gotten back in power, Dem leadership didn’t take it up again as they too are getting rich from the current system.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            4 months ago

            Same reason Biden is talking about a potential tax on the rich but won’t ever be caught talking about repealing the Trump tax raise on the working class that actually happened.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      4 months ago

      Why make election season much longer than needed?

      Printing ballots can be done quite quickly.

      And is 6 months of campaigning really better than 2 months?

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        Ffffuuuuuuucccckkk no its not better. It’s just that our system predated most parliaments, and as such the founding fathers made some stupid choices that made it utterly impossible to amend basic quailty of life changes for our democracy.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            The process to amend the constitution. It’s all but impossible given modern politics, and that’s largely been true for 50 years and counting.

              • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                4 months ago

                Our election cycle cant be curtailed or shifted because our constitution can’t realistically be amended to match the saner policies in other countries. When our constitution is so antiqued that that “money is speech” becomes the law of the land, there is a core problem with the founding document itself.

                How it that not related to our election cycle?

                • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  Because a constitutional convention is so wildly unlikely it’s just distracting from any actually helpful suggestions.

        • Kellamity@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Just in the spirit of pedantry, its not really true to say that the US system predated most parliaments.

          Like, maybe its technically true now due to the expansion of democratic and republic systems in the post-colonial era, but parliaments in Western Europe were plentiful and long-established in 1776.

          The first American government was notable in that is was completely divorced from a hereditary Monarch, and I don’t wanna downplay that, but a system in which a representitive body of land-owners is elected by an enfranchised class to decide policy and even pass legislation existed in, for example, Iceland since the 10th Century, Catalonia since the 12th, England since the 13th. It was arguably the standard during the enlightenment in Europe.

          My two cents, the US system does seem to be remarkably inflexible. I guess it’s complicated to unpack why exactly, but a combination of myth-making, bad-faith originalists, and the sheer size of the country probably all play a part in it

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          4 months ago

          Well no, it’s better for the politician’s campaign’s wallets. If people could spend campaign funds however they wanted then Donald Trump would have quite a few less pending felonies.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 months ago

            First of all, there’s TONS of ways to enrich yourself by running for office without technically breaking any of the very flimsy campaign finance laws. That’s why people with literally no chance of winning keep running for public offices up to and including the presidency.

            Second of all, the FEC, which is ALREADY as toothless as a nonagenarian who never brushed his teeth due to chronic deliberate underfunding and understaffing, has an EXTREME backlog of cases from having lacked a quorum for the better part of a year.

            Third, even if the FEC was otherwise effective, this is TRUMP we’re talking about here. He’s getting away with TONS of campaign finance fraud and legal misuse of donations as is.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      The Dem presidential primary still has like two more months.

      Biden and his pick for DNC chair set the date, they could have made it whenever.

      They choose after the deadline to get on all 50 ballots for some reason.

    • TAG@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      Massachusetts has not held its Senate primary yet either. I had to check, it will be on September 3rd it seems.

    • retrospectology@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Yeah, having to listen to Steve Innskeep gleefully break the news of Bowman’s defeat on NPR this morning was not a great way to start the day.

      And of course NPR frames it as confirmation that voters support genocide, not that AIPAC uses GOP money to sabotage the Democratic party. Their reporting is getting worse and worse by the day.

        • retrospectology@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          They’re pretty bad on Israel, yeah. All Things Considered is particularly terrible.

          Innskeep and Mary Louise Kelly get me pissed of more than anyone else. Or Ayesha Roscoe. They’re all terrible interviewers.

    • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      70
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Yeah:

      “We need to freeze the border and send that message to the world to stop the death and casualties along the way,” says Dolan. “The Republicans are right on this issue. But that doesn’t make me a Republican. No party is right on every issue.”

      On his campaign website, Dolan who has served as managing director at banks including Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, puts the city’s current plight thus: “Bail reform a disaster, the National Guard in the subway, toothpaste locked up in drugstores but criminals running free.

      https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/06/17/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-primary-challenger-marty-dolan/74074419007/

      • audiomodder@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        49
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        It’s hilarious to me that 40 years ago this person would have been solidly Republican. Now he’s a “moderate Democrat”. This term now means “conservative that doesn’t like Trump saying the quiet part out loud”

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          A lot of money has been pouring into propagandizing liberals in big progressive cities about crime specifically. Trying to promote a crime hysteria. And then part 2 of that plan is to recall the progressive politicians and elect in Republicans who will claim to fix everything.

          It’s had only modest success in actually electing Republicans so far but I get the sense it’s a long game. People have absolutely bought into the “crime is at an all time high” lies.

      • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        4 months ago

        “Bail reform a disaster, the National Guard in the subway, toothpaste locked up in drugstores but criminals running free.

        Umm doesn’t the State have a bigger hand in that instead of the Federal government?

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    I mean, no shit. Didn’t she win her first election with 89% of the vote or something

  • Veraxus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    Moderate? Marty Dolan is a full-blown conservative. Why do we keep pretending like being a Democrat means you can’t be a conservative? The DNCs entire top brass is conservative. It’s a conservative party by objective international standards.

    • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      4 months ago

      Because the Overton window in the United States has many people viewing fascists as friends and anyone further left than center right as “extreme left wing socialist communist Nazi terrorists”.

      • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        4 months ago

        I hate it when ignorant people conflate Nazis and communists. I have argued with so many dumb people who think that the Nazis were a Socialist party, when the exact opposite is true. These people probably think that the DPRK is democratic, too.

  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    I hope people stop believing the bullshit that’s trying to get progressives to not vote or to vote for 3rd parties. Progressives absolutely can win democrat tickets, and that’s exactly why there’s so much propaganda trying to convince people otherwise. Progressives have a lot of political power right now, and the whole system can swing left if people don’t just give up. Progressives giving up is the only play the right has.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Progressives should absolutely vote in primaries and lower contests. They should also make it very clear there are limits to their graciousness when our president supports blatant war crimes and genocide.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        I don’t disagree. But we’re living in interesting times.

        I don’t like most of the people on the ticket I’ll be given in November, but you know what’s objectively worse? Actual fascism. Fascism always ends in genocide, and these white Christian nationalists aren’t even trying to hide it, going mask-off even before they have the power to back it up.

        When fascists can be this bold and still keep their seats of power, that’s quite worrying.

        As I saw someone say earlier, we’re in democracy triage.

        I’d vote for Biden’s corpse before trump or not voting. We must wrest all power from the fascists before we can squabble about who’s more left.

      • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        Graciousness? I don’t think that’s the right word…you don’t vote for someone because you’re being gracious, you vote for someone because you think they’ll deliver what you want - or in this case perhaps, the closest person who actually stands a hope in hell of getting elected.

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          4 months ago

          Oh no. It’s graciousness to vote for the guy you lost to and who went out of his way to break campaign promises on unions, climate change, and immigration. Another term is good loser.

          But the point is there’s limits. There have to be limits or else you’re not a loser in a political contest, you’re a blind supporter they never need to actually listen to.