your Inshallah open thread

I don’t know about granular…I agree, vote blue no matter who. However, I reserve the right to call out the bullshitter, faux-victim, arrogant creeps crowing about people power defeating big money. It’s more a case of charisma beating substance because the supporters of the charismatic candidate fucking lied over and over about the substantive one.

Mind you, I do not like Haley’s position on Isreal/Gaza and probably would not have voted for her in the primary for that reason. BUT she was not the stereotype that progressives/DSA reduced her to. She was solid on all domestic issues: tried to protect trans athletes, helped out the auto industry, would have been happy to support Med4rall if it had any real chance of getting 60 votes, supported legislation to overturn Citizens United and it was just plain wrong, a fucking smear to dismiss her as “centrist, corporate, big money Dem”. I am so sick of the ignorant smears from progressives that I know longer want to be seen as one.

Dishonesty pisses me off.

I’m maxxed out on the smug and possibly racist bullshit about Haley getting the votes of people who were fooled by big money. It just doesn’t seem to occur to Abdul’s noisier supporters that other people might have a legitimate POV.

All that said, I find Abdul pretty impressive.

I thought that the most hopeful sign out of Michigan came the day after the election (I think it was). The vote count was dragging on, partly because the totals were so close that nobody could project a winner. And during that time, both candidates issues statements making nice with the other and urging their supporters to do the same.

No doubt there will be some who will sulk, loudly, because their candidate didn’t win. But those statements bode well for rallying around to defeat the Republican candidate.

The reduction of any Dem incumbent and the whole party to “corporate big money sellouts” is the main selling point of the primary challengers from the progressive/DSA bubble in every race. They follow the same formula.
Their appeal is to people upset about Isreal/Gaza (which I understand and share) but they don’t bother finding out what the incumbent’s position is–Janet Mills was smeared as AIPAC!!!! instantly and she wasn’t.
The appeal is also to people who are aware of the many structural problems in this nation and want a solution and want it now and want it to be something dumbed down to a slogan and passed through Congress, apparently, by magic. There is near-total ignorance of the legislative process and of Dem accomplishments and an unwillingness to tell one Dem from another. Either that, or a perseverating on Bill Clinton.
They never talk about Republicans.
DSA’s stated goal is to create a viable 3rd party and they want to do it by attracting people away from Democrats. I don’t think DSA leaders actually care about defeating Republicans.
El Sayed has many virtues. He’s very smart, he is genuinely committed, he speaks clearly and persuasively. However, he won on charisma. The same identical message from a less appealing package would not have won. In Maine, Platner attracted the DSA/progressives in need of a hero until he imploded and now Maine has a regular Dem running who looks like Platner and is being hailed as the new working class hero. (I’m not saying he isn’t). In NYC Lander, who has a gift for media events, beat a Dem who was great on every issue except Isreal/Gaza. The chair of the Hispanic Caucus lost to a total wacko from DSA who is, among other things, a racial purity nut. She is very dynamic. In Colorado, a solid Dem with an evolving position on Isreal/ Gaza who led the House Impeachment and otherwise was solid on the issues prog/DSA claim to care about lost to a woman who had nothing to offer but her outrage over being fired (she says) for speaking out about Palestine.
The pattern is one of mindless, ignorant, anti-incumbency latching on to people who are good at appealing to emotion and want to feel they are part of a movement. In other words, people looking for a Dear Leader while claiming to be all about policy.
It is true that in American politics, a capacity for theater is essential for winning. It is absolutely not true that policies matter since even the people who claim to care about policy rarely know what policy goes with which politician and don’t have enough understanding of anything to be able to evaluate policies anyway. SLOGANS matter.

I haven’t really followed this, but running on 30 million of AIPAC money in Michigan seems a bit daft.

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2026/aipac-has-spent-a-record-amount-on-michigans-senate-primary-the-biggest-test-of-its-influence-yet/

wonkie’s assessment is a good summation of what I have seen from the democratic faithful, the institutionalists, and the old-guard civil and women’s rights activists. I too find that a lot of it rings true, but it’s not like these factions (fandoms?) are any more fair and generous in how they deal with the substance of their democratic primary opposition, which gets dismissed as angry young white college kids drunk on Palestine and socialism, and captivated by vibes, who just want to burn some shit down.

And let’s be honest…that is what the algorithms, and the bots, and the troll farms are serving up, and pushing to the top of everyone’s feeds. It’s the politics of diversion and division. It works.

AES was just as much a victim of unfair characterizations as was Stevens. He’s not a Democratic Socialist, for one. He was a petition signer for Uncommitted, but only for the Democratic Convention, and he endorsed Harris almost immediately after she received the party nomination. He’s not anti-capitalist, he’s for reducing corporate influence in politics. Every one of those positions was misrepresented by the groups who were arrayed against him in the name of Stevens, and Stevens herself leaned into them from time to time.

I’ve got former classmates who live in Michigan who are on either side of the divide. One is a Clintonista who is steadfast in her insistence that we should put no conditions on our support for Israel. The other is a DSA candidate for local office who is anti-AIPAC. I get fed a steady diet of their respective propagandas on FB. It’s not productive, and it warps the public discourse.

Here is a story that I ran across in a rare visit to Daily Kos (i know…):

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/28/800073623/community/the-party-picked-a-favorite-in-our-primary-before-you-voted-six-of-seven-campaigns-just-said-no/

The Democratic Party’s campaign organization is a hierarchical beltway blob whose job is to collect money and choose where to distribute it. Its focus is on the national level. They are the ones who have written off the non-competitive districts and funneled their money into candidates who can appeal to wealthy out-of-state donors. They are the ones dumping cash into the black box of direct mail, while the outsider candidates go the shoe leather route to gaining support. It ends up with a divide that mirrors the urban/rural split, but on the economic level.

The DSA candidates have charisma and vibes, and a well defined niche in the algorithm, but all the vibes vibes and charisma in the world don’t work unless they connect back to real concerns and real world struggles. It’s those concerns that the Dems should pick up on, and the blob needs to start listening to the grass roots, rather than tailoring their strategy to the donor base.

the blob needs to start listening to the grass roots, rather than tailoring their strategy to the donor base.

pretty much how I see it as well.

I know very little about either Al Sayed or Haley. My general impression is that the race was highly negative and highly personal, which is unfortunate but also pretty normal. I’m glad they seem mutually supportive now that it’s done.

“DSA” candidates, whoever and whatever that means, get traction because people don’t feel like their concerns are being addressed by the institutional (D) party. They are not wrong, or at least not always wrong, about that.

The institutional (D) party can either yell and scream about these wild upstarts, or they can start listening to the people who support them.

I will vote (D) in any available election for the foreseeable future, full stop, because as ineffective as I think the (D)’s have become, the (R)’s are reactionary nut jobs.

But the (D)’s really need to pay attention to why the DSA folks are winning races.

I’ve mentioned my friend who is doing the thankless task of running for congress in a 60% R district. Here’s his recent appearance at the Georgia D convention. Curious about people here’s impression. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uff2dlLSPo&pp=iggCQAE%3D&ra=m

Two weeks still of light duty and hand exercises, but the pins are out and the x-ray looks good. Bummed that I didn’t get to keep the pins, but I can understand the doctors not wanting needle-sharp titanium biohazards getting out of the facility.

Nous, yes he does a lot more. In one the least hospitable corners of the district he did an open meeting, at a gun range/store. To the credit of the venue, they were open to any candidate, without endorsing anyone. On his social media reporting on that appearance he got pushback from people saying he was “tone deaf” by appearing at such a place when people are concerned about gun violence at schools, etc. When he’s going to be publicly available in every corner of the district. As I said, it’s a thankless task.

Chris and his wife Amber are my estate lawyers, in addition to being my friends. So I am not impartial.

my guess is that all the lawyers involved said there is no way they’re going to win the case and pursuing it will only prove that people who say it’s the contractors’ fault were right.

so she had to weigh embarrassing Trump by dropping it or by letting the world watch him lose the case in court.

Forced scruples are better than no scruples, I guess.

I figure she knew ir was a loser and dumped it on the Dept of the Interior. I.e., a CYA move.

On the original topic:
First, deMAGAfy. Then we can argue about DSA vs. DNC and all that.

I have heard liberal/progressive voices complain about Talarico beating Crockett in the Texas senatorial primary — to the point of saying “Screw it, I don’t care if Paxton wins the general.” Well, I do care. As a non-Texan what I don’t care about is whether Crockett took AIPAC money or Talarico is a Bible-thumper; whether one is white, the other black; whether one is a woman, the other a man. Neither one is a MAGAt, is what counts.

I have heard liberal/progressive voices complain about DNC candidates beating DSA(ish) candidates thanks to Establishment backing, in other races. Maybe those people also take the “I don’t care” attitude. God save the USA, if so.

What liberal/progressive voices often have in common is a proclivity to argue with each other after a primary, instead of focusing on the fact that — until Election Day, anyhow — anything less than full-throated support of Dem nominees and full-throated condemnation of their GOP (i.e. MAGAt) opponents is a serious mistake.

I will have to chose between octogenarian Ed Markey and triangulator Seth Moulton, here in MA. Tough choice in the primary, but no amount of bad blood between them, or between their respective supporters, will cause me to be less than enthusiastic about the (our) nominee in the general. Same goes for Jonathan Paz versus Katherine Clark in my district. Whoever I end up voting for in our primaries, my support for the nominees my fellow Democrats pick will not waver.

2026 has been such a crappy year — not so much for me personally as for a number of friends and relatives — that I could easily believe it will end with MAGAts still in full control of the federal government, just to keep the streak going. And to show that DNC vs DSA arguments were counterproductive, of course.

–TP