That would require Zohran to be ideologically liberal. I think it’s pretty clear from a number of litmus tests that he’s a socialist. It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist. Ideologically, being a socialist isn’t merely a step to the left of liberal. It’s a fundamentally different worldview which resembles American liberals in a few areas but only in appearance. E.g. both a liberal and a socialist might advocate for universal healthcare. The liberal feels that private healtchare is a defect of an otherwise functioning system. The socialist sees the system working as intended in that it enriches the oligarch class via private healtchare. Therefore the socialist sees public universal healthcare as removing a revenue stream from the oligarch class, diminishing its power in the process and reducing the scope of the capitalist system. The improvement to people’s lives naturally follows as a consequence of that. From this perspective, it would be very difficult for a socialist to be convinced they should abandon universal healthcare because insurers would lose too much money like Obama did.
It would also require a group of Republicans with the power to gag him every time he tries to do something.
Years ago, I saw a list that someone compiled of all of Obama’s campaign promises and the results of them, and basically all but one he tried to do and was voted down by Republicans who threatened to shut down the government if Democrats tried to push it through. The one thing he promised and didn’t even attempt to do was shutting down Guantanamo Bay. For everything else, the Republicans who controlled both the house and the Senate for 7 and a half years of his presidency shut him out. There’s a reason that Trump spent the first two years of his presidency repealing every executive order that Obama made. Besides being racist and upset that a black man held any power in this country, of course.
Where do you get the republicans controlled senate and house for seven and a half year?
Democrats had 57 senators after 2008 and 51 after 2010, 53 in 2012, then lost the majority in 2014.
In 2006 they got 233, increasing to 257 in 2008. They lost that majority in 2010 and lost more seats in the following years.
Did I get it reversed? I was talking strictly from memory so it wouldn’t surprise me, and that does sound more right that the Dems had control for at least the beginning of Obama’s presidency and lost it when they did nothing with it. What I remember from that period is that when the Dems had control, the Republicans would threaten to shut down the government or filibuster every time the Dems tried to pass something, and the Dems would back down every single time. Sometimes before the Republicans would even have the chance to say something. But that still doesn’t mean that Obama lied or broke his promises, it means that the Dems as a whole were/are spineless and didn’t want to actually do the things they were elected to do. Except for closing Guantanamo Bay. That’s completely on him and not something we should forgive and forget. We’ve seen similar things this year already, where they need 3 Dems to vote with Republicans in order to pass their abominable legislation, and the same 3 vote with the Republicans every single time. Or how 100% of Dems voted yes on the first couple of Trump’s cabinet picks. That’s not Biden’s fault.
You’re not wrong and that could totally be the case but again, he’s gotta be a really good actor to keep the socialist line when being grilled on some issues. It’s certainly possible that he is. But I think he’s leftist schtick is very different than Obama’s. Only one way to find out. Vote for him if you’re in NYC. 😁
I badly want to be wrong, but there’s something about these supposed progressives that changes when they get into office and suddenly are confronted with the possibility that they can 100% exploit their office to give their family generational wealth.
So while I’m cautiously optimistic, most of me is very ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’.
I believe it’s the progressives who realize they’re an extremely small minority within the DNC, so you must swallow a few bitter loads to get certain stuff you believe in through while making backroom deals you would never do.
Ultimately it is up to the American People to shift the Overton window to the left. It is possible, but won’t be easy as Democrats cave to Corporations and the media being billionaire owned doesn’t help when you’re a progressive.
This strikes me as something written by someone who doesn’t clearly remember 2008. After Obama got the nod, Democrats largely cleared the field for him. They didn’t spend months talking about how they didn’t know who he was, or saying that they couldn’t endorse him.
I was referring to the primaries, not the general. There was definitely a sense that it was Hillary’s turn and they did their best to keep Obama’s popularity from developing into a legitimate candidacy.
Not that it mattered. Obama was another smooth-talking son of a bitch, just like the rest of them.
I think part of that is true and part of that is that they just don’t get enough votes to actually do things.
Especially as just a Congressperson you can’t change everything all at once. You don’t have the same influence as a president. So you pick your battles.
People here get disappointed they didn’t get enough done fast enough and then vote red in the next election hoping for faster change.
Well, we got faster change. Never seen change as fast as this.
People not voting comes down to living through the last eight years and both parties doing nothing meaningful about the fact that you’re working 100 hours a week at three jobs and all you can afford is a roach-infested studio.
Why would you miss a badly needed day’s pay?
As for the folks who switched to vote Trump. That was the only option for change that they had, and they knew from experience how shitty Biden/Harris were. Of course they switched.
For the first few months of his presidency, following the tail end of the economic growth under Obama. Under Trump the economy dumped jobs and it only did well for the wealthy. Biden added like 100,000 jobs to the economy during his first 4 months.
It’s amazing how this happens every single time. Republicans control the narrative so well that people forget that the economy consistently does better under Democrats. Every. Single. Time. It happened with Clinton and Bush. It happened with Obama and Trump. And it happened with Biden and Trump. Republicans add billions to the national debt, destroy aid programs, shrink the job market, drive up housing prices and the cost of living, and cause all that lost money to siphon to the oligarchy while lowering their taxes and raising them for everyone else. Everybody blames the Democrats for it while Republicans are in charge, and then completely miss it getting better when the Republicans are out of office.
It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist.
Mussolini was a socialist, and I don’t mean in a fake “national socialist” way (although yes, later he became that), I mean he was an important figure of the “Italian socialist party”, editor in chief of the official party newspaper
Well he didn’t turn into a tinkering-around-the-edges liberal. 😄
I’m not arguing that people’s views can’t change. Rather I’m making this narrow point of the difficulty shifting towrds the centre from a liberal versus socialist position. I think one’s much lower friction than the other. Both are possible.
The news, I guess? He made some very bombastic proclamations that endeared him to leftists and then promptly walked them right back to the middle of the road when the Democratic establishment (including Obama 1.0) got their claws into him
People who make claims are expected to back them up when asked for proof. The fact you’re refusing to give any shows you’re just making shit up or bought into lies.
I feel like mayor is a better jump up for a candidate like Mamdani than President. Also, Mamdani is coming up with a lot more policies that can get implemented. In contrast, Obama ran on far less openly socialist policies outside of healthcare. When it got to healthcare, Obama was relatively hands off when the bill was being written.
As a German it will always amuse me to read about policies that Otto von Bismark enacted here as socialist.
Like general health care was given to weaken the power of worker unions.
Over here in the good ole US of A, “socialism” usually doesn’t refer to collective ownership of the means of production, or some other fancy book-learnin’ version.
Socialism is when the government takes some CEO and/or redneck’s hard earned tax dollar and tries to do something that helps poor people.
If the government wants to spend money on poor people, it has to be to blow them up on the other side of the world.
Back home there are way too many big hands to fill with handouts, between corporations and rich people. We can’t get to the poor beggars until some time after the fusion power rollout. And please think of the economy!
He can’t become president so no worries on an exact repeat. Personally, good to see such a great representative of democratic socialism on display at this moment.
You might wanna drop religion label; honestly, adding the religion label isn’t exactly comforting. Religious people, regardless of which religion, are not exactly very “left”, religious people often misogynistic, oppress LGBT+ people, not to mention, its an abrahamic religion, these stupid religions have been causing havoc on the world.
Now? Almost every president has committed war crimes, and Obama was pretty strict on immigration. There are definitely things I like about him and his time in office, but we can’t ignore the terrible things that happened under his admin just because they didn’t affect us directly.
How many people lost their homes when Obama was president ? Did Obama not boast about turning the USA into a leading of oil production ? Did Obama not drone American kids ? Did Obama not keep the wars going and start news ones?
You are the one that’s 14 and didn’t follow nothing he really achieved.
Obama was unable to close Guantanamo Bay due to political opposition and legal challenges that arose after he took office, despite initially promising to shut it down within a year. By the end of his presidency, he had reduced the number of detainees but faced significant congressional restrictions that hindered further action.
Some people believe if more than x people are killed, whether the deaths are x number or 2x or x^2 doesn’t make any difference: once we reach x, it’s maximum horrible. Actions that reduce from something greatly more than x to something slightly more than x are not worth pursuing, because the deaths are still more than x, which is max horrible, so those actions don’t matter.
Other people believe that any senseless death avoided is always worthwhile, and support actions that reduce the volume of senseless death. Even if a lot of killing still happens, it’s positive to reduce it.
I can’t tell if you are in the first group, or if you really lack the context of active conflicts the US is involved in with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths that you cannot imagine anything worse than 4,000 deaths.
Mandani’s opposition has been tireless in trying to get him into making stances on wedge issues, especially on things like foreign policy, to deflect from his popular intended policies as mayor.
So recently like after months of being burned by his own party for supporting Palestinians, he made a statement that called Oct 7 a war crime. So now the job is to paint him as a secret zionist.
Which again, is not an issue for a NYC mayor. His plans to tax the rich, however, is.
If Mamdani backed down from free busses and rent freezes, then we’d have cause for concern.
Off the top of my head, he’s very pro-NYPD (which I guess is the easiest way to get the cops to vote for him) and also he straight up said he’d have Zionists in his administration and not worry about what their support for Zionism means in practical terms, so. Yeah.
I searched for his comments on the NYPD, all I could find was an “apology” that reads more as “potential new mayor, after years of criticism of the NYPD, realises that an openly antagonistic NYPD wouldn’t help his agenda for New York and says the bare minimum to placate them”. Keep in mind too, this is under a presidency that would gladly assist the NYPD in disturbing whatever Mamdani does when elected. He also mentions victims of police brutality in the quote. Hardly “very PRO-NYPD”, IMO.
In regards to the genocide in Gaza, he seems to be extremely pro-Palestine. He did recently visit some Zionist leaders in NYC. Jews are around 12% of the population of NYC, and whilst they certainly aren’t all Zionists, at lot of them undoubtedly are. Personally, I believe a good representative should represent every part of their constituency. You can’t realistically completely ignore these groups while running for a position like the mayor of NYC. Meanwhile, he has constantly throughout his life criticised Israel and expressed staunch support for the Palestinian cause.
Feel free to disagree with me on any of these points, but even then, don’t you think you might be letting perfect be the enemy of good in this case? Do you have another candidate you’d prefer?
Really, really hoping Mamdani doesn’t turn out to be Obama 2.0.
That would require Zohran to be ideologically liberal. I think it’s pretty clear from a number of litmus tests that he’s a socialist. It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist. Ideologically, being a socialist isn’t merely a step to the left of liberal. It’s a fundamentally different worldview which resembles American liberals in a few areas but only in appearance. E.g. both a liberal and a socialist might advocate for universal healthcare. The liberal feels that private healtchare is a defect of an otherwise functioning system. The socialist sees the system working as intended in that it enriches the oligarch class via private healtchare. Therefore the socialist sees public universal healthcare as removing a revenue stream from the oligarch class, diminishing its power in the process and reducing the scope of the capitalist system. The improvement to people’s lives naturally follows as a consequence of that. From this perspective, it would be very difficult for a socialist to be convinced they should abandon universal healthcare because insurers would lose too much money like Obama did.
It would also require a group of Republicans with the power to gag him every time he tries to do something.
Years ago, I saw a list that someone compiled of all of Obama’s campaign promises and the results of them, and basically all but one he tried to do and was voted down by Republicans who threatened to shut down the government if Democrats tried to push it through. The one thing he promised and didn’t even attempt to do was shutting down Guantanamo Bay. For everything else, the Republicans who controlled both the house and the Senate for 7 and a half years of his presidency shut him out. There’s a reason that Trump spent the first two years of his presidency repealing every executive order that Obama made. Besides being racist and upset that a black man held any power in this country, of course.
Where do you get the republicans controlled senate and house for seven and a half year?
Democrats had 57 senators after 2008 and 51 after 2010, 53 in 2012, then lost the majority in 2014. In 2006 they got 233, increasing to 257 in 2008. They lost that majority in 2010 and lost more seats in the following years.
They had a window of complete control.
Did I get it reversed? I was talking strictly from memory so it wouldn’t surprise me, and that does sound more right that the Dems had control for at least the beginning of Obama’s presidency and lost it when they did nothing with it. What I remember from that period is that when the Dems had control, the Republicans would threaten to shut down the government or filibuster every time the Dems tried to pass something, and the Dems would back down every single time. Sometimes before the Republicans would even have the chance to say something. But that still doesn’t mean that Obama lied or broke his promises, it means that the Dems as a whole were/are spineless and didn’t want to actually do the things they were elected to do. Except for closing Guantanamo Bay. That’s completely on him and not something we should forgive and forget. We’ve seen similar things this year already, where they need 3 Dems to vote with Republicans in order to pass their abominable legislation, and the same 3 vote with the Republicans every single time. Or how 100% of Dems voted yes on the first couple of Trump’s cabinet picks. That’s not Biden’s fault.
He says he’s a socialist.
Democrats say a lot of things that sound really, really good too… until they’re elected, and then we realize they’re shit-stains.
You’re not wrong and that could totally be the case but again, he’s gotta be a really good actor to keep the socialist line when being grilled on some issues. It’s certainly possible that he is. But I think he’s leftist schtick is very different than Obama’s. Only one way to find out. Vote for him if you’re in NYC. 😁
I badly want to be wrong, but there’s something about these supposed progressives that changes when they get into office and suddenly are confronted with the possibility that they can 100% exploit their office to give their family generational wealth.
So while I’m cautiously optimistic, most of me is very ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’.
I believe it’s the progressives who realize they’re an extremely small minority within the DNC, so you must swallow a few bitter loads to get certain stuff you believe in through while making backroom deals you would never do.
Ultimately it is up to the American People to shift the Overton window to the left. It is possible, but won’t be easy as Democrats cave to Corporations and the media being billionaire owned doesn’t help when you’re a progressive.
AIPAC Is the issue here.
Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will.
This guy all ready comes from a well off family so it’s not like that I don’t think.
Most politicians do. Then again most politicians don’t play leftist very well. I hope we find out.
Obama explicitly and repeatedly stated he was a capitalist
I mean show me a better candidate then.
That’s the problem. Thank you for articulating it.
The dems trying to take him out is evidence that he’s real
No, it isn’t. They did the same with Obama, because at the time it was supposedly Hillary’s turn.
This strikes me as something written by someone who doesn’t clearly remember 2008. After Obama got the nod, Democrats largely cleared the field for him. They didn’t spend months talking about how they didn’t know who he was, or saying that they couldn’t endorse him.
That’s fair.
I’m thinking before that point. They did everything could to tank his candidacy in the primaries but the voters overwhelmingly rejected Hillary.
How deep you want to go down the rabbit hole?
https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/posts/voyager-kicked-off-a-butterfly-effect-that-ended-with-obama-becoming-president-01hn8tvncaya
AFTER Obama got the nomination.
Exactly. This dude got the nomination and they’re still not endorsing him.
Uh, were you around in 2008? That’s definitely not what happened. If anything that’s what happened to Bernie. Are you confusing Bernie with Obama?
I was referring to the primaries, not the general. There was definitely a sense that it was Hillary’s turn and they did their best to keep Obama’s popularity from developing into a legitimate candidacy.
Not that it mattered. Obama was another smooth-talking son of a bitch, just like the rest of them.
I think part of that is true and part of that is that they just don’t get enough votes to actually do things.
Especially as just a Congressperson you can’t change everything all at once. You don’t have the same influence as a president. So you pick your battles.
People here get disappointed they didn’t get enough done fast enough and then vote red in the next election hoping for faster change.
Well, we got faster change. Never seen change as fast as this.
I don’t think so.
People not voting comes down to living through the last eight years and both parties doing nothing meaningful about the fact that you’re working 100 hours a week at three jobs and all you can afford is a roach-infested studio.
Why would you miss a badly needed day’s pay?
As for the folks who switched to vote Trump. That was the only option for change that they had, and they knew from experience how shitty Biden/Harris were. Of course they switched.
They should have known that Trump was worse from term one…
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For the first few months of his presidency, following the tail end of the economic growth under Obama. Under Trump the economy dumped jobs and it only did well for the wealthy. Biden added like 100,000 jobs to the economy during his first 4 months.
It’s amazing how this happens every single time. Republicans control the narrative so well that people forget that the economy consistently does better under Democrats. Every. Single. Time. It happened with Clinton and Bush. It happened with Obama and Trump. And it happened with Biden and Trump. Republicans add billions to the national debt, destroy aid programs, shrink the job market, drive up housing prices and the cost of living, and cause all that lost money to siphon to the oligarchy while lowering their taxes and raising them for everyone else. Everybody blames the Democrats for it while Republicans are in charge, and then completely miss it getting better when the Republicans are out of office.
If your underpants get a shit stain you should change them. Democrats haven’t changed the shitty underwear in over 60 years.
McCarthy spins in his grave
Can we hook him up to a dynamo? Free, clean energy.
Free?
McCarthy spins faster
Mussolini was a socialist, and I don’t mean in a fake “national socialist” way (although yes, later he became that), I mean he was an important figure of the “Italian socialist party”, editor in chief of the official party newspaper
Well he didn’t turn into a tinkering-around-the-edges liberal. 😄
I’m not arguing that people’s views can’t change. Rather I’m making this narrow point of the difficulty shifting towrds the centre from a liberal versus socialist position. I think one’s much lower friction than the other. Both are possible.
Given a lot of his known history, I have enough confidence to say he’s a real one, unlike Obama.
Given a lot of his very recent history…you might want to reconsider.
Lies
Any suggestions for what to read up on?
The news, I guess? He made some very bombastic proclamations that endeared him to leftists and then promptly walked them right back to the middle of the road when the Democratic establishment (including Obama 1.0) got their claws into him
Probably best to approach people who ask you for suggestions in good faith and give them an honest answer.
It was partially in good faith. I also wanted to know if they were full of shit.
I got the answers I was looking for.
LIKE WHAT?! Seriously give us one single morsel to digest?
“Do your own research!” “It’s obvious!”
People who make claims are expected to back them up when asked for proof. The fact you’re refusing to give any shows you’re just making shit up or bought into lies.
Extraordinary claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Really not a choice time for friendly fire here.
I feel like mayor is a better jump up for a candidate like Mamdani than President. Also, Mamdani is coming up with a lot more policies that can get implemented. In contrast, Obama ran on far less openly socialist policies outside of healthcare. When it got to healthcare, Obama was relatively hands off when the bill was being written.
As a German it will always amuse me to read about policies that Otto von Bismark enacted here as socialist. Like general health care was given to weaken the power of worker unions.
Over here in the good ole US of A, “socialism” usually doesn’t refer to collective ownership of the means of production, or some other fancy book-learnin’ version.
Socialism is when the government takes some CEO and/or redneck’s hard earned tax dollar and tries to do something that helps poor people.
If the government wants to spend money on poor people, it has to be to blow them up on the other side of the world.
Back home there are way too many big hands to fill with handouts, between corporations and rich people. We can’t get to the poor beggars until some time after the fusion power rollout. And please think of the economy!
He can’t become president so no worries on an exact repeat. Personally, good to see such a great representative of democratic socialism on display at this moment.
Agreed on that second point.
I just need more than words before I’ll buy in. I gotta see it to believe it.
To my knowledge, he does not have the ability to drone strike anyone. So we’re safe on that count
Unless he decides to take police militarization to another level.
Given how DeBlasio was treated, I’d be more worried about the police taking it to the next level without him
A legit fear, really.
The NYPD are one of the largest and well-funded gangs on the planet.
An African-born Muslim Socialist?
You might wanna drop religion label; honestly, adding the religion label isn’t exactly comforting. Religious people, regardless of which religion, are not exactly very “left”, religious people often misogynistic, oppress LGBT+ people, not to mention, its an abrahamic religion, these stupid religions have been causing havoc on the world.
I guess I forgot the “/s”.
I was joking about how the Right called Obama all those things, when he isn’t any of them and now they got the real deal.
What is Lemmy badmouthing Obama now? JFC this place is 14 and very edgy.
Now? Almost every president has committed war crimes, and Obama was pretty strict on immigration. There are definitely things I like about him and his time in office, but we can’t ignore the terrible things that happened under his admin just because they didn’t affect us directly.
Can’t ignore issues isn’t the same as ‘he was a failure’ tone that I just read.
He was a failure, your standards are just so low that you find a non-catastrophic failure acceptable.
Username says it all.
Yes, that’s why I made it that.
How many people lost their homes when Obama was president ? Did Obama not boast about turning the USA into a leading of oil production ? Did Obama not drone American kids ? Did Obama not keep the wars going and start news ones?
You are the one that’s 14 and didn’t follow nothing he really achieved.
I was going to start typing but then I noticed ml. There’s no point.
I would be 100% fine with that, Obama was a great president. Regardless, we need to make sure the GOP and 3rd party Cuomo lose.
Obama was an “okay” president, I wouldn’t say “great” lolol.
The bar was low and he tangibly helped or even saved Millions of Americans.
Great President.
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Me too, but if his recent overtures are any sign of things to come he’s absolutely going to be Obama 2.0
Goddamn I can’t imagine anything worse than Obama 2.0!
Oh! Oh I’ll be having nightmares for months!
ffs
yeah, what could be worse than the guy who authorized 563 drone strikes that killed nearly 4000 people, including American kids. Hmm.
US counter terror air strikes double in Trump’s first year
I mean, the President before him started two wars and the one after him fumbled COVID badly, so there is that.
Don’t get me wrong, Guantanamo Bay is still open so my opinion of Obama is pretty low, but…
Some people believe if more than x people are killed, whether the deaths are x number or 2x or x^2 doesn’t make any difference: once we reach x, it’s maximum horrible. Actions that reduce from something greatly more than x to something slightly more than x are not worth pursuing, because the deaths are still more than x, which is max horrible, so those actions don’t matter.
Other people believe that any senseless death avoided is always worthwhile, and support actions that reduce the volume of senseless death. Even if a lot of killing still happens, it’s positive to reduce it.
I can’t tell if you are in the first group, or if you really lack the context of active conflicts the US is involved in with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths that you cannot imagine anything worse than 4,000 deaths.
What could be worse? Man, i can’t think of a single thing! Obama was the awfulest human to defecate in the white house of All Time!
(for my autistic friends; i don’t really think that. I’m using hyperbole to underscore my position that Obama was not the worst person of all time.)
Care to share any specifics? I haven’t been following him too closely, like many others I’m a bit burnt out on US political news.
Mandani’s opposition has been tireless in trying to get him into making stances on wedge issues, especially on things like foreign policy, to deflect from his popular intended policies as mayor.
So recently like after months of being burned by his own party for supporting Palestinians, he made a statement that called Oct 7 a war crime. So now the job is to paint him as a secret zionist.
Which again, is not an issue for a NYC mayor. His plans to tax the rich, however, is.
If Mamdani backed down from free busses and rent freezes, then we’d have cause for concern.
Off the top of my head, he’s very pro-NYPD (which I guess is the easiest way to get the cops to vote for him) and also he straight up said he’d have Zionists in his administration and not worry about what their support for Zionism means in practical terms, so. Yeah.
I searched for his comments on the NYPD, all I could find was an “apology” that reads more as “potential new mayor, after years of criticism of the NYPD, realises that an openly antagonistic NYPD wouldn’t help his agenda for New York and says the bare minimum to placate them”. Keep in mind too, this is under a presidency that would gladly assist the NYPD in disturbing whatever Mamdani does when elected. He also mentions victims of police brutality in the quote. Hardly “very PRO-NYPD”, IMO.
In regards to the genocide in Gaza, he seems to be extremely pro-Palestine. He did recently visit some Zionist leaders in NYC. Jews are around 12% of the population of NYC, and whilst they certainly aren’t all Zionists, at lot of them undoubtedly are. Personally, I believe a good representative should represent every part of their constituency. You can’t realistically completely ignore these groups while running for a position like the mayor of NYC. Meanwhile, he has constantly throughout his life criticised Israel and expressed staunch support for the Palestinian cause.
Feel free to disagree with me on any of these points, but even then, don’t you think you might be letting perfect be the enemy of good in this case? Do you have another candidate you’d prefer?