Coal miners are great, but the Graham Platner left so fetishizes a “white working class” aesthetic that they took a bourgeois college drop out who had an oyster business basically bought for him by his parents and defended his war lust & Nazi tattoo bc the vibes felt right.

I’m sorry what’s the issue here? She’s talking about how she hasn’t always been attuned to the concerns other POC communities faced bc she was focused on assimilation into the white majority, as evidenced by her romantic choices. Presumably, she’s glad she has more consciousness now that she stands to represent a diverse cohort. If you object to this, why?

NOW: I have set up an exploratory committee about running for Congress. I hope to make a decision soon. I hope people will volunteer to help. And if they can, contribute --

Sure I can take a stab at explaining it. I've never commented on your Gaza position before, but I understood where people were coming from the last time this came up. Judging from your replies to others in this thread it seems your primary objection is that you are not being judged by the same standards with which leftists judge Fox News pundits or Israeli national security ministers. Because you never explicitly came out and said "I want Gaza turned into a giant mass grave," you find it unfair that leftists characterize you as unacceptably sympathetic to Israel's mass atrocities, because they wouldn't single out a Republican senator or far right podcaster who's expressed the same views as you on Gaza for these sorts of criticisms. But you are not a Republican senator or a far right podcaster. You are not a Fox News pundit or an Israeli national security minister. You are doing public commentary in a political sector which has predominantly framed opposition to the Gaza holocaust as the central issue or our times, and you seem to regard it as a tedious issue you'd rather people de-emphasize and move past. You made a long and hotly controversial Instagram post last year explaining why you don't feel like you should have to make a video about Gaza, in which you slammed anti-Zionism in the pro-Palestine movement and placed Jewish feelings and concerns about antisemitism front and center in your reasoning. It wasn't explicitly "genocide-loving", but it certainly advanced positions that were favorable to the US-Israeli genocidal agenda. It read as an exhausted, eye-rolling "Ugh, can't we just move ON from this?" dismissal of everyone's white-hot opposition to an active genocide, while defending many of the dynamics which ensure that Israel's abuses will continue to occur. Even in this very post right here you describe your position as "waiting for this to blow over", like it's just some boring distraction you can't wait for people to stop annoying you with. And that's just directly contrary to the present zeitgeist of the political factions with which you have aligned yourself. People see you as pro-genocide because you are far from sufficiently anti-genocide in a political environment where being anti-genocide is of utmost importance to people of conscience. I am a left-wing political commentator, and if I had spent three years de-emphasizing and dismissing the Gaza holocaust I am 100% certain that many leftists would be hounding me about it to this day, even if I made the occasional tweet saying Benjamin Netanyahu is bad. People would see my output as not reflecting the urgency of the issue at hand, and they would criticize me as unacceptably sympathetic to the forces giving rise to the genocide. I'm just some schmuck who posts opinions on the internet, but since you asked, that seems to be what's happening here.

The way some of you guys talk about prison abolition you would think the pressing issue of our time is that the United States is actually about to abolish the police and not this

BJG: "Is it a sheep herding psyop for the DSA to basically be sucking up all of this genuine revolutionary energy from the public who is so frustrated with the two party system & put them on a roller coaster of constantly feeling like they're making one step forward one step back inroads into a Democratic party that is never going to accept them?" MR: "I think that's true that the DNC is not going to bend, & when I hear @harrisonjaime out here saying, well, then they can get their own volunteers & their own tools--what are you talking about, we literally have all that! To me it's just a ballot line." DSA Co-Chair @meganromer joins Bad Faith to generously answer tough questions about DSA strategy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!

It's fortifying to see someone still reacting to the genocide with the anger and outrage that the tragedy deserves. Respect to @samhusseini, whom I was honored to meet in person at last weekend's @GreenPartyUS meeting.

Is the DSA serving the left or serving to legitimize Democrats/the duopoly? Could it be different? "[Bernie] does caucus with Democrats, but he does run as an Independent...& has had his moments over the years where he puts distance between himself in the Democratic Party bc he understands that that is not his monkey not his circus. By contrast, it does feel very much like AOC & Zohran Mamdani & other DSA aligned candidates, very much are constantly defending their right to be in the Democratic Party, defending the integrity of the Democratic Party. The version of AOC that I fell in love with when she was first running that said, 'in any sane world Joe Biden & I wouldn't be in the same party' is long gone."

Just to be clear, he's using "Black and brown voters" as a human shield to defend a white Zionist who wants to send "Black and brown" tax dollars to Israel so they can kill brown Palestinians while Israelis get free healthcare and college.

BJG: "Is it a sheep herding psyop for the DSA to basically be sucking up all of this genuine revolutionary energy from the public who is so frustrated with the two party system & put them on a roller coaster of constantly feeling like they're making one step forward one step back inroads into a Democratic party that is never going to accept them?" MR: "I think that's true that the DNC is not going to bend, & when I hear @harrisonjaime out here saying, well, then they can get their own volunteers & their own tools--what are you talking about, we literally have all that! To me it's just a ballot line." DSA Co-Chair @meganromer joins Bad Faith to generously answer tough questions about DSA strategy. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!

For principled left takes, watch @BadFaithPod. I interview abolitionists about how candidates like @DarializaforNY can be successful without abandoning progressive principles, instead of pretending that selling out is a pragmatic choice.

The "Kamala reached out to Mamdani" story should be read the same way as "Biden is mad at Netanyahu behind the scenes" reporting. Which is to say it's a leaked story to give you the impression that candidate is more aligned with populist opinion than they really are.

As folks celebrate @DarializaforNY's win, watch @avitale, police abolitionist and member of Mamdani's transition team, discuss how he advised Darializa on how to defend the defund movement and win.

Zohran's response is effective bc he immediately starts talking about why AIPAC's actions *are* "monstrous," citing specific & recent crimes -- the murder children/journalists etc, rather than accepting the framing that this is about the "concerns" of "some members of the Jewish community."