Is bill mahr in fantasy mabel-land?

[strateguy632]

bill mahr is ashamed of his democrat party. they are loony. they don't protest the loony aoc' and her 'quad squad'.

he correctly criticized "how can you not define a woman." i guess he is not a democrat? he dared to assume gender! but his only option is republican to keep loony away from power.

so he tells everyone his opinion that "that democrat politician in democrat party is not a democrat." fantasy?

it reminds me of that new film animal farm: the pig tells the pig 'you are not a pig' but he is. aoc and mamdani are in democrat party. you can't say they are only dsa not democrats. that is the democrat party now.

maybe the reason schumer-d doesn't 'marginalize' them is because he doesn't mind?

but he is a senator. if they abolish senate he is gone? maybe he did not think that far ahead?

[SolitarySolace]

I don’t think Bill Maher is living in fantasyland at all. In fact, his recent comments make the divide inside the Democratic Party pretty obvious.

Maher still considers himself left of center and disagrees with Republicans on plenty of things. But he has now said his 2028 vote is “in play,” and when he was directly asked whether he could potentially vote for JD Vance if Democrats nominate a socialist candidate, he said yes.

And whatever anyone here thinks about whether the DSA should technically be called communist, Maher himself uses that language. He has complained that Democrats are failing to marginalize people he describes as “communists,” just as plenty of other Americans use that label for the socialist left.

I personally think it is more accurate to distinguish democratic socialism from communism and criticize the DSA for what its own program actually says. But Maher’s larger point is still important: there are Democrats and center-left voters who see the socialist wing gaining influence and are uncomfortable enough with that shift that they may actually consider voting Republican.

AOC and Mamdani can simultaneously participate in Democratic Party politics and be democratic socialists. Those categories are not mutually exclusive. The real argument is over what direction the Democratic Party is moving in and how much influence the socialist wing should have over it.

And that is exactly why Maher saying he could vote for Vance matters. He isn’t saying “I became MAGA.” He is saying there is a point at which the Democratic nominee could move far enough left that he would rather vote for the Republican.

[strateguy632]

you wrote "how much influence the socialist wing should have over it.' but schumer -d is happy with those 'extremists'. no difference anymore within democrat politicians. not just a 'wing'.

[SolitarySolace]

@strateguy632 I don’t think it’s accurate to say there is “no difference anymore” among Democratic politicians.

There is very clearly an internal fight over the direction of the party. Establishment Democrats and the democratic-socialist/progressive wing are not the same faction, even though they currently operate under the same Democratic umbrella.

Chuck Schumer is actually a good example of that tension. There are already serious discussions on the left about AOC challenging him for his New York Senate seat in 2028, and polling has shown her leading him in hypothetical Democratic primary matchups.

AOC herself has not committed to that race, but her political operation has reportedly been considering either a presidential run or a Senate challenge to Schumer.

So I think saying Schumer is simply “happy with the extremists” misses what is happening. The more interesting story is that the socialist/progressive wing is increasingly strong enough to challenge and potentially replace establishment Democrats like Schumer from inside their own party.

That is exactly the divide I’m talking about. The question is not whether socialists currently exist inside the Democratic Party—they obviously do. The question is whether they eventually become powerful enough to define what the Democratic Party itself is.

[RavVid]

The Left is mad everywhere in the world. Not mad in the sense of being angry. Mad in the sense of being cray-cray Crazy and not being able to define what a woman is because they don't have biology degree despite being one and getting special privileges on that basis.

[exitseven]

He is a common sense democrat. He probably would have liked JFK.