Attributed to Benjamin Franklin.

in order to get the Declaration of Independence signed by 13 colonies, struck out what he had written about slavery.

Am I saying I wouldn't have done it? Absolutely not. It was an impossible situation and he did what he had to do. I just mean it doesn't appear to agree with the quote.

I'd go with George Washington. He argued against having parties at all!

I could talk anyone's ears off about all the shortcomings I see in the Democratic Party. Some which have impacted ME. Directly.

But no fucking way would I support Republican candidates over Democrats. There is one thing to support some less than optimal policies. Or just be less vocal than I would prefer in support of better policies. But compared to the EVIL of today's republican party - and the ACTUAL, PHYSICAL HARM being visited on so many people by that bunch - give me a fucking break. Trans competing in sports? Next to people being rounded up, brutalized, deported or jailed without any kind of real justice? Next to people losing food stamps, kids losing access to education, elderly and disabled losing access to transit options ... what the ever loving fuck. Get out of your bubbles, people. Especially for anyone who isn't trans. (I have a little sympathy for people who are directly impacted. In the case of trans people in sports, that's got to be a pretty small number. But even on that ... like Gaza ... the Republicans are going to make it BETTER?? Yikes, anyone thinking that needs to get a clue)

... and would probably be offended at you even daring to call them such.

It's why you see certain people become hateful against democrats. It's easier to sell anti right wing things when they are in office.

Once Democrats get in office many people that voted for Democrats are less likely to tune in to anti right wing things.

It's the opposite with right wing selling anti liberal things. They always do well.

Israel/Hamas war.

It’s a biggie. The young are on their phones all day long -and when I was a child I cried because Bambi died in a movie - our children are seeing burnt, blind, headless babies and thousands of kids with no arms and legs on their phones everyday.

Since when is genocide not a big deal?

It's not just sports. Newsom said recently that age 25 is too young to transition, which is absolutely ridiculous.

It's way to early to try to get people to unite behind a candidate.

were in the context of juvenile justice. If I’m wrong please share your source.

“In 2022, Newsom signed SB 107, which claims to protect children and families from out-of-state laws that prohibit or restrict transgender procedures on minors. It also bars California courts from enforcing subpoenas from states that have enacted such laws, while allowing them to take temporary emergency jurisdiction if a minor cannot access such procedures elsewhere.

Last year, Newsom signed AB 1955 (SAFETY Act, 2024), which prohibits school districts from requiring staff to tell parents if their child identifies as transgender or has requested a different name or pronouns.”
https://washingtonstand.com/news/newsom-implies-8yearolds-too-young-to-transition-admits-issue-a-major-problem-for-dems
Both of the above are pro-trans.

because "you can't serve the country until you're 18, you can't buy a gun, you can't buy alcohol until you're 21..." and then went on to say "to make that big of a decision as a kid -- "

At which point Newsom nodded and said "Totally get it."

Ryan said, "You could also be destroying a lot of lives as well. I mean they’re brain isn’t even fully developed."

Newsom said, "You got -- well yeah, till 26, plus, well yeah so it’s even further with the brain.”

It is a myth that the frontal cortext isn't "fully developed" until 25. It is transphobic to think that trans people making decisions about themselves is going to destroy a lot of lives and they shouldn't do so until they're 25.

I’ve told plenty of people the same thing about statements they made I completely disagree with. As far as brain development, seems NIH disagrees with you.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3621648/

Of more importance is what legislation has he passed. Biden was personally against abortion but still supported a woman’s right to choose.

On the issue of brain maturation, that article lays it right out:

I knew that framing was inaccurate.

It’s for medical community to figure out. He is not trying to ban anything.

that your last sentence, "No candidate is perfect. but all that matters in winning." is exactly what the MAGAts think about Trump.

bringing guns to a GUNFIGHT.

(can't believe I'm having to make the same point a decade later,).

but the next time somebody asks, "Why do they follow Trump so blindly, no matter how evil the things he does?" I guess we both know the answer to that question.

is just baffling. But that’s the purity wing.

Because they were interested in winning. Not a circular firing squad that they hoped would become a circle jerk echo chamber. They just wanted to win. We clearly don’t know how to do that.

Young men were influenced by social media - not so much rallies.

You've got no opportunity to accomplish anything else. Winning fair is definitely preferable, and it's what should happen. But when the other side has thrown out the rules, what are you going to do?

We need to focus on core issues. It's a shame, but when someone wants to claim they pass a purity test (or administer one to others), you're usually looking at a nitwit.

by making him or her self appear superior.

Seen it for 50 years now!!

We need to fight and defend each other

More young people were influenced by podcasts than rallies.

Watching Mamdani market himself is a great lesson in how to mobilize people and win. If he ran an add agency, it would be best in the world - he is that good at marketing. In my younger days , I worked at a NYC ad agency so I’m not an innocent when it comes to marketing. The fact that he is speaking about Gaza is also refreshing as a candidate.

I’m lucky to live in a blue state with GREAT reps who voted against sending bombs to a genocide. Love my reps Martin Heinrich & Ben Ray Lujan for their moral clarity.

“Scavenger hunt day is also canvassing day (because that’s every day).”

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

I get sorely tired of people deciding who they are going to support by their personality and winning smile and not their actions.

We have to vote to get people elected to do their job. I couldn't care less if they have the personality of a door stop (yeah, I'm thinking of you Al Gore).

with 'personalities of door stops,' I think. (I was a Dukakis supporter! I was mystified that Reagan won over Mondale.) I adored Al Gore. I'd never worked harder for a campaign than I did for General Clark's. I was all in for Hillary Clinton by 2008.

I make the mistake of looking at the wrong things, I guess.

Hey, I'd take Al Gore for a door stop any ole time. I voted for him! Of course it helped that he was the Democratic candidate.

And his personality was fine.

The two who always stick out are Bill Clinton and Obama. Being a great and interesting speaker is always a plus.

and republicans have been held to no standards at all.

Big money has been behind this, especially since it bought
the media and a lot of down and dirty Republicans who
were willing to use dirty tricks, lies and attacks.. while
Democrats remained, on the whole, nice and docile.

Maybe it should be: when they go low, we go lower and
hit em where it hurts...

kinda like Gavin Newsom is doing.

One might even argue that Nixon was when they lowered their standards ... but Richard Nixon had the luxury of riding in on Eisenhower's coattails.

However, in 68, Dems kinda lost that one on their own in a way.

Humphrey peaked one week too late.

I did go to his last rally in the Astrodome, which was so great,
a lot of enthusiasm and a big crowd...

One more week and he'd have won.

I wasn't old enough to vote then, but I was so gung-ho for RFK.

Dems are treated like women / POC, while repukes are treated like white men......it's a HUGE difference. And you are correct - playing fair DOES NOT WORK with lying, cheating fascist assholes. Nope.

Because they hate women and POC it’s pretty much that simple

my motto
dont get mad
dont get even

get ahead...


if the gop wants to play dirty then we need to play even dirtier...

Last edited Sun Aug 24, 2025, 02:51 AM - Edit history (1)

is completely childish.

What people need to be enthusiastic over is their list of main priorities. We vote for agenda as much as we do people. Not every agenda item may check off, but it beats letting the candidate who's against everything you stand for win.

what will it take for most people to be fired up enough about an issue, a priority, a policy, to stop falling for lies and show up to vote?

I thought I'd seen it, but it's like the proverbial frogs in cold water slowly heated to boiling. They watch Fox Nooz and happily explain things away, hearing what they want to hear and accepting the most convenient explanations to avoid changing their beliefs.

I have long thought another war with a broad military draft might motivate people from outrage, but that's why Republicans won't do it, not equitably, with skin in the game for most Americans. They'd only recruit in a way that profits themselves and fools their voters into another "patriotic stupor" like the one sparked in 2001, blaming Democrats and creating an excuse for worse authoritarian rule.

(I've been sensing it coming.)

I only wonder whether it's too late.

to win versus finding an impossible to find “perfect candidate.”

Democrats need come out swinging like the Republicans and especially like Trump who name calls and acts like a playground bully. It needs to be focused on that the evangelical right love Trump who is totally immoral and a vulgar obnoxious human being. The politics that our parents had with gentlemen making the best and most same decisions are gone. We have to expose the atrocities of Ukraine and point out Trump keeps pushing a decision weeks down the road. A real American president would send a surplus of weapons to keep democracy alive in Ukraine. Trump can't pry his lips off of Putin's ass long enough to do the right thing.

I APPLAUD Newsom's mockery of him and responding in kind!

Trump has clearly been cowed and then triggered by it all, with ineffective responses.


As presidential elections seem to have been turned into some kind of 'reality show',
rather than an intellectual battle over real issues,
Newsom and his team seem to have caught onto that, and are being very effective!

When GOP goes low, kick ‘em hard and often!

It’s about inspiring people to be their better selves, inspiring people to canvas for you and having a message people respond too. Being young is a plus because the young are great at marketing themselves on social media.

to your belief system and who you want to represent you and lead. NONE of them is going to be perfect. Not even Bernie, AOC, or Obama.

Dems need to grow the heck up about this.

The old saying: "You're not getting married. You're taking the bus", applies.

I've had to hold my nose and vote for imperfect Democrats all my life, but I GODDAMNED VOTED FOR THE DEMOCRAT.

EVERY.

TIME.

That's IT.

.

who aren't really politicians. But of course they ARE politicians, aren't perfect. Supporters get very very very upset when presented with verbatim quote after quote vividly displaying this reality.

victims of democrats who weren't pure enough that they had to vote Republican.

on Election Day rather than vote for Kamala Harris for reasons so obvious and disgusting they need not be said or typed out loud.

Her biggest sin: not running against Biden and the Democratic Party; mentioning Trump too much in the last week. Because the true enemy is the Democratic Party! Clinton and Obama ruined America and did economic anxiety to everyone and made everyone say "status quo" in every sentence and be angry.

Change, change, change, everybody says they want change and that ends up as radical extremist Republican chaos. Which is of course Democrats' fault for not stopping. Everybody's happy hating Democrats!

especially local level.

usually they will be clueless and ignore it as it would show their interest in politics is mostly about following what is trending and not about policies .

Call Me Wesley and I have been happily married for 25+ years and have raised four beautiful, cheeky cats together over the years. But we don’t buy the whole woo-woo soulmate thing. We had lives (and loves) of our own before we met and we still have our own lives, interests, and sometimes differences. We keep it together mainly because of shared ethics/values, mutual respect, shared interests, *wanting* to be together, and willingness to do the work. I swear, if I could find a Dem candidate who loved our country as much as we love our cats… (No, I won’t subject you to cat pics, but you *know* they’re infinitely amazing. )

We’ll see if I can find a way since my Photobucket account is closed. Not to be a tease, but they are Maine Coons: Nanna and her polydactyl kitten half-brother Gemmy. Both are, as we say where I grew up, “a mess.”

Last edited Mon Aug 25, 2025, 01:37 AM - Edit history (1)

Our 2024 holiday card + baby Genmy’s big feet

may we avoid the whole, “Would you have a beer with this candidate? Would you invite this candidate to your home for dinner?”
I’m not saying I’ve seen that nonsense here, but it turns up at election time. Not seeking a drinking buddy nor a dinner companion.

And, fun and marginally useful though it might be to size up presidential candidates, there is A LOT to be done before 2028.

Let’s keep our heads in the game.

Check A or B:

A: I hate fascism and will do whatever I can to defeat it.
B: I loves me some Fascism because it's really great and stuff.














Pssst: The correct answer is A. And "whatever I can" includes voting against it.

I like Newsom... a lot.

He did a great job during COVID.

But he's gotta run though the 2028 gauntlet with anyone else who wants to run.

NO preemptive favorites or chosen ones.

Newsom will face significant challenges fighting the "California Problem" and that means an anti-California bias in the Rust Belt

"Don't make the US, California"" will be a non stop meme...

I will support whoever wins the Primary,

but ill vote for a dirt sock before id vote for a rethug....

But the geography thing is overrated in my view and too much is made of it. Pritzker will have to deal with the “Chicago thing” or “rich guy thing”, or whatever the GOP and their media acolytes cook up.

They will cook up something on Wes Moore and Shapiro, too. If Gallego gets in he will also have his detractors.

Let’s Just roll the ball out on the court and see what happens. You mention the desire to avoid preemptive favorites. Fine. But there’s no reason to preemptively nullify candidates, either. That’s what all the CA hullabaloo feels like to me.

There is no way to have a totally open conversation about the merits of this for obvious reasons.
I will note that outside of a brief mention of AOC, the only people mentioned as serious candidates was two old rich white men.

I would ask people to remember that VP Harris got more votes than any other Democrat or Republican in history except for Biden in 2020 and that orange bag of shit in 2024.

I will, as I have for over 30 years, always vote a Democrat for every office because they are always better than the alternative.

That is really all that needs to be said.

the fascists have done a pretty good job of demonizing her to the point a lot of independents wont touch her.
i dont care if the nominee is male female,white black,or whatever. as long as the can win.

Its not unfair to point out that that is somewhat a function of the population of the country being at it's largest ever.*

In percentages of vote:

2020 Joe Biden............51.3%
2012 Barack Obama.....51.1%
2008 Barack Obama.....52.9%
1996 Bill Clinton..........49.2% (3-way race - a second-time Perot still took 8.4%)
2024 Kamala Harris.....48.3%

I was happy to vote for Harris and I know she would have been a stellar president, but saying she got more votes in history except for Biden (while literally being true) is a little misleading - in regard to how well she actually performed (in a tough situation)

*The population of the US grew by over 21 million between Obama's 1st term and the 2024 election.

Like you, I will always vote for a Democrat for the reasons you state.

b/c they ran as a ticket.

Democrats get angry about something, they stay away from the polls.

And then I go out and eat!

...should have been reason enough to be enthusiastic about Hillary or Kamala, no matter what you might have thought about them otherwise.

Sadly, it was not, and a pox on all those who stayed home.

Are what the DNC is doing right now to try to silence the young Democrats who have different ideas. No different from 1968, IMNSHO. And if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. If they continue with this crap, it will be a BIG LOSS in not only the congress, but the next presidential election (assuming there is one).

great we have a broad coalition but we need to be democrats first

Buses suck a little. None of them picks you up at your home and takes you exactly to your destination. So you choose the one that comes closest to your desired route. You may entirely miss a stop you wanted to make along the way. You may not get all the way to where you want to go and have to walk part of the way. But you choose the bus that gets you closest.

It works this way because no one of us is the most important. We all have to give and take on the route we take so the largest number of us get closest to where we want to go.

Politics is the art of compromise.

strikes again.

I'm an old-timer dummy, so catch me up please. Thanks in advance.

. . .be the enemy of the good

It's always seemed like a snooty Corporate Dem shut-down. Doesn't it seem to be a bit condescending?
Thanks for the explanation. For all the world, it sounds like something straight out of Lee Attwater's mouth.

Nothing is perfect. So if you give up everything to wait for it, you're gonna be waiting a real long time.

I'd sure be happy to admit I was wrong.

Of all the reasons to lose elections…🤦‍♂️

We can work out the niceties later.

or ideals will matter. You’re exactly right.

My personal wants/ beliefs shouldn’t be the only consideration. Other issues matter as well. Our culture’s greatest affliction is main character syndrome, IMO.

We’re in a class war and we have been for decades. That should be the message and the ONLY message.

The problem is, at the end of the day “our” guys still believe in the same failed, unfair system that favors the owners over the workers. You can’t regulate it away when those regulations can very easily be reversed as we’ve seen.

We need a fundamental overhaul of this entire system.

Liberals need to see the way others see them.

Some of their cliches about us are true!

And if you're surrounded with the like minded it's harder to notice..

We're lucky if this momentum continues he'll win!!!

Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin could be a problem.

Seems every time a Democrat gains any level of popularity or following, out comes the critics trying to nitpick him or her apart.

And I know some of it is right winged inspired claptrap, and some of it legitimate concerns.

But some of it is also picayunish in nature if not (imo) suspect, and (bottom line) serves to undermine us ALL

right here on DU. Point it out and you get alert swarmed.

(p.s.: look at the post count of some of the alerters).

unless charged with the duty to do so, I don't keep track of that kind of stuff (like post counts or who's alerting, don't even know how to do the latter). I may disagree with someone in a discussion and a month later might like something they say. Usually don't even remember who.

I just think those, left of MAGA, need focus less on the mythical "perfect" candidate, who checks all the boxes for EVERYONE, and focus more on the saving of DEMOCRACY from those hell bent (and sent FROM hell) to destroy it.

The FACT is we have to live and resist in the REAL WORLD we have, not some idealized version of the perfect candidate/politician!!

As the evidence shows: Sacrifice the good for the perfect and you get the WORST.

IN THE REAL WORLD: Supporting a politician or cause IS NOT the opportunity to showcase all your personal political preferences. Many are confused about this. The REAL option is to choose the best candidate from the options available at that point in time! that doesn't negate building a 3rd party, pressuring a candidate to move closer to your beliefs or advocating for change. It MEANS choosing the best/most strategic options at that point in time. Purity tests are the antithesis of strategic.

Not someone whose turn it is.

People have different ideas about who will win, but it's a huge sign of trouble when someone is entitled, or obtains momentum from the backing of leadership, super-delegates and endorsements rather than actual presentation of ideas and skill. That is especially important now, because Independents outnumber either party, and they don't respect any party establishment.

and in this case it’s trans women in sports, which affects only a handful of people. I’d be interested in hearing what the trans community thinks are the most important issues that they would like Dems to advance. Is it really sports?

I know they're not "partisan," but we're dealing with FASCISTS, folx.

Purity tests and eligible voters refusing to vote or voting third-party is how Agolf $hitler and his company of scum bags got into office.

Repukes vote in lock step, no matter what happens.
Unfortunately, we need to do the same. We have bigger numbers of supporters and we need to mobilize them like never before.
Tearing our candidates down serves the needs of the broligarchs and the fundy fascist wannabe dictators to divide us so they can conquer by completing their ongoing coup.

We have the numbers needed to defeat them, if we work together instead of under cutting each other.

On Bill marsh show from August 22. He pointed out that Trump won this time because he took one or 2% of all of the Democrats single issue items for himself. An example would be how the youth vote was larger than last time, and it was because of his TikTok use.qq

It is more true that the failure to take strong stands causes Democratic party electoral losses. "Purity test" is just an insulting way to attack those who are demanding that Democrats take stronger principled stands. When the so-called "purists" object to that pejorative characterization, we then hear the "circular firing squad" nonsense.

Newsom should not have given credibility and exposure to right wing maniacs, and should not have gone "both sides" on transphobia, as you just did.

"I know both sides" and "I understand the other side."

There are those who will cut their nose off despite their face and feel justified (burn it all to the ground) and the ones who can't see past their own noses (I got mine, fuck everyone else!).

I have been voting for Democrats since I could vote. Wanna know how I, a GAY man, did it? Because the ALTERNATIVE was far worse! I did it because I believe women should have autonomy over THEIR bodies. Because I believe POC should be treated EQUALLY to me as a white person. Because I believe the "trickledown theory" is a load of HORSESHIT! For all THOSE reasons and many more I will always vote for the Democrat, no matter how "imperfect" s/he is. I voted for candidates who thought "separate but equal" was a viable option to "gay" marriage. I voted for candidates who were openly homophobic. I have voted for candidates who were indifferent to GLBT issues. Why? For the reasons above and because, in reality, a Democrat is more likely to "evolve" on a situation, than a fucking Republican!

The ONLY time I will not/did not vote for a democrat was when they were so right-wing, the republican candidate looked almost sane! That's only happened TWICE in almost 40 years!

of billionaires, so all the purity messaging and war on billionaires was a giant fail. Smart politicians hopefully learned from this and will not double down on the losing messaging we’ve had to endure over the last 10 years.