Summary
Democratic divisions intensified as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized Chuck Schumer for supporting a Republican-led funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.
AOC called Schumer’s decision a “betrayal,” urging Senate Democrats to reject the legislation backed by Trump and Elon Musk. Pelosi called the bill a “devastating assault” on working families.
Schumer defended his stance, arguing a shutdown would empower Trump and Musk further.
The controversy sparked suggestions among Democrats that AOC might challenge Schumer in a primary.
Start a fucking progressive party already
As far left as I am, that would guarantee the Republicans would win every election until we get ranked choice vote
This is what we need to be talking about as a country right now. How do we open up the political binary to include viable third parties? Does that require proportional representation? Does that require a parliamentary system?
I know in NC getting a third party on the ballot requires signatures and a portion of the vote in the previous election. Those bars are too high and risky. What is another path?
That’d be a threat if the dems were actually willing to improve the country not just be controlled opposition
Honestly how I’m feeling these days. I honestly think their preferred state is not being in power, that way they don’t have to keep any promises and get to keep their jobs all while doing nothing but complaining about Republicans.
I honestly think that both parties like to not be in power for this very reason. All the money and none of the responsibilities. Pretty sweet setup
Not to mention fundraising
False. Bernie would have won.
So forever
sizzling hot take: all political parties end up as tools for elites to capture power
truly a bold and newfangled idea, surely only a few radical extremists could buy into it. surely parliamentary socialists in Meiji-era Japan, for instance, would never derive this dangerous concept from first principles
Are we calling him Cuck Schumer yet?
AOC obviously didn’t get the message. The Democrats have completely given up on the Kafabe of pretending to be an opposition party.
no but you don’t understand! IF YOU HAD JUST VOTED, WE COULD HAVE HAD TEN CHUCK SCHUMERS TO VOTE FOR THE FASCIST CRAP! so really everything bad that happened is your fault for not voting. how dare you fail the democratic party like this.
Traitors for hire.
Challenge him. He’s has no business being a party leader if he’s as spineless as the Republicans who pushed this bill.
She would have to be in the senate to take over senate leadership in the short term. For his seat itself, there’s been house members - including moderates - starting to support the idea her primarying him when his term is up in 2028
Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown
I don’t want him out in 2028, I want him out now.
He can realistically be stripped of senate leadership in the short term. Call your senators and tell them to support removing him from leadership
🫡
The fact that people don’t even know she can’t be a senate leader because she’s in the house speaks volumes about the quality of solutions we see on lemmy. It’s ridiculous.
I think they’re implying “Run for Senate, if she wins, replace the seat of power with her.”
well that’s a pretty tough pitch given he’s not even going to be up for election for another four years.
Spinelessness is the chief defining quality of the entire Democratic Party. There are very few individual exceptions and those people need to start a new party. The US needs a real progressive party. The establishment Dems have made it very clear they won’t support a true progressive candidate, so what’s the point of bending the knee to these fuckers any longer?
And honestly now is the time to do it. I have absolutely zero faith we will have honest elections in the next couple decades so splitting the funding between neo lib corpocrats and an actual progressive party for the people will not affect the crooked elections under trump since they won’t win anyway. The time for progress is NOW
Its hard to decide if they are spineless or complicit. Not that it amounts to much of a difference in the end.
Sufficiently advanced cowardice is indistinguishable from complicity.
As she should.
Take his seat TAKE HIS SEAT TAKE HIS SEAT
For real girl, you can take him in the primary. You can do it.
Primary Schumer, of course, but his term is up in 2028. AOC herself might be more focused on a separate race that particular year.
I would absolutely vote for her, and as much as I want it to happen, I’m genuinely not sure that’s realistic.
He’ll be 78 in 2028. He probably will bow out of politics by then to turn things over to a younger generation.
Wait, who am I kidding?
Dude you had me going at first lol
Headline in 2035: The corpse of Chuck Schumer is considering retirement from politics
Who would have guessed that “Weekend at Bernie’s” was a documentary.
They’ve already done it. I forget her name, but the Democrat that was so old she was in a wheelchair and non-responsive for a long time. She passed away within the last four or five years, which finally ended her political career.
And then theres McConnell, the turtle who has had a couple strokes on live television. Keeps on chuggin.
you mean diane feinstein, she died from herpes zoster, aka shingles encephalitis, immunocompromised people are more likely to get meningitis, and encephalitis from shingles(which are typically painful rashes normally), one of the severe form of shingles. the other ones are usually also rare.
I’m genuinely not sure that’s realistic.
You’re just saying that because an AOC win would conclusively disprove the DNC’s mantra that Hillary and Kamala lost because of misogyny and not neoliberalism, so they’ll be desperate to stop her from becoming the candidate.
I would love it if she did win and disproved it. I’m just cautious of assuming that it’s a slam dunk. And I am also very cognizant that she is a conservative boogeyman, and that she’s made a LOT of staunch enemies in the DNC establishment (I hope that last bit won’t matter as much in 28, but who knows)
DNC establishment candidates are proven losers IMO. Only Biden won as a DNC establishment candidate in the last 20 years. The rest of the milquetoast horseshit from the DNC has lost national elections regularly and thoroughly.
Obama won despite the DNC, not because of it, and he largely sat outside of its apparatus for his entire two terms. John Kerry was garbage. HRC was garbage. Harris would’ve been somewhat exciting if she’d been 2020 Harris, but instead she was a DNC robot candidate that had flipped all of her progressive positions to appease the DNC apparatus…with predictable results.
It always breaks my brain when people talk about Bernie as Democrat, let alone establishment Democrat. He’s Independent, and only joins them to run in their presidential primaries.
This is not a criticism of Bernie by any means. He just realizes you have no chance to be president if you aren’t part of a party.
I wanna be clear: I am absolutely NOT defending DNC leadership. They are feckless in the extreme.
Agreed, neoliberalism needs to be discredited and thrown into the trash bin of history like Nazism mostly was.
In 28 the chance of fair elections is less than zero. I don’t imagine anything than every state being declared red regardless of outcome and of course nobody doing anything about it.
Then why are you even discussing electrical politics? If that is what you really believe, then you should be building bombs, not discussing politics.
One because i won’t encourage anyone to build mass death devices? But two because I want to and at least for now we’re allowed to? Who are you the fucking discussion police?
the amount of rigging from the last 2 election was not addressed one bit, and the MSM for obvious reasons will never report it as well.
If she is ever going to be president, she has to win a senate seat. Thats where we find out if its possible. I think it is becauae she isbwilling to put in thw work.
probably keeping her seat is more important than abandoning it.
I hope it’s as VP, though. I would love for her to run for president, but the country isn’t close to mature enough for that to happen.
Waltz would be the perfect choice.
“AOC is amazing, but…”
I have never understood this rhetoric.
She is more than qualified, has enough experience where she is out there educating her colleagues & the public about governmental processes and barriers, AND she speaks in a way that resonates with the working class AND younger generations.
Her Among Us Twitch stream was a brilliant way to connect with her younger constituents and made her approachable.
She does the same thing Bernie does, going out to rural America and speaking with the working class voters that feel unheard and abandoned.
At Congress, she ain’t fucking scared to speak truth to power.
And most important, she has demonstrated that she is impossible to buy.
This whole rhetoric that because she’s a woman Americans won’t vote for her:
No. Hilary is a crook and she still won the popular vote. If the electoral college wasn’t a thing, she would have been president.
Kamala came in way too fucking late thanks to Biden. But even so, her policies were still pandering to corporations and the rich, although it is undeniable she would have been vastly superior to Trump which is why she got my vote.
Whether America is ready for a female president or not is not the issue.
America needs someone who will be strong against corporate interests and bring forth universal healthcare.
It’s because a large portion of America is both sexist and racist. She should be a no brainer to win, but Trump should have been a no brainer to lose.
I don’t understand why people are so fucking thick to not understand this. If we’re so lucky to have a fair and free election in 2028, we can’t risk global stability to prove the DNC wrong by relying on a notoriously racist and misogynistic population of voters to choose a female person of color. Despite being one of the most qualified and intelligent members of congress, an AOC ticket is doomed to fail by her demonization by mainstream media and social media manipulation and propaganda.
This kind of electability politics is exactly what gets us one feckless candidate after another. We’re too scared to support all we actually believe in, and we end up with candidates that can’t rally popular support.
Listen to the fucking poll results. Good god. Joe Biden was even more milquetoast than Harris and he garnered 9 million more votes. Harris is left of Biden. That’s a fact. So the only reasonable explanation is that either Harris didn’t have enough campaign time (I think a few months is plenty) or older voting Americans don’t want to vote for a woman/POC.
By your logic, since she’s more left leaning than Joe, she should have been able to garner more popular support but that didn’t happen. 16+ years down the road if Dems can hold the office for that long AND have shored up protections for social programs AND removed blanket immunity from the executive branch, I have absolutely no problem with AOC. But until they’re able to gain a more stable foothold in the current political climate, you’re just going prematurely kill their one shot at a presidential run. That’s all you typically get is one chance. If Trump loses in 2016, he doesn’t come back in 20 and 24.
I don’t understand why people are so fucking thick to not understand this. If we’re so lucky to have a fair and free election in 2028, we can’t risk global stability to prove the DNC wrong by relying on a notoriously racist and misogynistic population of voters to choose a female person of color.
Limiting all women because the party wants to shut out one woman. Democrats smeared Sanders for allegedly saying what you just said.
Yeah it sucks but it’s the truth. I live by Chicago and a shocking amount of people I interact with drop racist or misogynistic comments without a thought around me because I’m a white guy.
Most comments I’ve heard about AOC are either who or that she’s dumb. I’ve asked two people why she’s dumb and they couldn’t give me a solid reason.
Anyway I guess my point is anecdotally this lines up with a lot of interactions I’ve had in the last few years
its the same answers they gave about harris: “i dont like her, she is not smart, or discussed her policies. its pure sexism.” from poc R voters
We can’t pander to the worst of us.
You’d be shocked at how well people respond to someone genuine like AOC, especially because voters on all sides recognize her name and her spirit, especially because she makes healthcare access & relief her focus.
You have to be pragmatic, though. There’s a time and place to push for progress, and this isn’t either. You need to stop the house from burning down before you can renovate it.
If 2028 even happens, it’ll be a fight to reclaim the country. That means the person with the best chance of winning needs to run. AOC is not that person this year.
You have to remember that the vast majority citizens aren’t anywhere near as informed on anything related to politics as the people here are. This is by design thanks to mass media. You have to field a person that appeals to the most people, and a Hispanic woman doesn’t do that.
It’s really fucking stupid that things are this way, but people are really fucking stupid. Tim Waltz is a very likable old white man, and that’s what will win an election.
You have to be pragmatic, though.
The false pragmatism of timid complicity got us here.
Yes but we’re not talking about someone genuine like her, we’re talking about her, specifically. I would love to see her win, but she’s been heavily demonized by right wing media.
“We can’t pander to the worst of us.” is a righteous idea, but it’s not tactically wise. Elections are a popularity contest, if you don’t approach them as such you will likely lose. It very obviously doesn’t matter how qualified a candidate is, it all boils down to pandering to enough demographics to win.
but it’s not tactically wise.
No but it is strategically disasterous to pre-emptively hamstring your best most popular leaders skilled at inspiring people for bullshit pre-emptive handwringing about things conservatives will do to anybody no matter who it is.
Kamala came in way too fucking late thanks to Biden. But even so, her policies were still pandering to corporations and the rich, although it is undeniable she would have been vastly superior to Trump which is why she got my vote.
I think what’s been proven is that the US will not vote overwhelmingly for a DNC robo-woman candidate.
It’s still America. There are people who voted for two terms of Obama and then flipped to Trump. Hell, there are some people who voted for Biden in 2020 and then Trump in 2024.
Perhaps most voters in the country have absolutely zero fixed values or do any meaningful analysis into who they are voting for. It’s vibes-based and perhaps always has been.
All that said, I don’t think it’s been proven or disproven that the US will not vote for a woman candidate that aligns with the country’s “vibes” at the moment so to speak.
The data doesn’t look very good that America will vote overwhelmingly for a woman for president based upon the limited results we have so far…but they did vote to send Harris into the east wing before she had been thoroughly unmasked as a corporate drone…so that’s something positive.
It easily could be that the American electorate is just way more misogynist than it is racist. 🤷 We’ll never know without running a reasonably charismatic woman candidate with non-corporate drone policies though.
If recent elections should have taught you anything, it’s that maturity is not a prerequisite for being president.
I think this is the classic “she’ll have to work twice as hard for half as much” that the right-leaning voters will insist on to vote anyone for president who isn’t a white man.
AOC needs to form a new party or at least go independent with Bernie. I’d really like an alternative to the Democrats because I’ll never be voting for them again.
No. She’s on a path that will shape the democrats of the future. If she leaves she will become irrelevant, and she knows it.
After this fine display by maga and the DINO’s I see a schism coming from both parties.
the gop’s schism of the maga, it already has occured with them, most of them had to embrace maga or risk getting primaried by trump aligned maga gop. there isnt one for the DNC yet
The path to to what future? One of greedy meekness? It’s the same mindset of people that hang on to Twitter to see if they can change the algorithm for good. So long as the RNC and DNC exist with their CEO’s and people like Nanci Pelosi and Chuck Schumer making decisions for you, the money will always determine the winners and the losers. None of them are ever going to give up a position that just keeps making money, tax free. This is especially true when the money comes from well hidden sources called Super PACs. I’m for parties breaking up.
One thing a lot of people really struggle with is that if you see something going on you don’t like in an organisation, you have to options:
- Leave and set out on a new path
- Stay and try to change the organisation from within.
I think too many people choose option 1, especially in politics. They resign and say “not in my name”. However, from their opponents point of view they’re now defeated. The obstacle is removed. They can now do exactly what they wanted to do, and probably go further.
The harder option is 2. Stay and fight, and probably lose multiple times, but you’ll make your opponent’s goals as hard as possible to achieve. You may even start winning and through your example bring others to your cause.
I agree with you on what you are saying. However, unless you institute a top down change as you would with any organization, you might as well read the writing on the wall. AOC, Benie, and any one else that does not stick to the status quo to keep the money flowing, have already been robbed of several opportunities to institute change. It’ll take another decade at minimum before the old guard retires, dies off, or sees the light. We don’t have decades unless she and others like her have some kind of ace up her sleeve.
Schumer’s argument is shit. They’re going to go after government agencies with or without the funding bill. With the finding bill they get to choose. Without it they have to shut down everything. Passing that bill means they get more maneuvering room, not less.
And with a shutdown the Dems would get to shout about ‘the GOP shutdown’ for however long it lasts which would also help to galvanize the public against MAGA.
There have been government shutdowns caused by Republicans in the past and they were never blamed on the Republicans. Hell, the Republicans blamed Dems for making them do it and it stuck.
Do not assume Democrats have any ability to control the optics of a situation at all. They are feckless.
Fucking THIS. These feckless cunts couldn’t even be bothered to frame it as the GOP’s fault? They’re going to blame you for anything bad that happens anyway, look at their track record for the past ever.
We will NEVER make progress by compromising with those who will not compromise with us in return.
I hope she primaries him. Vote all those decrepit elders out of office.
Unfortunately, he’s not up for reelection until 2028, at which time he’d be 78 years old, so probably wouldn’t be running anyway.
Yeah, 78 would be waaay to old for anybody to get elected
/s
Is this your first time? American politicians don’t give up power just because they are old. Feinstein, McConnell, Biden, Thurmond are just a few examples.
Fucking Pelosi. That dinosaur is 84 and still has her thumbspikes in every pie
(+2 points if you can name the dinosaur)
It’s Iguanodon!
Is it your cake day ?
Apparently. I had to sign up on the Ides of March because Kbin was so flaky I couldn’t wait until 4/20
Hope he’s doing okay.
Don’t forget RBG - Justice YAAS Queen herself… because she wanted Hillary to name her successor. Then she died and was replaced by Trump with a character out of handmaid’s tale.
They do that because committee seats are determined by seniority, so they need to elect dinosaurs who’ve been there forever even if said dinosaur doesn’t know where they are or what year it is.
i think thats why they go scorched earth, and nothing to lose type of voting, they are trying to get as much money out of it as possible.
And by then all of the positive things our government used to do will have been demolished we’ll all be too sick and exhausted to care anymore.
His vile cowardice is something I’m seeing people talk about, but the sheer stupidity of it isn’t touched on.
CHUCK. HE IS GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU! THE D NEXT TO YOUR NAME MAY AS WELL BE THE STAR OF DAVID ON YOUR CHEST YOU DUMB FUCK! DICTATORS DO NOT LET “OPPOSITION” PARTY MEMBERS LIVE. NO MATTER HOW HELPFUL THEY WERE IN GIVING THEM POWER!
Like are you fucking stupid?
There’s plenty of opposition parties in Russia, for example. They’re just all controlled. They use intentional gaffs to throw the election to the “correct” winner. If they start getting too uppity and stop following orders, they get banned from running on some technicality.
Navalny is what happens when even that doesn’t work, but he was very much the exception.
Democrats are currently proving that they are controlled opposition.
Hopefully she will run for his seat in the future.
Democrat voters are tired of compromising. MAGA thinks they want to burn the US down so they can “own the libs” … well let’s fucking do it. Let’s test their theory in the laboratory of life.
The only silver lining here is the remote possibility of progressive Democrats breaking out to form their own party. At least then the US will have a legitimate opposition party.
When people attempt to do that Republicans win even more power. Case in point: Ralph Nader.
Our voting system has us stuck in this duopoly and it will not change without destroying the country and starting over.
Exactly - I’m seeing nothing but brand new baby accounts (hmmm wonder why) post this self-destructive crap over and over again.
A third-party would destroy the chances of anyone but Rs winning without ranked choice.
You have to do exactly what Republicans did - which is fucking eat the party from the inside out and fill it with your people.
We have to get D voters and NON-voters angry and showing up at primaries in the same way that MAGA activated Republicans and non-voters to then primary normal neo-cons like McConnell and Romney with lunatics like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Bobert.
Congratulations l! You’re the first person I’ve met here who understands this.
You realize this was your last election right? It’s not going back to normal.
I guess we will see won’t we. I’m still voting in 2026 and 2028. I’m not going to be discouraged by all the nihilists on the internet that are trying to convince me I’m powerless. Maybe I’ll find that process is finished but I’m not rolling over or giving up. Hell you could be a Russian bot trying to make us feel apathetic about voting by just vaguely going … “ you guys realize it’s all over right ? Yea keep on sucking on that copium pal! 😈”
you’re not powerless, far from it - but you need to exert your power before 2026 and 2028 if you want your vote to matter.
your power comes from your ability to go on strike and sabotage, not from voting
I’m definitely already doing that. Every little bit counts.
Quit sucking your own dick
Nyet
Why?
Yeah they had their last election, ever, back in November. If they ever hope to get election back, they’ll need to actually fight for it instead of sitting on their butts.
Dems need to stop pretending Schumer is the only problem, any other dem in his position would have done the same thing including AOC. The party is rotten to the core it’s just a revolving door of sycophants who server wall st and capital. The party is working as intended. Notice how Dems never have power to make actual change, never have the backbone to oppose republicans, and when they have majorities they never use their power for actual progress or at the very least codifying laws like roe v wade ect. They are there to act like an opposition party not actually be one. The working class is perpetually screwed.
I will never again take AOC or any other “squad” member seriously as long as they proudly call themselves Democrats. Go independent like Bernie or start another party. Until then, if they want to keep giving themselves the same label as Schumer or Fetterman, I’m going to lump them in the same batch of assholes and idiots.
That’s a fucking retarded hill to die on.
Its funny I have suddenly seen the leave the party thing pop up in multiple places at the exact same time.
Beginning to think it’s AstroTurf to get the noise people out of the way and into 3rd party oblivion
Not really.
