The Democratic Party's National Committee should revoke Third Way's credentials as a group within the Democratic Party before the 2028 convention. Then they could go out and be honest and try to start a third party or join the Republicans, which is where most of them belong anyway.
They certainly won't take any Democratic voters with them, though they'll probably take half a billion dollars from their right-wing Republican funders. We can live without that.
Maybe they'll attract some of the disaffected Rethugs who agree with Donald but "don't like his crass boorishness" (much less his boorish crassness).
Yes if there’s anything the country needs more of it is more “centrist” politics which, thanks to the Overton Window being shattered and thrown out of the building through itself (a windowsusception of sorts) means these chucklefuckles are republicans. Republicans who aren’t even self aware enough to understand how republican they really are. Turd Way indeed.
Third Way sounds like they listen too much to Carville and Maher, who are always lecturing Democrats on how to behave but offering few actionable suggestions.
I'm 100% on board with Social Democracy, but we need to stop using the word socialism unless we're all on board with the abolition of capitalism and nationalizing the means of production, which I am not, and I suspect most "Democratic Socialists" aren't, either.
Or am I missing something? Do my fellow Dems really want socialism?
Medicare, for example, is not socialism; it's social democracy. The hospitals and clinics are in private hands, and most of them are for-profit. No socialism there.
TriCare, on the other hand, could be considered socialism, but it's confined to the military, so its more of an in-house service for employees. That's not really socialism, either.
This nitpicking of the word 'socialism' is really starting to feel like "Hengggh The United States is a representative Republic, not a 'Democracy'"
How about "We all want a fucking country that takes our taxes and makes life better for us instead of worse. I don't care if you call it socialism, 'popularism' or star-bellied sneechism"
The word means what it means, not what you want it to mean.
"... a fucking country that takes our taxes and makes life better for us instead of worse..." is Social Democracy (Nordic Model), and not Democratic Socialism. And social democracy has nothing to do with socialism. It's democracy that builds a safety net for society. That's the social part of the term.
Mislabelling ourselves socialists it is giving MAGA a powerful cudgel to beat us in the midterms. Would you tell your girlfriend you had an STD when you didn't? It's that black and white.
It is foolish in the extreme to label ourselves as people who want to abolish capitalism, and the private ownership of the means of production, when we don't. That's what the word means, Bruce.
It's wild to me that you spend this whole article complaining about Third Way Democrats attacking their "own" party, and don't even mention Abdul El Sayed's most visible backer, Hasan Piker. That guy -- you know, the one who said the Americans who died on 9/11 deserved it -- has been having a very public meltdown the last week over calls that AES should court the moderate wing of the party, that he should build a big tent, that he should welcome the support from Whitmer, Slotkin, and Haley Stevens. The same Hasan Piker who railed for years against "vote blue no matter who" when it was moderates courting the liberal wing now says that AES shouldn't do anything to earn the moderates' vote, that the latter should shut up and fall in.
I don't dispute that the Third Way Dems are a pox on the party, but to act like AES's campaign doesn't have exactly the same problem, and that this is likely to be far more relevant in the general since it's going to be the Republican candidate's main talking point, is bordering on malpractice.
As Abdul noted in that excellent New Yorker interview, Kamala Harris also invited Hasan Piker to stream live from the DNC. Abdul didn't invent that guy, and he's not part of Abdul's campaign.
But you understand how it's a very different thing when Harris, a centrist Democrat, reaches out to Piker in '24 as part of her efforts to shore up her notably weak support from the oppositional left, when those liberals had been key to Biden's success four years prior and Piker was (and remains) a very loud voice among the extremely online rejecting the moderate majority of the party.
I don't really have much of a position on AES's campaign -- like you, McMorrow was my preferred candidate (why did she drop out again? Was it lack of funds?) -- but I do think he has some baggage that's going to difficult to overcome in the general. If Piker isn't part of the campaign, it would be both easy and productive for AES to loudly denounce Piker's statements on 9/11 (and his subsequent weaseling), saying there's no place in the party for anybody who so much as implies that Americans deserved 9/11. He won't even have to name Piker, and it would even be helpful if Piker took the bait and started up some twitter beef over it. Kayfabe from him would be helpful with the moderates he's going to need.
Cowan is a nobody whose opinion matters little more than the residents of Idaho diners who also sometimes appear in the Times as decoration for announcements of dire trouble for the Democrats. You admit that his money supply is very limited and his influence slight, but you cheerfully try to present him as some sort of a threat. The NYT is trying to do one thing here -- start an internal fight in the Democratic party. Why are you helping them? You don't like them and you don't rely on them. Why are you so gleefully falling for their BS now?
"[Van Jones] said on Tuesday that the Democratic Party is now Blockbuster, while 'these kids are Netflix.'” I am an old quite-out-of-it fart, and even I can tell this is the most 2010 thing anyone has ever said. Paid to say it on TV, no less.
No matter their party, anti-progress is their platform. Return to the good old days. Mister Conservative, I'm old enough to have lived through a lot of those god old days. They sucked rocks. I don't care about damned flying cars. Just give me a future with some hope in it.
$15 million is pocket change in politics, but it pays the rent on Manhattan apartments for Third Way staffers. And don’t forget, the only path to attention for these idiots is to pick fights to their left — as being name checked in an NYT piece demonstrates.
"Their fear: Dr. El-Sayed was paving a path for a progressive to seize the party’s presidential nomination in 2028 — and then go on to lose the general election."
And they are willing to spend millions of dollars to make sure that that is exactly what happens. Fuck these fascist enablers.
The Democratic Party's National Committee should revoke Third Way's credentials as a group within the Democratic Party before the 2028 convention. Then they could go out and be honest and try to start a third party or join the Republicans, which is where most of them belong anyway.
They certainly won't take any Democratic voters with them, though they'll probably take half a billion dollars from their right-wing Republican funders. We can live without that.
Maybe they'll attract some of the disaffected Rethugs who agree with Donald but "don't like his crass boorishness" (much less his boorish crassness).
AIPAC pissed $60-million on one primary and got its ass handed to it.
Now Third Eye is pledging $15-million to crush progressives nationwide?
Might need that money for a remedial arithmetic class.
Yes if there’s anything the country needs more of it is more “centrist” politics which, thanks to the Overton Window being shattered and thrown out of the building through itself (a windowsusception of sorts) means these chucklefuckles are republicans. Republicans who aren’t even self aware enough to understand how republican they really are. Turd Way indeed.
Great post, Gary! Thank you.
Third Way sounds like they listen too much to Carville and Maher, who are always lecturing Democrats on how to behave but offering few actionable suggestions.
Thes people would consider FDR a 'mortal danger' to the Democratic party.
I'm 100% on board with Social Democracy, but we need to stop using the word socialism unless we're all on board with the abolition of capitalism and nationalizing the means of production, which I am not, and I suspect most "Democratic Socialists" aren't, either.
Or am I missing something? Do my fellow Dems really want socialism?
Medicare, for example, is not socialism; it's social democracy. The hospitals and clinics are in private hands, and most of them are for-profit. No socialism there.
TriCare, on the other hand, could be considered socialism, but it's confined to the military, so its more of an in-house service for employees. That's not really socialism, either.
This nitpicking of the word 'socialism' is really starting to feel like "Hengggh The United States is a representative Republic, not a 'Democracy'"
How about "We all want a fucking country that takes our taxes and makes life better for us instead of worse. I don't care if you call it socialism, 'popularism' or star-bellied sneechism"
The word means what it means, not what you want it to mean.
"... a fucking country that takes our taxes and makes life better for us instead of worse..." is Social Democracy (Nordic Model), and not Democratic Socialism. And social democracy has nothing to do with socialism. It's democracy that builds a safety net for society. That's the social part of the term.
Mislabelling ourselves socialists it is giving MAGA a powerful cudgel to beat us in the midterms. Would you tell your girlfriend you had an STD when you didn't? It's that black and white.
It is foolish in the extreme to label ourselves as people who want to abolish capitalism, and the private ownership of the means of production, when we don't. That's what the word means, Bruce.
We are shooting ourselves in the foot.
It's wild to me that you spend this whole article complaining about Third Way Democrats attacking their "own" party, and don't even mention Abdul El Sayed's most visible backer, Hasan Piker. That guy -- you know, the one who said the Americans who died on 9/11 deserved it -- has been having a very public meltdown the last week over calls that AES should court the moderate wing of the party, that he should build a big tent, that he should welcome the support from Whitmer, Slotkin, and Haley Stevens. The same Hasan Piker who railed for years against "vote blue no matter who" when it was moderates courting the liberal wing now says that AES shouldn't do anything to earn the moderates' vote, that the latter should shut up and fall in.
I don't dispute that the Third Way Dems are a pox on the party, but to act like AES's campaign doesn't have exactly the same problem, and that this is likely to be far more relevant in the general since it's going to be the Republican candidate's main talking point, is bordering on malpractice.
As Abdul noted in that excellent New Yorker interview, Kamala Harris also invited Hasan Piker to stream live from the DNC. Abdul didn't invent that guy, and he's not part of Abdul's campaign.
But you understand how it's a very different thing when Harris, a centrist Democrat, reaches out to Piker in '24 as part of her efforts to shore up her notably weak support from the oppositional left, when those liberals had been key to Biden's success four years prior and Piker was (and remains) a very loud voice among the extremely online rejecting the moderate majority of the party.
I don't really have much of a position on AES's campaign -- like you, McMorrow was my preferred candidate (why did she drop out again? Was it lack of funds?) -- but I do think he has some baggage that's going to difficult to overcome in the general. If Piker isn't part of the campaign, it would be both easy and productive for AES to loudly denounce Piker's statements on 9/11 (and his subsequent weaseling), saying there's no place in the party for anybody who so much as implies that Americans deserved 9/11. He won't even have to name Piker, and it would even be helpful if Piker took the bait and started up some twitter beef over it. Kayfabe from him would be helpful with the moderates he's going to need.
Cowan is a nobody whose opinion matters little more than the residents of Idaho diners who also sometimes appear in the Times as decoration for announcements of dire trouble for the Democrats. You admit that his money supply is very limited and his influence slight, but you cheerfully try to present him as some sort of a threat. The NYT is trying to do one thing here -- start an internal fight in the Democratic party. Why are you helping them? You don't like them and you don't rely on them. Why are you so gleefully falling for their BS now?
"[Van Jones] said on Tuesday that the Democratic Party is now Blockbuster, while 'these kids are Netflix.'” I am an old quite-out-of-it fart, and even I can tell this is the most 2010 thing anyone has ever said. Paid to say it on TV, no less.
These days you especially don't want to be a lettuce-brained chucklefuck.
No matter their party, anti-progress is their platform. Return to the good old days. Mister Conservative, I'm old enough to have lived through a lot of those god old days. They sucked rocks. I don't care about damned flying cars. Just give me a future with some hope in it.
Is James Carville a third way guy? He sure seems weird.
If third way means old, cranky, increasingly irrelevant and out of touch, then yes.
I hate Carville with the heat of a thousand suns. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/27/politics/democratic-party-wokeness-james-carville
$15 million is pocket change in politics, but it pays the rent on Manhattan apartments for Third Way staffers. And don’t forget, the only path to attention for these idiots is to pick fights to their left — as being name checked in an NYT piece demonstrates.
"Their fear: Dr. El-Sayed was paving a path for a progressive to seize the party’s presidential nomination in 2028 — and then go on to lose the general election."
And they are willing to spend millions of dollars to make sure that that is exactly what happens. Fuck these fascist enablers.
Hey, Third Way! Clutch yer pearls harder.