• capital@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    “Gerry’s a young 74, cancer notwithstanding,” said Virginia Democrat Don Beyer, a Connolly ally.

    Fucking LOL

    • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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      6 days ago

      No, she’s the Mitch of democrats.

      Trump is a cult leader, Mitch is an old guard back room dealing politician who doesn’t care about anyone but himself. Not dissimilar to feinstein who tried to break the internet and the concept of security in general before the blackness saved us from her. But then, what does California do but replace her with a generic back room old guard white man rather than the one person who voted against the war in Iraq. We do this to ourselves.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        6 days ago

        There’s no “we” here. It’s the rotten, corrupt leadership of the Democratic Party. And what that means is that, if there’s to be any effective resistance to Trump, it sure as shit won’t be the Democrats who organize it. They’ll be right there, alternately triangulating and enabling the motherfucker.

        • frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe
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          6 days ago

          Voters had a three way primary and voted for Adam Schiff. There’s a we. Blaming the unspecific monolith of the Democratic party for everything that happens while simultaneously claiming they are incompetent buffoons is what republicans do.

  • Heikki@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    “Why is this still legal?” sasy, someone who doesn’t vote for change and has no ambition to vote every cycle.

    • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      Only one party is promoting change, and it’s not the kind of change I want to see.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldOP
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    8 days ago

    Fresh off hip replacement surgery, Nancy Pelosi, 84, secured another victory. House Democrats on Tuesday afternoon decided that 74-year-old Gerry Connolly—who announced his throat cancer diagnosis in November—will serve as ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, besting 35-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a closed-door caucus vote. “Gerry’s a young 74, cancer notwithstanding,” said Virginia Democrat Don Beyer, a Connolly ally. Pelosi had opposed the 35-year-old’s run for the role, “approaching colleagues urging them to back Connolly over Ocasio-Cortez,” Axios reported last week.

    Don Beyer is also 74, which is why he won’t say 74 is too old.

    These people won’t step down, as painful as it may be we need to primary them completely out of office if we want a chance against fascism.

    • Arghblarg@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      Vote only for candidates who promise to fight for maximum age limits for all Congressional, executive and judicial positions. End the gerontocracy.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldOP
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        8 days ago

        The party can legally just ignore primary votes and name anyone for any spot in the general.

        If push comes to shove, I really can’t say for sure that they’ll all hand the keys over if it’s a wave. I think there’s a decent chance the close ranks, and if any state party doesn’t, the DNC cuts them off. Like, for the last decade they been standing on a pile of dynamite threatening to drop it if we don’t do what they say.

        Especially with age related cognitive decline, I think they’ll drop the match honestly believe they’re doing what’s best.

        Which is exactly why they need to go.

        • btaf45@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          The party can legally just ignore primary votes and name anyone for any spot in the general.

          In the same way that the US government can just ignore its own Constitution without violating any international laws.

        • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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          7 days ago

          They can’t legally ignore primary votes. It’s not necessarily a crime, but there is definitely a successful and very expensive lawsuit if someone wins a primary by the rules and the party just picks someone else instead.

          • futatorius@lemm.ee
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            6 days ago

            That’s entirely dependent on what other rules the party has. And legally, nomination decisions are entirely at the discretion of the parties, as long as they play by whatever their rules happen to be. Parties are not legally required to have primaries at all.

            • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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              6 days ago

              Right but if they don’t count primary votes that were cast, then there’s a cause of action because they’re breaking their own rules. It’s basically a breach of contract. There’s no cause of action for some votes being more valuable than others because those were always the rules. I don’t love that system, but it’s a private entity and those are their rules for picking a candidate to run in the general. It’s true that they’re not required to have a primary, but that’s irrelevant right now because the Dems do have a primary under their own rules.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldOP
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            7 days ago

            lawsuit

            The DNC literally have argued in court to a judge that they can do this and the judge agreed…

            It wasn’t even a decade ago, you’re almost definitely old enough to have lived thru it. And it was pretty big news at the time…

            The DNC argued the only-in-politics defense that the Sanders donors knew that the committee was biased toward Clinton, and therefore, it was under no legal obligation to be neutral or fair to all candidates.

            https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/bernie-sanders-donors-lose-case-alleging-dnc-improperly-tipped-the-scales-in-favor-of-hillary-clinton/

            The DNC legitimately said Dem voters should know that the DNC is corrupt and that they won’t let a fair primary happen.

            You’re talking like this is a hypothetical still, the lawsuit has already happened.

            But like, even just a few months ago we saw it happen:

            “Moreover, political parties have the constitutional right to determine the procedure by which they select their nominees, as repeatedly confirmed by the Supreme Court,” Foley said, citing the Supreme Court cases Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette and California Democratic Party v. Jones.

            “The authority of the national parties to choose their nominee in the event the nominee can’t run comes as a surprise to many in this day of wall-to-wall primaries,” Elaine Kamarck, author of “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates,” wrote in September. “And yet, it is a reminder that the choice of a nominee is party business — not state law, not federal law, and not constitutional law."

            https://www.factcheck.org/2024/07/experts-delegates-free-to-pick-democratic-nominee/

            People need to start paying more attention

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    The Democratic Party needs to be burned to ashes. And I say this as a Democrat. It’s time for it to go the way of the Whigs.

    • Botzo@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      All government employees should have mandatory retirement at the maximum social security benefit age.

      Just kidding, that would only be a recipe for removing a maximum benefit age and just graduating it at a stupidly low rate to age 100+.

      I hate this timeline.

      • kofe@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Age isn’t inherently a bad thing in politics. We’re a representative democracy, and older adults deserve representation reflected as equally as any other eligible voter demographic imo (which could include felons and other disenfranchised populations where possible, but that’s a whole other convo).

        It’s disproportionately skewed due to lack of term limits, it’s often safer for parties to run an incumbent, and there’s benefits to having someone with the experience stay in, so idk. I don’t have a ton of solutions by any means, just want to push back on the ageism and add some nuance here. Bernie’s still out there doing a his job representing the demographic well

        • futatorius@lemm.ee
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          It’s disproportionately skewed due to lack of term limits

          Term limits do nothing but empower civil servants and the parties’ bureaucracies. They haven’t achieved better governance anywhere they’ve been tried. The endless revolving door just makes it more important for careerists to seek patronage.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          7 days ago

          Age isn’t inherently a bad thing in politics. We’re a representative democracy,

          I am not a workaholic. I want to retire from my profession some day, not continue working while in hospice care.

          I want to be represented by someone who understands and shares my values, which includes a desire to enjoying life after retirement.

          I want my representatives to value and promote the idea of recreation, hobbies, volunteer work, etc. Which means they will be retiring from professional work around 65, not 90.

          Being of retirement age is an inherently bad thing in professional politics.

          • kofe@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Just because it’s what you want doesn’t mean you speak for everyone. That’s the point of democracy.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              7 days ago

              My point is that if the electorate wants to enjoy their retirement, they should be electing candidates who actually plan on enjoying their own retirement. They shouldn’t be electing candidates who think retirement is something for weak or lazy people.

        • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          Age is a problem cognitive decline is real and no one escapes it. These 70 and 80 year old people aren’t mentally competent.

          • kofe@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Cognitive decline is not inherent to old age. It is something to look out for.

            • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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              7 days ago

              Cognitive decline absolutely is inherent. You can delay it, but by 70 everyone has measurable decline.

              • kofe@lemmy.world
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                Do you have research that demonstrates this conclusively? I’ve taken courses in psychology of aging, lifespan development, brain & behavior, etc. None of them discussed such a claim for everyone, but it’s possible I didn’t pay well enough attention.

                I asked ChatGPT as well, and it’s disagreeing with you, for the record. There are changes and differences, but the brain is a muscle like any other that requires training. Learning new skills, solving puzzles, etc. is correlated to the maintenance and/or improvement of the organ over the lifespan.

                • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 days ago

                  Research has shown that concept formation, abstraction, and mental flexibility decline with age, especially after age 70

                  Many fluid cognitive abilities, especially psychomotor ability and processing speed, peak in the third decade of life and then decline at an estimated rate of −0.02 standard deviations per year.

                  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4015335/

                  However, what does appear clear is that several different types of results converge on the conclusion that age-related cognitive decline begins relatively early in adulthood, and certainly before age 60 in healthy educated adults.

                  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2683339/

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      She is retired. Which means Pelosi didn’t “win” anything at all. She isn’t the Speaker. Clickbait headline to troll fools.

  • UsernameHere@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    If we don’t elect more progressives into the Democratic Party then progressives wont be able to make decisions in the DNC let alone win elections against the GOP.

  • francisfordpoopola@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    When she won the Speaker vote she immediately came out and said she would focus on bringing the Demo party back together. Not ensuring the country gets the best product… But ensuring they were as tight as possible. That told me what she really cares about. Don’t even look at her stock purchase history… Shit.

    • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Yea fuck Bernie too for saying the same thing and then caucusing with dems right? Working with them to write legislation right? Nah he should just make a petulant lemmy post…

      When a majority of the country votes for trump and can’t be bothered to vote for anything progressive at any down ballot level this past election I dont see the value in blaming pelosi.

      Progressives should take responsibility for their actions. I’m one and I agree.

      Progressives lost in the ballot box too and they shouldn’t have. I just don’t see how shitting on half the blue party does anything but explain that, not change it. If anything your words explain the apathy that handed trump the office. BUT, not an apathy of democratic representation… an apathy of democratic participation.

      So yea, you’re handing it all to fascists… they didn’t get it by chance they get it because you split hairs and told everyone just don’t show up…

      Pelosi don’t win by lottery. The speaker is elected by vote of reps that Americans in turn voted for.

      Likely the issue is more than what you infer? Maybe the issue includes finding someone to elect who cares for and about progressives, their causes etc… Maybe blue voters should have been ENCOURAGED RATHER THAN DISCOURAGED. But after all if pelosi exists you have every reason to justify trump.

      What has Bernie done these past few years compared to your words now? He advocated for the working WITH the Democratic Party…

      …not for trump just cause bs purity tests.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    If Trump does go full dictator, the only upside will be that all these self-serving greedy old bastards will be the first against the wall.

    • jonne
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      8 days ago

      No they won’t. They know how to play the game and they’ll throw everyone else under the bus to save their own skins.