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[–] -4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Didn't seem to have much issues trusting them in 2020.

Oh I forgot, we're not supposed to acknowledge that because it doesn't fit the narrative. I guess 83 million people is "no one". The standard leftist excuse for a moderate winning is that "they didn't win by enough".

Anyone who thinks the NYC constituency is the same as the entire country is a delusional fucking moron. That's a completely indefensible argument that has no basis in reality. It's just stubborn hubris from people who think they can "punish" their way into geting what they want by actively harming the causes they pretend to care about.

Spanberger won a tight race.

  • She beat Earle-Sears 57% to 42%. Arguing that this was a "tight race" is disingenuous.

She lacked endorsements from UMWA, USW, UAW or CWA:

  • She was endorsed explicitly by the CWA. She was also supported explicitly by other unions: SEIU 32BJ, AFGE and LIUNA. The AFL-CIO didn't endorse her but that certainly does not mean they preferred her opponent.

She ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic primary

  • If she ran unopposed in the primary, why didn't Progressives put up a challenger? Is it HER fault she ran unopposed?

She isn’t evidence of the value of centrist politics

  • The primary was uncontested so among Democrats you really can't justify this statement. She then went on to convincingly win VA, which is not a certain blue state. It seems pretty clear to any honest person that her policies combined with Trump backlash are why she won the race.

She’s currently wildly unpopular.

  • Recent polling cannot possibly be interpreted as "wildly unpopular". The worst has at 44% approving/47% disapproving.

She vetoed populist left-wing bills.

  • Some argument here, granted, but it's still misleading. Some of the vetoed measures were bipartisan, rather than "left wing". The drug affordability bill passed the Senate 36–4 and House 95-4. She has also singed hundreds of positive bills, including regarding housing and the environment. Also brought the state back into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Acting like all she has done is oppose progressive policies is misleading.

She provided no input, and legislators didn’t know what she wanted

  • The Democrats who spoke out about not hearing opposition until the veto phase are your hated "centrists", by the way. Seems your happy to listen to them here. Also, her policy staff worked with legislators throughout the session; she submitted approximately 180 amendments, many of which lawmakers accepted. Yes, there were communication issues here but NO it wasn't some deliberate attempt to scuttle progressive policies.

The "session" shit is ridiculous to begin with. They only meet for 30 days on odd numbered years? That's supposed to be enough time to go from introducing a bill to passing it? In any event, as stated above, the administration did chime in on the considered legislation over 100 times.

Why am I not surprised to see such a misleading comment from a supposed "leftist"? You contribute to this "post fact" bullshit just as much as the right does.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 hours ago

    A lot of what you're arguing is tangential to what I was trying to say, but I'll still go through it.

    1. We were glad in NoVA that Spanberger won in an extremely conservative district in Northern Virgina in 2018. It was a relief compared to what was there before. The follow up in 2020 was also nice.
    2. I'm not trying to say that she didn't win by enough. I don't really care about vote margins in electoral politics, I care about what politicians do in office to shift how people perceive the political process. Spanberger has been a consistent corporate vote. Better than the overt fascists. Still complicit in the erosion of our environmental and labor protections. She's part of the false binary we find ourselves in in this country between overt hyperfascism and slow neoliberal fascism. We won't know until we try it if a populist left wing candidate like a Zohran Mamdani or a Bernie Sanders could win in a general. Virginia hasn't had an opportunity to do such a thing in my lifetime.
    3. I also don't think that the NYC populace is the same as Virginia. I think our left wing populism would look different from their left wing populism. I know this because I've experienced it first hand. The center of left wing life in SWVA is the Grange, the Mutual Aid Hub, and the Water Defender. In the urban centers the focus is much more on economic unions and labor unions for the factory and office worker. I've lived both lives, and have seen that organization efforts need to fall along different lines and put different focuses on confronting poverty. In the countryside you need to empower people to support eachother through their access to clean drinking water and growable food. In the urban centers you need to empower people to organize their people power to demonstrate to their bosses the ability to say "No."
    4. I missed my CWA chapter endorsing her. I didn't know that the CWA endorsed her. That's my mistake. Most unionists did tend to vote for her anyway because Winsome Earle-Sears was an overt fascist. You will receive no argument from me. But this was the first time in my life that the unions refused to endorse either candidate. That's HUGE
    5. If she ran unopposed in the primary, why didn’t Progressives put up a challenger? Is it HER fault she ran unopposed? That's EXACTLY the organization failure I was trying to point out. Democracy is not a single event that occurs at the ballot box in November. Even the bourgious electoral form of democracy practiced in the United states requires participation 2-3 times a year to get the best possible outcome, but moreover, it requires dedicating time to go door to door to talk to people about candidates. You get more enthusiasm to do that when people are enthusiastic about the candidates. I haven't seen that in Virginia in a decade. No one trusts any of our politicians and people dedicated to the value of democratic values have been much more focused on community organization with their neighbors. It's been a monumental shift, and one I've very much seen accelerate in the past 4 years since the western regions of the state were devestated by hurricane helene along with our North Carolinian and West Virginian brethren, with many people slowly viewing themselves less as residents of any of our states or border states, and more as being parts of the cultural communities we exist in. The people of Bluefield, Tazewell, and Boone have more in common that their political representation reflects. So why do we even pay attention to the state borders when our real connections are through our food and our water? More and more people want representation that reflects this, and if Democrats don't run a socialist who reflects this, they risk losing to a national-socialism who does Iq8F88AClfPHMlr.jpg Definition of fascism by Seth Tobocman. If we are to resist fascism, we must acknowledge how it takes hold. The "Virginia wants corporate dems" narrative undermines our ability to assess and resist our standing when increasingly there is a boot on our nets.

    6. Not being Winsome Earle-Sears is not clear policy value. Virginians like some of her policy positions, but some of her policy positions are WILDLY unpopular, and as a result she has become increasingly unpopular. We do need to acknowledge that there is an element of misogyny driving her unpopularity. I renounce anyone who roots their criticisms of the 67th governor in her gender. Fuck that and fuck off if that's you (not you who I'm replying to, obviously, but I know there's a chance someone's reading this hating her for her gender). I'll state my stance that our last good governor was Francis Harrison Pierpont. Spanberger is a better governor than Youngkin, McDonnel, or Warner up to this point, but we do have to acknowledge what the specific issues with her governorship have been
    7. You think I don't know the short sessions and long sessions are completely insane!? THEY'RE COMPLETELY INSANE!! "Oh it's to avoid a permanent professional class of politicians from running the state" bull fucking shit, the result is representatives that spend somewhere between 1 and 3 months a year doing anything, and the rest of the year schmoozing. I fuckin' hate it. I'll have to take your word for it on that it was the centrist dems mainly saying she scuttled collective bargaining and environmental protections we'd been hopeful on. That was the feedback we got from our union endorsed representative and from multiple environmental groups in our valley who spend a lot of time talking to representatives, senators, and anyone else who will listen to that we're tired of the arsenic in the New River, so it was the understanding I had taken away from this past session.
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  • [–] 1 point 11 hours ago* (1 child)

    She ran virtually unopposed in the Democratic primary

    If she ran unopposed in the primary, why didn’t Progressives put up a challenger? Is it HER fault she ran unopposed?

    Spanberger didn't run for Congress is 2024 because she intended to run for governor in 2025. The lack of other primary candidates is obvious evidence of a party clearing the path for their chosen candidate.

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  • [–] -1 points 11 hours ago*

    obvious evidence of a party clearing the path

    No, that's paranoid delusional bullshit based on nothing. That IS NOT "obvious" evidence that there was some official "clearing the path" the disincluded more Progressive options. The only thing it's evidence of is that no Progressive candidate stood up and tried to run.

    The misinformation is fucking ENDLESS with you guys. It's like you don't even remotely care if what you say is true or not.

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