Heard an interview with her this week on PSA. Sounded very wooden and uncharismatic and evaded some questions. If we still lived in WI it would be tough to get behind her.
2026 US Elections & Beyond
- Thread starter calodo2003
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Heard an interview with her this week on PSA. Sounded very wooden and uncharismatic and evaded some questions. If we still lived in WI it would be tough to get behind her.
Interesting. Her coalition also seem to be the poor and the rich
Also in Dearborn(Arab-majority city)where seemingly Gaza was a big issue in the last general election the turnout was very low.
Have to imagine he will win over most of Stevens voters although at the same time it's all so incoherent and random.
There is some speculation that Republican voters voted for Stevens as this was an open primary.
Great to see...
Ossoff's ground game is insane. I think it was Pod save America that said he was by far the best representative to local issues in the country and his office is continually out helping locals.
I've spoken to several of them so I think that's totally true. Abdul scares them a lot.
All right wingers in a nutshell.
Why is that strange? Seems predictable to me since the American working class are the most racist, homophobic, and Islamophobic.
For obvious reasons - because the main target audience for progressives is the working class argument that Sanders ran on.
Its even more obvious that the main target audience for the last 10 years of Trumps racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia and conspiracy theory has proven to be much more poweful at hooking the uneducated, low information working class.
If you actually think its odd that Sayed lost the working class, I would suggest your reference points are too anchored to 2015-16 not 2025-26
They're anchored in standard progressive policies like m4all and the usual menu of other policies they're running on in the present.
Which has been proven to be less effective at winning the uneducated, low information working class than the easy emotional argument's of Trump's racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia and conspiracy theory.
"For example, the exit polls show that working-class voters, defined as voters without a college degree, split 56% for Trump to 42% for Harris. The same polls tell us that white working-class voters favored Trump over Harris by 66% to 32%, and that Trump won a larger share of working-class Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020."
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-4-working-class-votes/
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"Approximately 52% of Michigan's eligible working-class population (defined as adults without a four-year college degree) consists of white voters or workers" -
https://www.aei.org/commentary/democrats-class-gap-problem-is-not-going-away/
It's completely predictable and not strange at all that a moderate Muslim-progressive American would lose the working class in Michigan while winning the more educated, higher information middle class in an open primary.
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Well in the case of Abdul v Stevens, I don't think those that voted for Stevens subscribed to the Trumpian view. Stevens simply connected better with working class voters while Abdul did better with educated ones who were more interested in a combination of Sanders style populism and the current holy grail of the DSA crowd - Gaza.
First, it's an open primary so absolutely some of the working class voters would be Red Hats. Second, they don't have to be a red hat wearer to have been influenced by the last 10 years of Trump's racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia and conspiracy theory and thus prefer voting for a moderate white candidate than a progressive Muslim. As I said, its a very predictable result (based on data>feelings). It would be more surprising if Sayed won the working class in Michigan. It's a different demographic than the working class in Los Angeles or New York City.
If he can't win working class voters, it would be a bit tough to win in general? if this is true, why would republicans help Stevens anyway as some were saying?
Unless just for fun and because of casual racism?
Unless just for fun and because of casual racism?
I don't think they helped either candidate, especially Stevens since she was widely viewed as a stronger candidate against Rodgers in November going into the primaries.
I mean by some R voting for her as some here claimed, she could have won and give their R candidate a harder chance to win against? Why would they do it?
I think you may be overestimating how many Republicans bother to show up and vote in Democratic primaries. I doubt it’s any kind of coordinated effort to elect the ‘easier’ candidate in the general.
it will be tough for him to win the general. He barely won the Democrat primary. It doesn't mean he can't win the general, he just has to clear just enough working class votes and win enough middle class and above to counter it.
The Democrats should have learned decades ago that voters don't vote on economic self-interest, they vote on moral value systems (Lakoff).
It's not just opposite parties crossing the aisle in open primaries. Open primaries given non-partisan/independent voters a primary to vote in. And as I said, someone doesn't have to be a die hard red hat to be influenced by some degree of xenophobia and Islamophobia, even subconsciously.
This perfect encapsulates the maga movement:
The tv show The Pitt nails this in a few scenes. Makes you really angry as an outsider looking in.
Woke 1 was crazy. Hopefully woke 2 isn't crazier.
Wasn't the calls for abolishing the police due to everyone being horrified after seeing a video of a black working class man getting choked to death while calling out for his mother.
The goldfish memory of American politics really is a evil strength of the system.
The goldfish memory of American politics really is a evil strength of the system.
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I mean, sure, but “abolish the police” was a dumb position then and it’s a dumb position now. The vast majority of Americans, including people horrified by George Floyd’s death, never wanted to abolish law enforcement. And abolishing law enforcement was never going to make us safer.
The problem wasn’t that everyone forgot what happened, It was that people responded to a horrific event with an increadibly blunt, poorly thought-out political slogan. That was a bad idea at the time andit didn’t become a good one just because people have forgotten why it happend.
There isn’t a functioning society in the world without a police force. If anything the police in the US seem to need better education and training, which costs money. They might get some of that from buying less military grade equipment from the armed forces.
‘Reform the police’ or ‘Demilitarize the police’ would have been more accurate, but arguably not as punchy.
‘Reform the police’ or ‘Demilitarize the police’ would have been more accurate, but arguably not as punchy.
And probably would have stuck around longer and had more impact overall. Unfortunately we got the stupid slogan that a handful of idiots ran into the ground and simply gave the right more talking points.
Punchy might make the speaker feel good, but they have to move beyond what makes them feel good to actually see change.
Imo slogans had very little to do the failure of getting reforms. It should be another lesson to progressives on the difficulties of making the system any better but instead it gets dismissed as crazy talk.
Wouldn't be surprising if Gaza went the same way in the next few years.
Wouldn't be surprising if Gaza went the same way in the next few years.
It wasn't just one horrific event.
And yeah it's a shame they didn't mean-test slogans through 3 layers of beltway consultant forms after seeing more and more funds and resources being channelled to police departments, with the net result of seeing more civilians killed at the hands of police officers, culminating in the weaponization of federal agencies like ICE against the American public (the 2 deaths in Minneapolis come to mind)
If only they replaced that slogan with a more reasonable one to put the suburbs at ease. Things would probably be much better now. Bad actors wouldn't have any space to stymie genuine police reform (including the redirection of excess funds and military/counterinsurgency equipment from them towards other causes)
And just to be clear and objective, it was definitely a maximalist and silly slogan, but the level of discourse it generated relative to, you know, actual deaths of citizens at the hands of police without recourse going all the way back to Sean Bell/Amadou Diallo... You could tell most people genuinely didn't give a feck about the underlying issue that could drive such a slogan to be stated in the first place.
As a side note, it was equal parts hilarious and exhausting seeing people (executives included) at work after George Floyd tearfully admit they didn't know police brutality was a thing until they saw the killing live on camera. 2 Americas.
As a side note, it was equal parts hilarious and exhausting seeing people (executives included) at work after George Floyd tearfully admit they didn't know police brutality was a thing until they saw the killing live on camera. 2 Americas.
I know, I was responding directly to @Sweet Square who mentioned a specific event.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that police brutality wasn’t and still isn't a serious problem, or that reform wasn’t and isn't needed. But “abolish the police” was still a maximalist and silly position, as you just acknowledged.
And I don’t really buy the idea that criticizing the slogan means people didn’t care about the underlying issue. You can care deeply about police brutality and still think abolishing the institution responsible for law enforcement is a catastrophically bad idea. There was a lot of legitimate reform sitting between “everything is fine” and “abolish the police.” Maybe we should have spent more time arguing about that instead of pretending those were the only two choices.
As for the last sentence, I agree 100%. Growing up in LA, I was a kid when the King beating and subsequent riots happened, yet I still encountered people my age and older who had lived through it and somehow retained the mindset you’re describing. At some point, it becomes willful blindness to an uncomfortable truth about their own privilege.
edit: I just realized the above (in bold) is a bit too basic, I know there was a lot of discourse around actual reform. I think my point is more around how media ran with it for clicks and views, not about what those on the ground were actually trying to accomplish.
It was "Defund the Police" if I remember correctly. In reference to the ever increasing budgets of police departments which was/is being spent on military grade hardware to suppress decent rather than uphold law and order. And multiple stories in a short time-frame about police acting outside of the law because they can since they're the ones who enforce it.
Lack of accountability and the perception (real or not) that the police can abuse you, destroy your life, even kill you and you're not able to do anything about it is a genuine fear for a lot of people.
Lack of accountability and the perception (real or not) that the police can abuse you, destroy your life, even kill you and you're not able to do anything about it is a genuine fear for a lot of people.
Yes, it was defund the police and abolish ICE. The former would be a losing policy today. The latter may still resonate to some degree, but it likely wouldn't move the needle in contrast to a strong set of economic policies.