Summary

Progressives criticized House Democrats for choosing Rep. Gerry Connolly over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the top Democratic seat on the House Oversight Committee.

The 131-84 vote, reportedly influenced by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, sparked backlash against the party’s “gerontocracy,” with critics like MSNBC’s Joy Reid and others arguing it prioritizes seniority over fresh ideas.

Connolly defended the decision, citing his experience, but progressives argued it reflects the Democratic Party’s resistance to change, hindering its ability to address future challenges and energize younger voters.

  • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    The progress wing should leave the party. Force the dems to come crawling or show their hands as sleeper Republicans

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    The DNC is a right wing corpo puppet masquerading as opposition.

    They’re far more comfortable with a fascist as President than they would a leftist like AOC.

    Stare at what their priorities are a month before Trump takes office, sabotaging their most leftwing members. Commuting the sentences of profiteer judges. Herp derp gotta keep moving right after all! (just an aside, I love the neoliberals defending Biden’s corrupt pardons as “just senile/incompetent”)

    Reminder: the only leftist congresspeople are spoiler candidates. The DNC promotes solely on the basis of how well you prove you can be bought by large money donors, which tells you all you need to know about who’s side they’re on. The same side as the Fascists on economic policy, as they get the same checks from the same oligarchs.

    I’ve voted blue for 20 years, with my nose held hoping for harm reduction. I phonebanked for Sanders in 2 campaigns. I already know it’s all a sham. You can vote whoever you want as long as they’re pro corpo capitalism. But in the 2028 primary, when I see the DNC yet again doing everything they can to kneecap a progressive to install a neoliberal, I’m walking away, as it’s just another system of control. The illusion of choice.

    If the people won’t overcome their “free market” propaganda and vote against the shape and priorities of this sociopath owned economy literally legally conning and murdering us for tidy profits, we can’t be saved, and there’s nothing worth saving left.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      The DNC is a right wing corpo puppet masquerading as opposition.

      This kind of bullshit is so easy to believe, especially with stories like these.

      For any of you under-30s just tuning in to the exciting world of corporate politics and wanting to just go along with that idea for funsies I encourage you to actually look at the jobs to be done. Democrats in office in DC are in the bare hundreds while nationally there are many thousands of actual good people doing the best they can to make this entirely fucked up clusterturd run for just one more goddamn day. Because traffic lights have to work. People have to clean the crap out of the sewers. Trees have to be planted by the city and maintained. Boring, entirely decent work being done by Democrats who have no interest in bombing Palestine and say so every chance they get.

      Pitching edgy insults at them helps no one including yourself because the alternative to a national party that isn’t owned by trump is absolute worthless chaos. Unless there’s a secret unnamed party that we’re not hearing about. Ten educated punks in a dispensary does not a political party make. It turns out to be much, much harder than that to do.

      If you want to burn it down and don’t have any idea what the fuck it does or is, you’re doing trumps work for him. If you have a better idea why are you the only one with it?

      Hey, if AOC and Bernie say - everybody go that way, then maybe we’ll have a new party. Works for me. But until something happens at a national scale like that we’ve got one already that’s open for change. It does involve speaking to others without a keyboard though, so that is a downside, but since it’s always been that way I’m not sure we can blame it on corporations, capitalism, (((cabals))) or whatever.

      • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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        57 minutes ago

        You think the guy going out to repair a traffic light or keeps the system working is part of the DNC?

        People keep the country running, not parasites politicians.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          47 minutes ago

          No I’m saying there are Democratic officials who do those kinds of tasks and they’re not part of “corporate backed opposition”. Politicians are people not always parasites. And usually when people say they are parasites they don’t know much about politics, or organizations, or national media - all the stuff that’s involved in political party operations.

      • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        https://apnews.com/article/business-nancy-pelosi-congress-8685e82eb6d6e5b42413417f3d5d6775

        I love how neoliberals are always more concerned with street lamps and trees for the dwindling middle class areas while never bringing up our greatest sin you have no interest in addressing, housing all homeless without condition. That should come before all else, from the worst off citizens upward. They’re dying right now, needlessly. While others live in their compact cars and try to reframe it as a lifestyle because a studio is out of reach.

        But they have no bribe checks, and serve capitalism as scarecrows. Dying of exposure, being legislated as not being allowed to exist at all even in supposed leftwing states.

        Fuck the pretty commons, the less poors are rooting for the deaths of more poors for the crime of lowering property values while being killed themselves by the rich they trusted, and some still sadly do, to do the right thing by them. But that’s your priority.

        Honestly beautifying the commons in the areas protected from our most struggling, while our tent cities burst at the seams is beyond perverse.

        • Optional@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          You didn’t mention the traffic lights or the sewers. I got the zeal for single-minded politics but in reality that doesn’t work because, well, there are many many other things that have to be done. And not just traffic lights and sewers! Other things too. Uh, schools, hospitals, and . . probably industrial waste or disaster recovery. Good on you for the single thing tho - are you running for something?

          • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            I don’t bullshit with a big fake smile, and that’s all Americans are willing to buy, so no, I don’t have what they want to buy to sell.

            You’re the one that started with trees and traffic lamps as paramount issues. I started with the capitalist rot, the blight that creates or informs all others. Clearly traffic lights and trees are your top ticket items. Good for you I guess. And we can barely do anything, so I always find it hilarious when you guys talk about us doing many things at once. We can’t. We’ve proven we can’t. The signature legislative achievement in most of our lifetimes was a healthcare bandaid that further enshrined the profit for murder capitalists into the system we begged them to remove and end as an industry. We the people aren’t permitted to effect anything that would diminish private profits for the sake of the public, let alone several at once. Way, way, way too much credit being given.

            If we can’t reshape our economy to start rewarding prosocial vocations like teachers and nurses and start actively punishing runaway avarice, very little, and none of the most destructive issues, can begin to be addressed. There is profit to me made in human cruelty and murder, so long as it rolls downhill exclusively.

            • Optional@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              I always find it hilarious when you guys talk about us doing many things at once. We can’t. We’ve proven we can’t.

              I don’t know how you mean - we got here somehow. By doing many things at once, was my take on it.

              I don’t bullshit with a big fake smile, and that’s all Americans are willing to buy, so no, I don’t have what they want to buy to sell.

              Yeah me either, so I hear you on that one. Still - with all this old “new media” maybe someone will figure out how to run for office with it and we’ll see some fast change for the better.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    It’s not just that he’s 74…

    It’s not just that he got diagnosed with terminal throat cancer, and told voters the day after the recent election.

    It’s that it hasn’t been two years since he last violated (the already barely existent) rules against Congress doing a little insider trading.

    https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/gerry-connolly-stocks/

    Like, did anyone think when Pelosi was weighing in on the oversight committee, that the person she was backing wasnt corrupt and would actually hold anyone from either party accountable?

    Pelosi didn’t care just because she hates everyone under retirement age. It’s because she needed to know the person in charge of the oversight committee had no reason to hold anyone accountable.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        That’s what I mean, she’s corrupt as fuck.

        Everyone got hung up on Pelosi just “disliking” AOC, but this would have allowed AOC to investigate Pelosi and other corrupt Dems.

        So Pelosi made sure a corrupt Dem got it. That way the status quo is maintained: Dems only go after R, and R only goes after Dems. But neither ever make anything stick.

        AOC would try to go after everyone corrupt, and the Republicans would go with it if the target was a Dem.

        We’d weed out corruption from the Dem party which would increase turnout, and likely retain the seats.

        But it would be bad for Pelosi, and she’ll always put herself over party or country

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            It’s not a Cali mindset or behavior.

            You just see it from politicians in those deep blue areas, because they roll general campaign cash over to primaries.

            How the fuck is anyone supposed to compete with Peloai in a primary without taking the same dirty money? Even then, they’re literally decades behind on campaign fundraising.

            So don’t blame it on the Dems who live there, people like Pelosi are just attracted to those deep blue areas because it’s “safe” in the general, and they can rig the primary.

            You see the same from NY Dems and any other deep blue area

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        2 hours ago

        Just want to point out that most of the top traders are always Republicans but they’re never talked about in this context and Pelosi sometimes doesn’t even beat the S&P500.

  • kinsnik@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    why are the fucking boomers so resistant of letting go of power? pelosi is 84 years old, she belongs in a nursing house, not politics

    • sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      As with most people in that position, they’ve been fucking over people for so long that they’re terrified of someone turning the tables on them. Hence gathering ungodly amounts of wealth and insulating themselves from the world.

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      It’s sad but true - and a very old story.

      Just like, hey here’s 100,000 no strings attached oh can you be at our vote on Thursday? - is a very old story.

  • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    There is NO TIME to do something about the Democratic party better than NOW.

    Nothing much going on, no major elections, let’s just get ourselves in shape for 2028. Or 2032 of it takes that long, but DAMNIT, let’s get started!

    They want a leadership power struggle? They want to play games, like everything’s ok, “This is fine?” Let’s not. Instead of expressing disgust, wringing our hands, shaking our heads, let’s start something new. RIGHT NOW.

    Because even a year from now would be too late.

      • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        Exactly. This isn’t a mistake or incompetence, it’s the point.

        It’s what they’re paid to do. War over social issue symptoms with their “opposition” to present a false choice to the rubes who believe they’re “free,” while protecting the completely captured economy exactly as it is… From the people suffering it.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Sorry. No. I did the math on this and I’ve determined that a vote for Sanity is just a vote for Trump.

      You need to end FPTP voting first. So please call the republican congressperson in your gerrymandered district currently authoring the “Ban Liberals From Voting Act of 2025” and let them know you’d like to make it easier for him to lose. If we all work together, we can make it possible for a Libertarian to win a House Seat in 2036.