I am 100% voting this year and will tell all my friends. But im skipping these fear driven election cycles that feed campaign consultants and vendors and pouring my energy directly back into the hands of people in my community who are struggling, those are the numbers that matter. Remember the doom that was supposed to come down during the 2022 midterms? I think voters, especially the young, are done fighting this election grudge match between some octogenarians and are looking to adapt to the inevitable or find a cause that feeds their soul. I don’t blame them.

@2 Buy guns, kill people.

I hate this attitude, which is the same as when the lefties I knew in the post-Dean contingent said nothing would matter because Diebold was going to fix the elections. If you honestly believe nothing will change anything, then go buy guns and start killing people in a revolution. Because that's all that's left to you. Complaining about it also won;t change anything.

“You’re right to be angry about the war in Gaza”

This comment is why Trump will win - way to lead congresswoman.

@2 apparently the stranger keeps deleting my comments. I will not do either of your recommendations, but after SCOTUS decides that the POTUS can do whatever he wants there will be no need to do anything. The fact that the case is even being heard and that statements made by Trump's lawyers indicate they believe POTUS can do anything, including assassinate an opponent, is not absurd, it's downright obscene. The case never should have been heard, it should have been flushed down the toilet like the turd it is.

Pramila Jayapal is a media whore. I will be writing in a name rather than vote for this worthless waste-of-a-Congressional seat.

This theocracy of ours doesn't want people to vote. Why are 1 in 5 voting locations churches? Why are churches exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act? If this country cared about voting we'd have 100% vote by mail and a robust, safe, and efficient USPS.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/churches-polling-places-ada-inaccessible-disability-voting-rights/

Xina dear, There’s no dank conspiracy. Polling places were in churches and schools because they were community centers that could easily accommodate voters on a weekday. Of course these days, with schools locked down and churches dying on the vine, it’s much more problematic - and yet another reason to go to universal mail-in voting.

I predict that this comment thread is going to attract every butthurt fringie left of Lawrence Welk because they think Congresswoman Jayapal is going to read the comments and they’ll be discovered, just like Lana Turner at Schwab's

An excellent representative except (and this is a major "except") on the issue of the war in Ukraine, where she behaves as crazed as any of the other DP or GOP corporates, and gets a big FAIL. I mean, "Putin marching across Europe?" C'mon. It's always and only been about Ukraine and NATO expansion. Meanwhile, the US taxpayer, under Biden, for large amounts of money to weapons dealers, is forcibly serving up for slaughter, the poor and disadvantaged, among Ukrainians, in the equivalent of suicides missions whether they have more weapons or not. That's why they're running for their lives and have to be kidnapped for "service." How come we care about the genocide of Palestinians, but not the genocide of 1/2 million Ukrainians for Biden's demented obsession with overthrowing the Russian state? He created 7 million refugees virtually overnight - and that was among those who could afford to bribe their way of conscription in what has long been known as the most corrupt country in Europe. The only thing I can conclude, is that Biden is so chillingly authoritarian, we are witnessing a full brain-park of progressives at the doorstep to Congress. 60 billion to Nazi Ukraine? John Conyers would have fully opposed all of this package, especially Ukraine, but clearly "representatives" are less independent-minded than ever.

If 2024 is a fight for democracy (which it absolutely is) why does The Stranger keep publishing garbage articles harassing Democrats as awful for not being perfect on every issue (such as Israel) and asking people to vote no-confidence in the primaries?

The Stranger is a shadow of its former self and utterly worthless. Fire Mudede, get some common sense.

@1
Because the progressives are like the MAGAs in that they demand ideological purity from candidates.

Progressive Ideas ROCK
Progressive FDR was so Popular
he was Elected FOUR TIMES terrifying
“Republicans” into a 2-term Max. for Prezes

we’ve 30 or 40M Uninsured & 100,000,000 more
Underinsured citizens healthcarewise – M4A
would take employers Outta healthcare biz
& free workerbees from employers’ chains

our Daycare ‘system’
is too often Unaffordable or
lacking in Quality with teachers’
pay abysmal & so too few teachers

with the so-called right
delivering us into fascism
& eviscerating the New Deal
making us all rugged Individualists
armies of One winner-takes-Allers & to
Hell with the Hindmost (the ‘bottom’ 50%)

the reich wing’s weaponization
of the term Progressive has been
quite Successful. As the Leader of
Congressional Progressives, how will
you/we turn Progress into Policy, Pramala?

how do we Make Forward
progress Great Again?

a ginormous part of the Problem
is the reich-wing stranglehold
on America’s mass media

they OWN a.m. radio
and control most
everything else

‘conservatives’ took the
Long View and got US
into this Mess.

how do We
get OUT of it?

Jayapal has to earn back some of her progressive cred somehow after she voted to block train unions from striking and she was instrumental in killing the Build Back Better bill. I guess voting no on the Israel funding which was going to pass anyways is a place to start.

@10

"... harassing
Democrats as awful
for not being perfect on
every issue (such as Israel)... "

chipping in on Genocide
is about as Far from
'Perfection' as
Posssible

but that's what
AIPAC has convinced
Dems as NECESSARY &
since 'Citizens United' has
made sucking on corporate/
AIPAC dick palatable/Crucial for
Re-election they appear to have US

Over the proverbial Barrel.

@14: “chipping in on Genocide”

Did Hamas commit “genocide” in Israel on 10/7? Yes or no? (You can always cop-out by admitting you have no idea what “genocide” means.)

“AIPAC”

International Jewish Banker Conspiracy 2.0

“…made sucking on corporate/
AIPAC dick palatable”

The wish-fulfillment is strong in this one.

"Did
Hamas
commit
'genocide'
in Israel on
10/7? Yes or
no? (You can
always cop-out
by admitting you
have no idea what
“genocide” means.)"

grammar nazis's
incessant DAMANDS
for literal aquisence belie
their insidious fidelity to the
Sufferfings of an Entrapped populace

Slaughtered by OUR
Bombs AND Tax Dollars
and their feeble attempts
for Justification of a Massacre.

A. sure.

and
all this
just to
keep ONE
man outta Jail.

Wormtongue
how on Earth
could you
Sink so

low
?

@12 Can you remind me when FDR justified rape and sexual assault as tools of resistance? Today's progressives would label someone like FDR a corporate sell out or a conservative. The term progressive was long ago co-opted by marxist idealogues and has rightfully been pushed to the fringe where it belongs.

@18. Progressives don't endorse rape and Hamas's violence against innocents! But it is two sides of the same coin. So rape unacceptable but starvation and indiscriminate bombing good? None of that is just or acceptable. The IDF had to respond to the Hamas attacks, but they didnt occur in a bubble and have been the result of decades of oppression and a pressure cooker of death by 1,000 cuts that led to this explosion. You can't separate one from the other.

This situation cannot be resolved by total war and indiscriminate self righteousness by the most extreme and racist elements of Israeli society who have seized power are are criminals who have permitted the funding and arming of Hamas under their watch as a casus belli for their overarching war goals. Of course you can say there are human shields etc., but by now the evidence is clear that the IDF's methods are just as heinous as brutal and evil sexual assault, just more disconnected. But they continue, and continue, and continue, and all are collectively punished for those actions.

And if you disagree, they call you an antisemite. Progressives don't want to out Jewish people in danger, or any people! We see these methods as self defeating, escalatory, and genocidal in their execution. There must be a better way to secure Israeli/Palestinian security than throwing all human rights down the bloodsoaked drain.

It's like me asking you, why do you endorse starvation and murder of innocent kids? Is that the tenets of your "whatever-issive" philosophy? No! Don't conflate unrelated terms to enable that status quo!

@18
so you
Hate the
New Deal
always have
and Always will?

color me
"suprised."

FOUR TERMS.
can you beat that?

Interesting pitch and reader comments. To a degree, our democracy is working. I'm a fan of the alignment of a voter's "values and priorities" with same held by the candidate they support. I believe The Stranger, Congresswoman Jayapal, and her campaign donor/supporters share their "Values and priorities." That's informed support.

The remaining question is whether her voters know what they are voting for...

And, as one whose "values and priorities" do not align well with Congresswoman Jayapal, I wonder how many of your readers know that Congresswoman Jayapal attempted to obstruct/overturn the 2016 presidential election results during confirmation in our Capital, 4 years before Trump supporters attempted the same. Yep, none of us are perfect.