"But his run pissed off people who treated the race as a precious faberge egg, that even the slightest leftist agitation would put in the crushing hand of Donald Trump. (Get real, Kamala Harris lost the race all by herself.)"

This is such privileged bullshit.

"...even the slightest leftist agitation would put in the crushing hand of Donald Trump. (Get real, Kamala Harris lost the race all by herself.)"

'"We need to be clear about what our goals are," Sawant said in a speech on Sunday in Dearborn, Michigan. "We are not in a position to win the White House.

'"But we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan."

'So the goal is "fighting to defeat Harris, not just symbolically but in reality," Sawant said. "This is ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her."'

(https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/a-big-seattle-name-is-in-the-election-battlegrounds-helping-trump/)

Glad to see the Stranger (finally!) agrees that Sawant was utterly ineffectual as a political leader. (Um, next time, could the Stranger please take LESS than a full decade to figure out their champion is actually worse than useless? Because you might not always have commenters willing and able to explain it to you, especially not with phrases as succinct as "Seattle's Very Own Trump...")

"Fascist movements are always shot through with a lot of conflict and contestation, but a strong man at the top who's the fascist leader can hold it together for a while. It’s going to collapse sooner or later."

Nazi Germany was doing just fine, ruling most of Europe directly or by proxy, until the United States (under the leadership of a president from which party, again? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? BUELLER?!?) fed and armed Hitler's implacable opponents, starting with the avowedly imperialist government of Winston Churchill. After the major Communist regime FINALLY stopped supporting Hitler, and the United States entered the war, the United States fed and armed that Communist regime as well, turning its almost-defeated army into the most powerful military land force which would ever exist. Fascism didn't just collapse of its own accord, Dr. West: the United States provided vast amounts of money, materiel, and men to defeat it, invading entire countries, and ripping out multiple major fascist regimes by their roots. It then rebuilt those countries from ruins into stable, peaceful, prosperous democracies. No other country ever defeated fascism as soundly and permanently as did the United States.

"On the other hand, you see, we on the left have not been able to generate the kind of effective organization or alternative vision that's embedded in effective organization. And so though we have very important individuals, persons, groups, and organizations, it's not strong. It's very weak, very feeble."

Thank you, Dr. West. For some odd reason, the Stranger promptly steered your conversation away from the very point on which it could provide our country with the most help. Better luck next time!

This is an excellent interview, well done and thank you. Dr. West characteristically has excellent insights on a range of topics. His reference to the centrality of white supremacy in American Christianity brings to mind the main vampire's final monologue in Sinners. He's also 100% correct about the disconnect between the Democratic Party and grassroots left-leaning communities. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly the usual suspects here are up in arms over the suggestion that an un-nominated candidate failed to rise to the moment or connect with the electorate, with disastrous consequence. Maybe next time the DNC will care to engage with, or at least not conspire to defeat a candidate who does engage with, thought leaders like Dr. West--but I'm not holding my breath.

"Among the white Christian nationalists themselves, because they are really struggling economically. They're just taught the scapegoat the most vulnerable rather than confront the most powerful."

ah, Yes
the Drug-addled
Homeless! if only THEY
were . . . somewhere Else!

"The Democratic Party is beyond redemption. It doesn't have the capacity to provide the kind of alternative, that’s very clear. I live in New York City. I live in Harlem, and, you know, you get a progressive candidate that wins the primary, and they go berserk, they go paranoid.

You think, good God, my dear brother, Zohran [Mamdani]! Zohran—we're not talking about some radical communist or nothing. He's a very DSA brother who functions as a kind of New Deal liberal the way Bernie functioned as a New Deal liberal.

Both call themselves Democratic Socialists, but they're basically just highly progressive liberal policies at home, and then he takes a courageous stand against barbaric genocide of precious Palestinians in Gaza and the Democratic Party can't take it."

the "Democratic" party
capitulated Ages ago under
Clinton the First to patriarchy
and Corporate Rule and hasn't
and likely Never Will escape that
trajectory, sucking that corporate teat

they're Quite Comfortable there and haven't
Incentive to vacate their Lofty pampered position.

"The Democratic Party is beyond redemption."

so
What's
our Next move?

@3
bingo.
Bingo!
BINGO.

@3: So, have you any ideas on how to correct the crippling faults Dr. West identified?

“On the other hand, you see, we on the left have not been able to generate the kind of effective organization or alternative vision that's embedded in effective organization. And so though we have very important individuals, persons, groups, and organizations, it's not strong. It's very weak, very feeble."

Because, for so long as his description remains valid, any attempt by the DNC to engage with “grassroots left-leaning communities” will simply waste everyone’s time. For a specific recent example, there’s no reason for the Democrats to bother with the demands of the All Gaza All The Time crowd if “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”

@5 that quote is a critique of the DNC

I've liked Cornel West ever since I read "Race Matters" in the '90s, and this interview was well thought out and worth reading (I'm always impressed when a secular left journalist not only groks that the Christian right isn't a monolith but also can succinctly describe its various tendencies). And West is correct that the Democratic "party" isn't a real political party in the same sense as the Republican party is. It's more accurately described as a catch-basin (I wouldn't even call it a coalition) of widely disparate interest groups who oppose the Republicans for varied and often conflicting reasons. Because of this reality it typically faces a much greater challenge to pull together an electoral majority, and the criticism of West for refusing to put aside his (totally legitimate!) criticisms for just a few short months and pitch in with this effort is valid. Plenty of other left intellectuals with equally serious misgivings about Harris did so, some of them solely because they recognized that the threat to democracy -- and to most people who aren't both wealthy and white -- posed by Trump and his death cult was unique in its gravity, even compared to the worst Republicans of elections past. I'm too personally fond of West to renounce him entirely, but I won't pretend I wasn't pissed. That was a severe error in judgment on his part and one he apparently, sad to say, still doesn't recognize.

@6: Hahahahahahahahaha — gasp, woo! — No.

The quote begins with, “On the other hand,” for a reason: his two answers which immediately precede it refer — one of them by name! — to the Democrats. So he’s contrasting the Democrats to persons “on the left,” — again, directly from the quote.

So, either you have miserably failed at reading comprehension, or you’re pretending you don’t understand what Dr. West said. (Feel free to pick whichever explanation you believe makes you look less-worse; you’ll likely be wrong about that, too.)

“…we on the left have not been able to generate the kind of effective organization or alternative vision that's embedded in effective organization.”

Which — back when she was “on the left,” before she openly supported Trump — would have been a perfect description of the Trump supporter I quoted at the start of @2.

so
Yeah
let us
take Instruction
from the Strangers'
East Coast AIPAC representative

here to throw Shade
ensure thedjt remains
in Power in Perpetuity

or

this, from The Intercept Briefing, August 22 2025: 

Democrats are Missing Political Layups and Dooming Us All

Veteran strategist Nina Smith warns
the Democratic Party is failing at the basics.

“We’re missing layups on the basics right now,” says longtime Democratic strategist Nina Smith, alarmed by the news. “We’re losing on voter registration in 30 states — the only 30 states that track voter registration between parties. We’re losing in every single one.”

"When we are constantly maligning the left and running away from the left, we’re abandoning a whole base of folks. We’re abandoning a whole section of the party that can sustain us where we need to be sustained.

It’s like a game of subtraction in the Democratic Party right now, as opposed to a game of, how do we work together? How do we build coalition together?

You don’t really hear much whenever they bring up extremists on the right they kind of equivocate. They don’t really say much about it.

They never really attack their own. There’s infighting, of course, around Donald Trump. I think he encourages that stuff, so that’s why it comes out into the public.

But for the most part, they figure out a way to move forward. And even if they have public spats, they still figure out a way to move forward. And that’s what’s missing on the Democratic Party side.

If we would stop cannibalizing ourselves on the left — and from the centrist perspective, they can’t act like they’re angels and they don’t trash leftist policy every day on national television.

It happens. It’s garbage. It doesn’t help the party win. In fact, this is a distraction. It stops us from being able to strategize effectively. It clouds the view of any sort of direction we’re trying to head in.

And so we got to let that — pardon, for lack of a better word, and pardon my language — we gotta let that shit go. Like, you know, grow a pair, take some risks. Let it go. Let it flow, like Elsa said.

Let’s move on and try something new because what we’re doing right now is not working, funding the same people who lost us to the election... "

hosted by Jessica Washington. 

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

https://theintercept.com/2025/08/22/briefing-podcast-democratic-party-voters/

@7: "Plenty of other left intellectuals with equally serious misgivings about Harris did so, some of them solely because they recognized that the threat to democracy -- and to most people who aren't both wealthy and white -- posed by Trump and his death cult was unique in its gravity, even compared to the worst Republicans of elections past. I'm too personally fond of West to renounce him entirely, but I won't pretend I wasn't pissed. That was a severe error in judgment on his part and one he apparently, sad to say, still doesn't recognize."

Extremely well written; thank you very much. Progressives need to understand there simply will be no progress with Republicans in power; therefore, keeping Republicans out of power is always the first consideration in every political question. Progressives' failure to understand this last year, even as we liberals made it very clear to them, and progressives' continued failure to recognize it now, even as Trump intentionally burns down every progressive accomplishment he can torch, indicates they still need education on this point. Based on the results we've read here, their education proceeds far too slowly, if at all.

@11 last cycle the DNC stuck unreasonably long with a man who was clearly not fit to continue to serve, and as a result were forced to pivot to a wildly unpopular VP, who had dropped out of the previous primary very early because she had no support. That's why the Democrats lost, not because progressives weren't sufficiently browbeaten by centrists. Anyone who can't see this isn't worth listening to.

@12: A first-term President is always that party's de facto presidential nominee. Biden wasn't diagnosed with cancer until after the election, so the "clearly not fit" judgement was wholly subjective right up until that point. If the 2020 electorate had voted in 2024, Harris would have won. (See @2 for an example of someone who worked to prevent that from happening, so you can go blame that person.) As the only alternative was Trump -- not a coherent person on his best of days -- I fail to see the relevance of Biden's undiagnosed condition.

Like all modern "progressives," you do not like to have your own words and actions recited back to you, and rightly so. This, however, is beyond anyone else's ability to fix. Whether citing Fox News (because Horseshoe Theory is not a thing, right?) or demanding the promise of illegal arms embargo out of VP Harris, you've made many obvious mistakes, and continue to do so. Whine all you want; you are one (of the many here) not worth listening to.

@13 "As the only alternative was Trump -- not a coherent person on his best of days -- I fail to see the relevance"

Well since Trump is undefeated against the Dems when not in the midst of a 100-year global pandemic this take is empirically stupid as fuck.

@14: "Well since Trump is undefeated against the Dems when not in the midst of a 100-year global pandemic..."

Yes, when the consequences of Trump's policies are undeniably clear, he loses. How nice of you to finally notice that.

Meanwhile, in every election, liberals have always understood that the only choice was between Trump and his Democratic opponent. Did progressives ever get this?

(Hint: that person I quoted @2: did she help or hurt the Democrat's chances in 2016? Discuss.)

@15 you're saying Trump caused COVID?

@16: No, I'm saying he destroyed the infrastructure which could have detected it sooner and slowed the spread of it, and then denied it was spreading to, and within, the United States.

(He appoints RFK, Jr. to oversight of all federal health efforts, and yet you still have trouble understanding he's been a disaster for public health? Really?)

And, thanks for pointing out that Trump (with the active and enthusiastic help of the person quoted @2, above) had already been elected once. The threat of his getting elected wasn't some absurdist scary bogeyman liberals used in a nefarious attempt to bully progressives away from their precious, precious purity posturing; it was a very real threat, and your flat-out denial of it at this time last year hasn't been forgotten -- and won't be, not for a very long time, a time equal at least to the lasting ill effects of another Trump administration.

@17

"The threat
of his getting elected
wasn't some absurdist scary bogeyman
liberals used in a nefarious attempt to bully pro-
gressives away from their precious, precious purity posturing... "

your illiterate alliterations
dismiss the Jbiden Administration's
continued caving to bibi nutnyahoo's ongoing
Genocide/Land Grab/Keep-the-Fuck-OUTTA-Prison
Gambit as nothing but a pacifist's pitifable plea for peace in Palestine

ignoring the Majority
of Democratic Disgust with
Jbiden/nutnyahoo's conduct of
Israel's Revenge, gone stark raving Mad.

YOU Elected
Cadet Bonespurs
Wormtongue with all
your Justifications and
poo-pooing of said Disgust.

no Wonder
you're working
so Hard, erasing
History -- YOURStory.

We
See
YOU.

'I'M SPEAKING!"

yes.
you
Were.

Silenced
THEY
were

and
HERE
we Are.

'thnx'
wormmy.

@17 and then what, by 2024 everyone forgot about that? I'm having a really hard time following your attempt at an argument

@24 apparently so as the orange sack of shit was re-elected, and many self avowed left of center voters couldn’t be bothered to vote or thought it was more important to punish the Harris campaign (the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory)

And for those in the camp that the Democratic Party can’t win clearly has ignored WA politics for the past few decades (republicans haven’t been a viable challenger since before most of us were born).

To me a powerful lesson of orange piece of shit’s success (and to a lesser degree Obama’s success) is the ability of a bunch of folks who literally hate one another understanding the value of rallying around a good enough candidate (as they all get something out of the victory - be that a more conservative SCOTUS, a trampling of others, etc.).

@21 I think an infinitely better lesson from Trump and Obama's successes would be that candidates who genuinely inspire people tend to win elections over candidates who don't, and I also think it's absolutely bizarre to label Obama in particular a "good enough" candidate who people had to begrudgingly rally around. If your argument depends on diminishing the political aptitude of the most inspirational President this millennium it might be time to recognize your argument sucks.

@22 I know grammar can be complicated but my comment on good enough was for the orange piece of shit / same with a group of folks who hate one another (like was pointed out in the article).

One aside, it’s clear to me that progressives / DSA fears the Democratic Party more than Trump / republicans as we are their direct competition (and why even local politicians have to run under the Democrat label to win office - Shawn being the latest DSA example to swap labels). My hope is progressives understand that whatever fantasy you hold against the party, they come to fully realize Trump and republicans are a clear and present danger (and the democrats are the only functioning opposition party).

@23 "I know grammar can be complicated but my comment on good enough was for the orange piece of shit"

Are you saying grammar being too complicated caused you to write "(and to a lesser degree Obama’s success)" when you didn't actually mean any of the rest of the sentence applied to Obama? Or is this exactly what it appears to be: the world's saddest attempt at gaslighting.

@23: "My hope is progressives understand that whatever fantasy you hold against the party, they come to fully realize Trump and republicans are a clear and present danger (and the democrats are the only functioning opposition party)."

Thank you for saying this, and right on cue, @24 quibbles with you to avoid engaging with an obvious truth.

Of course, they spent all of last year ignoring this obvious truth, and yelling "Genocide Joe" at the person who was trying to restrain Israel, so I expect them to keep right on denying the obvious, as 1312 reliably does again here.

@24 -- when Gaslighting
is Your Greatest 'Skill.'
fucking Bingo.

and Then
there's This:

Smokin' "Genocide Joe"
NEVER Shouldda been Allowed
to Run in 2024 ESPECIALLY After
declaring himself 'a bridge candidate'
AND -- as we ALL SAW -- his Condition:

Biden's debate disaster: U.S. president freezes up against ...
​
Jun 28, 2024 — It was a disaster for Joe Biden, for Democrats, and for anyone around
the world dreading another Donald Trump presidency — because the ...

​CBC: https://www.cbc.ca › 2024-us-debate-analysis-1.7249398

CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2024/06/28 › politics › biden-tr...
Jun 28, 2024 — If Joe Biden loses November's election, history will record that it took just 10 minutes to destroy a presidency.

BUT

'Liberal' Dems wanna Blame Progressives?

This Right Here is
the "Democratic" National Committee
in a fucking Nutshell, who, Seemingly CANNOT
LEARN and, Unsurprisingly, can only Deflect, Deny and BLAME

so Yeah,
Wormtongue
Budd, et fucking All:

keep Blaming
Kashama, Bernie, Ralph

and NEVER E V E R
Look in a fucking
Mirror it just
Might Wake
You UP

oh

and
END
'Citizens
fucking United.'

@25

oh
and
'the person
trying to restrain
Israel'? Oh Fucking Please:
bibi (metaphorically) SPIT in
Jbiden's (AND OUR) Faces. speaking

of fucking Feckless.

speaking of
Gaslighting
as fucking
'skill.'

here's more
on This War you've
been Shoving down our
Throats* ever since October 8th, 2023

from the Intercept:

ISRAEL’S PEACE PLAN: ASSASSINATE
THE CEASEFIRE NEGOTIATORS

In “a mockery of international law,” per
one expert, Israel has bombed the residence
of Hamas officials negotiating peace in Doha, Qatar.

THE ISRAELI MILITARY
says it has carried out an
assassination attempt on top
Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital, Do-
ha, where multiple explosions have been heard.

This appears to undercut Israel’s claims to be earnestly negotiating a ceasefire in the Gaza war with the people it has attempted to assassinate and could mark a further escalation of regional conflict.

“Striking the party you claim to be negotiating a ceasefire with — in the midst of those negotiations — is proof positive that Israel is not negotiating in good faith, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to prioritize his own political coalition over Palestinian lives,

or for that matter even the lives of Israeli hostages in Gaza,” said Josh Paul, who spent more than 11 years as the director of congressional and public affairs at the State Department bureau that oversees arms transfers to foreign nations before resigning in 2023 over U.S. military assistance to Israel.

“But more than that, striking the sovereign territory of a third country during peacetime is an act of war that makes a mockery of international law, further destabilizes the region, and means the chances of a peaceful Israeli integration into the Middle East are all the more distant,” Paul said.

--by Nick Turse; September 9 2025,

more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/09/09/israel-attacks-doha-qatar/

*keep on Justifying,
Wormtongue

it Ain't
WWIII,
as of Yet.

FUCKING "PROGRESSIVES"!

ALSO FROM THE INTERCEPT:

PROGRESSIVES URGE U.S. ARMS EMBARGO AFTER ISRAEL BOMBS QATAR

Israel's bombing
of Qatar interrupted
ceasefire negotiations
in a war made possible
by U.S. support [Financially,
Militarily and Encouragingly].

ISRAEL’S BOMBING
of the Qatari capital Do-
ha on Tuesday marked the
sixth country the powerful U.
S. ally attacked so far this year.

U.S. and Israeli officials told CNN and other outlets on Tuesday that Israel — which the U.S. arms to the tune of billions of dollars each year — gave President Donald Trump’s administration advance warning before carrying out the strike.

The attack drew ire from
progressive members of Congress,
who told The Intercept that the U.S. must stop
arming Israel as it accelerates attacks around the globe.

“In the past two years, Israel has bombed nation after nation with no repurcussions—all while conducting a genocide and manufacturing a famine in Gaza using U.S. taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn. “There must be accountability for Israel’s unchecked power and destabilization of the region. The United States must implement an arms embargo immediately.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said
the strikes were “a mistake” that will
only intensify the conflict. “I think it’s a
mistake to have those strikes. And the president is saying
we need to end the war. This is escalating the conflict,” said Khanna.

Members of Congress
also expressed concerns that
Israel was intent on expanding its
“never-ending war” at the expense of both
the Palestinian people and the remaining Israeli hostages in Hamas custody.

“My concern
is that this is a
never ending war,
where Israel is targeting
more and more countries
around the world with impunity,”
said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.,
“instead of negotiating a ceasefire and
getting the hostages home and getting aid

to the Palestinians.”

--by Akela Lacy and Jessica Washington; September 9 2025

Oodles more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/09/09/israel-qatar-doha-bombing-gaza-ceasefire/

@13

(speaking of
Masters of both
War AND Projections)

here, wormmy
Fixed it for ya:

"This, however,
is beyond anyone
else's ability to fix. 

Whether citing Fox News
(because Horse-shit Theory
is not a thing, right?) or demanding
the promise of illegal arms embargo out of VP
Harris, you've made many obvious mistakes, and continue to do so." 

yeah.
right. see:
@28, above

"Like all modern 
'Neolibs and Cons,'
you do not like to have
your own words and actions
recited back to you, and rightly so."

that'd 
be a Bingo,
Wormtongue:

A fucking
BINGO.

@28

Because
Bombing
the Shit outta
the Negotiators
is the Surest Way
to "end the hostilities"

oh and Keep bibi
the Fuck outta
Prison

YOUR TAX DOLLARS

Hard as Fuck

@ work.