Democrats Shocked By Success Of Left-Wing Candidate Offering Left-Wing Policies To Left-Wing Voters

Jesus fucking christ, where my crew at?

This is our moment to fucking run it in the faces of the idiots telling us we needed to have candidates with barely left of center politics in this country.

People who have told you you need to accept less from candidates because abwd are the toxic bane that handed us Trump. You can't win elections on being a diet piece of shit; you actually have to stand for some thing.

what does abwd mean?
- ABWD refers to "Any Blue Will Do", which is a slogan, ideology, and voting strategy associated with what is now collectively known as "Blue MAGA".
  The charitable version of their argument is that we need to just support every D, no matter what. The problem that ABWD creates is two fold. The first problem, is that in effect, the policy works against its self as electoral strategy. It second problem is that it also works against itself as governing strategy. I'm going to refer to these as "anti-strategies" because I think its important to point out that they are thought about and employed as if they are in-fact strategies that could win an election. They make you feel like a smart person, and are regularly used as a cudgel against other approaches, but they are self-defeating: an anti-strategy hurts you, not helps you.
  This clip of Whoopi Goldberg saying she would vote for Joe Biden even if he was pooping his pants on stage highlights:
  So the issue that ABWD creates in this context is that, even though Whoopi here is clear that she would vote for a candidate so aged that they shit themselves on stage, American voters wont. And this problem is rampant across Democratic primaries. We're constantly getting candidates forced into elections through AIPAC, the DCCC, directly from the DNC, who aren't electable within the Democratic base, for whatever reason. Here, Whoopi has effectively lowered the bar to the floor. And the problem is, that while a pants-shitter might be fine for Whoopi, its not fine for literally everyone else. By insisting on this anti-strategy, that we had to support Biden as the candidate when it was clear he was completely incapable of governing, let alone winning the election (even when Trump was as unpopular as he was), this insistence was basically an instance we lose the election. Its an important historical footnote that Blue MAGA/ ABWD did win the ideological fight that summer. And we lost the 2024 election as a result.
  So the second issue with ABWD/ Blue MAGA is that we end up with Blue Dogs, or Democrats that are basically worthless for progressing any Democratic legislative or governance priorities. Effectively, ABWD is used to put conservative, basically Republican Democrats into safe blue districts, which they might hold for decades. A classic example of this was AOC versus Crowley, where Crowley held the house seat responsible for Queens, NY, one of the most progressive house district populations there is. And he REGULARLY defeated, shut down any kind of progressive legislation. There are many, many others, for example, Ed Case, House District 1, Honolulu HI, who voted to censure Al Greene. ABWD/ Blue MAGA results in bad Democrats getting into office and holding space which would otherwise be occupied by more reliable, more progressive Democrats. When you go to actually get get anything done, ABWD defeats your ability to govern.
- Anyone blue will do…maybe?
- Blue MAGA is such a stupid fucking term. Anyone who uses it should likely be disregarded.
Genocide Joe has got to g..
Wait what are we doing again
- We're taking a victory lap.
Earlier today this same article was crossposted from ML to Not The Onion, where many people pointed out it's an opinion hit piece that makes the claim that Democrats reacted with shock or disbelief with the following citations and evidence: their feelings. It's less than a nothing burger, the article genuinely lies to your face. You're not going to make friends doing that.
- The article is clearly satire. What it is satirizing, however, is very real. I'm pretty sure I actually told you specifically that Democrats could win if they ran on progressive policies and you insisted they had to moderate themselves instead.
  You must be shocked. If not, you're in denial. As Mamdani-style campaigns continue to sweep primaries you can either continue to cope and seethe or admit you were wrong.

Dems continue to be baffled by the popularity of progressive politicians. They can’t fathom Americans wanting less & less to do with their moderate-right-wing bullshit, while the far-right moves farther & farther right.

It's the foreign influence within the DNC brought in after private money flooded US politics. Get rid of Citizens United and the system will do a lot to correct itself.
- Lol, no it really isn't. Citizens vs United was the culmination of decades of the DNC constantly bending over backwards to compromise with conservatives.
  Basically in the late 80's and early 90's the legislative grid lock we all know and love today was becoming the status quo. So a strategy of compromising with "moderate" conservatives over policy that benefited aspects of both parties was popularized by the Clinton's.
  This "Thirdway politics" led to short term benefits, and allowed the Clintons to get a death grip over the DNC. After a short period conservatives took advantage of this tactic of compromise to drag the DNC further and further to the right. Basically every sitting senator and most of the politicians in the house made their political careers by being the best at compromising with the right.
- It's always foreigners, isn't it? What about the domestic private money flooding US politics? What, because they're American billionaires, it's fine?
- While you're not wrong, I don't know how we can possibly put that genie back in the bottle.
Not moderate, not center, firmly not-openly-sociopathic-yet right.
- You call everyone to your left tankie scum.

Posting this to offend the white supremacist mods in the politics forum

White supremacists mods in the politics forum?
On Lemmy?
Out of the loop here.
- They whip out the ban hammer if you talk about actually pushing back against the Nazis. They're Lemmy's own Occupy Democrats who post whiny rage bait for karma but still want the status quo protected.
I'll add a tangentially connected piece of my own opinion - immigration is clearly beneficial, following a few simple rules:
No labor migration, unless it's a wider agreement meaning citizens another country can freely cross the border. Otherwise a labor migrant can be threatened by deportation, thus becoming legally disadvantaged de-facto. The points further describe immigration, a one-way ticket.
No legal disadvantage, an immigrant should be certain that if they get robbed\killed\bullied, there's a legal mechanism that will work to get some kind of justice (until they get citizenship).
No filters other than quota, sufficient language knowledge and personal crime history. Filters can be easily abused. Except one - they must have a plan on how do they intend to make their living. Needed in most countries even for long-term visas, so not much to ask. A crowd of third-world country peasants trying to sneak somehow speaking worse English than me (not in text) is not going to pass that. Or if some will - it's for the better even. The rest can look for some other way.
Advanced language, basic history (high school level), law (same), economics (same) and culture (the things that natives usually take for given, like not using your left hand for a handshake in an Arab country, or pop culture references, or the general perception of this and that idea, say, ex-Soviet immigrants in many countries, like some my relatives, seem to think they get to be conservative and racist to "brown" immigrants purely due to skin color and that they themselves are perceived as civilized people, well, LOL, why did you immigrate then) courses for immigrants, with exams mandatory to pass very well to get citizenship. However, their children get citizenship due to being born in the country (and receiving the mandatory education and going through other necessary procedures making them, well, not very different from anyone else in the country).
No special support nets for immigrants. No tolerance to, say, crowds of illiterate Afghan people who've moved through a few countries, call them shit, but expect to get unemployment payments and social support and live like in heaven once they reach, say, Germany (in this example Germany will be called shit too once the person sees that there it's too expected that they find a job and work for themselves).
Maybe programs to help new immigrants with finding a job are fine.
I generally think that citizenship of some countries being an unachievable dream for some who don't have it is a wrong situation. Horizontal mobility has been historically a source of good things. Just have to make sure the rule #3 is followed. And rule #4 - people in some countries live so differently from the west, that their perception of it is as of some magic land where white people give them candy and free stuff, some heaven they have to only get into. Rule #2 too - because we don't know which governments will put which rules into policy, affecting the composition of immigration. Some might prefer ex-Soviet idiots because they vote for people like Trump. Some might prefer Muslims because they vote for the more authoritarian kind of Democrats no questions asked. Some might prefer to let in a wave of poor Afghanis, because it'd be both a good scarecrow for something like sundown towns and a source of cheap labor, affecting labor rights of everyone else and the ability of protests to paralyze economy, for example.
OK, I'm talking about this from Russia, where the problem with Central Asian and other immigrants is that they are basically legally disadvantaged. It's very hard for them to get citizenship, but as a source of cheap labor they work very well. At the same time they won't do anything if the employer, say, takes half of their formal pay, or does something else illegal. Without Russian citizenship they in practice can't do it. All this while technically CIS and EAEU rules forbid all such stuff, but, eh, who can prevent Russia from doing what it can in its own toy integration projects.
- Sorry I’m not reading that wall of text, but yes, the US has unequivocally benefitted from migration. It’s a good thing, in many ways, and clearly in our best interest to guide and encourage, to continue taking advantage of.
  A big part of our mythos is welcoming immigrants, becoming a “melting pot” combining the strengths of many peoples. While we may struggle to live up to that sometimes, it’s a worthwhile goal to work toward

Republican: I can't tell a socialist from a communist but I can be racist at the same time.
Amazing! A week ago they were all saying how awful NYC is. Now it's great. What an incredible transformation.
without looking at the name, it's impossible to tell which party he's from.
- Can you give me an example of a democrat saying something this Islamophobic anr calling for someone's deportation?

Don't worry guys. I'm sure the democrats will learn this this time around...

I think the only option is to not vote for them if they don't.
- Thats what you have to do. If they get voted out when they choose not to follow these policies then maybe they'll learn it is a problem. "Vote blue no matter who" is extremely damaging
- sure seems like thats what they want by now
Susan collins is that you?

What I'm not shocked about is that they're so out of touch with what we want.

they're aware of what we need; they're just placing their desire to become richer ahead of it.
- Pelosian ethics is a discussion of competing conceptions of the good for Pelosi.
I still bet they're gonna find a way to ignore the results and give us status cuomo.
- Presumably Cuomo will run 'independent' with the full support of the DNC, then when they split the vote and a Republican wins, they'll balme progressives for voting wrong in the primary
- Either him or Adams
They're not though. Every time Democrats have "voted blue no matter who" they've told their leaders that the party is on the right path.
Who is they? The article doesn't mention anybody specific, just make shit up as you go?
- The. Democrats. It's literally in the title, pal.

Wait, so if candidates actually run on what voters want, they can succeed?

Amazing

Yes, because the new normal expectation is that common sense is far from common, and that no matter who you vote for, the results will be more of everything that's wrong with the world

Shocker progressives are popular because checks notes … they fight for everyone not just the rich

You dirty socialist commie (those are the same thing, do your own research), how dare you support something other than tax breaks for billionaires. Those are job creators! People like Bezos deserve a second yacht for his yacht because the first yacht lacks a helicopter pad.
That’s communism! /s

I don’t consider any of Mamdani’s proposals especially left-wing, either. They’re all bare-minimum, common-sense social programs that pay dividends. The fact that people are going mad over this tells you exactly how far gone the US has become.

They knew, that's why they threw Bernie Sanders under the bus over and over. The ones controlling the DNC do not want to lose their corporate backers if they allow true social equality.

Vote with your feet. Leave the country!
- Since the problem is inequality, maybe the majority should stay and the corporate backers should leave.

Any politician criticizing Mamdani receives money from AIPAC…

Wow what a coincidence,

Free Palestine from the apartheid genocidal colonizers, the fascist Israeli regime!

There’s also kind of an answer here to why people voted for Trump.

People are angry. They don’t necessarily know the best policies to resolve the country’s poor direction, but it’s clear to so many people that what we have isn’t working.

Many of us have had a conversation over drinks with a confident person at a party who maybe has a job you don’t understand well, and who just speaks confidently about all the things that are fucked up, and what they’d do in charge. As long as they don’t make claims of “Things are mostly okay”, they can make up any target: Immigrants, trans people, government overspending on overseas programs. The key is, they have to match the voter’s anger. The rest follows naturally.

I’d also say that’s how Obama got elected. He had a message of hope and change.

I have two points to add to this:
1 - As a liberal, there was nothing more frustrating than having to vote for Kamala, a candidate who was aggressively "pro-cop", especially as many in the country were protesting for defunding cops. Youre not going to energize most people with an angle like "You want us to vote to stop Trump?"
2 - As a person who is part of the black/immigrant community, the government has a history of ignoring us for decades. It's not the federal government, but the local government too. Systematic racism has always kept us down. And I hate to say it, Trump got a wall going. Trump has ICE harassing immigrants. These are newsworthy events, even if they're in the wrong fucking direction. But a Democrat has a history of never wanting to create a ripple as they appeal to all sides.
I know people who voted for Trump specifically because they thought the best way to make things better in the long run was to elect someone who would make things drastically worse first. That it was necessary for him to win to teach a lesson to various dysfunctional parts of the system that would otherwise be complicit in a decline to the same destination, differing only in speed.
- It's unfortunate that fascists don't give back power. I have a coworker who was getting fed up with people like Macron succeeding over here, and he was saying "sometimes I wonder about Le Pen getting elected, maybe it'll work to show how bad they really are at doing anything and people will finally vote left" (he's from Algeria, he absolutely 150% isn't a far right voter or even heavily religious himself) and when he saw Trump the first time, on Jan. 6, it finally registered in his head that you really can't give fascists a single step in the door, ever, even if they're shit at doing anything, you have to erase them everywhere because they're not shit at keeping and abusing power.
  What's even more unfortunate is that the other people who are in power most of the time ("center right") don't actually want to keep fascists out of power if doing anything costs them power.
Old guy Biden planted trees despite knowing he’d never see the shade. Harris said she’d care for the trees and let them grow so everyone would have shade. Electorate grows impatient. Trump promises to chop down all the saplings, and electorate somehow decides this will get them shade more quickly
- Old guy Biden planted trees despite knowing he’d never see the shade.
  That's a very generous way to describe selling weapons for genocide.

I don't think anyone is actually shocked. It's quite obvious that if you push policies that benefit large numbers of people, you might get support from large numbers of people. Of course that's not a guarantee, but it doesn't need to be.

But many Democrat politicians have been keen on appeasing their corporate backers by pretending otherwise, even though they knew it, we knew it, Bernie was saying it The cat has been out of the bag for a long time.

Bernie has corporate backers too. I think that might be just because he's old and doing what AOC is doing by not having backers is maybe a new progressive thing. I mean, she has a few small donors, but not like the older dems.
- Which? He ran his presidential campaigns without any corporate backing.

While I'm glad he won and the message this sends to Democrat leadership, I think making this claim: "It seems the pendulum is swinging back towards left-wing politics" is very premature.

He won a Democrat primary in a deep blue city in a blue state, the same that elected AOC.

I don't think this really signals much other than, yes NYC likes leftist candidates, as we already know from AOC. This may or may not signal any kind of larger pattern about American political feeling as a whole.

If the same doesn't happen in cities and states across the country, it will just be disregarded as a fluke.

NYC is overwhelmingly democratic, but not left. They have a big share of rather conservative Democrats, which makes the victory of AOC and Mamdani even more impressive.
- Also adding the main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York State for a decade, had multiple credible sexual assault allegations only three years ago amongst other corruption scandals.
  It’s weird he even wants to be mayor and has major credibility issues. I think if you want to call a progressive wave, an established Democrat who’s not completely fucking sketch needs to lose.
It’s a huge poke in the eye of democrats who say anything left of Hitler loses elections.
I think part of the victory is actually showing the ability for the DNC leadership to project force is greatly diminished. They pulled out all the stops. AIPAC, DNC, The entire media apparatus, all the ad buying, the poison pill of hypocrisy, and finally, the sex pest Bill Clinton.
The victory here is very, very much that you win elections with people power, not $. The rumblings of this were actually that judicial election in Wisconsin which got Elon pushed out of the WH. And frankly, its signature was detectable in 2024 where no matter the spending, Democrats couldn't motivate voters to show up.
Almost all of my friends are big zohran fans. Even the one that's to the right of me on some issues is cautiously optimistic.
But to hear my friends' parents talk about it? Doom. Dooooom.
You’re correct but I haven’t seen anyone outside of the lefty propaganda sites say that this actually moving the needle. The legacy news sites are along the line of “What does this mean?” and “Can someone like that actually be mayor of NYC?”
The way I see it, this could be a momentum swing but we need to capitalize and build around it. I understand why people were saying 3rd party candidates are a distraction during the election but now is the time to be pushing the Dems further left or coalescing around a new party. Get their ideas out there now so that even some brainwashed republicans might see the light before the mid term elections next year.
Look at the past few mayors and immediately your point is disproven.

It's almost as though people want good policies. Bah, the people are fools! Let's move further to the right to capture moderates!

-Dems

The fucking moderates are left at this point.
- No, they are still fascists, have always been fascist, and only give us the least concessions they can to preserve their own offshore accounts and insider trading. They used to be controlled opposition, and they don't even bother with that, anymore.
Actual quote from an actual dem who really exists unlike those strawmen you and the article are chasing:
"Congratulations @ZohranKMamdani on your victory in yesterday’s primary election and a well-run campaign. I’m wishing you much success in November and beyond as you work to bring New Yorkers together to tackle the city’s challenges and shape a stronger, fairer future"
~Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States of America
- You know he endorsed Cuomo, right?
- You're too far gone. We can't save you.
- Here's also a quote from an actual dem.
  "Socialist Zohran Mamdani is too extreme to lead New York City. His entire campaign has been built on unachievable promises and higher taxes, which is the last thing New York needs.
  Beyond that, Mr. Mamdani has called to defund the police and has demonstrated a deeply disturbing pattern of unacceptable antisemitic comments which stoke hate at a time when antisemitism is skyrocketing. He is the absolute wrong choice for New York."
  ~Laura Gillen, current U.S. Rep. from the Democratic Party.
  Sounds like they didn't like him and are already relying on the old anti-semitism defense.

The funny thing is that The Betoota Advocate is a satirical newspaper - but this is not satire

I think it might be, the fact that so many people are talking about these nonexistent democrats that the article gives no examples of might be the punchline.
- Did you... open the news article?
  After months of being rubbished by the American media and the Democrat establishment...
  Like, yeah they don't name a bunch of names, but it's based in Australia, and examples aren't hard to find.
  Mr. Suozzi, whose district covers a sliver of Queens and who endorsed Mr. Cuomo during the primary, said he still had “serious concerns” about Mr. Mamdani, while Ms. Gillen — citing defund the police rhetoric he has since disavowed and his unflinching critiques of Israel — called him “the absolute wrong choice” for New York City.
  Source: New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/nyregion/mamdani-democrats-schumer-jeffries.html

My expectation is that this will motivate them to pull another Ross Perot. They will spend all of their time working with Republicans between this election and the next dreaming up institutional hurdles to a socialist making headway in a political campaign, just like they made it institutionally impossible for third parties to sniff a presidency.

If Mamdani actually does try to do the things he says he will (which I doubt) those efforts to institutionally hamper non-conservative candidacies will be doubled.

That's pretty positive honestly, my bet is they try to imprison or kill him like every other popular socialist in modern history.
- I think it will depend on Cuomo and the polling. It might be that Cuomo's presence is enough to dilute Mamdani's advantage in the election and I have no doubt the billionaires don't care if it's Adams or Cuomo sending public money their way.
  But they're definitely doubling down on gatekeeping political candidacy.
- Seems pretty darn likely that the zionists will try to kill him.

Frankly I don't know what folks should have otherwise expected. The "standard" candidate was a former governor who left the office in disgrace after misconduct.

Even if people were for whatever reason skeptical of a progressive candidate, the business as usual candidate was such a bad idea that people would rather go for it than vote for Cuomo.

Now we watch as Cuomo probably ruins everything by running in the general anyway. The same reason why people say the progressives that can't win Democrat primaries should bow out for general elections without RCV applies to "centrists" in the same boat. A progressive candidate won fair and square, stay out of his way.

With Adams and Cuomo running as independents, I think they are going to split the vote of the people that weren't voting for Mamdami anyway, and is going to actually help him.

absolutely disappointing that the Democrats would rather have a sex pest mayor than someone just a LITTLE more left than them.

I don’t think they care so much if you are left of them…. It’s left of center right that they are worried about….

Well well well, looks like not being republican lite does the trick

Come on, look at the alternative that the PARTY chose. Cuomo was meant to be handed that position.

The parties don't give a shit about what the public wants. They have an agenda and they're working towards it. Any time a candidate comes along and tries to really help people with policy changes they are stabbed in the front by the other party, and stabbed in the back by their own.

The title is very The Onion™-esque!

Reality has a very onion bias these days
- This article isn't reality, though. The title claims Democrats reacted, but has no examples of Democrats reacting to anything. I think it might just be very clever Satire and the people in these threads biting into it are the punchline.

It appears that the success of Mamdani isn’t so much a vote against Trumpian politics, but more a vote against the stale nothingness of the Democrats top brass

People worth their salt, especially academics, mentioned this multiple times, neoliberal politics is no longer working. People want anything away from the forty-year old, outdated policies. Populism is getting a bad rap (either unintentionally or deliberately) but it is simply democracy. When surveyed, many voters who'd be open to vote right are also willing to vote left provided that bread and butter issues that affect day-to-day lives are addressed. Mamdani won the primary because he ran on providing common sense policies that the duopoly parties and oligarchs have brainwashed many Americans to fear. It seems that Americans are gradually waking up from establishment conditioning.

If American progressives continue with running on addressing bread and butter issues, and take away the narrative from the right, then the country could be saved from fascism. There may not need be a civil war to oust the Trump administration, but only time will tell.

I have met a shocking number of Trump voters who really like or liked Bernie Sanders. That number is four, but it's still shocking and I don't go out much. Obviously they aren't paying much attention to policy or reality, but I wonder how common this is? My father-in-law is one.
- If you look at it in the way that both people promise to shake up the system
  Sometimes the direction is less important than the action
  I mean, fuck trump and the only thing he wants to shake is the pockets of everyone else, but there is a commonality that can't be ignored
- The Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real. They both promised to shake things up, but the Democrats decided that they'd rather promote Trump, then let Bernie win. Most voters are sick of the status quo, but they don't know enough of the details, and vote for whichever candidate promises to fix things.
  They like Trump because he promises change. They also like Bernie because he also promises change. But for the last three elections, the Democrats have run status-quo politicians that keep telling the voters everything is fine. And the voters aren't having it.
  Now we have a chance to point out the direction that the Democrats need to turn to if they want to actually win.

They’re not shocked, they’re alarmed that the left has gained such a clear and dramatic groundswell of support and that they found a flaw in a mechanism they have traditionally used to tilt the scales in favor of machine incumbents.

They are taking steps to mitigate this, I would absolutely expect them to even overtly rig the general, and everyone should be paying attention to who owns the voting machines, whether the software is audited, and how the votes are tabulated.

Center right cumuo who is also a sex pest

Liberals in shock at effective policy choice 🙄

I can only hope, and I hope mamdani inspired a new decade of socialist resurgence in elections, not just here but in LATAM, Africa, Europe and Asia

You need to understand how politically backward the US is compared to Lat Am, Africa or Asia. My country is currently led by the most right-wing Prime Minister in our history. Even he will not talk shit about socialism, or try to stop our system of heavily subsidized healthcare (free for the poor) and university. There are communists in our Parliament, and they are seen as serious politicians, not some radical outfit.
The idea that Mr Mamdani's policies are somehow novel to us is laughable.
- Can I ask where?

If Mamdani pulls it off, I hope he can keep his promises or at least give a good fight for common sense. For the moment, the USA is fucked up.

Paint me bemused

Sadly many voters do have the memory span of a moth...

*centrist but yeah.

I think this article would be fine if it didn't make that claim in the title. But the claim as it stands is a lie, there are no examples in the text of Democrats reacting, and shock or disbelief are not what I'm seeing in the mainstream. Whats more it also makes the claim that none of the DNC's policies are left.

Here, I'll fix it for you:
Establishment Democrat On Lemmy Angered By Success Of Left-Wing Candidate Offering Left-Wing Policies To Left-Wing Voters
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/26/democrats-zohran-mamdani-meltdown-new-york
- See that is a better article than this one, but it still also doesn't mention any of the people who congratulated Mamdani despite endorsing Cuomo, including 42nd President of the United States Bill Clinton, Minority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, and even Cuomo himself.