The New 2027 Congress

Politics & Elections
62

Huh? No, I’m giving him shit because he apparently wants to get rid of Schumer.

He got first in the Michigan election. What he did not do is win by such a massive margin that every other Democrats needs to shut up and take notes. He barely squeaked out a win, maybe he should listen and learn at his new job for a bit.

Because that’s who the meme was about? Because I saved it when someone sent it in a discord earlier this morning when he was one of the few who had said he wants to get rid of Schumer? If you’ll note, my actual post doesn’t talk about El Sayed at all; that’s because my point wasn’t about El Sayed. It was about the Progressives as a whole; that’s why I quoted this:

My post was about progressives vs moderates. The meme was funny and related to that, but the attitude El Sayed is displaying in the meme is by no means limited to him, which is why I didn’t limit my criticism to him (or in fact mention him at all) beyond the meme.

And you’ll note that the person I said the new Progressives should learn from is AOC, so your insistence that this is about race really wears quite thin.

They should all give it a minute as well, which is why in my post I talked about them as a group and didn’t name El Sayed at all.

63

But why are you labeling this a “progressives vs moderates” thing? Do you think that almost the entire incoming class of freshman Democrats, including the ones from South Carolina and Kansas, are “progressives”? If so, what does that say about the future of the “moderate” wing?

Seems to me the relevant factor distinguishing the dump-Schumer folks from the loyalists isn’t ideology, it’s how recently they’ve been exposed to the mood of Democratic primary voters.

64

Probably because I was responding to a post that did so. If I was putting it in my own words from scratch, I’d probably say populist, not progressive.

65

It’s been a right-wing talking point the last couple days that Dr. Sen. El-Sayed was too “uppity” in his victory speech. I assumed the meme was referring to that, and I strongly suspect it was indeed originally made with that intent, but now I get that wasn’t what you were thinking of.

66

And Marcia Blackburn has confirmed that Pete Hegseth will NOT be going to the Senate, as all of her former Senate colleagues have desperately pleaded with her to do for the last week.
:tada:
(OK, that second bit has not been publicly confirmed, but you know it’s true)

USA Election Watch 2026
67

Well, I understand their emotions; to them, rightly or wrongly, Jeffries being Speaker = appeasing Republicans and no consequences for Trump. That prospect would certainly get me emotional.

68

Read this article today, which actually does imply there was a progressive/non progressive split when it comes to election performance.

Bernie-endorsed Democrats performed the worst out of all Democrats in election. No Bernie endorsed Democrat outperformed the governor in their state.

69

The Onion had a funny headline about how come El-Sayed hasn’t yet accomplished any of his agenda.

70

Why was this under a quote of mine? You posted that meme after I posted so I hadn’t seen it at all.

My only comment about race was about how bad a look it would be for progressives (who are not populists) to deny Jeffries the Speakership. I never mentioned AOC. Otherwise, our positions about the progressives seem to be identical. They can and should press for their policies but the reality will be that the centrists are in control and already are making extensive plans.

Maybe you meant this part to refer to @Thing.Fish and something got deleted. I still would like an apology.

71

I re-quoted your your post because I was showing Thing.Fish what I was responding to when I posted the meme, and that my post that accompanied the meme was about progressives/populists/people who want to replace Schumer in general, not specifically El Sayed. Sorry for any confusion. It was indeed not directed at you.

Yes I think we are in agreement.

72

What I am seeing in progressive spaces is that there is a lot of division about whether to try to oust Jefferies, but a strong consensus that Schumer must go.

Putting aside any debate about how well Schumer has done his job, he’s 75! That is not the time of life to be stepping up to a MORE demanding job! Did we learn nothing from the Biden experience?

73

Did we learn nothing from the Kevin McCarthy fiasco?

It’s good to learn from your mistakes, but even better to learn from other’s mistakes.

74

Well, you could argue that it wasn’t a great night for Bernie Sanders personally, but if you need to count Talarico and Brown as “moderates” in order to make your argument, that’s some pretty serious copium IMO.

Also, the outcome measure – performance relative to Harris – isn’t really meaningful, and mostly just reflects the baseline environment of their States. Colom outperformed Harris by 32 points. El-Sayed would have needed to get 80% of the vote to match that, and Markey would have needed 93%!

75

Yeah, Dem voters are turning noticeably towards younger candidates and I think it would be very timely for the top of the party to reflect that. Jeffries is 56 and reportedly has been preparing for this moment for two years. He’s said “we’re Democrats, we can do two things at once” and I like that and I believe him and that House Dems will hit the ground running.

I urge my fellow lefties to temper their impatience, though it may go against the grain of our nature. Work with the moderates, secure little wins and keep pulling the electorate in our direction with policies that help people.

76

Interestingly, both Talarico and Brown are seen by voters as moderate.

Polls show that most Ohio voters view Brown as less left than the Democratic Party. Likewise, Talarico was seen as more moderate than Crockett.

How progressive their policies actually are matters less when it comes to electability than how they are perceived.

Why Brown and Talarico are perceived as moderate by the electorate is probably an interesting question in and of itself.

77

American voters view white and/or male politicians as being more moderate than they actually are, and POC and/or women candidates as being more liberal. This is very well established. I think in Talarico’s case, the Christian branding also contributes to it.

78

That could be part of it. Markey is a white man too, though.

79

So does that graph really prove the Left is weak? You can compare the performance of the 2026 socialist candidates to that of the others, I’m going to compare the number of socialists elected with the number elected in 2014. Sign me up for twelve more years of this kind of losing! :grinning_face:

80

My thoughts on the new Congress

I’m extremely optimistic which is very unusual for me.

Remember, this isn’t like the win in 2024, when we had both the Presidency and razor thin margins.

There’s always going to be a lot of infighting between the moderates and the progressives, but I see that as a feature, not a bug. We need both, for the same reason a car needs both a brake and a gas petal. I know sometimes we want things to move faster, but a little sharp and incisive critique from an opposing faction can lead to better policy.

I think one of the biggest problems with the moderates, especially the older ones, is after the Obama years they felt they had gotten everything they wanted and there was no reason to move anything forward and that sucks, but it’s also true that “move fast and break things” doesn’t work for an organization the size of the US government, the last few years have certainly made that clear.

The important thing is that the caucus will be large enough that there will be room to maneuver and it won’t be possible for a Manchin or Fetterman to stalemate the process … in the house, the larger margin makes it harder for any one faction to stalemate the process.

I know there is a lot of fear that we will lose ground in 2028 if we can’t fix “affordability”, but if food and gas is still high in 2028 I don’t think it will be that bad, because Trump is still President and as long as he is continuously vetoing bills like the “More Affordable Grocery Act” or “Make Afforable Gas Available” , he’ll take the bulk of the heat. Fox News will, of course, devoted half of their programming time to segments about how gas is still expensive so democrats suck….but Fox News has lost almost 30% of their audience since this summer and I think they will continue to collapse. ( I told you I’m optimistic.)

I’m actually onboard with not impeaching Trump this time, because he’s going to be a huge pain the ass for the Republican Party, especially as we go into primary season. He’s going to continue to brag about his gold plated toilets will America suffers and the world burns, he’s going to double down on the rhetoric everyone is sick of….and he’s going to blowtorch any of the candidates that head for exit of the Trump Train. I say let’s not distract him with impeachment while he’s bludgeoning the Republican Party.

We should, however, go after his cabinet and other quislings….hard. It’s not revenge or retribution, it’s justice. We need justice if we want to build a just world.

81

Do you mean 2020?

I’m merely a voter, but I’ll admit that I felt that way around, say 2014. I still wanted things to move forward, but back then I would have been perfectly happy with 8 more years of Obama style progress. Now, seeing how much worse things can get, I think we need something better than what we had back around the end of the Obama years.