General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNY 16: Jamaal Bowman 60.9%, Engel 35.6% with 92% counted.
Since no one else posted. Good turnout, the people have spoken.
Notably,the very busy house foreign affairs committee is losing its chair. Next in line is CA's Brad Sherman, though, so seemingly no significant effect on the house's foreign policy itself.
Mr. Bowman was recruited to run by Justice Democrats/Brand New Congress and switched registration from Independence Party to Democrat in 2018. We'll see if he aligns with the "left of the Progressive Caucus" faction or with the currently 95-member-strong Progressive Caucus itself. Bowman is of course an educationist who brings valuable caring and expertise in that field to congress.
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)I guess he doesn't have to care any more now.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)ready to move on without him in 2021. We have a nation to rescue.
gab13by13
(21,408 posts)Maybe, just maybe, the far left is really the center of the Democratic base? Maybe bigwigs need to consider that?
BComplex
(8,067 posts)brooklynite
(94,745 posts)...I'll be impressed.
Response to Hortensis (Original post)
Post removed
BeyondGeography
(39,382 posts)A long overdue good riddance to Eliot Engel. He voted for IWR, he opposed the Iran nuclear deal, he raked in money from defense contractors, and he obviously lost touch with his district.
Now I ask you again, are the people in that line idiots?
Squinch
(51,021 posts)RandiFan1290
(6,245 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)one leaving for each. This district will lose the special perks a powerful rep was able to get for them, but that's their choice.
To me the question, now that he's going to be there, is whether this one will become a positive addition over time, learning to make useful contributions, or the bomb planted in our congressional delegation those who recruited him hope? That last is isn't guaranteed. Once in office, newcomers often disappoint hopes of supporters that conflict with doing their job. Just look at the Republicans' forever problem of planting supposed agents on the Supreme Court, most of whom then disappointed them bitterly by ruling against extremist positions.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)He is recruited to add a broader coalition to policies like M4A or Green New Deal.
I'm not sure what people expect. We have nationwide protests, a lot of these protestors think a solution to their problems is voting. When elections come up during these protests they are going to vote for the best candidate to handle problems of police brutality & systemic racism and candidates like Bowman spoke to that better. I believe he is in favor of defund the police which is what a lot of protestors (especially those long term) support whether Democrats here at DU like it or not.
gab13by13
(21,408 posts)bring out the vote and the Democratic "bigwigs" should welcome that.
jcgoldie
(11,650 posts)gab13by13
(21,408 posts)Maybe the Democratic base is farther to the left than people believe.
There are plenty of upcoming important SC decisions coming up, we shall see how non-partisan the court is.
BComplex
(8,067 posts)They got there because the country had turned so far to the right. We used to call them "republican lite", because that described their positions on things. I've always believed that, if the democrats started going back to our roots, what is "considered" by the media as "far left", that we'd start bringing the voters out in droves. It was all the leaning to the right that kept most of the country home on election day. The move to the right was for very many people, the death of hope.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)very strongly progressive. That's a lot of decades of voting.
Deceiving oneself about who people are and what they stand for is how the right turned themselves into a mass social pathology. And most of them are incapable of coming back because their beliefs are based on the pleasing lies they absorbed so eagerly.
Believe me, it's entirely possible to reject dissident groups that use anti-democracy tactics to seek power while promising noble but unachievable goals and not be conservative.
As for my rejection of some specific politicians, I would never support anyone (unless the alternative was Trump) who would try to overset the popular vote or respect anyone who supported attempted election theft. It's no less despicable on the left than the right and a huge warning of who should never be trusted with power.
I would also never want to support someone who felt the liberal Democratic Party was no real alternative to the extreme-conservative Republican Party and had no problem risking all our futures on that very strange and clueless delusion. (These explain a lot, don't they?)
I have become more appreciative of the critical need for democracies to achieve the bipartisan cooperative "center" President Obama warned had broken, but that just leads to understanding that democracy must be of all, by all, and for all if it is to survive.
This compelling reality in no way changes my own ideological orientation and I have always wanted for my country.
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)The center is where a lot of bad things happen like Iraq wars, Patriot Acts, & other things.
The center thing maybe worked with Clinton when Republicans were willing to pass his crime bill but by Obama the Republicans didn't want to get anything done with Obama no matter what it was.
There are also people that used to vote for the Republicans over the Democrats but now they are heroes of the resistance.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)of the center I'm talking of, in good times, a solid, pretty wide range of people who can cooperate and compromise with people of different persuasions to get things done because of the kind of people they are. It's a personality thing.
As our enemies slowly divided and conquered us, they had their final victory when our center broke and the rift between became too wide and deep for right and left to unite to stop them.
Those in the center ended up among those off on the harder right and left who are resistant and resentful at the idea of compromise, especially with those others. In good times, they were brought along to agreement by the working center who laid the groundwork. After our center broke, the entire right was united with and dominated by the far right.
The extreme right. Worst suited to democracies, but mercifully a lot fewer and kept in check by the center in good times, those on the right extreme despise compromise as failure of principle. Exactly the same as their far-left counterparts. They both develop ideologies in which others arriving at imperfect agreements everyone can live with is not successful government of, by and for the people but its corruption and failure. Un-democratic by nature, they believe their nations need them to take over, are always motivated by only the highest ideals , look for strong leaders to follow, and dismiss all those who aren't with them as the problem.
Sound at all familiar?
Right now, Biden is trying to begin reuniting our broken center before we lose everything to an anti-democracy, authoritarian, white power regime. And that critical necessity is why I support its development. I can do cooperation. It's not corruption. It doesn't turn liberals into conservatives. It's the democracy we inherited and desperately need to rescue.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,913 posts)People tviewed as extremists seldom win an endorsement from the New York Times.
liskddksil
(2,753 posts)That is exactly why our Democracy is broken and we need changes at all levels to make it work for all people.
Mariana
(14,861 posts)RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)NYC is becoming more engaged with it's Congressional reps, and the need to connect is key.
Engel reminds me a lot of a guy we had in RI for many years named Fernand St Germain. VERY powerful in Washington, but that's all we ever heard the news say about him. He hated meeting the people. Got entangled in scandal and beaten in in 1988 after being there since 1960.