this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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TLDR: It's Mayor Pete in the lead in this poll, followed by AOC in second.
And an AOC candidacy would really, really excite me if I didn't know that Democrats rig their primaries. It'll be someone that rich people love who gets the nod, likely Mayor Pete or Gavin Newsom, and then Democrats will wonder how they could have possibly lost to JD Vance.
Lost to Trump. He's running for a third term and he's tearing down as much infrastructure as he can to do it. This isn't going to be a representative democracy if Trump and the goons behind him stay in power. Infighting and implosion is all we can hope for.
If Donald Trump is President past January 2029, he won't need an election to do it.
Just like in Russia, appearances will matter. Show pony elections are often the norm in totalitarian states.
If appearances mattered they wouldn't be doing half the shit they are doing right now.
Appearances do matter. It's how fascism comes to power.
https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/63502/understanding-how-fascism-showed-that-direct-government-is-not-same-as-self-gove
From your link:
This is proven obviously false by history. Every successful fascist government abandoned the democratic political system when it was no longer useful. That's what I mean by appearances not mattering. Appearances do matter up to a certain point, but once fascists seize power the mask falls away and the fascists stop pretending because appearances stop mattering.
How so? Mussolini did that exact process in Italy, as did Hitler and Franco.
I'd love a source on that
Franco was never elected. He was appointed by the Junta during Spanish Civil War, and lost the elections a few years before.
As for Italy, the last elections were in 1934 once the fascists consolidated power and the Chamber of Deputies was replaced with the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations. The last elections Germany had were in 1933 which saw Hitler appointed as Chancellor.
Italy was a dictatorship 11 years, Germany for 12 years, and Spain for 40 years. They didn't even bother to maintain the appearance of democracy during this time, they dissolved parliaments and banned political parties and became very open dictatorships.
Once the fascists are in power they rip off the mask because appearances don't matter anymore.
He's repeatedly said he won't... not that he can't change his mind but I'd be really surprised if he ran again. There's a much better chance of him dying in office than running again, let alone winning given he'd literally have to get a constitutional amendment passed. The supreme court is conservative but they have a strong record of swatting down his more ridiculous claims, including when he tried to challenge the 2020 election results.
Yeah at this point I think you could take a person from my own life that I have literal love and respect for and I would still be more inclined to interpret surviving a primary as a character indictment than as reason for optimism.
Pete has been making the rounds on various right and left'ish podcasts and channels, that's probably why his name is coming up. Though he avoids discussion on specific policy or make any firm stances.
Basically he's doing the Democrat Dance. Saying lots of words with little or no substance or committment.
Host: "America is feeling a lot of economic pain."
Pete: "I aknowledge and empathize with that pain."
Host: ".....and? What would you do about it if you were president?"
Pete: "Yes! So, about that local sports team..."
People keep saying that, but I live in Missouri, where we just voted for a $15 minimum wage, required paid sick leave, and voted down an abortion ban.
Ergo, a red state that just democratically voted in the biggest pieces of Bernie and AOC's politics.
You forget the split ticket in the last election where people who voted down ticket for tRump and republicans only to overwhelmingly vote for AOC. She has the popularity to bridge the divides and unite labor against the wealthy. This tour with Bernie will further cement her popularity with the masses!
It seems Democrats are content to just ignore how Bernie and AOC are filling football stadiums in red states, because MSNBC just repeats that common drumbeat that only centrists are electable.
Looking back, the old guard in the DNC needs to go. They're still reeling from when they last ran a progressive and Nixon took like 48/50 states. I think that explains some of their hesitation. However, those were vastly different times and before Nixon -- and moreover Reagan -- started dismantling the guardrails that helped create the middle-class.