this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
269 points (95.3% liked)
Progressive Politics
4638 readers
343 users here now
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Can we blame Hakeem Jeffries too for being a milquetoast corporatist neoliberal? Or is it just the white liberals that we can blame?
Foul! Everyone knows politics isn't about race /S
So does that mean we can blame him for being a milquetoast neoliberal, or does he get to play the race card since the other commenter said we should blame "white liberals"?
Oh I was just being silly and making fun of dropping the race card. Like how people will then say why does it have to be about race when in reality it is always about race and sex for that matter.
I don't think anyone is saying you can't have the opinion that the minority leader is a wishy washy flim-flan man who serves corporate overlords. I think this is a valid but probably reductionist viewpoint.
I think bring up his race was a predictable response from someone who is pushing back against someone singling out whites. I think it is fair but obviously a little agonistic.
Honestly the original poster and many other people may or may not be racists and may or may not know it. If they weren't being racist then they could of just been repeating what they heard or even misspoke.
You never really know unless they confirm. And even then that is not the end of it. Just because someone is racist or holds a racist belief doesn't mean they always have to.
I just get tired of this same old pattern:
Person 1: *talks shit about "white people" as a broad category, blames everything on "white people"
Person 2: asks about counterexample involving non-white person
Person 1: "Why are you bringing race into this? Stop being racist!"
It honestly feels like baiting/entrapment, but I'll never stop calling it out anyway.
It's white people using POC with shitty political takes to shield themselves from scrutiny. I intentionally brought race into it because white liberals specifically don't show up to the polls, but whinge about everyone else not voting. I'm not blaming white people for everything, I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of the largest liberal voting bloc doing nothing and complaining out "uncooperative leftists" when they can't even be bothered to fucking do the one thing they think will "fix" america
Sooo... you have no sources for that claim? Got it.
Also:
My brother in christ, I am white. I am pointing out the hypocrisy of white LIBERALS. A white LIBERAL brought up Hakeem Jefferies to shield WHITE liberals from scrutiny. Race was part of my criticism, but the LIBERAL part was just as important. The person bringing up Jefferies was using a non-white POLITICIAN to distract from white VOTERS.
Some napkin math for you:
There are 45.4 million Democrats, 55% of them are white, 36% of voters don't show up to the polls, making about 10 million white liberals don't show up to the polls.
9% of the US population self identifies as "very far left". There are ~173 million registered voters in the US, making for ~15.5 million leftist voters. The white liberal base of the Democratic party is nearly twice the amount of leftists, and ~80% of them show up to the polls. Per capita, we are far more active in the voting booth than registered Democrats have ever been. The amount of white liberals that don't show up to the polls alone nearly matches the entire left wing voting bloc. We show up, white libs don't.
source 1 , source 2 , source 3 , source 4 , source 5
I'm the one that brought up Hakeem Jeffries, and I'm a socialist. I wasn't doing it to "shield white liberals," as you assume. I was doing it to call out your racism. (Doesn't matter if you're white, internalized racism is still racism).
That's really bad statistics and it's astounding that I have to point this out to you. You're assuming that the 36% of voters who don't show up to the polls are evenly distributed and that of the 55% of Democrats who are white, 36% of them didn't vote (and you're assuming all of them are liberals, which ignores DSA and the progressive caucus).
Any statistician will tell you that jump to conclusions is not supported by the data you've presented.
Additionally, are you just going to pretend that there wasn't a concerted left-wing social media campaign leading up to the elections (and continuing ever since) encouraging people to not vote? And you're just going to pretend that this doesn't result in leftists being disproportionally represented among the non-voters?
You're trying to do two things with this statement, and it doesn't work the way you want it to. You're simultaneously citing a gross number (the total "white liberal base" of the democratic party, presumably 2×15.5m = 31 million, although I'm not sure how accurate your reasoning is) and a percentage (80% show up to the polls). You're doing this to claim that 20% (or presumably 6.1 million, which is still less than half the number you cited as total leftist voters) don't show up to the polls, and then comparing that number to the total number of leftist voters (without addressing what percentage of them do/don't show up to the polls).
So you're comparing the number of non-voting "white liberal base of the Democratic party" who don't vote, with the total number of registered leftist voters (whether they voted or not). These are two different categories of static; one adjusted for non-voters and the other not. That's another example of bad statistics, even if the math didn't work out to show that you're wrong anyway because by your own numbers, the number of non-voting "white liberals" is actually far smaller than you were insinuating (it's less than half of the total number of registered leftist voters, when you said they were nearly equal; you're also failing to account for leftist non-voters).
Furthermore:
Again, you're ignoring how many leftists boycotted the vote. At no point have you even mentioned the possibility that any of those registered leftist voters might not show up to the polls. And you're wrong because according to your own math, the amount of white liberals that don't show up to the polls is less than half of the left-wing voting bloc (not to mention that was an attempt to ignore per-capita adjustments completely).
Also, your statement that "We show up, white libs don't" is categorically false because you're ignoring 80% of the 31 million (by the numbers you cited) who do show up to vote. While still not addressing how many of those leftists actually did or didn't vote.
Your entire comment was malarkey.
Absolutely. But he's an elected official, im speaking specifically of voters. White libs consistently do not show up to the polls (doubly so for white men)
Oh fuck off, as if leftists consistently show up to vote. Who was it again who decided to boycott the election in 2024 and helped trump get elected because they couldn't hold their nose and vote for the person who wasn't perfect but also want a fascist?
Just stop with this cheap, worn-out virtue signal. You're not scoring any points. No one thinks you're morally superior just because you use "white men" as a punching bag on the internet.
There's far more nuance than that to every situation, and what you're doing is both racist and sexist. So unless you can cite some reputable statistics that show a disproportionate amount of non-voting eligible voters are white men, just stop.
https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.zip/comment/26598433
Did the math for you. 80% of self identified US leftists vote. White libs alone nearly double the amount of leftists in america. The amount of registered white libs that don't show up to vote is close to the total amount of leftists in the country. If white liberals showed up to the polls as consistently as leftist did, kamala would've won by a landslide
Your math was terribly flawed and I already broke down why. I'm not going to repeat it here.
Blaming Kamala's loss on liberals not showing up to vote while claiming leftists did their part is fucking wild.
Were you fucking sleeping through all the "boycott the vote" astroturfing from the left? It hasn't even stopped!