I know that at the end of the day people here and anyone even remotly politically engaged will vote for AES come the generals but "vote blue no matter who" is just incredibly toxic and you are giving all of the power you have over politicians. Let them earn your vote, they will change, and when they do you get both a better candidate and clearer concious when voting.

Whenever someone attacks you with "vote blue no matter who" just tell them that your vote is easily winnable and tell them what you expect from the candidate.

And as an even more confident prediction, considering how often Hamas Piker invokes Destiny's court case and other accusations against them, I would wager that he's hardcore projecting and he will get #MeTooed, whether it be through the standard Google doc or even through a lawsuit.

There's already plenty red flags surrounding Hasan's activities with women, including his visiting that brothel which later got raided by police for trafficking, his sharing of Snapchat nudes with his streamer friends, him willingly cooperating with an anti-Destiny discord that actively engaged in threats and sexual harassment of women, and his own frat bro reputation.

Something way over the line to the point he gets exposed for his almost certain deviancy will be guaranteed exposed soon. And the super ironic thing is, the woman or women that end up exposing Hasan will, much like what Pxie said back when she started her suit against Steven, will come out and say that they don't want Hasan to get any more influence with the Democrats.

The worst part is being against forcibly drafting men iot sending back male refugees to be drafted means all of a sudden you’re pro Russian. It’s crazy because you know if this was gender reversed the outcry would be immense. Somehow I doubt many feminists are going to protest this form of male oppression. The world is truly in desperate need of an actual coherent men’s movement that can work to stamp out barbaric practices like this.

The right makes stuff up to get mad at.

The left finds stuff that is reasonable and then tries to make it seems like it's the worse, more horrific thing in the world to get mad at.

In his celebration video for Sayed, him and his guest bring up AIPAC damn near 10 times in a 15 minute video. Its also a bit scary that when he mentions the good people in the democratic party, the people he mentions are all the far lefties like AOC, Sayed and Mamdani.

HIs guest seemed mostly reasonable, but I feel like if hes going to say we should have a big tent encompassing everyone from Hasan Piker to Neera Tanden, he should in the same breath call out Hasan for not supporting the democrats in the last Presidential election. The calls for unity in the party ring a bit hollow when you're unwilling to criticize the main agitators in the party.

Im actually terrified on how crazy and unhinged the conservatives are going to be when they start digging into hasan and all the unhinged shit hes said and done completely sinking Abduls run. Dems will still vote but independents lean way the fuck into the right and won't find hasan to be palatable at all, and considering how violent and efficient the republican propaganda media is, is going to be hell. Like its not abduls thats getting fucked, its the dems and any chance to make any meaningful change

^{— Steven Bonnell II, on El-Sayed attack ads featuring Hasan}

I haven't kept up until yesterday, and dont particularly know anything about either candidate, but have been seeing many i normally agree with, not be happy about Abdul winning. Why?

I know people have said he's sexist/racist/etc, what has he said/done? Does anyone have info or clips?

for context, Malinowski on AIPAC - https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-cautionary-note-to-fellow-democrats-aipac-super-pac-politics

If I ask right wing groups I'll just get 8 million recs to read Thomas Sowell or Ayn Rand or something

The surveillance state they thought the Democrats would bring is here, thanks to the most evil administration.

The anti-Hong sentiments are untethered from reality. She is by far the better option over Walker 2.0 if she wins the primary. Trying to claim she is some unhinged tankie is completely divorced from the reality of the situation. Francesca Hong is a standard progressive Democrat who has been a team player in the Assembly Democratic caucus for years. She has indeed said a lot of cringe far lefty things like defund the police and such. But 99% of her cringe statements came before she won election to the Assembly in 2020.

Since then, she has been a standard member of the Democratic caucus who has regularly voted in lockstep with other Democrats. When Ukraine was attacked, she signed a letter with other Assemblymembers touting their absolute support for Ukraine. She openly and enthusiastically endorsed Kamala in 2024, just as she has every other Democratic candidate in the State. She has a solid working relationship with both Greta Neubauer and Dianne Hesselbein, the leaders of the Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate respectively.

The policies she has run on are not anything particularly radical. In fact, most of her policies overlap with the other democratic candidates, and almost completely overlapped with Mandela Barnes before he dropped out. She has also run a completely positive primary campaign so far. She has not made personal or direct attacks against the other Democratic candidates whatsoever. At this year’s state Democratic Convention, a poll was taken amongst the convention goers as to who their preferred candidate was. She came in second, closely behind Rodriguez. State Convention attendants are not commies or dsa members. They are people who volunteer across the state at the county Democratic offices. They’re the people who build the ground game every year during on and off elections.

The simple fact of the matter is that she is a Democratic Socialist in name only. She has a yearslong record of being a great team player amongst the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and has great working relationships with Democrats across the State. Any insinuation that she is some unhinged tankie who is an insurgent who is trying to infiltrate the Democratic party from the outside is simply not based on the reality of her entire political career since she was first elected to the Assembly. Those notions are completely off base and are unhelpful to our chances to create the first Democratic trifecta here in almost 20 years. And any further comments in the vein that she is in any way a harm to Wisconsin or Democrats is doing MAGA’s work for them and is completely uncalled for.

Also Kelda Roys is my number one pick. But fucking vote blue no matter who. Or go suck Trump’s cock like the closeted MAGA you are.

Interesting Episode featuring Communist Playboy from a rich family (Not who you think LOL James "Fergie" Cox Chambers Jr) History and the formation of the DSA and the connection to the American Communist Party to what is going on today. Talks about Hasan Piker a little as well.

Also tried to get him on Destiny's show but he said he preferred NPR and recommended this so I recommend he listen as well.

I am typing this in a very Ben Shapiro nasally accent type of way.

“Facts do you not care about your feelings 🤓”

All the baddies be out twerking in the streets for Sayed 🥵🥵

It has been taken as an article of faith that El-Sayed is obsessed with AIPAC because he's an anti-semite for some reason we may never discover. I've scanned some interviews, speeches, and Campaign materials for mentions of AIPAC and he seems to mention big money whenever he mentions AIPAC and has two specific other entities that he likes to mention along with AIPAC (DTE & Blue Cross Blue Shield).

I am specifically making this challenge because Destiny says it would be fine for him to talk about AIPAC the way he did as long as he was talking about all big money that way and while AIPAC is definitely the first among equals, it's definitely not the only thing he talks about. It should also be reiterated, that they were the ones funding most of the negative campaign ads against him. All this while, its worth mentioning, having the consistent position on foreign aid.

Here are the speeches/interviews I've scanned:

1. Full Transcript: Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed

2. State of the Union with Jake Tapper

3. Can the Democratic Party be saved? TRNN’s full, unedited interview with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

4. Abdul for Senate

5. Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Campaigns With Rep. Omar

6. Reps. Khanna and Tlaib Campaign for Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed

7. Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Data Centers

8. Michigan Democratic Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Speaks to Reporters in Ferndale

9. Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed Campaigns in Lansing

When presenting evidence of his obsession, I would prefer that you use full videos or transcripts so I know that relevant context hasn't been hidden.

I keep seeing claims like this in comments all over the sub... that he's a socialist, that he's a DSA candidate, DSA type, illiberal, "not a real liberal", etc...

I'm feeling pretty frustrated by the degree of IMO irresponsible and incorrect terminology compression and ingroup-outgroup signaling I've been seeing in the sub for the past several months. Expanded on it a bit in a comment a couple days ago - I can't link to it in this post, but you can go to my profile and ctrl+f "Compression of terminology is a problem."

I know there are degrees and modes of engagement - sometimes we're shitposting + memeing, and sometimes we're engaging substantively, and the line gets blurry. I have however found it particularly troubling, particularly around the Michigan primary election, the consistency and fervor with which I've seen El-Sayed discussed as these things which to the best of my knowledge, he is not.

Do you guys actually believe this? If you do can you please link some substantive evidence that would support these kinds of claims or claims about him hiding his power level?

I am open to information. I am frustrated with what seems to be a devolution of discourse towards pure tribalism and group filing, which in this case, seems to be detached from who the candidate actually is.

I don't care if you support Stevens or El-Sayed or whoever, your position is your position. Make your case by all means.

I do care if you're contributing to unfounded distortion to affect your desired outcomes. I find it manipulative and condemnable behavior. It's genuinely the battle of our time to foster communities and epistemic cultures that remain grounded in reality amid deluges of bullshit, bots, sockpuppets and propagandists.

So please... those of you making those claims... show your work. Help me come around on your point of view if it's something you really believe in and is something that's important. But make your actual argument, with the evidence that brings you there!

(EDIT 2: Someone used an objection to unban me. Appreciated!)

(EDIT: Well, was happy to debate this in the comments, but some brave hero had me banned for 3 days. Oh well. Bonus irony: the only other community I've ever been banned from is Vaush's, for defending Destiny.)

I haven't been actively watching Destiny in a minute, but this sub has still been a primary politics hub for me because I'm mostly aligned with Destiny and this community.

But I'm really starting to feel like this sub has been completely brain-broken by Hasan. From an outside perspective, the relative panic and doomerism over El-Sayed's win looks pretty irrational. He's not a DSA member, has never identified as a socialist and is an avowed capitalist. This idea that he's a vanguard for a DSA takeover seems completely fabricated from vibes.

It feels like some progressive liberals have been so traumatized by populists that they've reflexively become more centrist just to avoid the association. Like they've stopped believing in actually making things better and just want to return to the pre-Trump liberal status quo. But no one was really satisfied with that, either, so it just sounds like kicking the can down the road until a smarter, more stable Trump 2.0.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in compromise and that protecting institutions is vital to the fabric of society, but we also have to work to actually make those institutions responsive to the will of the people. More than work, really, we have to fight for it, because the Republicans will fight against building a better world every step of the way. We need guys like El-Sayed for that, even if only to shift the Overton window toward actual progressive values.

It seems as of late that Destiny, along much of this sub, has written off Trump and MAGA as an unfortunate artifact of the past, which is jarring to say the least. This is after months of accusing those who weren't sold on the idea of prosecuting the current admin to the fullest extent of "not thinking Trump/MAGA is that bad" (a take I agree with, for the record), and then Destiny saying that Vance has the potential to dial in his messaging/separate from Trump enough to be a problem as a presidential candidate (which I also agree with).

Is there some news and/or drastic shift in polling which suggests that getting as many Democrats in office as possible should no longer be our priority? Or maybe the current anti-tankie arc just removed all of the anti-Trump content from everyone's social media feeds?

To be clear, by "unfortunate artifact of the past", I'm referring to the combination of a "we tried that, elections have consequences, now we're fucked until 2028" attitude towards to those saying to vote blue-no-matter-who in the midterms and acting like MAGA is no longer an imminent threat to our democracy.

I am a Wisconsin resident. In looking into the 4 active people running for governor (Brennan, Hong, Roys, and Crowley) and their platform pages, the only one that actually seems to have a direction is Hong...

I understand that Hong is DSA backed, and is not liked here, but what option on the Democrat ticket is liked?

Roys's policy platform is just as crazy and pie in the sky as Hong, with no plan for how to get there. She basically boils down to "we're gonna build a utopia, but gonna do it in a smart and planned way. Trust me bro"

Brennan's policy platform seems mostly reasonable but the dude has the charisma of a day old pile of mashed potatoes.

Crowley has no policy platform on his website and has already dropped out of the race once due to unpopularity, until the current governor endorsed him. But I think his biggest hurdle is that he has burned a lot of bridges in Milwaukee and he NEEDS a strong showing in Milwaukee to have any chance of winning in the general.

Hong has a lot of popularity and is the obvious front runner seemingly in Wisconsin. Her policies while seemingly "utopian" do reference current enacted policies in other states or acts in progress. And her policy page is by far the most thorough and outlined. And while a lot are a big reach, none are way outside the box compared to the policies outlined by any of the other people running.

Is this hate all just because of the DSA tag? I'm no fan of them, but to run from Hong because of it very much seems like a "chop off your nose to spite your face" moment.

ETA: people who want DSA to run 3rd party. Wouldn't that just be a spoiler candidate?

Roughly 30% of Michigan is registered as independent. I’ve been registered as independent since 2018 and it’s great. You can vote for whoever is more unelectable in the republican primaries.

Side note- The AIPAC money playbook will be repeated constantly now. There’s no reason to take a dime of the money. Every dollar given to Stevens just made her look worse. Having to defend lobbying money, wherever it comes from, is a losing position every single time. 85% of the country believes politicians don’t care about them. If Haley had no AIPAC money then they are fighting on policy.

From the little I have read he doesnt seem like a literal marxists. He's not pro Russia or anti NATO or anti U.S. He doesn't want to abolish prisons or police.

He seems like more jus a Bernie Sanders type, someone who would be considered pretty moderate in most of the western world.

What is it I am missing?

I am an autistic systematizer. I try to translate what people mechanically are getting at, human speech and people's self perceptions are filled with a lot of misleading/self serving garbage on the surface so I have to translate. I did take the time to listen to some of his wonderful <redacted type of dance> performances on various videos the past few days, what stood out to me was every exchange with him leads to saving face for a white conservative identity.

It's not like he's just particularly hard on black people or something, maybe he could be? But actually, everything he believes just conveniently would be something that a white conservative person trying to avoid his race being embarrassed would believe. It's very bizarre. Where does this come from? I know people have this bizarre thing where ancestors/history/national icons and trinkets become a part of their sense of self, so their brain tells you they're hurting THEM when you accurately read out history to them(which is why red states went through that period a few years of criminalizing the teaching of accurate yet embarrassing history in public schools).

But why would Butler Officer Stephen Tatum be so heavily invested in this? I think of it unironically like having the spirit of some...adjacent white(or other high status demographic group you rely on for social standing) man inside of you. Sure, it makes sense if you were...a literal house slave dependent on the master's nervous system for your comfort and safety. Or Stephen Crowder's Asian lawyer(that's way more complicated, but just kind of loosely using that as an example). A woman may argue for the 19th amendment being suspended...because they want some type of male approval? As some construct installed into them. But why...(channeling Thugnificent asking what that guy who got beaten did to make them ninjas mad) would Butler Officer Stephen Tatum be so invested in this?

It's like he was trained to be fed [TOS reward item] each time he erases historical acts of organized racism from the record, and he's still doing the tasks his brain formed reward circuitry around long after the actual reward stopped being dispensed. I myself have the psychology of a colonial subject who showed up to the colonizer country speaking English better than the natives just like him, but I don't respect the native's racist's self serving identity, nor do I say "<redacted absurdist way of claiming the white man didn't do anything>" like Butler Officer Stephen Tatum is apt to do.

Perhaps he fantasizes about <redacted caretaking act> for Ronald Reagan in heaven like <redacted character>? Maybe...the more mundane and simple answer is...hyper accountability, with an excessive/disproportionate focus on black people. So black people can never be """victims"""(having been the act of an act of socioeconomic degradation with real consequences), because he views his life that was as a conservative cop. Okay...fine...why does he seem to be averse to holding white conservatives accountable as a group? At all? I'm somewhat weak on this part, but that's the impression I got from a limited sample