The big dsa scrouge and what of Peoria
Dumb feature of the political and media landscape is this disproportionate attention to a few elections in the New York metro area. Mamdani and his DSA machine have pulled three candidates to primary, and defacto insta-general, election victories against established Democratic incumbents. Good for them, but in a 435 member congress while it adds up to a hill of beans it does not add up to any more than that.
A little bit of a received opinion, and I haven’t looked too far at these soon-to-be congress critter, but two of them are all right, serious, set to figure in legislating and one of them sucks. So we see Bernie Sanders embracing in full and publicalky endorsing and then congratulating those two and keeping his lips sealed on that third one. But — this is Mamdani’s geo-parcel of the party and he has brought that third one up. And though of course the Republicans and John Fetterman will giddily portray them all as monstrosities — how does this go over in Peoria? — that third one will get a lion’s share of quotations tossed about, broad demands to comment on positions taken. And, I don’t know. If she proved unserious to the job and sticks to the narrow great left omni-cause of unconsidered latest trending sloganeering, she looks like the candidate most likely to go the way of Jamaal Bowman — make an ass of herself and lose in a primary to someone probably a mite to the right of the district but serious. And that will be described as a political earthquake even as everyone else carries along, a stalling of DSA politics. Which — may just show the limitations of their appeal, the factions in that organization naturally divided and factionalized further to the left, the very presence in electoral politics already a sell-out of real Socialist principles anyways.
Funny to see Talarico — and I ponder how Paxton and the Republicans make hay of his snippy commentary of the past. I watch a current favorite of theirs and ponder the meaning — Talarico chides some mega church pastor politicians and their teachings, it transmutes to Talarico hating Christianity. The footage is aired all about Republican media outlets. They cut it off mid-sentence, breathtakingly actually mid-word. Funny though, because the nuanced filler context and explainer for it is probably as politically a bummer as the out of context comment — it aligns him with those nasty secularists after all and this is the Christianity this electorate follows and how they define Christianity. Talarico’s Christian parsing here would probably would serve well in Peoria, but he is not in Peoria — we shall see if he can get over it in Texas.