the donor connection is twofold here. yes, a lot of it is about money, capital, power thereof. but there's an intertwined part, beyond raw accumulation of wealth; these are people they know personally, interact with regularly. they are friends, colleagues, they *exist* in the elected dems mind. - ThreadSky

spacetwinks.bsky.social • 2 days ago

the donor connection is twofold here. yes, a lot of it is about money, capital, power thereof. but there's an intertwined part, beyond raw accumulation of wealth; these are people they know personally, interact with regularly. they are friends, colleagues, they *exist* in the elected dems mind.

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robotlyra.bsky.social•2 days ago

This also explains the infuriating way that watching congressional proceedings sometimes feels like watching Sam the Sheepdog and Ralph the Wolf cartoons where they're friends as soon as they punch the clock for the day. Republican reps are more visible as colleagues than any random dem voter.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

yeah, it's one of the reasons i'm a very "every motivation at once" perspective on a lot of political stuff. is it about class interests, protecting capital? yes. is it ALSO genuinely about decorum and buddy buddy country club shit? yes.

these are not contradicting motives, but reinforcing ones.

striderhlc.bsky.social•2 days ago

Plain old conflict aversion is a big factor too.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

lot less "shadowy spiderwebs of conspiracies, intentionally throwing fights, smoky backfilled rooms of coming up with plans to make sure dems never get too much power" and lot more "individual elected selfishness AND obsession with status leads to incredibly predictable outcome"

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

not "malicious or incompetent" but "both at the same time, and also, incredibly arrogant and lazy"

sappo7.bsky.social•2 days ago

Honestly I think the laziness beats out the other motivations at this point. If taking long weekends was the path to resistance they'd be clocking in Tuesday afternoon and punching out Thursday morning lol

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

they are incredibly old, tired, set in their ways, and believe themselves to be invincible. i think of NY dems a lot in how you can see the both 'incredibly lazy' and 'crush the left' operating simultaneously.

the IDC was a whole damn secret agreement with republicans to block the left...

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

honestly a hilarious example of it for me was iowa and bernie. YES the party WAS trying to fuck with bernie. HOWEVER: they were stepping all over each other's toes, nobody was coordinating with each other, even the shadow app thing was a rush job mostly about giving some consultants $$$

robotlyra.bsky.social•2 days ago

Mundanity of "I know that guy, I have beers with him, he couldn't POSSIBLY be that evil" as part of the problem feels almost insulting, but if it happens every other place in the world where abusive leadership is allowed to stick around without question, why the hell WOULDN'T it also be in Congress

striderhlc.bsky.social•2 days ago

The thing that always gets me wet Bernie in 2020 is how fast Dems figured out how to establish and maintain a media narrative when he started winning primaries, and how fast that went out the window when he’d been knocked out of the race.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

even an undeniable attempt to actively crush the left with behind the scenes bullshit runs into and fuses with the other motivations of the dems: not having to work, giving fake jobs for family and friends, individual selfishness/not actually talking to anybody else.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

you, even the 'you' of the suburban class with regular actblue donations, do not exist in their mind the same way. you aren't 'real' to electeds the same way these wealthier people they interact with daily are.

you can think of it like a country club or gated community. and you're not a member.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

it's the part of donors that isn't just raw bribes. it's getting elected's time. it's getting their ear. it's becoming familiar, personal with them, in a way that you could never hope to. it's becoming someone who *matters* to electeds in a way that faceless masses of voters can't.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

it's easy to really grasp it when you compare and contrast how many town halls a year a dem does, and how many times they're meeting with donors, one on one. the gap is vast. even if they're NOT getting bribed, the donors are more of a Real Person to the elected than some random faceless voter

sammisolsdottir.bsky.social•2 days ago

My congresswoman Joyce Beatty doesn’t know the price of an automobile.

I kid you not.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

lol remembering this from 2021 https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/11/politics/shaun-donovan-ray-mcguire-new-york-city-mayor/index.html

echidnabeans.bsky.social•2 days ago

That’s why it’s so funny to see Hakeem Jeffries take in like $800K of AIPAC money when his next largest donor was BlackRock with like $78K.

He doesn’t care at ALL about regular “constituents.” He barely cares about Lockheed and they gave him $70K! AIPAC stooge as Dem leader. Amazing.

spacetwinks.bsky.social•2 days ago

and perhaps no greater example of the "time spent doing town halls/time spent talking to donors" outcomes than dianne feinstein, who stopped doing town halls entirely in 2017. she was confronted by those kids in 2019.

two whole years of zero constituent interaction but tons of donor interaction.

mattleet.bsky.social•2 days ago

In her defense she didn’t really know where she was or who she was at the time. 🫤

taagolarts.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yes she did. Her dementia didn't progress that far until later. She knew. She was always like that.

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