We take it as a given but the media really is the primary culprit here. Look at how AOC is portrayed. She’s an infinitely more serious person than Kevin McCarthy yet he gets the deferential treatment and she’s portrayed as a nut job. It’s totally hopeless for this country.
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Yes, Stacey Abrams personally deserves absolutely all the credit for turning GA blue in 2020 (which was irrelevant) and electing two Dem senators against two of the worst candidates the GOP has put up in recent memory.
She’s gonna get roflstomped by Kemp and Warnock might lose to a potato. Can she take credit for these losses as well?
Abrams is in a dead heat with Beto for the most overrated (BUT BETO HELPED DOWNBALLOT RACES!!!11!!!11) politician of the past 10 years or so. At least Beto has some fun moments where he tells Greg Abbot to go fuck himself.
Nice strawman.
I don’t think anyone is blaming “southern black folks” for not voting for Bernie and pretty much everyone acknowledges either: (1) Bernie fucked up by not working more on appealing to minorities in the South (and everywhere); and/or (2) he just isn’t the right candidate in the end because he simply can’t make that appeal.
Also not sure how Abrams doing even worse this time around and running behind Warnock is evidence that she has somehow figured out the Black vote.
I"ve been skeptical of Abrams, but she’s about as good as you can hope for in Georgia.
The Clintons and their allies have been putting in the work for decades in the South, they’re always going to have a massive edge vs. some guy from Vermont.
Why is Abrams the best we can hope for? Because she’s Black?
What would happen if a Black progressive ran? We don’t know.
This is why we lose.
“Oh well, guess Abrams is the best we can do.”
GOP out here nominating ex-football stars who can’t string together three words but are famous and well-positioned to take on a Black Dem senator with a small track record.
I think the three big reasons Abrams is doing worse are because 1) worse environment for Ds in general vs 2018, 2) Kemp’s an incumbent now, and 3) he had the Purdue challenge from the right that makes him look more moderate to low info voters. I’m all for running someone more progressive but I think Kemp would be a lock against anyone with a D by their name this year.
Probably. But the relentless praise for Abrams and anointing her as the Queen of Georgia is just ridiculous. The GOP doesn’t do this kind of crap unless they know it will result in a win.
Probably get demolished in Georgia, but I’m all for supporting this hypothetical progressive when he/she shows up.
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Southern black voters are also more moderate than the average Dem. No amount of Bernie church visits was going to change that. Bernie was campaigning frequently with Killer Mike and others prominent black voices. I think acting like he didn’t try isn’t fair. Anecdotally about half of my street are elderly black people and they all were slam dunk Biden voters. Bernie could have personally showed up at their house and it wouldn’t have mattered a bit.
Biden being VP to the first black president was also a huge part of it even though he was chosen because of his racist past.
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We’ll find out. They are running in this cycle (Not in Georgia, but in other southern states).
Charles Booker is running in Kentucky. Gary Chambers is running in Louisiana.
Both are legit progressives.
There was a very progressive black Senate candidate in TN in 2020. Obviously she got destroyed and she did do worse than Bredesen did in 2018, but 2020 was a worse year for Ds than 2018 overall and also lol TN so not sure what conclusions can be drawn from that.
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Instead of trying to get Bernie the nomination, progressives should have been looking for a candidate who could be Biden’s running mate.
Saying that we have a candidate quality problem in the Georgia governor’s race is a terrible take.
Abrams is famous because she pursued a political strategy that was met with skepticism and through a combination of execution and luck had an indelible impact on US politics. From 2002 onward the conventional wisdom was that if Democrats were ever going to win a statewide election, they needed to field candidates that appealed to conservative white voters. Abrams instead pushed for a registration and turnout strategy of black and Hispanic voters.
This continued into the 2018 cycle where a significant cohort of eDems supported Abrams’ opponent Stacey Evans under the theory that she was more electable. Note that Abrams has always been seen as more liberal/progressive than she actually is due her being a black woman. Abrams ends up losing by ~50k votes (Jason Carter had lost by 200k votes in 2014). She doubles down on registering and organizing through Fair Fight, which ultimately helps contribute to Biden’s ~15k vote victory and the Senate power tipping victories of Warnock and Ossoff.
In 2022 she is up against a popular incumbent in something like an R+1.5 state in a bad midterm environment. That you think there is some mythical black progressive out there that would be stumping his way to victory is pretty lol.
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I mean, Liz Warren was crushing it in the polls right up until she flip flopped on healthcare. She almost certainly would have either won or been VP if she didn’t take a 90 degree turn to the right on one of the most important issues.
this is an incredibly bad post
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Let me clarify. Someone who could have been Biden’s running mate then run for president themselves in 2028.