I’ve been volunteering with the Dem party since high school, I’ve worked campaigns and elections at every level in MA, CT, and CA. What I learned is that hardly anyone at all participates. The truth is neither you nor I nor anyone else has actually witnessed a truly engaged and empowered democratic party at the PEOPLE level.

Leadership remains because people refuse to engage.

Having leftists actually JOIN the Democratic and work to promote their own vision would be a huge start. I’ve noticed a crisis online where very leftist or progressive people are constantly talking about “those Dems” and what “they’re” doing.

We start by making the conversation about “us” and not “them”. Take some personal responsibility. It astounds me that leftists et al are so butthurt about the lack of their preferred ideology within Democratic ranks when hardly anybody with said ideology are making themselves known within Democratic ranks.

We do what MAGA did. Co-opt existing party infrastructure around a populist, progressive leadership and message.

Nah I’m in academia, folks in my company have great vocab. I’m talking about specifically on social media as I peruse communities that are new to or have nothing to do with me. It’s just one of those things you notice when you read a lot of comments by a lot of diverse people.

I swear to God, almost nobody said milquetoast before February 2025. Now I hear it online constantly. Sometimes people spell it right, but so often it’s “milktoast”.

Some influencer or political commentator definitely said it recently and now everyone is repeating it everywhere. I’m not complaining, it’s a great word – but it’s such a compelling example of words going viral

No, we need to take over the Democratic party. If you realistically want to actually win as opposed to grandstand.

The thing is, they DO already know the struggles of the working people. Of course they do surveys, data analysis.

The problem is that people don’t believe them. Their brainwashing forces them to automatically reject our message, even though our policies poll well across the board – when they are divorced from the messenger. Attach the name AOC to the idea universal basic income, suddenly it’s communism.

The outreach they are doing is some of the most important work we can do right now. The middle class must become convinced that these people are in fact committed to their well-being before they can be mobilized by them.

When AOC/Bernie have an “army”, like Trump does – people who will trust and believe them enough to show up when and where they ask them to, to fight for what we all believe in – THEN they can start taking very direct and meaningful action.

Think about what we are up against – money, law, and military. The only way we push through all that is with huge populist support.

That’s naïve as fuck and it’s not worth the risk. We need to eject these fucking assholes. AOC on the VP will draw in all the same people who she would otherwise attract as president. Bernie is too old for many, many people. Walz is a leftist who can speak in safe, simple White-America terms aand appeal to people who would are wary about AOC. Yes, it sucks that America is sexist, but it also sucks that we are plummeting into fascism. This is a winning ticket.

Kids her age often tend to only care about the opinions of other kids their own age.

We’re working on it.

In SF for example I’ve started working my ass off for Saikat Chakrabarti (former AOC Chief-of-Staff) to unseat Nancy Pelosi in 2 years.

Truly, for all the people I talk to who say, “but what can I do? I live in liberal stronghold X”. NOW is your chance to do something important.

Hold your Democratic leaders accountable, contact them, threaten to throw all of your time and energy into supporting their primary opposition, make them sweat. If they don’t step it up, follow through on your threat and start getting involved with alternative leaders who are ready and eager to fight.

I think Walz/Ocasio-Cortez would be a much more popular and palatable suggestion for the electorate, even though I personally prefer your proposal

Rallying and engaging people in these states is absolutely crucial to any further strategy. There is nothing they can truly do to fight without tons of popular support. They are trying to reach some of the 90 million people who didn’t care enough to vote last year, to ask them to start caring.

It’s honestly the very best thing they can use their platform to do right now.

Where can a civilian get a good bulletproof vest?

Rest assured that I have other valuable and relevant skills.

Fair enough.

Not sure I’d pass the background check for that in CA. Years ago I had an unfortunate reaction to a new medication, suffered hallucinations from it, and was involuntarily committed for a few days (I was fully out of it) while I recovered. It’s all documented.

Lmao this is cute.

Huh? That other person seems calm and respectful too. What do you mean?

What will that do and how will it help all of the people in her same position?

Where are they being detained and tortured again?

Saw an article today about a French scientist who was denied entry to the US after their phone was searched and texts critical of Trump were found.