You've got your passion, you've got your pride 🏳️‍🌈

I mean it accomplishes getting them out of office, which is extremely fucking important, and then, yes, you have to keep campaigning and voting against them for the rest of your life. There is no one election that is going to #own the other party into not existing anymore.

We vote in every election forever. That is how this works.

My bay? Oyster... but also far away.. puts hand to window sadly

Hilariously funny that they let the guy known for wandering off without warning to look at birds was allowed to do this

Is it electability for democrats? Or do you have policy issues with the left wing of the party?

Just curious because I saw that ask about El-Sayed and you’re pretty liberal so I was surprised.

It's not really either of those things, it's more about organizational effectiveness. I think it's natural to wonder if a young organization knows what they're doing. I've unfortunately seen a lot of well-intentioned attempts at progressive organism fail because they're blinded by idealism. I don't like some of the tactics DSA candidates/campaigns have used in primaries. In fairness, this is not a DSA unique problem, and is part of my larger frustration with the current state of primaries. But because so far the competitive races we've seen DSA candidates in have all been primaries, I don't have a lot to go on. I've also seen some good signs (e.g. Zohran Mamdani doing so much in person campaigning) but I'm still nervous, especially because it's untested in larger, more competitive races like Michigan.

Electability isn't my main concern, but it is a concern. Partly because the stigma on the word "socialist" in American politics, while stupid, is very real, and pushing back on that is not the hill I want to die on in the current political climate. There are also things like the DSA's official statement that they will only endorse AOC in a hypothetical presidential campaign if she publicly supports BDS. Whatever your opinion on this issue, that's not a way to win an election.

I have some concerns about policy, not the what but the how. I take a very pragmatic approach to politics. The reason I got disillusioned with Bernie Sanders in 2016 is that he didn't really seem to have a plan for how he was going to accomplish the things he wanted to do. I think I'm a bit unusual in how much value I place on the "how are we going to do it" part, which I think is because I have a government degree. Again, I'm keeping an open mind!

I have some concerns about the organizational culture. I've heard reports that give me pause about misogyny and antisemitism, to be perfectly honest I have not done a lot of digging myself so I'm not going to either make or deny allegations. I do know those are structural issues that exist everywhere, and that sometimes they can become concentrated in smaller organizations. I also know these issues can be insidious in progressive politics because the left tends to be in denial about not being immune from systemic biases. I don't have direct experience with the DSA because my representatives are progressives but not DSA members and I'm not involved in that kind of organizing right now for the sake of my mental health. To be honest with you I also get some vibes-based concerns based on people I've met who are DSA members or supporters. I make an effort not to overgeneralize those anecdotal experiences but I can't pretend it's not there.