Vote harder
If she thinks this will help her get re-elected, she's a bigger dumbass than I had assumed. There is a huge mass of voters who will just vote R or D and barely be conscious of the candidate. I'd argue this is probably a majority of voters. Not to mention all the structural hurdles that basically lock out any hope of a third party or an independent winning. Sure Bernie is an independent but he caucuses with the Dems (and let's be real, he's basically a democrat) and is generally beloved in VT. Sinema, I get the impression from Zonies, she is pretty roundly hated. Conservatives "like" her because she screws things but they wouldn't actually vote for her.
I think she actually believes there is some huge bloc of centrist "independent" voters in the country who are up for grabs. Lots of people think this. Of course modern political science shows this isn't the case, nearly everyone's made up their minds and they don't change often. I do think the GOP understands this better and they focus on turning out their base; and they've been pretty successful with this. The DNC on the other hand, well I think they know it too but appealing to their base goes against the donors (capital), so they have to kinda pretend they are going after "centrists" and alienate the base. This makes capital happy and they just continue to either lose ground or be ineffective.
Anyway, "narcissist" is a word that gets thrown around a lot; but I think Sinema here really is a major narcissist in the DSM-V sense of the word. Her position in the senate of having all this leverage has has completely overfed the beast of her ego and now she's just in a state of narcissistic... idk euphoria I guess?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
It lets her avoid getting knocked out in the primaries, though, since she no longer has to worry about a different Democrat challenging her. She gets to keep being the center of attention all the way through the general election, as well as hold the Senate seat hostage by threatening to split the Democratic vote and throw the election to the Republicans if they try to run someone to her left.
Of course, there's a strong chance the Ds are so fucking stupid that they'll try to run someone to her right, and then do the :shocked-pikachu: when a fascist Dracula is the one who actually wins.
We already have one Joe Manchin, why not have another
She probably (correctly) thinks that she could lose her primary regardless. This move will make her more of a celebrity and open up a lot of doors for her post politics carreer.
I’d hesitate to diagnose her with anything other than “jerkass bougie sheepdog syndrome”.
The real test is if the AZ democratic party just lets her do it and not run anyone or even endorses her. Thats sort of a stretch, but it would be a powerful demonstration of dem loser mentality.
Yeah can confirm, my lib friends have been pissed with her for awhile down here in AZ.
Being a leftist gives you minor superpowers of seeing the future and remembering more than 4 weeks into the past. This is another example where leftists has been saying that any legislative advantage the democrats manage to gain will instantly be undone by an equal number of democrats sabotaging the majority. I think we should be more open about our super powers, it might entice more people to join.
every communist in the west has the Cassandra Curse. We are almost invariably correct and yet nobody believes us; and when what we say will happen does in fact happen, everybody's too busy finding weird explanations and pet theories to explain what happened
It’s what made me a tankie. Getting dragged, kicking and screaming, by the people who were always right
Another Enlightened Centrist is mysteriously right wing :surprised-pika:
I'm sure the first round of DNC fundraising emails have already gone out
Thankfully not. And after Trump destroyed the "mystique" of the presidency more than Bush ever could, hopefully it'll stay that way even in this age of revivals and reboots.
She's probably going to caucus with the Dems. She's just an annoying narcissist and being an independent means that she can't be primaries and might force the Dems to not run someone in the general against her.
I'd say Manchin is part of the Democratic secret plan, but I straight up think she's a chaos agent that just about everyone hates.
Not really since Bernie does the same thing. Caucusing with the Dems means they count towards the majority
Unlike presidents, senators almost always get primaried. I think she probably would have lost her primary though, she isn't popular.
Yeah but she's a pain in the ass. I'm sure they can find another Dem to be the heel and replace her
If you want to see real time lib copium - Josh Marshall is firing on all cylinders on Twitter. This morning he said that 50 is an "absolute majority". That's pretty funny because he spent the first two years of Biden's term never using that phrase and he was a huge Biden/dem apologist.
What is Rule 22 in the Senate? Forty-one senators determine what bills the Senate will take up through Rule 22, the cloture vote. Cloture is a vote to end a filibuster, and under Senate rules, requires 60 votes. Any senator can ask for the cloture vote without even coming to the floor.
:porky-happy:
She's too much of a MAVERICK doing MAVERICKY things being all MAVERICKAL
Actually she's technically a firebrand, not a maverick. Easy mistake.
No no no only :us-foreign-policy: people are firebrands. She's definitely a maverick, just going her own way like in that movie :so-true:
It’s so weird how it’s effectively split down the middle again just after you have any chance to affect it? how does this keep happening :very-smart: