NY-14: Goliath falls to OCASIO!

[ON Progressive]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Nobody is going to have their vote switch or anything just because some leadership member (and most people either don't care for or dislike party leadership anyway, as shown by every Speaker ever having hideous approval ratings).

The fact of the matter is, he is a machine hack that doesn't even live in New York state. He lives in Arlington, Virginia and has his kids go to school there.

[ON Progressive]

Remind me again, why are we supposed to suddenly hate Crowley?

He's a bland machine hack who voted for the Bush tax cuts and Iraq War. Comparable to Feinstein. Not the worst Democrat in the House but no reason to not support a far more progressive challenger over him.

Yeah, but the optics of a member of leadership losing their primary would be awful.

Um, regular voters don't even know who he is. He is a latte liberal who lives in the quiet suburbs of Northern Virginia and thinks his children are too good to attend the public schools in the district he represents. He doesn't represent the interests of the people who live there. Unfortunately he will coast on name recognition and incumbency.

While I'm sure you mean well and I get that you probably aren't doing this on purpose, but the bolded part is a complete BS attack when used against any member of Congress.  And regular voters will know who he is if the media spends a week doing nothing but concern trolling about how DEMS IN DISARRAY AS TOP LEADER LOSES TO NO NAME BERNIEBRO or some such nonsense.  

More importantly though, it'd be much appreciated if – in the interest of intellectual honesty and having a real discussion – you could respond to the points from my mega-post detailing why progressives are far better off with Crowley in office (at least until after 2022 or so) regardless of any Bush-era apostasies instead of just picking the weakest argument and ignoring every other point I made (no offense).

P.S: No self-respecting Democrat should be unironically using the term "latte liberal."

Who cares? Dems could be up 30 in the GCB and the Beltway pundits would find a way to go #DEMSINDISARRAY. Literally nobody actually cares what they think about anything.

[ON Progressive]

Anyone have a link to the full debate? I missed it.

[ON Progressive]

J.D. Durkin predicts Ocasio will unseat Crowley.

https://twitter.com/jiveDurkey/status/1008759739239448576

How accurate are his predictions usually? It would certainly be a huge deal if the progressive wing took down leadership like that.

I would also bask in the #DEMSINDISARRAY hot takes that would come from garbage outlets like Politico about how Dems are doomed because of a successful primary in a Clinton +58 district.

[ON Progressive]

I've always found it interesting how machine politics tends to be very big in minority districts like NY-14 and IL-03, even when the machine's politicians usually (though not always) are white.

Anybody know why this is?

[ON Progressive]

Yes, because young latino people really are the champions of the WWC vote...

Your racism is showing.

How exactly? It's not to hard to understand that non-white neo-liberal politicians do not exactly turn on middle american white voters.

Are you saying AOC is a neoliberal? She's a DSA member.

[ON Progressive]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-crowley-twitter-feud-714983?__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true

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[ON Progressive]

Nobody in NY gives a damn what Lieberman has to say.

FTFY.

[ON Progressive]

Proof that Ocasio reads Atlas:

"Rising Democratic star tells Kansans in video they will ‘flip this seat red.’ What?"

https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article215287750.html

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What the heck is she doing in Kansas? I think she's starting to get ahead of herself.

And her gaffe has given the Republican base more fodder to use. They've interpreted her comment as referring to "Communist Red", furthering their impression of her (however misguided) as a full-blown socialist or communist.

I mean, she is a member of the DSA, and describes herself as a socialist.

That being said, who cares what the Republican base thinks about her? Not only is the GOP base just about non-existent in NY-14, these people think the entire Democratic Party is socialist.

[ON Progressive]

It's unfortunate that so many of the red and burgundy avatars here are celebrating the fact that Ocasio-Cortez rejected the debate offer. It was within her rights to do so, but to evade debate with someone on issues such as these isn't the best way to win the respect of others. And yes, I have seen the posts about the debate offer to Shapiro. That still doesn't change my overall point. People on both sides of the ideological debate who chant slogans and do "soft" interviews, but do not engage in substantive debates, undermine their own credibility.

Except that debate was offered in bad faith. I know it was offered in bad faith because Shapiro literally wrote a book called "HOW TO DEBATE LEFTISTS AND DESTROY THEM", and also he offered an illegal campaign contribution alongside it.

[ON Progressive]

It's unfortunate that so many of the red and burgundy avatars here are celebrating the fact that Ocasio-Cortez rejected the debate offer. It was within her rights to do so, but to evade debate with someone on issues such as these isn't the best way to win the respect of others. And yes, I have seen the posts about the debate offer to Shapiro. That still doesn't change my overall point. People on both sides of the ideological debate who chant slogans and do "soft" interviews, but do not engage in substantive debates, undermine their own credibility.

A debate for the sake of a debate doesn't make it substantive.

A debate focused around policy is substantive, in my view. I'm not defending Shapiro here, but what harm does a debate pose? You can have people who are ideological opposites disagree on the issues, but as long as they back up their points with valid evidence and have well thought out arguments, then I believe that public discourse is advanced.

So, where does this end?  Every politician and candidate who is challenged to a debate has to accept?

Who knows, that might actually work.  Mueller could challenge Trump to a 'debate' over what Trump and his campaign and associates did during the campaign.

Ben Shapiro is not entitled to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s attention or time. He is not her constituent nor is he a politician. His logic in this entire situation is identical to the logic of some incel nerd who thinks he’s entitled to a woman’s attention because he held a door and bought her lunch.

It's unfortunate that so many of the red and burgundy avatars here are celebrating the fact that Ocasio-Cortez rejected the debate offer. It was within her rights to do so, but to evade debate with someone on issues such as these isn't the best way to win the respect of others. And yes, I have seen the posts about the debate offer to Shapiro. That still doesn't change my overall point. People on both sides of the ideological debate who chant slogans and do "soft" interviews, but do not engage in substantive debates, undermine their own credibility.

A debate for the sake of a debate doesn't make it substantive.

A debate focused around policy is substantive, in my view. I'm not defending Shapiro here, but what harm does a debate pose? You can have people who are ideological opposites disagree on the issues, but as long as they back up their points with valid evidence and have well thought out arguments, then I believe that public discourse is advanced.

So what, she has to debate every asshole who asks her to debate? That’s stupid.

I think that there should be limits to whether or not a debate should be held. As I said in my post (if you two had even bothered to read it), it was within Ocasio-Cortez's rights to turn down Shapiro's offer. And Shapiro's offer wasn't posed in the manner that it should have been.

I feel like you're fundamentally misunderstanding what a "debate" is in the context of a politically campaign. Ocasio-Cortez won, in part, because she attended a debate and Joe Crowley sent someone else in his place. You seem to think she's against debates, period. She's only against debates with random tryhard asshole misogynists like Ben Shapiro.

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This is a forum for nerdy teenagers. You take this place and yourself entirely too seriously.

Nerdy teenagers? Many of the users on here (i.e. Fuzzy Bear, GeorgiaModerate, pbrower, muon2, Torie) are in their fifties or sixties, and belong to the Baby Boomer Generation. They have a great deal of experience and approach the issues discussed here in a serious, analytical manner. Many of the other users on this forum (i.e. That Conservative Guy, TheSaint, Loyola, TimTurner, etc.) are young adults, but they have a serious interest in politics and make very substantive combinations. This website was founded for people in the general public who are interested in electoral statistics and the facts connected to those statistics. To say that this is just a "forum for needy teenagers" is a great understatement.

I find it an irony that I, who consider myself to be a moderate independent, have argued with people on both extremes of the ideological spectrum. I've argued with people like you, Adam, ProudModerate2, DoctorImperialism, AtorBoltox, and Landslide Lyndon who are on the far left of that spectrum, and I've argued with users on other websites that I frequent (i.e. The Federalist, Townhall, Huffington Post), who are way on the right side of the spectrum. Both extremes have views that I think only worsen the polarization in this country. People like many of you who call Republicans fascists, and people like the Trump supporters elsewhere who call Democrats communists, are people that I despise.

And again, I said in my post that I don't support much of Shapiro's views. He is way more to the right economically then I am, and I certainly don't agree with his stances on social questions as they relate to minorities. But that doesn't mean that I completely denounce someone if they are at least interested in engaging in intellectual debate, and respect the values of our political system.

lmao.

Also, while I do understand the importance of debate, I don't blame Ocasio-Cortez for refusing to debate someone who things it should be legal to rape your wife.

I certainly don't condone such a view, and again, I did say that it was within her rights to refuse, especially given how Shapiro made his offer.

And what is it with "lmao"? Landslide Lyndon seems to fall on the left side of the ideological spectrum, from what I've seen of his posts. If he isn't, then that is my mistake.

You called him "far left" which is comical at best. Landslide Lyndon likes to complain about the left of the Democratic Party all the time. Besides, "far left" only means communism and anarchism really. Virtually nobody here, and certainly not Landslide Lyndon, is either of those things.

[ON Progressive]

Nothing that you wrote above answers my question.

One of the main issues that I've had in conversing with you is that you like to pick and choose which parts of my posts to address, and dismiss others as "logical fallacies", if you consider them at all. As to your specific question, I've made clear time and time again that I am not a Trump supporter, did not vote for him, do not approve of him, and will not vote for him again in 2020. Trump has said many egregious things (as I've also noted elsewhere), and I have strongly disapproved of some of his administration's policies (i.e. certain aspects of the "Muslim travel ban" and his zero-tolerance immigration policy). And as I've also said, there are limits to debate, and Trump is someone who has demonstrated, through his actions and his statements, that he may very well fall outside of those limits.

I don't think every random person should be pressed into debate; that would be too tedious a process, and many people are not as interested in politics as this forum's posters are. But the point that I'm making is that one should not shriek from rejecting any and all debates with one's ideological opposites. If they are people of good character, make their offer in good faith, and are interested in having a genuine discussion, then they shouldn't be turned away.

This debate wasn't offered in good faith whatsoever. The offer literally included an illegal campaign contribution, and Ben has always acted in bad faith anyhow.