Special Election megathread (4/30: NY-26)

[coloradocowboi]

This will be a VERY low turn-out election. Turner will be the front runner in a fractured field, and the establishment lane sure looks like it will be crowded.

Yeah the delusion about this is unreal. I don't think she's a lock, but I think all the people who just assume she's polarizing and bound to lose this district are 100% trippin. She starts as the front-runner for sure, unless the establishment lines up ASAP behind a credible challenger (i.e. not the party chair of Cuyahoga county lol)

Yeah, but she’s pretty unpopular and it’s to the point where folks will rally around whoever has the best shot of beating her in the unlikely event that she looks like one of the frontrunners.  It’s not an ideological thing, she’s just spent the past years burning every bridge in sight and now it’s gonna come back to bite her.  You might be able to get a Justice Dem elected by finding some Cori Bush-type pastor or community activist and then running a stealth campaign, but Turner doesn’t really have serious chance of winning.

Can we get some receipts about this y'all, because I really only hear it on this forum and I want to know specifically what Nina's done to alienate the local Dem base in Cleveland?

[coloradocowboi]

Another major union endorsement for Nina Turner.

NNU isn't a major union, lol.  It's basically an arm of the Sanders campaign.  This endorsement is about as valuable as the Kyle Kulinski endorsement.

It's a branch of the AFL-CIO and as noted reps 150,000 people. I know that you brazenly advertise that you have opinions about things you don't know or understand (e.g. socialism), but you could easily have Wikipedia'd this before you posted lol

[coloradocowboi]

Shontel Brown misgendered a transgender individual throughout a forum held by the Cleveland Stonewall Democrats yesterday, and, uh, lol.

Well there goes the LGBT vote, though they were probably gonna vote for Nina anyways.
[/quote

Honestly not necessarily. A pretty sizeable chunk of LGBTQ people voted for Warren over Bernie in the primary. We lean far-left but it's just a lean. She will definitely damage her candidacy with this, although I've always been pretty skeptical

[coloradocowboi]

Is Nina Turner actually behaving better now though? She was totally Susan Sarandon far left nonsense before this year.

"Behaving better..." I don't even get why you would care or be involved in politics if you're number one issue is a candidate's tone lol

[coloradocowboi]

Turner's entire persona is being an obnoxious, conspiracy-addled asshole though.  If you take that away (her "tone") what does she bring to the table?

People like her because she's obnoxious and rude to people they dislike, and because she says crazy
 things that validate their conspiratorial belief system.  That's really all there is to it.

 

I didn't mean tone, I meant her not being crazy anymore

You guys are hilarious. You act like she and her supporters are irrational, and then when backed into a corner as to why you would think that, what's your argument: "She's a meanie!" "Crazy lady bad!" Meanwhile, you insult her supporters far more grievously than I ever heard her insult anybody.

People like her because they think that our for-profit healthcare system is a joke. They like her because they think support for an apartheid gov't under the name of "freedom" is insanity. They like her because voting for Joe Biden was kinda like eating dog s***, except that when somebody eats dog s*** they don't have to worry that it will result in a 4 degree celsius temperature increase that will permanently ruin their lives. People like her for substantive reasons, meanwhile all you have to say negative about her is heavily subjective, emotional, and personal.

[coloradocowboi]

This won't matter, but it's funny to see Turner supports on Twitter talk about Hillary's endorsement being "the kiss of death" when Hillary handily beat Sanders in OH-11 in the 2016 primary.

And absolutely nothing has happened since then.

It's still ridiculous to act like this endorsement will harm Brown. Of course it's not 2016 anymore, but I have no reason to believe that a significant number of Hillary's supporters in the 2016 primary have turned against her in the last five years. And as far as everyone wants to make this race and the 2016 primary proxies for the broader moderate-progressive conflict, the 2020 presidential primary certainly was a resounding win for the moderate side, including in the Midwest.

I would probably rather have Turner in Congress, so I'm not endorsing Hillary's endorsement, I'm just saying that Hillary is still a well-liked figure among most Democrats and thus calling her endorsement "the kiss of death" is laughable.

I agree with you that "kiss of death" is a bit extreme, but it's also likely more tongue-in-cheek than it is a serious statement. Like you say, this will have absolutely no impact on the race. Still, this endorsement reeks of yet another stab at a Bernie acolyte for the sake of doing so. Did she ever endorse a primary challenge to Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, etc?

I'm amazed at how she manages to consistently throw her support behind the most incompetent politicians possible. It's different from picking someone like Henry Cuellar to own the bros. Her congressional endorsements since her loss have been:

* Donna Shalala (lazy, dog**** campaigner, from the Clinton/Feinstein school of thought where their experience entitles them to power)
* Eliot Engel (got caught in 4k, constantly fueled the narrative that he was out of touch with his district)
* Shontel Brown (Has been an absolute trainwreck running the CCDP, can't even lock down her own machine. Probably the most incompetent congressional candidate I've seen in my lifetime.)

It's because she's corrupt and so are they. It's not a mystery, they all have the same ties to the "donor network" which really just might as well be the DNC at this point

[coloradocowboi]

Shontel Brown is a sub par, boring candidate and Turner is clearly the better option, but that wasn't transphobic. False accusations such as this are why people have a hard time taking certain parts of the left seriously. Somehow literally EVERYTHING gets related back to trans issues with these people.

Maybe it's because... transgender people almost all face some degree of violence, discrimination, and marginalization daily and therefore it's the most important issue in many LGBTQ peoples' lives?

Like can you fathom and understand that people have different experiences from yours and resultantly different priorities? Anyway, as a gay person, I get why people are pissed off.

Which brings me to....

One of the many, many, many extremely annoying and juvenile things the Nina Turner left likes to do is:

1) Take one single incident or statement from a politician, that's either obviously out of step with their actual beliefs/personality, or possible to misrepresent as such by taking it out of context and/or lying about it

2) Try to convince everyone that incident/statement is completely representative of their actual beliefs/personality, and everything else they've done to the contrary can be dismissed as "just an act"

3) Hyperbolize about it to absurd, comical extremes

4) Use the hyperbole as a weapon to try and cancel the politician and ruthlessly attack anyone who dares to support her


It's a pattern we see over and over again and now we're seeing them do it by labeling Shontel Brown a "transphobe" over one single incident where she accidentally misgendered someone and then immediately apologized.

Never mind the thousands of other times where she's spoken about trans people without misgendering them.  Never mind that it was obviously a mistake and she apologized for it.  Nope, they're going to pretend that she was doing it on purpose to let us know what a transphobe she is, and all the other times she's been respectful of trans people are just putting on an act to hide her transphobia.  Of course just misgendering someone once doesn't make you a transphobe, especially since she obviously wasn't doing it in an asshole Tucker Carlson way to signal that she doesn't respect the transition, but if they're going to lie about Shontel, why not go all the way?  Shontel Brown is basically a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and you are a terrible, terrible, terrible person if you support her!

It's just so obviously childish, manipulative and dishonest, and I don't get how more people aren't insulted by leftists like sawx constantly trying to lie to us with this kind of crap.  Like why am I the only one on Atlas with the balls to call this crap out for what it is?  Why am I the only one who notices these patterns?

One of the most juvenile and annoying thing that centrist, neoliberal moderates do is campaign on social justice, antiracism, and equality when they are running against a fascist in a campaign, promising to include marginalized people in gov't and to focus on their issues only to turn around a few months after a campaign and demand that they shut up, all the while refusing to do anything at all.

It shocks me (well not in your case, but still...) that people are more offended by marginalized people speaking their truths than the fact that the corrupt octogenarian you shoved down anybody's throat has accomplished absolutely nothing as president and is driving our country right back toward total Republican rule.

You can't even make this argument without hyperbole too. Nobody called her mistakes Westboro Baptist Church level transphobia--you did! Because for you it's all just a projection. Transgender people are pawns to be moved against your imagined political enemies because of some weird tribal loyalty to liberalism, and not because you care at all about making their lives better. So, excuse me if some LGBTQ people are gonna be loud with our grievances. Evidently, based on your inability to comprehend or take them seriously, we should be even louder.

Shontel Brown is a sub par, boring candidate and Turner is clearly the better option, but that wasn't transphobic. False accusations such as this are why people have a hard time taking certain parts of the left seriously. Somehow literally EVERYTHING gets related back to trans issues with these people.

Like can't you dummies fathom that when your daily experience is full of discrimination and violence that it will be your main concern? It's not that difficult if you can achieve the same task elementary school aged children do all the time called empathy.

Anyway, y'all's loss if you can't, because if Shontel Brown loses it looks like it will be a narrower margin than originally thought at this point, and she could really use that LGBTQ vote. Obviously, she'll never get it because like you two's her politics is all about shutting marginalized people up and not listening to them.

[coloradocowboi]

By the way here is Shontel's apology after the forum.  This is your "transphobe."

I appreciate the request to clarify my statement from last night’s equality forum.

I was fortunate to learn more about the struggles of the LGBTQIA+ community from my friend before their passing and was able to acknowledge and use my privilege to support many of the unaddressed issues.

Out of respect for my friend I did not share their name as I discussed their tragic passing, but I did refer to them as “he.”

To be clear, my friend didn’t always present themself as a woman, but when doing so I would refer to my friend as she. When my friend presented as a man, I would address them as he.  As I mentioned in the forum, I knew them since we were children and while they spent most of their life identifying as a man, I have always been respectful to refer to them how they wanted to be referred to.

Like everyone, I make mistakes – I am still learning, and sometimes I trip up. I am working every day to be better – and I sincerely apologize to everyone in the trans community for my mistake. I will always stand with the trans community – who are under attack here in Ohio from a Republican Party that is working tirelessly every day to strip their basic human rights.

Nearly every day we learn of another murdered trans woman of color. And our leaders – in Ohio, and in Washington – have done little to stop this epidemic of violence. When elected, my door will always be open. I will never stop fighting for the rights of trans people and will hold myself and others in my own party to account when they fail to speak up.

My goal last night was to be as open about my own experience losing a friend, who was a member of the trans community, when asked about violence against black trans women and how more needs to be done to address them specifically.

I am also committed to respecting any and every person’s preferred pronouns and I will continue to lead by learning and do the work as an ally and advocate for the LGBTQIA+ and other underrepresented communities.

Thank you for being a voice in this great democracy and I appreciate all of the work you do.

Of course, the path to trans rights is via a draconian approach where simple, honest mistakes are grounds for ruthless demonization and cancellation, and then apologies are never accepted so any imperfection results in permanent, inescapable condemnation to the fires of hell.  That's really the best way to get people on your side and help reluctant allies adapt to an unfamiliar new reality.  Just kill them the second they step out of lines they're still trying to get used to.

Bonus points if you, Robespierre, are not actually trans yourself, but you're feigning outrage on behalf of trans people and rejecting the apology on their behalf, because this is just a game to you and trans people are just a political weapon.

Simple, honest mistakes to people like you include Stop and Frisk, so pardon me if I'll just skip a response to your sophistry and say plain and simple that some people's politics are guided by a moral compass and yours are evidently not. I think that is one of the central problems of liberalism as an ideology tbh, this whole idea of "tabula rasa," we're all humans and make mistakes so who are you to judge? That gets conveniently applied to liberal, status-quo-oriented elites as if the whole point of having an elite weren't that they are *supposed* to be above the petty mistakes of the "little people." They are supposed to be the best our society has to offer, and you are here cissplaining to me that the best our society has to offer is a woman inflated into relevancy with lies and corporate money who can't even bother correctly gendering a so-called "friend" at an LGBT people's forum. I don't know what to tell you. Clearly you aren't looking for the same leadership qualities in an individual that I am--i.e. compassion, intelligence, strategic sense. And clearly you don't know how dehumanizing this whole conversation is for the people affected by issues that are just theoretical to you.

You lecture queer people about "how to get people on your side" as if we haven't already managed that perfectly fine on our own. And as if your opinion, born of a nothing more than a mere reflexive defense of a status quo you have some emotional attachment to, were something that any LGBTQ person would find valuable even if we were not already plainly aware that you aren't engaging with us in good faith. I definitely would never want you to be on my side, and all the LGBTQ people that will now not be voting for your DNC puppet agree...

[coloradocowboi]

Once again, the #MAGA Democrats have no defense for allying with the far-right to stop the left so they resort to whataboutery.

The real fascists tbh, committed only to the existing elite and status quo. T