u/Haunting-Mortgage

The GOP’s 2026 strategy is to nationalize local races by making Mamdani and the DSA stand-ins for the entire Democratic Party, then branding candidates across the country as socialist or communist by association.

The national DSA has genuinely radical factions, and its leadership sometimes hands critics plenty of ammunition; acknowledging that doesn’t make every member or DSA-backed candidate a communist. Collapsing those distinctions is the point of Trump’s 2026 Red Scare strategy, so repeating the label, even while arguing that the DSA invited it, still helps him replace debate over what people like Mamdani actually propose with guilt by association.

Promoting articles and media that use things like decade old tweets to "prove" that everyone in the DSA is communist is giving Trump and the GOP everything they want during this election cycle.

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republicans-dsa-communism/

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-07-29/republicans-want-to-turn-clock-back-to-red-baiting-fifties

View Poll

View Poll

After seeing the posts today, I'm sure I'll get eviscerated, downvoted, told that tonight’s New York results mean Democrats have nominated a bunch of Russian spies / antisemites / 2028 general-election poison pills, but, I gotta say - a lot of us in NYC are celebrating tonight.

Voters in one of the most amazing and diverse cities in the world just chose candidates who are willing to say tax wealthier people more, build more public capacity, make government services better, stop treating affordability as a branding exercise.

I don't think this is a “Democratic Tea Party.”

I understand why people on this sub are sensitive to that. We remember when the GOP got devoured by a purity movement that started as anti-establishment and turned into nihilism, government shutdowns, and eventually Trump. I get why “insurgent primary challengers beat incumbents” makes some folks here think NY is going off the deep end.

But please think about this with a clear head.

The Tea Party was fundamentally anti-government. The folks tonight are arguing that government should do MORE. The Tea Party treated taxation as theft. These candidates are arguing that rich people should pay more so public goods can be funded. The Tea Party’s answer to broken institutions was to defund, sabotage, delegitimize. Enshitify everything because nihilism.

The argument from the NYC left is basically: institutions are failing people, so make them more democratic, more generous, and more accountable.

OK! You can think some of these candidates are too left-wing, too online, or sloppy on foreign policy. I have my own concerns about some of the rhetoric too. I get it!

But “left-wing candidates won safe blue NYC primaries” is not the same thing as “the Democratic Party of NY has become the left version of Kid Rock.”

The key difference is whether this becomes a governing project or a purity spiral. If the lesson is “every Democrat in every district must sound like a Brooklyn socialist or be destroyed,” that would be stupid and dangerous. But if the lesson is “voters are desperate for people who actually fight on rent, childcare, transit, healthcare, corruption, and the cost of living,” then Democrats would be insane not to listen.

Also, let’s keep some perspective: NYC Democrats in very blue districts picked left-wing candidates. In the actually competitive New York race tonight, NY-17, Democrats nominated Cait Conley, a West Point grad, combat veteran, and national-security/cybersecurity candidate, to run against Mike Lawler. That’s not exactly “the Democratic Tea Party is taking over the whole ballot.”

I also think the Israel/antisemitism conversation can be serious without being hysterical. I'm a Jew. I had family die in the Shoah. Antisemitism is real. Some rhetoric on the left has been awful. But “criticizes Israel,” “supports Palestinian rights,” “is to my left,” and “is an antisemite / terrorist sympathizer / foreign asset” are not the same category. If we collapse all of those together, we are not fighting antisemitism more effectively; we are making it easier for charlatans like Tucker Carlson to do his "talk about Rothschild / Soros puppet masters while not explicitly saying Jews" schtick.

The Democratic coalition is going to include moderates, liberals, progressives, social democrats, democratic socialists, and a lot of people whose politics are basically “please make my rent stop being 99% of my paycheck.” That coalition is annoying. It always has been. But - as Sarah would certainly agree - it is also the only plausible anti-Trump coalition in the country.

So yes: argue about strategy. Demand discipline. Vet candidates. Call out bigotry where it exists. Fight for any candidate who can win swing districts.

But maybe also recognize that tonight, a lot of working-class communities in New York said they want representatives who will fight harder for them.

A seat Dems can't afford to lose. But listening to him here, he's definitely at least testing the waters. Very obvious.

What do we think?

Hey folks! Wondering if anyone knows about a puppy day school? Ie, somewhere you can drop off / pick up a puppy during the week and they'll do training, socializing etc.

Ideally in svf!

Thanks.

Paxton vs Talarico or, you know, third party...

I have a theory - and I might be wrong - that folks who grew up on Classic Who like the Moffat era more than RTD, because his version of the Doctor is closer to the Classic era - but I could be wrong.

I also think that Chibs was trying to harken back to the Classic era, but with more mixed results...

I'm a Tom Baker completist and was hemming and hawing about buying the season because of everything I saw on Reddit and YouTube.

I finally bit the bullet a few weeks ago and just finished the set today. I work in film and TV and there was literally nothing that was egregious at all.

Sure, I noticed a subtle ai clean up on The Android Invasion and Terror of The Zygons but it wasn't slop and I don't think I would have really noticed if not for the online conversation.

Am I wrong in thinking that it's not a big deal and all and actually looks fine?

Really my only issue with the set is that it's not a super big step up visually from the DVDs - but given that physical media doesn't sell like it used to and the original wasn't in HD, it's not a big deal. Happy to support the releases and the bonus features are fun.