Obama’s comments appear in a new video supporting Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 which would allow the California legislature to draw new congressional boundaries ahead of the midterms
Barack Obama has entered the political fray ahead of November’s special election in California, accusing Republicans of attempting to “rig the next election” in a new ad backing Governor Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50, a ballot measure that could reshape the state’s congressional map.
“Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to rig the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years,” Obama says in the 30-second ad, urging voters to approve the proposal. “You can stop Republicans in their tracks.”
So they’re finally acknowledging it.
As far as I can tell, Newsom is just a ‘fascist, but not too obvious, so people won’t protest’ kind of candidate. A perfect pick if you want to salvage what remains of the empire and delay its inevitable collapse. But then again, it’s not like Americans have any reasonable candidates. And we’re also going on the assumption that there will be another election, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Would he be an improvement for the American people? And for other countries? At the very least, minorities in the USA would be [mostly] safe for a few years.
He’s a capitalist. Fascist I don’t think so. We have to stop purity testing left candidates, it’s a trap. So what if he doesn’t have every opinion we have - he’s more in touch with the average voter on those issues, frankly. We need to start thinking like we want to win, not like we want to be right.
He’s a capitalist.
He’s an American politician. Of course he is.
Leftists in USA do need to band together, and I feel like it is more difficult to do so because of our individually. Most of our goals are common.
Edit: as pointed out, my comment is derailing from Governor Newsom to the broad america imperialism, So I apologize in advance for being off-topic here.
Inb4 I’m not calling you (specifically you) out. The you is aimed at “People of America” as a whole
independent of left or right, I’d like to say you guys need to elect someone that doesn’t expand that list further more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
In other words, Could You All Please Stop Fucking Raping The “Global South”? Pretty Please???
And I’m using the word rape both metaphorically and literal at the same time. Also, I’m not downplaying the word. I’m just pointing out the fucked up things US (as a nation) did to all of us outside of “global north”, “western civilization”, “first world” or whatever term you guys keeping using to refer to us, the “inferior” class of “subhumans” people.
The US was always imperialist, but now the masks are off and Trump is just bringing what US did to other countries (see the list above) inwards to US. That’s why most of the population are worried.
Except for the few leftist that called out what US always was, most people aren’t worried of US raping other countries. But they are now worried because the military force is turning inwards against the enemy within.
___
And has Newsom said he’d like to add to that list?
That was not my point.
My point is that waging war (or military operations if you want to keep the masks of civilization on the face) is bipartisan.
Even Barack Obama waged war during his term (and received a nobel peace prize for that).
A lot of countries did manage to deescalate conflicts and wars they were involved with (at the very least, most of south american countries for sure) and managed to have diplomatic relations without treating to bomb another country.
US politics is a war-waging politics.
I’m not American and I have no say in your internal affairs or whom you’ll elect.
I’m just voicing that the “global south” is tired of being into wars or being bombed by the “Western Civilization”.
It seems like you want to have a barely related discussion on American imperialism in a thread about Gavin Newsom.
True. Tanks for pointing out and I apologize for that.
He’s just your stereotypical neoliberal corporate Democrat which is a much better alternative to Trump’s admin. I don’t like Newsom like most on here, but if he gets the nomination still show the fuck up.
I’ve been watching republicans do illegal things my entire life. Nobody has ever stopped them
Some judges have.
Some people like the ACLU and Marc Elias have.
Etc.
Stopped all illegal things they do? No. But many real people have stopped many real things.
Maybe they slowed them down but this decent into facism didn’t happen overnight
When are you going to endorse Zohran and new bloods of couragous young democrats trying to reshape the party?
When they pry the party from his cold dead hands
I swear… if Trump lasts past 2028, I’m gonna lose my shit
MMW: Prop 50 is going to make somethings worse. I live on a blue island in a red sea in the blue state of California. Disenfranchising voters is going to lead to violence. If they were serious they would give us rank choice voting.
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- GOP when they gerrymandered Texas
The proposition is time-limited, and will revert back to independent redistricting organization after 2030.
I feel alone in my opposition to this proposition. Especially on this platform where most believe the ends justify the means.
You can’t answer voter disenfranchisement with more voter disenfranchisement. District lines should always be determined in a nonpartisan way, full stop.
That having been said we should implement more federal control of voting, at least for federal contests.
I also have much more radically left views in some ways. For example that we should use jury nullification against the emerging American gestapo, have zero tolerance for sieging the fucking capitol building (including shooting those who try), remove corrupt Democratic leadership by prosecution if necessary, etc.
But democracy is democracy. I still have loyalty to enlightenment ideals ffs.
Gerrymandering has been a problem for decades, and it’s only getting worse.
It’s possible that the only way to get fair election maps is to min/max the system to the extreme. And once everyone sees how horrible it is, maybe they’ll be willing to actually work together to fix the system.
If we wait for a perfect solution that causes no friction, we’ll be waiting forever. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I am also a bit of an accelerationist.
I can’t help but think that if the Democrats could improve conditions for the common people without resorting to tactics that undermine the principle of one man = one vote, we’d see them getting a lot more votes.
They could keep up the pressure to eliminate the electoral college, for example.
Unfortunately there have been just enough shitty centrist dems elected, and a plurality of even shittier Republicans being elected, to block the best proposals. The best hope we had for universal healthcare, for example, was blocked by one man - Joseph Lieberman.
To say nothing of the corporate interests and billionaire donors that influence policy making in the party, and the feckless leadership, that is.
Not asking for perfect, but better than terrible. Genocide is terrible. What ICE is doing is terrible. Rigging elections is terrible.
Rigging elections is terrible.
But one party has quietly been working for decades to ensure that they can retain control of Congress with or without a majority of the votes in the country or even in a state.
And now it looks like that won’t be enough, so they’re actively trying to change election maps by any means possible before the midterms.
Democrats can’t sit on their hands and wait for this to happen. If they don’t fight back now, they might not get another opportunity.
There is one who determines to take a stand in the world by acting on his own freedom. He values the necessary action more highly than an untarnished conscience and reputation. He is prepared to sacrifice a barren principle to a fruitful compromise or a barren wisdom of mediocrity to fruitful radicalism. Such a one needs to take care that his freedom does not cause him to stumble. He will condone the bad in order to prevent the worse and in so doing no longer discern that the very thing he seems to avoid as worse might well be better.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
yall need more laws that are based on dynamic countering of negative forces
ie minimum wage should adjust yearly with inflation…
in this case, states that are against gerrymandering should form a pact to nullify its effects: if another state gerrymanders, between them they must gerrymander opposite to at least the same magnitude. if enough states get on board, gerrymandering is done
it’s possible to measure gerrymandering, and states know that it’s in their best interest to stop another state from doing it. the only thing that’s needed is inter-state cooperation
These are a couple of great points:
- Minimum wage should be tied to inflation
Economist Robert Schiller has proposed a similar idea where we set up a reactive economic policy to execute automatically when some measures of inequality (e.g. the Gini coefficient) rise above a predefined level.
- An inter-state pact to manage the effect of gerrymandering
Great idea. Reminds me of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact)
Economist Robert Schiller has proposed a similar idea where we set up a reactive economic policy to execute automatically when some measures of inequality (e.g. the Gini coefficient) rise above a predefined level.
we do it in australia and it works great… tied to CPI
Reminds me of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
exactly where i got the idea!
Am also Aussie! I know that the Fair Work Commission and a bunch of unions negotiating award rates consider CPI but is that just one factor they consider or the whole enchilada?
Ranked choice makes no sense until the majority of states implement it.
Ranked choice got us Mamdani. It matters for local politics.
“they are trying to rig the election, so vote Yes on this ballot where we do the same thing they are”
Politics these days are hilarious.
late stage everything - smoke em if you got em
Yeah how dare they fight fire with fire and not just accept the end of democracy…
For real though, thanks Obama. Miss you…
What would you suggest they do?
Go even harder! decorum and precedent are long gone, it’s nice that some of the Dem leaders have woken up.
So it’s nice that they have woken up but you’re simultaneously complaining they have gone to far?
Fight fascists with guns instead of of words and letters.
I definitely don’t disagree with that. I think that’s been the inevitable conclusion every since the election of Obama pushed the entire republican party over the edge they were barely clinging to.
Lets not forget Obama (in-part) paved the way for the shit we’re in now
I like how it’s still “accuses” and is not “confirming” after all the actions taken by project 2025 ghouls to rig the election since orange man waddled back up to the white house
Chairman mayo
Reading the comments, it seems a lot of people here are totally fine to make good the enemy of perfect and repeat history all over again.
Enjoy the fascism folks. We’re in it for the long haul it seems.
People want more people lime Zohran. Where is Zohran endorsment? Enjoy facism folks
The US requires a hard reset imo. The US political discourse is heavily biased towards the right causing the ratchet effect and muddies the pool of water of ideas. Liberals and progressives can’t get along because the term socialism in the country has been heavily demonized, that socialists and progressives alike have no choice but to side with the pseudo-left party that is the Democratic Party. The party exploits the lack of choice to be complacent and provide bread crumb policies. Meanwhile, conservatives and the right typically prefer order in spite of differences, so they tend to have stronger voting cohesion to elect the Republican party.
The US requires a hard reset so that the two party system is rid of and political variety will blossom. Actually popular policies will be enacted and not demonized. Progressives could decouple from the Democratic party and finally call themselves socialists without the taboo. And moderate conservatives could dissociate themselves from the far right. However, this hard reset could mean a lead up to a civil war and the only people who would benefit from this are Russia and China.
I totally agree. But until then, I’m going to be over here voting against fascism.
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So, your thing is to pin quotes to be people that never said them, and then argue against it? I don’t really even need to be a part of this debate for you to pretend to win it, do I?
Copied the wrong response. Apologies
It happens.
Welcome to the left. A leftist’s favorite passtime is telling other people that they are not left enough. They’d tell Karl Marx he isn’t left enough if he lost his right arm. Drives me nuts.
You’re just now figuring out that we’re in fascism, but telling people to “enjoy” it? lol
No. I’m just now explaining that those who chose not to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Quit trying to make Newsome happen
It’s really fucking tone deaf to push a Zionist in the face of cratering support for Israel among Democratic voters.
But then the Democratic party has a history of being tone deaf, like Biden picking Kamala “top cop” Harris for vp during the height of the George Floyd protests.
Biden won, but these stunts often fail.
If someone isn’t capable of making the easy call to be against genocide, then they absolutely can’t be trusted to be defenders of democracy.
We gotta quit pretending it’s about this one issue or that one issue. Over and over again we see that there are politicians committed to fighting for what’s right, and there are politicians who aren’t. That’s it. That’s the line. The politicians that sell out to AIPAC are selling out to big tech, to Wall Street, to the military industrial complex, etc.
Yes, Obama, who was okay, bombing people in the middle east, many of which were innocent, doesn’t care about the, innocent people, in the US.
If they care, they should be in the front line protesting the shit show of the ICE. They are the one that cannot be touch by Trump and his government. He is the one who doesn’t fear losing his life nor does he fear losing his income.
These people are out of touch, they hope Trump do as much damage so they can get voted in without the need to listen to their voters.
It is like a divorce kid, where both parents are abuser. One of which doesn’t abuse you as much as knows that the other is worst.
People and Unions should break this abusive cycle.
They are actively shaping the electoral environment. They don’t just want to, they are actively preparing to do so.
Oh how brave of him to stand up now when he has no skin in the game. Bravo brave sir. I hope you sleep well at night on your pile of Netflix money.
He might run 2028 if trump does with gavin as VP or vise versa.
Nope. The plan for Trump to run again is to argue that a president is not allowed to serve more than two consecutive terms. Trump has had two non-consecutive terms while Obama has had two consecutive ones. They thought of this.
The text of the 22nd amendment is pretty clear:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice
If they’re going to try to argue that means 1+2 terms is ok, doesn’t seem like that would preclude 2+1.
Wow, Obama’s political instincts are as sharp as ever. Can’t think of anyone more charismatic and respected than Governor Newsom 🤗
Obama is supporting the referendum. That’s a good thing.
Of course. The referendum. Yes I agree of course.
What was your previous username?
So you’re sitting there seething wishing you could blow me up with your mind Scanners-style, that’s great. My last username was on Mastodon, I submitted posts to Lemmy by tagging communities, and few of them went through.
Does that make it easier for you to attempt to refute anything I am saying? Or did you completely give up on that because it was too hard?
Obama… Obama… The mainstream dude?
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/137156-obama-says-hed-be-seen-as-moderate-republican-in-1980s/
