Democrats are mad that their base are demanding and expecting them to at least try to do something.

For some reason Axios posted like at least 3 variations of the same story:

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/06/democrats-congress-trump-musk-doge-calls

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/democrats-grassroots-groups-moveon-indivisible

Why it matters: Members of the Steering and Policy Committee — with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in the room — on Monday complained activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members’ offices.

  • “People are pissed,” a senior House Democrat who was at the meeting said of lawmakers’ reaction to the calls.
  • The Democrat said Jeffries himself is “very frustrated” at the groups, who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump.
  • A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday

Zoom in: “There were a lot of people who were like, ‘We’ve got to stop the groups from doing this.’ … People are concerned that they’re saying we’re not doing enough, but we’re not in the majority,” said one member.

  • Some Democrats see the callers as barking up the wrong tree given their limited power as the minority party in Congress: “It’s been a constant theme of us saying, ‘Please call the Republicans,’” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).
  • “I reject and resent the implication that congressional Democrats are simply standing by passively,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.).

The other side: “People are angry, scared, and they want to see more from their lawmakers right now than floor speeches about Elon Musk,” Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg told Axios.

  • “Indivisible is urging people who are scared to call their member of Congress, whether they have a Democrat or Republican, and make specific procedural asks,” Greenberg said.
  • “Our supporters are asking Democrats to demand specific red lines are met before they offer their vote to House Republicans on the budget, when Republicans inevitably fail to pass a bill on their own.”

Reminder that Richie “I reject and resent the implication” Torres spent the election trying to get the political streamer Hasan Piker banned for antisemitism (read: criticising Israel).

I also remind dipshit Democrat defenders to hold Democrats to account. They ran a failed election campaign. They decided adhering to genocide was more important than winning. This is how they respond to their base expecting literally anything of them, is to resent them and tell them to shut the fuck up and plead there isn’t anything they can do so they just have to roll over.

  • TheCriticalMember@aussie.zone
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    1 day ago

    The left in the US needed to do something similar to redmap, basically take over the party from the ground up. Field leftist candidates in every position at every level. School boards, dog catchers, literally everything all the way up to president. maga started this decades ago, and it’s why they have so many people in influential positions now. The left got outsmarted, outmanoeuvred, and beaten to the punch. And it’s quite likely too late for them to do anything about it politically as the US political system doesn’t look like it’s going to survive much longer.

    • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Outsmarted and outmanoeuvred? The left has been trying to make progress for decades. I’ve personally worked on some of those local campaigns. The problem is that the American people routinely rejected us, every single time. We never had any corporate donors or massive amounts of personal donations, no large media support to help get the word out, so is it any wonder we kept losing? There was a brief hope that social media would help level the playing field, but we all saw how quickly that got corrupted by fascists.

      The white moderate did not want socialism, so they have gotten fascism.

      • Droechai@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        Just a question from outside the US. Did the minority moderate want socialism? From outside it seems like a general issue with us moderates that they fear anything labeled leftism, not a specific white policy

        • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 hours ago

          I’m honestly not sure. I can definitely say those local campaigns I worked on received support mostly from queer people and people of color. I’m not sure how many minorities in the US still identify as moderates after the way the empire has treated them, but I know there are blocs of super Catholic South American migrants and ex-Soviet EEU migrants who hate leftism.

          I was using the phrase to refer to MLK’s letter where he specifically calls out “the white moderate” as being one of his greatest obstacles on the path towards civil rights. If you’ve never read through the letter, I highly recommend it, as it describes the white moderate perfectly.

          • Droechai@lemm.ee
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            6 hours ago

            Is it the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” you are referring to? If so I’ll read it t tonight after work.

            I’ve basically only seen the “I have a Dream” speech from him (except the cultural osmosis knowledge of FBI linked death and such) so the reference to white moderates went straight over my head and it just looked so odd to put a racial target in a post which otherwise seemed to view the struggle to rights from a classist view point rather than racial