Most people don't vote based on policies and data. They are naturally skeptical about whether your five-point plans are actually going to have the intended effect. Instead, they vote based on their assessment of your judgment and whether you broadly share their ideas about what "good" and "bad" are.
The only way Obama was objectively radical as a politician and president was the color of his skin.
This is maybe an odd view for an American but it makes sense within a Bangladeshi social context. And democrats are the ones who chose to cultivate an electoral map based on immigrants like my mom in states like Virginia and Michigan.
Sanders is not a member of the party. AOC didn't run for office until Obama had been retired a few years.
Also, it's still insane to expect Obama to police e.g. AOC's language 10 years post-Presidency. That's just an insane expectation. Reality is many voters are crazy.
Its not like it’s totally alien in America. After Biden’s disastrous debate in 2024, Obama was the one who swooped in to lead the party through the chaos. And if Michelle ran for the nomination, she’d probably win. If she had stepped in in 2024 she would’ve won the nomination and the election.
In US politics, that mantle holds until someone else takes the nomination. That role is Biden's. It seems really odd that a former leader other than the most recent would be in charge of the party anywhere. (Remembering here that Biden is still alive and generally capable if suffering age-related decline. Also contextualizing with the fact that the sitting president is also obviously suffering age-related decline.)
> control of the party might pass to Michelle (like happened at least four times in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan).
Yeah, I can see how someone from one of those countries might project onto US politics things that are not commonly done here. Relevant here is Obama beating Hillary for the nomination in 2008.
> After Biden’s disastrous debate in 2024, Obama was the one who swooped in to lead the party through the chaos
I am a political sicko, and I do not remember this happening. Are you perhaps elevating the importance of a single speech Obama gave?
Yes, that was my point. Someone asked me why my mom lumped Obama in with “radicals” and I tried to explain that she probably thinks it’s his job as the most senior man. Biden isn’t because he’s too old and sick. The patriarch is someone like Obama’s age. Gray haired but still vigorous.
Another explanation is that she is misinformed and brainwashed by all the Facebook memes targeted towards boomers. It's not exactly a secret that Meta continues to push right wing propaganda in order to help elect conservative politicians.
> But she left an unstable third world country and viscerally dislikes what’s going on with DSA, immigration, etc.
What does she dislike about DSA, immigration, etc.? What does she think of the rhetoric coming from the Republican party that America doesn't need and want third world immigrants such as herself and her family? And that you should be rounded up, denaturalized, and deported back to Bangladesh (see Laura Loomer's recent comments).
> That said she also hates Trump’s Queens immigrant affect, unpredictability, populism, etc.
I guess it's a rite of passage for all American immigrants to hate on immigrants. "I got mine and I'm the 'correct' type of immigrant. Others are not."
She thought the future would be Bangladeshis acting like British people instead of Bangladeshis acting like Bangladeshis in Britain.
> What does she think of the rhetoric coming from the Republican party that America doesn't need and want third world immigrants such as herself and her family?
She doesn’t want “Little Bangladesh” in Queens to be happening anymore than Trump does. One of the few things she agrees with him on. We came to a red state in 1989 and a county with a Republican congressman who ran unopposed most years, and everything was fine because we were trying very hard to absorb the local culture instead of changing it with our own. Nobody had a problem with Bangladeshi immigrants when it was just a handful of people who left their culture of origin at the door. Americans are extremely tolerant and accommodating people.
I don't quite get this. What acting like Bangladeshis or acting like British people mean? And what does it have to do with DSA?
> She doesn’t want “Little Bangladesh” in Queens to be happening anymore than Trump does. One of the few things she agrees with him on. We came to a red state in 1989 and a county with a Republican congressman who ran unopposed most years, and everything was fine because we were trying very hard to absorb the local culture instead of changing it with our own. Nobody had a problem with Bangladeshi immigrants when it was just a handful of people who left their culture of origin at the door. Americans are extremely tolerant and accommodating people.
So similar to Little Italy or Chinatown and other ethnic places? Why do you have to leave your culture of origin at the door? I thought one of the great things about America was that everyone can celebrate their culture. What local culture did you try to absorb if everyone left it at the door? Or are you specifically talking about white vs other ethnicities? Are you ashamed of your ethnicity and country where your parents immigrated from?
"We are the right kind of people, not the others" Internalized racism is such a weird thing to me.
There's a lot going in Pakistan / India / Bangladesh that's been shaped by the effect of British commerce, manipulation, and rule over a long period.
The Brits imposed a local civil service structure that itself became one of many forms of caste, classism and hierarchy, this one associated with British dress, language, and mannerisms.
You can see similar attitudes in the UK from the now old and historic first waves of post WWII immigrant uncles and aunts, overly formally British in dress and manners and looking down on their own descendants for pushing back on that and adopting other attitudes in dress and speech.
Having the power to ram something more partisan-palatable through and choosing to negotiate with the opposition to find a more mutually-tolerable consensus is the antithesis of radicalism.
You can't really simplify it to such a degree. I believe humans are creatures of action. We like it when things happen. Sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, our morals are downstream of that desire to "be effective". We will align ourselves, no matter the violence we have to do to our own senses, with what is useful.
Specifically, their willingness to skeptically engage with your five-point plan demands that you're actually able to execute it. If you categorically can't make anything happen, then people will cling to an explanation and a morality that can. American democracy has been at a standstill for upwards of 30 years, If the American people have to believe that all their politicians are pedophiles to get some sort of movement again. Then that's what they are going to believe.
And still they refuse to back down on a number of policies that have been proven to be extremely unpopular.
I want to vote for someone who sticks to their plan, who is as honest as possible, who actually cares about Americans instead of saying some catchy phrases and looking good on camera while shaking hands with lobbyists and harmful industries - it's ludicrous!
I agree with the sibling comment that the dems rank lower because their base is made of people who begrudgingly vote for them when the time comes and spend the rest of the time being frustrated that it's our best option.
-Independent..