The compromise is that Jefferies is a wet noodle. He can be incentivized and coerced into giving progressives a fair shot, for all his whining about “socialism” he’s met with a lot of progressives, and they came out of those meetings convinced he can be worked with
The public overwhelmingly supports progressives, we have a very good chance of building a large coalition in the party this Congress, and building on that moving forward to really get things accomplished. But right the progressive wing is a bunch of junior members and outcasts, it will take time to develop relationships and learn how to pull the levers
The other options are either someone more capable of actually whipping votes, which would not be good for us
Or a card carrying progressive, but we don’t have anyone established enough to whip votes effectively for that. Assuming we could even win a vote. They’d also be in the hot seat - if we don’t get things done, it’ll kill the political momentum… People always blame the president, then the majority leaders
When things move slowly (and I’m sure they will), in two years we can blame our failures on weak leadership and claim our wins for progressives
Jefferies doesn’t have the leadership skills to rat fuck us on his own. He’ll go where the wind blows, he responds to public pressure and has a political career ahead of him to worry about. He’s not an ally but he is a weak enemy
Shumer is different. He has been proven able and willing to rat fuck the party after one phone call, in a matter of hours no less. His political career is also basically over already, he’s going to cash out if we leave him in place
Politics is a bullshit game, a weak enemy is very probably better than a weak ally in this case
The compromise is that Jefferies is a wet noodle. He can be incentivized and coerced into giving progressives a fair shot, for all his whining about “socialism” he’s met with a lot of progressives, and they came out of those meetings convinced he can be worked with
The public overwhelmingly supports progressives, we have a very good chance of building a large coalition in the party this Congress, and building on that moving forward to really get things accomplished. But right the progressive wing is a bunch of junior members and outcasts, it will take time to develop relationships and learn how to pull the levers
The other options are either someone more capable of actually whipping votes, which would not be good for us
Or a card carrying progressive, but we don’t have anyone established enough to whip votes effectively for that. Assuming we could even win a vote. They’d also be in the hot seat - if we don’t get things done, it’ll kill the political momentum… People always blame the president, then the majority leaders
When things move slowly (and I’m sure they will), in two years we can blame our failures on weak leadership and claim our wins for progressives
Jefferies doesn’t have the leadership skills to rat fuck us on his own. He’ll go where the wind blows, he responds to public pressure and has a political career ahead of him to worry about. He’s not an ally but he is a weak enemy
Shumer is different. He has been proven able and willing to rat fuck the party after one phone call, in a matter of hours no less. His political career is also basically over already, he’s going to cash out if we leave him in place
Politics is a bullshit game, a weak enemy is very probably better than a weak ally in this case