Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday

Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday

Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.

“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”

Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.

Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.

  • whoelectroplateuntil@sh.itjust.works
    183·
    8 months ago

    Right, exactly. Sure, the Dems have a bunch of formal structure, and yes, you can participate in it, and if you persuade the decision makers inside the party (who are industry tools more often than not), then yes, you can have an influence. But if you want to challenge them on something genuinely democratic, like calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which 76% of the Democratic base is in support of, then all of a sudden the elitist liberalism comes out and we all have to get in line behind our august statespeople, who know infinitely better than us measly citizens…

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      163·
      8 months ago

      It’s what Bernie has been saying for decades.

      The first step is replacing neoliberals with progressives. We can’t fix anything while they’re in power, because they’re the problem

      Which is why the DNC fights harder against progressives than republicans. Losing to republicans just isn’t a big deal to them, they know in 4-8 years they’ll be in power again, and they’ll be a shit ton of donations to Dems because of it.

      If they lose to progressives…

      That could be the end of the gravy train forever.

      The more people understand that, the sooner it happens.

      That’s why the neoliberals demand absolutely loyalty to Biden.

      • whoelectroplateuntil@sh.itjust.works
        81·
        8 months ago

        The DNC has the state infrastructure and most federal and state-level campaigns tied so deeply into their infrastructure there’s no real hope of replacing them.

        Local politics are a tiny bit more open-ended, but again, the stakes are lower and local governments are explicity subordinate to states. Cities and counties can’t do much if the state doesn’t like it.

        I have no idea how you fix this situation up, but as I see it, whatever the solution is has to look like making the DNC and its infrastructure obsolete. I don’t see this happening inside the Democratic Party.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
          82·
          8 months ago

          The DNC has the state infrastructure

          …

          The DNC is not the state parties…

          The state parties exist independent of the DNC, but due to how funding is supposed to trickle down, the state parties do kind of have to listen to them.

          And while the state parties are in charge of their primary votes, the DNC can choose to ignore them.

          Which is what happened when NH Dems refused to break NH state law so that Biden wouldn’t have to lose the first primary after NH picked progressive over party favorite in 2016 and 2020.

          It’s confusing, but please try to learn more about our poltical system.

          I’m noticing lots of Bidens supporters are incredibly opinionated, they just don’t know what they’re talking about about. When they do, they finally start understanding how fucked up we are and that if we dont act soon it’s too late.

          It’s hard enough when one party is antidemocratic, if both are…

          • whoelectroplateuntil@sh.itjust.works
            5·
            8 months ago

            The DNC is not the state parties…

            The state parties exist independent of the DNC, but due to how funding is supposed to trickle down, the state parties do kind of have to listen to them.

            Right, they’re formally separate, I know. The DNC intentionally uses their version of the power of the purse to control state parties. Like you said. They don’t need perfect control as long as they can starve any campaign they don’t like of funding.