We genuinely I think need to evolve a kind of quasi official public party spokesman, or top party representative position, when we don’t occupy the White House, so we don’t keep trying to put it on people whose job it really isn’t.
Replies
Absolutely. Congressional leadership is not it and…
sep 3, 2025, 12:29 am • 9 1 • view
I bought this thing to hammer nails and nails look kind of like screws so it should also be able to screw screws.
sep 3, 2025, 12:31 am • 10 1 • view
Schumer and Jeffries's literal job is to represent the whole of the Democratic party to the American people, despite the fact that in the current fucked up political landscape they are instead seen as the top money men in the Democratic Corporation, Inc. Primary them.
sep 3, 2025, 8:59 pm • 1 0 • view
It is, in fact, not their job in the least and the sooner you understand the basics of US government the better off everyone will be.
sep 3, 2025, 9:27 pm • 6 0 • view
“Literal job” that’s actually not true, lol.
sep 3, 2025, 9:23 pm • 26 0 • view
That is so very much not the job and never has been. I mean, you can ARGUE these are special circumstances and maybe they are but I don’t know what specifically that would have to do with those two guys.
sep 3, 2025, 9:25 pm • 16 0 • view
Americans don’t LIKE Congress or congressional leaders! (As this poster demonstrates!) They’re not exactly the ideal figureheads. If a figurehead is something you want. (I just want to win.)
sep 3, 2025, 9:26 pm • 12 0 • view
I’m not against having some kind of national Boss when we don’t have a president. But I don’t know how you make that happen. Somebody with the clout just has to do it. There was a time I thought Obama could be that figure but he CLEARLY is not into it.
sep 3, 2025, 9:28 pm • 12 0 • view
I don’t know either, and like, I don’t think we should have the 2028 primaries in the summer of 2025; it’s just this thing where opposition seems rudderless in part because by design there’s no rudder.
sep 3, 2025, 9:32 pm • 11 0 • view
Maybe we don’t need one all the time! But I can think of some pretty good reasons why we could use one now! And the thing is, I also genuinely don’t really know what that means. We don’t have a parliament so it can’t be a person who’ll just take over when Trump is gone.
sep 3, 2025, 9:33 pm • 6 0 • view
we really don't. however, newsom is heedless of that because he and his boosters have drunk the techbros Kool aid, seems to me, where "get big fast" and "network effects über alles" are the goal early on, to provide competitive/monopolistic advantage later another reason im never gavin
sep 3, 2025, 9:40 pm • 0 0 • view
what in tarnation
sep 3, 2025, 9:42 pm • 3 0 • view
the bots are all over this here web sight
sep 3, 2025, 9:44 pm • 0 0 • view
This isn’t even pancakes/waffles, this is “maybe breakfast might be an ok idea” followed by an impassioned screed about hating waffles specifically.
sep 3, 2025, 9:43 pm • 3 0 • view
And also if all they are is a spokesman, it loses a lot of flair. Maybe we just don’t have the ability to do it, but I think it’s worth thinking through why, what we lose that we don’t have that ability, and how we could approximate parts of it.
sep 3, 2025, 9:34 pm • 4 0 • view
Someone has to take the mantle from Jeffries and Schumer right now. Their jobs and skillsets are very different than “lead the party and be its face” but we so desperately need someone being on point given the situation and stakes.
sep 3, 2025, 9:48 pm • 1 0 • view
But how would you do that? There ISN’T any mantle, per se. It’s up to the conferences how they choose their leaders. We don’t get a say in that, by design, except through our own elected representatives.
sep 3, 2025, 10:10 pm • 5 0 • view
Yeah, my view is that Trump's ability to forge this role for himself during Biden's term, through his sheer belligerence of refusing to concede, turned out to be a great hack on the American political economy, and I'm not sure how to recreate that, but it'd be great if we could.
sep 3, 2025, 9:51 pm • 9 1 • view
Someone simply needs to declare now. It’s gauche but who cares? As soon as someone is a candidate, we all stop staring at schumer and jeffries to fill the void.
sep 3, 2025, 10:33 pm • 2 0 • view
The only thing I can sort of think of, and this is half assed, is like how the speaker doesn’t have to be a member of the house. Use that as your candidate in waiting spot, and the minority party, if out of the White House, can designate a “this is who we’ll make speaker when we take the majority”
sep 3, 2025, 10:01 pm • 4 0 • view
Mister shadow speaker sir it is LITERALLY YOUR JOB to tell ME SPECIFICALLY what to do, except it has to be what I was GOING TO DO ALREADY, and you’re FAILING.
sep 3, 2025, 9:39 pm • 9 0 • view
as far as I know in most democracies major political parties don't find themselves leaderless at the national level when not holding executive power sure, they often dump their leaders after unsuccessful elections (or in the UK and Australia, after successful ones too), but then they get new ones
sep 3, 2025, 10:18 pm • 5 0 • view
to clarify, leaderless at the top level for years rather than a few months
sep 3, 2025, 10:21 pm • 4 0 • view
Seems like most people outside the US don't understand that we've never really had the concept of a shadow cabinet. We've never needed a leader of the opposition outside of an election year. Rs haven't had one either prior to Trump in the last 4 years.
sep 2, 2025, 9:26 pm • 24 1 • view
It's tricky, eh?... Yeah... In Canadian & British Parliament, everything works totally different... hard to compare Official opposition leaders and lalalala is normal, and there's more than 2 parties
sep 2, 2025, 10:43 pm • 2 0 • view
Also, I think they underestimate what what a "shadow cabinet" would entails? Given the size of the US I'd be like saying "just make a shadow cabinet for the EU Parliament with one spokesperson"
sep 2, 2025, 9:34 pm • 2 0 • view
And that really only because he was actively seeking the office again!
sep 2, 2025, 9:30 pm • 18 0 • view
Yeah I like this idea
sep 2, 2025, 9:28 pm • 1 0 • view
robert what is happening in your comments here
sep 2, 2025, 9:21 pm • 20 0 • view
🤷♂️
sep 2, 2025, 9:25 pm • 14 0 • view
Forget it (redacted), it's bluesky
sep 2, 2025, 10:17 pm • 4 0 • view
I had a post I wrote but didn't send a week ago or so that was something like, "yeah Schumer and Jefferies are bad at messaging but it doesn't really matter because we have prominent democrats who are good at it so stop focusing on their lame press releases and focus on Pritzker etc instead."
sep 2, 2025, 10:53 pm • 43 4 • view
agree
sep 3, 2025, 1:27 am • 4 0 • view
but then i figured it would piss literally everyone off so I didn't send it.
sep 2, 2025, 10:53 pm • 29 0 • view
feature not bug, send it
sep 3, 2025, 12:38 am • 0 0 • view
And to be clear...they are legislative leaders not party spokespeople even though they are thrust into that role by circumstance. And that is unfortunate because those are different skillsets.
sep 2, 2025, 11:00 pm • 31 4 • view
Right, the key is that we need someone to take the pressure off national leadership off of them
sep 2, 2025, 11:06 pm • 17 0 • view
But to be fair to Jeffries and Schumer, they aren’t just bad spokesmen, their policies are trash too
sep 3, 2025, 10:08 pm • 0 0 • view
bsky.app/profile/figg...
sep 3, 2025, 12:37 am • 7 1 • view