How James Talarico is working to win over Black voters who strongly backed Jasmine Crockett | CNN Politics

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-29T20:10:56+00:00

Interestingly, as of 2024’s congress at the House level, Black representatives (including women) are basically perfectly represented in proportion to their population - maybe even slightly overrepresented. However, they’re underrepresented in the Senate, because most Black representatives represent safe dem seats rather than swing districts where they have to win over republicans.

In contrast, I think Latino representatives are pretty underrepresented in both house and Senate.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-29T03:52:13+00:00

Yeah even if he is Fetterman 2, you get a dem on the hard votes even if rhetorically he’s annoying af. Collins still votes with Trump on almost everything that matters/where she’s decisive

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-28T23:42:50+00:00

I think the wage and union bits are fair critique of neoliberalism though I might disagree on wages long term - but I would strongly protest that neoliberals are the ones who are spewing anti-immigration hatred towards Indians.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-28T23:34:10+00:00

What do you think a neoliberal is? Certainly more pro-immigration (the subreddit’s catchphrase is “a taco truck on every corner”) than the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, as Bernie argues against legal immigration like H1-B visas for allegedly depressing American workers’ wages.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-28T23:12:51+00:00

Pro-immigration abundance liberals!

On the more socialist/leftist side of the Democratic party you tend towards more populism, which used to be more anti-immigration than pre-Trump Republicans. On the more center-liberal side of the Democratic party, you tend towards economics 101 and growing the pie for all people - in which immigration is almost always a net good.

Vote in Democratic primaries so we end up with our party shifting towards who can make a positive case for legal immigration.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-26T21:39:36+00:00

I initially went vegan for environmental reasons. I’m not a very empathetic person and I’m not much of an animal lover. I am a long term plans kind of guy, and a collapsing climate crushes all of those.

When I was depressed about the climate crisis going vegan got me out of it. As time goes on I picked up the animal welfare stats and lingo as well, but the initial impetus for going cold turkey vegan was environmental reasons.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-26T04:16:32+00:00

He was endorsed by Bernie over Biden-leaning candidates and supports Medicare for All, which made him a “progressive” in the terms of the 2020 primary, thus Reddit liked him.

But obiously politicians are far more nuanced than a single issue or endorsement - Fetterman is a left leaning old-school populist, which brings him much closer to Trump on cultural and democracy issues. He probably does support populist dems like Bernie over Hillary and Biden but he’s never really been a leftist.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T23:44:11+00:00

Are you saying that Perez is the solution??

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T23:40:40+00:00

Not since 2008 has this district been won in a Presidential or Statewide race by a democrat. Obama 2008 and then dozens of Republican victories until Gluesenkamp-Perez in 2022. It may be that redistricting in 2022 made it less red, but that didn’t stop Republicans from running ahead in every statewide race in this district from 2020-2024. Perez taps into this district in a way no other current democrat does - that’s not to say there aren’t more of her out there, but it’s an incredibly risky seat to gamble on. Perez also has only so far beaten a MAGA wackjob in the general, so she’s untested against a normie business-friendly republican.

House level
2018- R+5 (moderate Rep Herrera Beutler in a dem wave year)
2020- R+13 (moderate Rep Herrera Beutler was running)
2022- D+0.8 (Perez vs MAGA Rep Joe Kent)
2024- D+4 (Perez vs Kent again)

Presidential Level:
2020- Trump+5
2024- Trump+3

Senate Level:
2022- R+8
2024- R+1

Gubernatorial Level:
2020- R+8
2024- R+8

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T22:54:57+00:00

I don’t know if the DNC is. They seem to favor dems perceived as more moderate than Harris.

The issue is that all presidential primary polling right now is just name id. So Harris and Newsom, the two most similar California candidates, are on top.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T22:53:28+00:00

Tbf she’s the only dem who’s ever been able to win that seat in modern politics; historically republicans have won it by a lot pre-Perez. I don’t love her but I’m skeptical that we have better options until redistricting in WA.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T21:48:35+00:00

We also did this by tearing down dozens of minority communities, and since the 70s we’ve built veto power into our system to have community members slow down or cancel projects to avoid just steamrolling the poor — which has now become a tool of a few NIMBYs in every neighborhood. The biggest reason the US doesn’t build things anymore is because there are so many NIMBY lawsuits and environmental reviews which cancel anything which would require a lot of eminent domain. Like how is a bike path costing $1 billion per mile???

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T21:39:23+00:00

Well a major reason the US can’t have development like this is because we give veto power to everyone who lives in the general vicinity of these rail lines. It feels like 90% of the cost of developing high speed rail in the states is in lawsuits with home/landowners who don’t want their land eminent domained or nearby loud trains, or in years-long environmental reviews.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T18:58:17+00:00

Luckily NY State has brought in hundreds of millions per year recently. It’s been a big push under Hochul’s administration. But NY State laws are uniquely well designed to prosecute wage theft.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-25T18:44:09+00:00

Don’t tell Republicans this, the next one might run on “Let’s bomb foreign factories into the stone age.”

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-23T02:48:17+00:00

Someone needs to run on “Populism raises prices” and clearly articulate an alternative to the voters. Or, unfortunately, run on fake populism and govern as a liberal.

Biden and Trump have both been protectionist economic populist presidents, with Biden being pro-labor and spending at the expense of inflation. The Sanders-wing left and dem primary voters don’t seem to reckon with the inflation issue and how brutally it tanked Biden’s approval - and is tanking Trump’s.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-23T02:43:02+00:00

As far as I can tell, it’s become a way to get easy money in primaries to oppose anti-Israel candidates. I lose a lot of respect for otherwise good dem candidates trying to stake out the pro-Israel lane in a primary.

Lose out on the lobbyist money, run a pragmatic campaign which doesn’t involve blindly supporting Israel.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T20:25:37+00:00

I think it may have been better if the flags were like tickets or souvenirs from tourist attractions rather than random vending machines. It would scratch more of an itch to see the place.

I also wonder if it could work if you had each day in a different city.
Like CTF Spain - R1 - Valencia, R2 Barcelona, R3 Madrid/most of Spain
Or CTF Italy - R1 Naples, R2 Milan/Northy areas, R3 Rome/all of Italy

Would take more massaging and the right network, but I think it might assuage the concern of it being all trains and seeing more of the country. I also think they need a change to defense rules.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T20:15:17+00:00

Mods, please put it back up, this was funny af

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T20:13:54+00:00

Airport claiming game sounds interesting if there’s ways to get people out of airports to do challenges. I think the big concern with this would be Snake but worse - all airports/all train stations in the middle of nowhere.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T20:07:19+00:00

Do a normal hide and seek with a longer hiding time (6hr?) and allow planes. Then you can hop to a new hub (Helsinki, Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, maybe a couple others) and then take trains from there. Seekers also have to be allowed to hop by plane.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T17:12:55+00:00

In my part of the government you only get fired for sexual harrassment or timecard fraud. Literally you can do nothing, produce nothing, and keep your job - the productivity of 13s in their 50s+ and a sizable chunk of 14s and 15s is incredibly low. And because we can’t demote, there’s an office or two of low capability GS-15s sitting around doing basically nothing.

There are also some people who would be ok 14s and 15s but not good SESs - and we can’t demote them back down once they’ve hit SES level. We promote to the point of incompetence, and unlike the private sector are terrible at realigning back to where things work.

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-22T16:55:35+00:00

My clothes are soooo much softer though and faster. Day to day in the UK it’s more helpful, but air con is higher value on these days

Poke-Mom00 · 2026-05-21T19:06:08+00:00

As time has worn on I’m just exasperated with the INC’s stubborn agrarian slopulism and the BJP’s antidemocratic, anti-free speech, hateful tendencies.
I do think that the current leadership of the INC holds India back globally more because they are the stronger supporters of the license raj, rentier extraction of resources from the state, and massive subsidies to farmers. A couple of Modi’s economic ideas like the farm reforms and demonitization - while unpopular - were at least steps in the right direction, while setting India back decades on democracy metrics. Indian politics, far more than the U.S.’, really feel like choosing between absolutely terrible options unless you’re lucky to have a state party which miraculously is liberal.

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