this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] Enkrod@feddit.org 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Fighting Oligarchy resonates greatly. But yes, the dems have focused too much on the culture war in favour of participating in the class war against the working class.

That is definitely something they should put waaaay more focus on. Trump is the cry for help of much of the working class, if people would believe you actually fought FOR the working people in your country, the dems would be unstoppable.

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[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

woke is what republicans use to attack whatever they dont like, if a democrat uses woke, they arnt really a DEMocrat, alot of them have a veneer of being dem or progressive but they often use buzzwords of right wingers to justify thier positions.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

THESE are the types of incumbents the DNC does not want primaried?! Holy hell.

[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Slotkin is the kind of Democrat who will be literally seig heiling at the DNC convention in ten years if the party continues to pursue the policies of capitulation that she is advocating for here. Four decades of this approach by this party has enabled the rise of US fascism we are dealing with now.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 17 points 1 day ago

"I can't believe the country doesn't get this!? The Republicans won and they hate this stuff so we just need to be Republicans and then we can win!"

.... /wrist

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 17 points 20 hours ago

Of course. They don't want to fix things, they just want to be the ones getting the benefits.

[–] RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

For those of you that can't be bothered to read more than a headline:

Dem Senator Says Party Needs to Stop Attacking ‘Oligarchy’ and Focus on Losing ‘Woke’ Reputation

AP Photo/Paul Sancya, Pool

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has urged her Democratic colleagues to stop attacking the “oligarchy” on Thursday, arguing that the word did not resonate with most Americans and should be replaced with “kings.”

During an interview with Politico national politics correspondent Adam Wren, Slotkin spoke about her “war plan” to “contain and defeat” President Donald Trump.

Detailing her plan, Slotkin – a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – argued that the Democratic Party needed to lose its “weak and woke” reputation and “fucking retake the flag,” adopting a “goddamn Alpha energy” inspired by Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell.

“She said Democrats should stop using the term ‘oligarchy,’ a phrase she said doesn’t resonate beyond coastal institutions, and just say that the party opposes ‘kings,'” wrote Wren, who reported that Slotkin was planning to deliver a series of speeches in the coming months about her plan.

Slotkin told the news outlet, “Trump is doing a whole bunch of things that I think are a threat to our economy and a threat to our Democracy and I have a responsibility on behalf of my state to point that out and try to do something about that.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) – the most likely Democratic presidential nominee in 2028, according to analyst Nate Silver – recently commenced a “Fight Oligarchy” tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) across the United States.

Last month, after Slotkin was asked by a constituent how she would “step up for us now” like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders, Slotkin threw shade at her progressive colleagues.

“Everyone you mentioned has a lot of words, but what have they actually done to change the situation with Donald Trump and the cuts and the attacks on our judiciary and the attacks on our Constitution?” asked Slotkin, who claimed her responsibilities fighting Trump’s government cuts forced her “to be more than just an AOC.”

“I can’t do what she does because we live in a purple state, and I’m a pragmatist,” she concluded.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, talking about "alpha energy" definitely doesn't make the speaker look sad and weak. /s

Even if pandering to the manosphere wasn't itself incredibly cringe, she's years out of date on their terminology. Truly this is a demonstration of how she's got her finger on the pulse of the people.

And "kings" is very much not a synonym for "oligarchy" and she's definitely purposefully choosing that rather than something that would continue to offend the uber-wealthy.

[–] kreskin@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

a phrase she said doesn’t resonate beyond coastal institutions

The crowds at the AOC rallies prove her wrong. It does resonate with people, just not for the pro-business, zionist, reach across the aisle industry-whore constituents Slotkin represents.

"Everyone you mentioned has a lot of words, but what have they actually done to change the situation with Donald Trump "

The anti oligarchy tour drew huge crowds and energized an angry base thats rapidly abandoning the democratic party. What has Slotkin done, besides uselessly infight with progressives, push lobbyist interests, and normalize a bunch of language the republicans use? Here she is denigrating "coastal institutions" as out of touch, and in her state of the union rebuttal she said Ronald reagan would be rolling over in his grave. Why is she talking about Ronald Reagan? i'd hope Reagan's coffin is 1000% full of democrats piss, so I'd be happy if he rotated in that piss all day every day. She sure talks like a republican.

Slotkin is a shining example of everything thats wrong about the DNC and the current democratic party.

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Makes me wonder how many more senators in the democratic party have similar opinions. my estimate is at least %70

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[–] RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

And you're the problem

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Whelp.

Guess Slotkin is getting a “collaborator” postcard from me.

[–] Venoregard@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Slotkin is a NEOCON.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

American number 1 priority would be to get out this 2 party system with ranked voting or something.

[–] AshMan85@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

bye felicia

[–] TomMasz@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

Literally, the opposite of what they should be doing. And saying Americans are too stupid to understand a word like "oligarchy" isn't a good look, either.

[–] UncleJosh@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

What are they going to do, ask MAGA to stop calling them "woke"? MAGA is all about bullying people, so saying "we don't like your name-calling" is only going to make it worse.

Grow a spine. Respond with "I know what woke means, so are you arguing against it from the racism angle or the ignorance angle?"

[–] Jaysyn@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Slotkin just made herself part of the problem.

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[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nope, Elissa fails to realize US income distribution is a huge problem in the USA and the oligarchs are controlling it.

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (18 children)

Slotkin is the new Sinema and can GFY, but there is a component to this that does deserve some discussion.

If you look back on the past 10 years of the Democrats climbing hills for issues, I think it's out of sync with the majority of people. The staunch fight for identity politics is not what people seem to want or need right now, and they need to understand that. Maybe there was a time when this was what their constituents wanted, but no longer.

Now they need to be really fucking strong on fighting the billionaires, pushing back against the front to vast majority of the country that has no wealth, and finding ways to make that flip around so that the wealthy who are imposing the enshitification of the lower and middle class are held accountable for doing so.

Forget the current struggles we're forced to dread living through, and give people a clear plan and the hope that you'll actually be attacking these things when elected. Seems pretty simple.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

The staunch fight for identity politics is not what people seem to want or need right now, and they need to understand that.

They're paid a lot of money specifically so they don't understand that...

The entire reason for the culture war is to distract people from the fact that the wealthiest are fighting a class war.

You think she can't understand because she's not able to. It's a willful ignorance, and require lots of money for that cognitive dissonance

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[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Read the fucking article before you comment. It's obvious most did not.

[–] jfrnz@lemm.ee 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

The article title is incredibly misleading. Even the first sentence of the article makes clear what she was actually saying:

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has urged her Democratic colleagues to stop attacking the “oligarchy” on Thursday, arguing that the word did not resonate with most Americans and should be replaced with “kings.”

She’s advocating for using a more relatable term, not for a change in party values. The “woke” comment irks me, but again is focused on terminology and not ideology.

When you need the dumb fucks’ votes, you gotta speak their language. Or at least water it down to be palatable to someone who was “educated” in our broken-ass system.

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

I read the article and I completely disagree with her. ‘Oligarch’ means something different than ‘king’, and many Americans don’t have the same negative reaction to the word ‘king’, which is often romanticised in media, whereas ‘oligarch’ calls up images of nefarious machinations in authoritarian regimes – exactly what’s actually going on.

Also, being whiny that the bullies are calling us ‘woke’ is reactionary and misses the whole point. This is where we should be doubling down, not diluting our language.

e: also also, having spent decades in UxD and usability (which entailed a lot of surveying and analysis), I’d be hesitant to rely on surveys that show a population’s preference for one word over another, because word feels are affected by far more than knowledge of their definitions, and the reasons aren’t easily captured in a survey. The reasons are what matter, not necessarily the word, and I’m sure she didn’t explore this enough to understand the sociology here.

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[–] anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago (15 children)

Yea but opposing 'kings' isn't even close to the problem of 'oligarchs'

One is very clearly a result of a capitalist system, the other is a looser critique of authority generally.

If it was really not ideologically tilted she'd suggest 'billionaire' instead of oligarch, but the dems are afraid of losing the support of the 'good billionaires

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[–] Etterra@discuss.online 12 points 1 day ago

Hey stupid you're doing it wrong. Going even more to the right isn't going to change jack shit. Listen to the people who are already willing to vote for Democrat if only the Democrat wasn't an idiot.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Or you know, we could focus on the problem, which is oligarchy..

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

It's almost like she is insulting her fellow citizens.

The implication that I see (based on her statement) is that other people in her country lack the capability to comprehend the notion of oligarchy or they are too corrupt themselves to support anti-corruption reform.

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[–] cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works 11 points 15 hours ago

Let's get back to our controlled opposition roots.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (9 children)

If anybody wanted to read the article (ha! yeah, I know) she's not saying we should lose 'woke' ideology or stop attacking 'oligarchy'. She says the opposite of those things, which was phrased by mediaite this way for clickbait reasons.

What she's saying is to use the word "kings" instead of "oligarchy". Which I get. Sure - do that. Makes sense. Same argument, same vitriol, more punch.

As for the 'woke' part, she said:

Detailing her plan, Slotkin – a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – argued that the Democratic Party needed to lose its “weak and woke” reputation and “fucking retake the flag,” adopting a “goddamn Alpha energy” inspired by Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell.

She's mad as fuck and doesn't want to explain why people need to be treated with respect - it should be a given and we don't need to explain it.

So there's sixty comments on here so far, most of them railing against her but I don't see it. I think she's been misinterpreted, deliberately, in the case of the mediaite headline writer.

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