How did a dem get elected in Kentucky of all places?
Apparently Kentucky has a history of voting blue governors and red everything else.
That’s really strange to me. TIL.
Symptom of gerrymandering perhaps.
Progressives tend to out perform in red states
I wish the Democrats would understand this.
I have come to suspect they do absolutely know this. And it’s why they put stops in at every turn. I can’t say what’s actually going on in their heads but it’s not winning elections and it sure as hell isn’t representing their constitutents desires. Democrats are a Conservative Party—classically liberal. They do not like or want actual progressive policy.
There’s no way they don’t know that progressive platforms win.
Look at all the flipped party double agents over the past few years who ran as progressives and flipped to Republican as soon as they got into office? They absolutely know.
This is why we need an actual progressive party instead of just two parties.
That’s truly surprising to me, but then again Bernie won over a Fox “News” audience. People do want good things for themselves when they aren’t being fed packaged vitriol and hate and fear of the “other.”
Bernie won Oklahoma in 2016 primary. We were a socialist state for many decades. Labor Omni vincit.
The only people who progressives lose to are the Democrats. Even in cases where they win a primary they get kneecapped by the DNC. Most US progressives come in with wild ideas like making the rich pay things instead of poor people. Making sure water is clean. Keeping the government out of our bedrooms. Governing rather than blustering. They also tend to be relatable as most have worked at least one real job in their life.
IIRC, his dad was a popular Dem gov.
Kentucky’s largest city is staunchly deep hardcore blue.
Internet tells me this is Louisville. Not surprising that IF there is a blue city, it’d be a large city. You meet the most people who aren’t like you in large populations.
Republicans struggle to win governor in Kentucky and Dems struggle to win anything else.
Probably the turtle Mitch died?
As GOP has a super majority in Kentucky, they can override the veto the next time they meet.
Kentucky is weird. Kentuckian politicians need to tread lightly or they will get voted out. Kentucky is a red state that usually has a dem governor, they like a mix in politics.
If Republicans get too frisky they know they are out the door.
As a Kentucky resident, having Andy as governor is about the only good thing happening in this state.
KYGOP has a veto-proof majority which they have used often to overturn Andy’s veto. The Republicans in the state are the same as everywhere else, unfortunately.
I have learned from direct contact our legislators don’t really do homework on issues. No surprise. They basically work off ‘word of mouth’ and confirmation bias and news clippings to decide how they think.
Anecdote: the legislature passed an anti-tenure bill last week. The bill was sponsored by a rep whose son was upset his professor had stale notes. The rep decided to create a bill to mandate all public state unis evaluate all faculty every 4 years. This is a good idea. However, all state unis already perform YEARLY performance evaluations even after tenure. Most, if not all of the reps, had never even bothered to checked current university policies; “I never really thought to check. I just assumed since Rep X wrote legislation to mandate evaluations there were no evaluations.” And then there was testimony to confirm in fact evals exist. And yet it made no difference even after evidence was presented evals exist.
Andy vetoed the tenure review bill but it will probably be overturned. The bill gives every uni board the power to remove the president and any faculty person, with cause. No criteria for cause, really, so it is possible cause could be “The faculty member made comments at a workshop about DEI which are not compatible with the university mission and thus the university has separated itself from the individual” which is their way of saying “fired.”
Great governor who vetoed Conversion Therapy and anti-DEI and tenure review. Conversion Therapy was overturned by the Republicans. We’ll see about the other two by Friday.
Gov. Beshear could absolutely be president if we still have free and fair elections in 2028. I, personally, wouldn’t be thrilled by a centrist Democrat bringing us further to the right via compromises where the left gets a shit sandwich. But he’s very good at being a politician.
We need to stop seeing governors and senators and representatives and saying, “they would be a great president!”
Instead we need to see teachers, co-workers, and neighbors and say, “they would be a great on the city council or county government or as a state representative.”
We need to stop thinking in terms of only one chance of victory every four years and start putting people who care about us in places where they can help.
Of course, that means we have to be prepared to run, and that is hard as hell. So many of us are stretched to the absolute limit just trying to survive. I honestly don’t understand how anyone can do it.
Would it be better? Or worse… than what we have now.
I think it’d be better but not ideal. America obviously needs reforms but a 4 year reprieve from the dumbest dumbfucks in recorded history trying to annex Greenland and cut off funding for cancer research would be nice.
I’m in agreement with your comments, but this is basically what Biden ran on and it brought us here. I listened to his recent interview on Pod Save America and he is definitely cut from the same “move past our differences and bring America together” cloth. While I’d vote for that in the general, I’d volunteer for a candidate who promises accountability such as deporting Musk and investigating and impeaching Trump’s cronies who remain in office.
