I'm not going to sit here and pretend a strong, well liked leader doesn't help a political party. But like, how can it be wise to lean so heavily on an individual? Is it a symptom of how 'high stakes" US elections are?
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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I think it's more a symptom of how low information US voters are.
I’ve never seen the level of willful ignorance that we have now! It’s a cult!
Aren’t unions supportive of Trump now? They wouldn’t run someone against him. Unions have become largely worthless after they lost their revolutionary spirit. Now they only serve capitalism and fascism.
The problem with unions is selfishness.
People vote for whoever they think will take care of them, and at a certain point a corrupt person is willing to do more ( or more likely to just lie), so they start electing corrupt union leaders.
Those corrupt union leaders, care more about themselves than the people they represent.
Don't blame unions as a concept.
A sandwich is a magical thing, but if someone poops between two slices of bread, that doesn't mean every sandwich is shit, or that we can never eat a sandwich again.
We just need to look at it before biting in, because we know some assholes are shittingnin sandwiches.
Informed voters is always the solution, that's true for unions as much as Senators.
The main lesson of the Graham Platner fiasco isn’t that we should never run outsiders for office (the momentum he generated proves the exact opposite), but that they need proper vetting and roots in democratic membership organizations like DSA or a union.
Planter was vetted...
By the Maine state party, it went so far that "vetted" is a poor word choice, they picked him.
Then when he said things about Israel they didn't think he would, they took their own pick out and replaced him with someone more conservative.
If the Maine state party wasn't filled with idiots from Florida's party who have shown they completely incompetent....
A cynic would say they picked Platner with the intent from day one to throw him under a bus after a primary so they can make a candidate.
But if that was actually their plan, they would have fucked it up somehow.
People need to understand now that we're back to a bottom-up power structure, we really need to work on state parties
Oh yes, because big unions are symbolic for productivity and lack of corruption.
I'd take a union worker over a business owner any day of the week