in atlantas 2017 mayoral race...'progressives', bernie sanders, and bernie sanders political organization 'our revolution' threw their full muscle behind a candidate named vincent fort. he came in 5th in the primary lol (like a lot of their endorsed candidates).

in the top 2 runoff election...many 'progressives' spent the campaign smearing black woman 'establishment' democratic candidate keisha lance bottoms...with some outright supporting white conservative mary norwood (refashioned by them as an 'independent progressive') who staffed her campaign with trump supporters and was caught on tape calling black people felons and thugs.

shaun king addressed the turn of events and chastised his fellow 'progressives':

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/07/atlanta-mayor-bottoms-progressives/

in it he wrote...
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Between the two available options, Bottoms clearly best represented the positions, policies, and people progressives should care about most. Yet at every single mention of her on Facebook or Twitter seems to get pushback from the left; some progressives will call her supporters a sellout, say they are supporting the Democratic establishment, and ask if they are being paid by the Democratic National Committee.

This is foolish. They speak as if the more progressive option was to support Norwood. It wasn’t — at all.

This is where progressives find themselves. When the preferred progressive candidate doesn’t win, either because they ran a bad campaign, struggled in the two-party system, or lacked the support they needed in other ways, progressives too often proceed to tear down the establishment candidate. I’m not speaking in code here about Hillary Clinton, either. I’ve seen this in races all over the country.

Progressives are terrible losers. And don’t get me wrong: I hate losing, too. I despise it. But when my preferred candidate loses, I simply don’t feel like I have the right to set the whole election ablaze. And that’s the rub for me. It’s far too easy for people who won’t be directly harmed by conservative policies and leadership to trash a Democratic candidate they didn’t prefer, at the risk of assisting their opponent. This isn’t me echoing the “If you aren’t for me, you are against me” style of politics. In primaries and large-field races, you should go hard for the candidate you love and support. But when you lose, a transition should take place.

Keisha Lance Bottoms is not perfect. Hell, if you thought Vincent Fort was perfect, you probably aren’t from Atlanta. But I have to be honest with you: Hating good candidates because they aren’t perfect is getting old. Critique their policies. Investigate their decision-making and financing. Do those things! But when a race comes down to a left-leaning Democrat and a right-leaning conservative, stop pretending like they are one in the same. Stop acting like the Democrat has cooties. Stop acting like you are so holy that you can’t lower yourself to vote or support a person endorsed by the establishment.

This type of thinking loses important elections and puts real people in harm’s way.
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just thought it was interesting to see him and some of his allies/colleagues currently engaging in the exact same behavior he called out. he clearly spells out the exact same patternized behavior (eg- 'the dnc must be paying you!') that 'progressives' engage in when they dont get their way. maybe someone should read his own work to him/them again.

And ATL mayoral politics in general.
There was like 4 or 5 major vectors at play, and NONE of them center "progressivism", for good or bad.

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and I have a lot of thoughts on this lol

To be honest, I'd argue that the election was largely a referendum on Kasim Reed more than anything.

Reed's political machine backed KLB during the election (she had already been seen as a Reed sycophant https://saportareport.com/fulton-chairman-john-eaves-voices-several-objections-to-the-pick-of-keisha-lance-bottoms-as-new-executive-of-atlanta-fulton-county-recreation-authority/), so folks circled the wagons accordingly as the race pushed into a runoff. It was the devil you knew versus the devil you didn't, and folks *really* didn't like the one that they knew so Norwood really seemed like a blank slate in that context.

It essentially came down to if you'd beefed with Reed at any point, then you were likely to back Norwood.

Like, look at this shit lol
https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/atlanta-mayor-kasim-reed-city-council-president-trade-swipes/Kw37hUToKT6zK55Sh6S7PO/

https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/kasim-reed-unleashes-vincent-fort/fuMclRDDBPh2dk0odNO7KK/

changing racial dynamics of downtown, housing, the longstanding Buckhead Coalition stranglehold on the economics, racism, etc..."progressivism" ain't been a factor in ATL politics since Maynard left office.

And I think he would have been a great mayor. I never minded KLB tho and it was easy for me to support her in the run off. ‘17 was basically a rehash of the ‘09 election, with Norwood losing closely both times, Black vs White Atl, “old vs new Atl” , Buckhead vs SW atl, those were the main thrusts of both of those elections to me.

The parts of the city won by KLB in 17 were identical to what Reed won in 09 and they were the “Blacker” parts of the city

If their were any “progressives” who went over to Norwood from Fort, they were most certainly White and lived in one of the intown hoods or East side

S. King should support Biden but Stacy Abrams should condemn him?

Coalition that is the real nature of the Democratic Party. Where the core values are over all shared by all.

I understand and appreciate that people further to the left feel that dems more to the center aren’t bold enough and moving fast enough but demonizing left of center dems are puppets of big business and corrupt is really progressives shooting themselves in the foot.

“Establishment” Democrats got u RBG, Sotomayor, Kagen, and Breyer. When Democrats and those on the left (who actually vote) fight amongst each other, the person with the R wins and we get kavannaughs and gorsiches.

I also understand the value of strictly people driven, grass roots funding but It’s really irresponsible to say that just becuz candidates do high dollar fundraisers or get money from big business that it negates their support for a woman’s right to choose, raising the minimum wage, supporting safety net programs, gun control etc.

I wasn’t bothered at all when AOC said in another country her and Biden wouldn’t be in the same party, but just like in democracies with multi parties, there is a give and take to come up with a governing coalition, that’s what the Democratic Party in the US is.

In a country of 330 million ppl, no one is going to get exactly what they want but if u can get as much of the country to reflect as much of what you value as possible, why thru the Baby out with the bath water.

...yet they rarely seem to do it ...they always seem to pivot to the right as the election gets closer, and they expect everyone to follow. Then they wonder why progressives continue to bash the candidate. Personally I will NEVER vote for the republican but Democrats need to realize they still need to EARN their votes.. Joe Biden hasn't figured this out yet, and he's clearly not the only one.