I really did spend much of this campaign pretty neutral- if anything, I thought I was tougher on the Clinton team most of it than the Sanders campaign. I liked the Sanders camps enthusiasm and I like his positions on many things (who doesn’t!), but eventually I decided it just wasn’t realistic and that we would be better off with Clinton. Having said that, we are now to the point that I am just fed up TO HERE (raises good arm over head).
On top of what Anne Laurie mentioned earlier, with all the dipshits whining that as Independents they can’t vote in the closed Democratic primary and how closed primaries are a scourge against democracy, etc., ad nauseum, this (via C&L) is the kind of shit that wants me to put the collective campaign in a box, weight it down, and throw it in the East River:
The Bernie Sanders campaign has sent a letter of complaint to the DNC on the eve of the New York primary about Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising committee — an FEC approved committee to raise money for the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and downticket races.
The complaint comes just one day after a protest at George and Amal Clooney’s home in California which ended with Bernie Sanders’ supporters throwing one-dollar bills at Hillary Clinton’s motorcade as she left. Clinton was attending a fundraiser for the Hillary Victory Fund, which is her joint fundraising committee.
The Sanders campaign “is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising.” They further allege that this improperly benefits the Clinton campaign “by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA [Hillary for America] rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.” (Full text – PDF)
In a press call earlier today, Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook pointed out that the Hillary Victory Fund is structured the same way as the Bernie Victory Fund, with the only difference being that he has chosen not to raise funds for his. They further pointed out that the agreement between downticket candidates, the Clinton campaign, and the DNC is permissible under FEC regulations and that all allocations of expenses are being made in accordance with the rules set forth by the FEC.
A good democrat knows to make sure they are registered and registered for the right party. Even fledgling Democrats who have been registered their entire lives as Republicans and switch over can figure this out:
I had intended to register independent, but when I got there to do it, I had a moment of clarity- there seemed to be no point leaving the Republican party in protest and joining the unwashed masses. If I really was going to protest, it made no sense to not commit to the opposition party. Besides, as a Republican all these years, I never had any problem voting for libertarians, Democrats, etc., I don’t see why being a Democrat will change anything. And, the 2008 election really is the most important election of my lifetime- the basic foundation of our country has been under assault for a while, now, and I want to vote in the Democratic primary as a Democrat, not as someone with no party affiliation. I want to send a message, and as small as this gesture (which should appropriately be interpreted as a middle finger to the GOP and not as a sloppy wet kiss to Nancy Pelosi) is, I want it to mean as much as possible. There is now one less Republican in WV, and one more Democrat.
That guy quoted above is not the sharpest tack and sometimes a little slow on the uptake, and at the time was a full fledged drunk. But somehow that whiskey soaked moran managed to figure shit out.
A good democrat raises money for downticket races. A good democrat doesn’t spend the entire primary creating faux controversies to weaken the party and party structure. A good democrat doesn’t run around tellking half the states they don’t matter or count. A good democrat doesn’t do what the fucking Sanders campaign has done the last couple of months.
It took me a while, but I am now to the point with the Sanders campaign and their bullshit where I was with the Clinton campaign in 2008. So you got that going for you, Berners.
*** Update ***
Predictably, state parties are fucking pissed:
Noteworthy: the Ohio Democratic Party is defending Team Clinton after Team Sanders criticized its $ arrangement pic.twitter.com/Dq0MMnkrMb
— Gabriel Debenedetti (@gdebenedetti) April 18, 2016
Here’s the Virginia Democratic party:
“The Democratic Party of Virginia relies on a strong Democratic National Committee, which is made possible through joint fundraising committees like the Hillary Victory Fund. There’s no path to the White House without Virginia and in order to keep it blue, we rely on strong partnerships to bolster our efforts.”
Seriously, shut the fuck up Bernie.
dmsilev
Also, a good democrat doesn’t do all of those things and then turn to the very people that he’s been demonizing for months and say “I can haz superdelegate vote now?”. Because all morality aside, that’s just fucking stupid.
Edit: More seriously, I take this as a sign of desperation from the Sanders campaign, that they’re pretty sure they’re going to lose tomorrow, possibly by a lot, and they’re looking for some way to keep themselves going. “We was robbed!” is a classic excuse. Doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
Betty Cracker
Yep. To repeat what I said in the thread below, I’m moving from the “I’m glad Bernie’s running even though I support Clinton” camp to the “just go the fuck away, wankers” position. Not because of the asshole supporters — it’s the top campaign people like Weaver and Devine and the candidate himself. They are in over their heads, and now they are flailing in a way that can do the party long-term damage. That’s incredibly fucking irresponsible.
Feebog
Devine was just on Chris Hayes, repeatedly referred to the Democratic Party as the Democrat party. Fuck him and the unicorn he rode in on.
maryQ
Thank you.
magurakurin
With the charge against Clinton of illegal fundraising, Bernie is now officially the enemy. Fuck Bernie.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Better late than never! Welcome to the dark side, we has cookies and dark chocolate!
msdc
Welcome to the dark side.
(In more ways than one.)
magurakurin
@schrodinger’s cat: and Washlets.
Baud
@Feebog: Holy cow!
ETA: I’m serious, BTW.
ThresherK
I have several FB sorts who are quoting media sources I’ve never heard of, including the aforementioned USUncut.
And I’m tired of telling FB lefties to not quote the National fugging Review. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that.
WaterGirl
@Feebog: Fuck Bernie, too, if he’s okay with his top guy repeatedly giving the middle finger to the party he’s running in. That’s a total dick move.
Tip for anyone who cares: how do you know when WaterGirl is mad? She swears.
different-church-lady
Bernie is poised.
Mike J
Come and see the violence inherent in the system! I’m being repressed!
Iowa Old Lady
@Feebog: Holy shit. Who is this guy? I mean, I know who he is, but really, what kind of crap is that?
Chris
Yeah: I have to say, I understood the sentiment when they were kvetching about superdelegates, but against closed primaries, it’s just nonsense. If you want to let the Democratic voters pick the candidate, then let the Democratic voters pick the candidate. Good God, y’all.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Can we have tea, too?
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: Sure, garam chai (hot tea) and samosas, coming right up!
ThresherK
@ThresherK: I feel like I shouldn’t have to say that.
Shell
When Bernie supporters start sounding like Trump supporters (Unfair! The system is rigged! Why should we have to follow rules?) it gives one pause……..
Mike J
Heehee. Reading the trackbacks on the GBCW
Princess
I’d vote for the little pischer if he won the nom. of course. But I’d like to see him beat like a rented mule in these last few primaries, and I’d be very happy to donate to his Democratic senate challenger when he is next up in a few years. It’s is time we had a real active liberal in that seat who will work and build coalitions and pass legislation, not some pseudo-progressive who gets his kicks proposing the same two-page bills that no one looks at every few years.
And I started thinking I’d vote for him in IL.
Chris
And this is why I will, in all probability, end up going Hillary later this month.
I became a Democrat right around the same time I turned voting age, in 2005, at a time when there were no particular stars on the horizon, specifically because I believed in the party and not in any individual candidate. The most disappointing outcome of the Obama era has been the failure of the presidential level victories to translate into major gains at the lower levels of government (please note that this isn’t really a shot against Obama, just an observation of what has and hasn’t worked in the last eight years) – and Sanders either doesn’t understand the need for that or doesn’t understand that he has a role to play in that. Given the challenges, that’s really hard to overlook.
TL/DR: “this” to John Cole.
hellslittlestangel
@ThresherK:
Are those the anti-circumcision loonies? Weird that they’d be supporting Sanders.
Djchefron
About those taxes Bernie
Not So Boring: Behind Bernie’s Massive Mortgage Deduction
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/4/18/bernies-massive-mortgage-deduction#.VxUh74qvSSY.twitter
MattF
Once again, a Presidential campaign displays the strengths and weaknesses of a candidate. It ain’t pretty, but the information that reveals what kind of Presidency you’d get with Sanders is out there to see.
Joe Bauers
The only thing that matters is being a good Democrat. What “Democrat” means, if anything, who gives a shit. Party uber alles.
Go team!
Poopyman
Per Wikipedia:
Plus a large number of other campaigns, so per @Feebog: , what the fucking fuck?
dr. bloor
@different-church-lady: I burst out laughing when I saw that headline in the “Recommended” sidebar this morning. I wish I had that poster’s drugs.
Chyron HR
@Joe Bauers:
It’s okay, dude, there’s a whole other party where your high-minded ideals of “I hate that fucking bitch Hillary” have been celebrated for the past 25 years.
Stacy
My 16 year old daughter is a Bernie supporter and is very anti Hillary like I imagine most Bernie supporters are. I have to walk a fine line between squashing her enthusiasm and pointing put that Bernie is helping the other side, who, by the way, are eager to make her a second class citizen.
jeer9
Looking forward to the end of the primary as well – and to the future Clinton administration when we will learn exactly why HRC was such a better choice than Sanders.
lamh36
@Feebog: did Hayes at least correct him?
dr. bloor
@Feebog: @Iowa Old Lady:
Sounds to me like “future Republican campaign strategist” Tad Devine.
Villago Delenda Est
Up until recently, I was leaning hard Bernie, but the antics of the Bernbros and Bern himself are pulling me towards Hilz. Bernie’s abject failure to have a solid plan to fulfill his goals, particularly with regards to the mess that is the financial sector of the economy, which he should have waiting to be at least submitted to Congress in the first 100 days of a Sanders administration, is appalling. Now this shit, especially the whiny ass titty baby crap about participating in a closed primary system, is just ridiculous. If you’re serious about participating in the process, you should find out these things.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Would you care to throw in some milk chocolate and turn my “in all probability” primary vote for Hillary @22 into an “in all certainty?”
starscream
Some of us have been saying this for months. Bernie revealed himself to be a BernieBro a while back.
Poopyman
Oh, and did I miss something?
Or is this left over from naked mopping?
schrodinger's cat
This latest outburst is unsurprising, Bernie and his supporters have always had an allergy to math.
Villago Delenda Est
@Stacy: “Second class citizen” is the best case scenario. More like a living incubator.
ThresherK
@hellslittlestangel: That’s either hilarious, or eww. Or maybe both.
I thought the team meant “not predetermined to fit into mainstream outlets”. But I ain’t clickin on it.
dmsilev
@different-church-lady: Oh, man, I read that this morning and was suitably amazed. Apparently things like polls don’t matter.
Kropadope
@Chris:
I would say the opposite. The superdelegates are powerful and can influence primary candidates’ access to resources, human and otherwise, during the primary, but likely won’t override the voters unless they truly screw the pooch.
While I see the appeal of closed primaries, limiting participation in primaries to voters who have enough commitment to your party to check a fucking box, I see this as limiting involvement of independent voters and limiting independent engagement in incipient political campaigns.
Amaranthine RBG
(s this the third or fourth antiBernie post of the day.
I’ve lost track.
Baud
@lamh36: That’s what I want to know too.
Aqualad08
@Betty Cracker: That’s exactly where I was, and that’s exactly where I am now. These clowns are getting high on their own supply of sanctimonious bullshit.
I was an O-bot back in 2008, and yes, things got heated between the tribes. I was honestly concerned about PUMA’s mucking up the general. But when it was done, HRC gave me a lesson in what being in the PARTY means. She exceeded my admittedly low expectations of her at the time so far beyond what I believed her capable of that I swore I would be in her corner if she ran again. Bernie tempted me, and I liked what he had to say, but his behavior in the last two weeks as done nothing but solidify my greatest fears about him, especially in regards to his temperament and ability to help down ticket races.
I really hoping he gets a smack in the mouth here in NY tomorrow…
Origuy
Devine seems to be burning his bridges with the Democratic Party. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess. Wikipedia lists a bunch of foreign candidates he’s advised. I guess those Ukrainian and Afghani politicians pay well. Probably not as much as what Bernie is paying him, though.
Chyron HR
@Amaranthine RBG:
Is this the fiftieth or one hundredth time a Sanders supporter has come here for the sole purpose of berating people who don’t support Sanders, and then been completely outraged that the site is full of people who don’t support Sanders?
Chris
@Stacy:
I point this out every chance I get: both of them have an approval rating well over 50% among Democratic voters, or did the last time I checked. Being politics junkies seriously, seriously inflates our estimates of how much people care, I think.
Neither of our anecdotes are data, but the people I’m living with right now are both Bernie supporters, and exhibit none of the “bro” madness.
dmsilev
@Chris: I think we’re going to find that, just like the PUMAs 8 years ago, there really won’t be all that many “Bernie or Bust” types by the time November rolls around.
different-church-lady
@efgoldman:
Why bother unskewing polls when you can simply proceed as though polls didn’t exist and get rewarded for it?
Neil H
For your reading pleasure: On becoming Anti-Bernie. I started reading this when I was still sympathetic to the Sanders campaign, and it solidified every concern I had, and added some significant new ones to boot.
Notably, this tactic, of taking some aspect of existing political practice and misrepresenting the person involved as corrupt through a vast oversimplification, is standard operating practice for the Sanders campaign. It happened with Clinton “taking oil money”, with Clinton supposedly being “bought” by Goldman Sachs, and now for having the temerity to raise funds jointly with her own political party.
At this point I honestly think it’s calculated: a deliberate tactic to smear Sanders’ opponent and make Sanders look pure and clean in comparison.
The Ancient Randonneur
I am voting for my candidate for two reasons:
1. Supreme Court Justices
2. Building a stronger and more effective Democratic Party.
Bernie is only good for the first one. Clinton is good for both.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Or at least point out what he was doing. I doubt it very much. Hayes has been the most pro-Bernie voice on MSNBC< maybe matched, oddly enough, by O'Donnell.
I still think there must be some backstory to Devine's resentment of the Party or the Clintons, but I can't imagine it wouldn't have leaked by now.
redshirt
@Amaranthine RBG: Yeah, his campaign has become increasingly problematic in the last couple of weeks.
Mnemosyne
@Joe Bauers:
In other words, you would never join a club that would accept you as a member?
In the words of another poster in the thread below whose nym I’m sure I would mangle:
magurakurin
@Amaranthine RBG: what you, and Bernie, have lost is the plot.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: Sure you can has milk chocolate. Welcome aboard.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: If the “Independents” want to vote in a Democratic party primary, they should register as DEMOCRATS.
Period. End of discussion. I am so tired of this “we’re being disenfranchised!” BULLSHIT.
redshirt
@dmsilev: Not so sure, as I don’t think there were many Paulistas among the PUMAs in 2008, whereas the Sander Cult is filled with them and their ilk.
Kropadope
@Chyron HR:
Eric S.
@Feebog:
Not that I needed another reason but that’s utter bullshit. I had reservations voting for Clinton over Sanders in Illinois, but I’m fully vindicated.
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: If independents don’t like the choices, maybe they need to organize and come up with a candidate, and a support structure to get that candidate elected.
Or they could just continue to bitch about the organizations that do such things. It’s their call.
Troublesome Carp fka Geeno
@Kropadope: Purity has a price.
You want to be independent, go for it, but don’t expect to influence my party from the outside.
Especially NYers who remember Howard Stern having his listeners show up at and vote in the Libertarian Party convention to make Stern the party’s candidate for governor. Admittedly less likely with a large organization like the Democratic party, but the principle is the same.
magurakurin
@The Ancient Randonneur: and getting 1 is harder without 2.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chyron HR: They are doing their cause no favors; in fact, they’re probably persuading those still on the fence to drop into Hillary’s yard.
Baud
@redshirt: Paulite’s were never going to be gettable for Hillary or even Obama’s hypothetical third term. They don’t tell us anything about the GE.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chyron HR: DIdn’t Betty say that this is a new nym for an old troll?
redshirt
@Joe Bauers: I’m not a Democrat either Joe, and never will be, because I don’t join things. However, I’ve voted straight Dem since 1992 and will forever given trends. I also vote in all year elections and I even donate and help candidates I feel strongly about.
I am a single issue voter and citizen. That issue is ensuring the Republican Party is removed from power at all levels of government, as they are a literal scourge on our country, and because of our influence as a nation, on the entire world. That such a small percent of assholes could fuck up the world via America is depressing, and evil. We need to stop them – at all costs. This is a fucking war, man, and I’m serious.
So I fight it as I can – by voting and speaking.
How about you?
gelfling545
My daughter & son in law are out protesting at the Trump rally this evening. I hear that one of our friends has already been removed. Proud but worrying somewhat.
Baud
@gelfling545: Wow. Good for them. Hope all goes peacefully.
SarahT
Finally able to make it to a Hillary event today, and it was a doozy: Gabrielle Giffords, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tish James, Cecile Richards, Chirlane McCray, Carolyn Maloney, and the next POTUS herself, of course. Very high energy, packed ballroom, terrific speeches, especially from James, Richards, and Hillary. Giffords looked and sounded great – so glad to see her progress. Women of all ages and backgrounds, and plenty of men, too, just not on stage. Saw Mark Kelly, Sheila Jackson Leigh, and Sybrina Fulton, too. And to top it off, met a kick-ass young woman from Tennessee – a delegate / PhD. candidate / medical researcher / Planned Parenthood board member: SO damn impressive I KNOW she’ll be holding elected office in ten years time ! Left really fired up by all those amazing women.
The end.
MomSense
@schrodinger’s cat:
Perfect. I like this club.
amk
@Kropadope: what part of it’s a fucking party primary do you not understand? why don’t the whiny, needy and yet clueless fucking indies run their fucking indie candidate? oh, that’s right, their ponies pissing candidate conveniently ticked the fucking box.
Kropadope
@Villago Delenda Est: I didn’t say they were being disenfranchised. They were free to change their party registration, aside from those in Arizona who did just that and had their new registrations mishandled. Red state initiatives that treat every voter registration as suspect aren’t helping the matter either.
My point is, more and more people are registering as independents and closed primaries limit the possibilities for participation among these individuals. It’s not disenfranchising, it’s just stupid if what you want is a broadly engaged electorate, which at least the Democrats purport to.
Aqualad08
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve been noticing MSNBC’s constant need to make this thing a horse race despite the math. Hayes has been pro-Bernie, yes, but at least he’s been consistent. Matthew, ugh… today he twice showed the Marist NATIONAL poll showing Bernie within 2 points without any mention of NY polls showing him down +10. And they CONTINUE to show the race with superdelegates added, which infuriates me to no end. Although he did grill Merkley over Bernie’s new “senators who take speaking fees” ad, which is HORSESHIT.
redshirt
@SarahT: Thank you for this. It’s good to hear about actual progress instead of crazyballs from time to time.
Villago Delenda Est
WordPress seems to be eating my comments. GRRR.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: No, it’s babies crying. If they want to participate in the Democratic Primary, REGISTER AS DEMOCRATS. Very simple. No one is stopping them from doing so. They are just whiny ass titty babies at this point.
redshirt
@Kropadope: They should make it easier to register as a Democrat but keep the primary closed. For example, maybe you could register when you went to vote?
Kropadope
@amk:
Right, because he didn’t want to siphon voters away from the Democratic nominee and enable the election of a Republican president. Yet, Democrats, at least the local ones, have been unfairly dismissive of his intentions and commitment to the party from day one.
Mike J
oz29
I have been a Democrat for about three decades. I really don’t care a bit that some Johnny-come-lately who would not vote Democrat, in the absence of a Sanders campaign, doesn’t get to participate in choosing my party’s presidential nominee.
SarahT
@redshirt: My pleasure ! And in case no one posted earlier in the thread (didn’t have time to go through the whole thing yet)< Madam President-To-Be is on Colbert tonight.
Kropadope
@redshirt: I would consider this acceptable, though I would argue that it makes the feared consequence of open primaries more likely than simply leaving them open to independents and party members, that consequence being party-switching to negatively impact the party one is opposed to.
aimai
@Villago Delenda Est: They don’t believe that. There was a diary up about this from a Hillary Supporter who had been Bernie curious but come around to HRC. It filled up with cranky assertions that she had “never been open” to Bernie and that she, like every other Hillary supporter, was some kind of paid apparatchik. You can tell them that you considered Bernie seriously–why not–but decided to choose Hillary for good reasons and they will just shriek at you that you are lying and were always against him. I just don’t know who they think is even in the party. At one and the same time they argue that they are the majority of a new party, and that the entire previous party membership is really republicans, or evil, or something. We both exist and don’t exist in the real world, somehow. Like we are schroedinger’s democrats (apologies to the real schroedinger’s cat).
Iowa Old Lady
@Kropadope: I have, on occasion, been registered as an independent too, but I don’t expect the parties I reject to adjust their rules to enable me still to vote in their primary. That would be wanting to have my cake and eat it too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: And with good reason, as he’s not contributing to the party.
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
The projection. It’s blinding me!
lamh36
As I said before, I still don’t care for HRC, I don’t care for Bernie, but i am a loyal Dem voter, and yeah, I do care that the Bernie is I guess cosigning what he strategist and campaign managers are doing/saying. I mean the campaign is supposed to be a reflection of the candidate is it now?.
Seems to me, the Bernie campers, if not the candidate himself (but let’s be clear if the candidate doesn’t agree then he should be curtailing the bullshit), have long since stopped running against HRC, and instead from all indications are actively running against the Democratic party…period.
HRC as much as I didn’t like her ’08 camp, sure as hell wasn’t throwing bombs at the party…at the end when PBO was not only leading, but hell much closer than Bernie is to HRC. Aside from the crazy PUMAs, I don’t recall the HRC camp, attacking Dem party
Can Bernie campers say the same?
dr. bloor
@redshirt: I need a cigarette.
Cacti
@Feebog:
Every losing Dem Presidential campaign since 1980 has the fingerprints of Tad Devine all over it.
How does the man still find work?
amk
@Kropadope:
gee, I wonder why.
and yeah, without being on the dem ticket, bs knew he wouldn’t have gotten off the starting block. but he didn’t clue in his clueless bots on this lil nugget of truth because he is running a con game.
Eric U.
@Joe Bauers: apparently you and Prez Bernie love the idea of a presidency that is fighting a republican congress. I’m not enamored with all Democrats, but this short-sightedness on the part of Sanders and his supporters is more than a little disappointing. And if I was a Democratic politician, anyone that worked for me that called the Democratic party the “Democrat” party would be fired on the spot
MikeBoyScout
Reposted from down below
Rules anecdote:
Yesterday at my King County WA Legislative District Democratic party caucus the very serious minded Sanders campaign reps were not satisfied with the 70/30 apportionment of delegates.
To bring “justice” the not at all shouty Sanders folk decided to move to suspend the rules.
The totally in-the-bag for the Establishment Chair accommodated the Sanders motion.
When the count was taken and the result was the motion failed to collect a majority, the Chair ruled that having failed to collect a 2/3 majority, the motion failed.
And the Sanders folk, who are totally not shouty at all asked the Chair for a Point of Order, and declared the caucus a “massive fraud”
The End
Ella inNew Mexico
On one hand I’m totally sympathetic to John’s “good Democrat” points. I also am dismayed by the recent dark turn taken in the Sanders camp that falsely reinforces the Republican’s ugly mythology that she’s corrupt because she’s doing what she has to do to run for major office in America in 2016. I wrote an email to the campaign to that effect, for what it’s worth.
And the rogue Sanders supporters throwing $1000 at the motorcade was just pathetic.
But I’m not so sure I like the Democratic Party under its current leadership, either. I can’t stand DWS, no matter how much I try. From what I see, she and the way she has not behaved in a neutral manner with the candidates has done more damage to the image of the Democratic Party all as a fair, transparent arbiter than anyone else.
The fastest growing voter status is “decline to state” or “independent” from what I’ve read on the intertoobz. People in this country are liking the two parties less and less because they each demand a kind of mindless loyalty that supercedes even rational choices. It’s far, far worse in the stinking corpse that is the Republican Party, without a doubt, but the Democrats are at risk of the same if we cannot find a way to improve our system of growing and choosing candidates. We have some pond scum in the party that has done NOTHING for the rest of us or our sympathetic fellow voters, but still gets the benefits of the machine. But when a Sanders,tries to become a Democrat, they get treated like they’re shifty poorly-bred carpetbaggers. So now, it appears he’s pissed off and sick of fighting the biased Party machine and he ends up looking bad for it.
Given we are still a two party nation, and we all know third parties here are a wasted effort, im not sure what anyone expects people like Sanders to do- he’s not a Nader, but man, people sure want to push him into being one.
If we’re stuck with a two party system, and we don’t want to turn into the Republicans, then it’s gonna mean taking in a few “immigrants” who were not lifelong members who towed the line and worked their way up through Party ranks with their head down and eyes averted. It’s gonna mean taking a look at the broadly popular sentiments of the people Sanders is speaking for and including them in our platform, and supporting and welcoming candidates that espouse them.
Don’t we want to be the party of progressive and dynamic change in this country? Of the next generation of bright and smart and hopeful young people? Don’t we want to be the ones pushing for transparency in government, for opportunity for all, and for a shift in power to the everyday citizens from the 50 people who have funded half the PAC donations or the corrupt influence of corporations over our public policies.
Then dammit, it might not mean being a “good Democrat”. It might mean being a “better Democrat.
I liked Charlie Pierce’s thoughts on this today…
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44088/bernie-sanders-movement-howard-dean/
Kropadope
@Villago Delenda Est:
Massachusetts has open primaries and unwashed swarms of unenrolled voters haven’t destroyed the party. Quite the contrary, in fact, Democrats have a durable veto-proof majority in the Legislature. While I’m obviously not arguing that the open primary system is solely responsible for this, it isn’t hurting the party that MA Democrats aren’t telling over half the registered voters to ignore their candidates until November.
aimai
@Kropadope: But you can’t “broadly engage the electorate” in the way you think–they have to want to participate and support you. Otherwise you run the risk of inviting spoilers into the tent. Or racists. Or anyone else that has a bloc of voters. Independents today aren’t necessarily any more virtuous than Dixiecrats or white supremacists or larger and more meaningful than the greens. They are just indecisive people who don’t understand how politics works or who are embarrassed by both the Republicans and the Democrats. They aren’t particularly insightful, or informed, or progressive. They are evenly split between the two traditional parties IIRC.
The Democratic party needs dedicated, insightful, thoughtful, party members to pull the party to the left. The task of appealing to voters isn’t actually the place that happens because its always in the context of a knife fight with the far right/republicans. At that point its always all hands on deck. If Independent/progressives want to influence the party they need to get off their asses and do it. Not the other way around.
Gin & Tonic
@Origuy:
Devine consulted more than once for Viktor Yanukovych, the President who fled the country in February, 2014 in the face of the Maidan uprising. Yanukovych was basically a thug, as corrupt as they come, and the Ukrainian people got tired of him. He’s the guy who, having spent his life in union and government positions, built himself a mansion which had a 40-million-Euro chandelier in the entryway. Yes, 40 million fucking Euros for a light fixture.
Cacti
@Ella inNew Mexico:
We have been and continue to be.
All of the meaningful reforms and advances from 1932 onward have been brought about almost completely by liberal Democrats. Not Independents, not socialists, not no-labels, not greens, not libertarians. Democrats.
You’re welcome.
Amaranthine RBG
I look forward to the posts in November about how stupid people are for not figuring out where their polling place is and not showing up with a picture ID to vote.
How hard is that, you loosers!
geg6
@Kropadope:
And I’m fine with that. If they want influence, register a party designation.
MoZeu
@Ella inNew Mexico: What you said. Times two. And I will still vote Sanders because in a primary I vote platform, not loyalty. It would take a whole lot more than ill-advised letters complaining about the HRC victory fund to make me choose the candidate who had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a semblance of a progressive platform and who voted for Iraq, still lauds the Libyan intervention and wants a no-fly zone over Syria. No thank you. Platform over party in the primaries. Party uber alles in the general.
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: See–this is where I really get confused. There is zero evidence that the Democratic Party is as sclerotic and corrupt as the Sanders people are pretending. And even less that the Democratic party is not welcoming to young people/students/younger minorities/young women. Hillary Clinton is appealing to the Obama coalition–is that not broad enough for you? Does it not include enough new voters?
Sanders does seem to have done well with even newer, younger, voters. But what is the evidence that the party is rejecting them or won’t approach them to try to serve their needs? Sanders is the only one who thinks that he alone can save the country. Frankly that is incredibly insulting to everyone else who has been working and bailing this leaky tub for years. I have two teenage daughters (the voting age one is voting for HRC in the general). How dare Sanders, or anyone else, argue that I don’t care about the future of the children in this country, or that my generation can’t successfully represent and fight for the interests of our children and grandchildren? Because that is what all this mumblign about Sanders’ new voters amounts to. The idea is that there is some great rift between the interests of older Democrats and younger ones, or southern ones and northern ones, or white ones and black ones. Its incredibly insulting. We are a coalition and we need to move forward together. Sanders’ voters are not the only voters who matter. But, additionally, they are more than welcome to join in coalition with the rest of us and try to get something done.
BBA
For the longest time I refused to join the party of Andrew Cuomo and Sheldon Silver (may he rot in jail). Then I realized it meant I could vote against those fuckers twice as often.
Frankly I’m still a bit embarrassed to admit being registered D because our local party is such a disgusting corrupt shitshow.
Sasha
Time for a new tag: “I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign”
Full circle!
Mike J
@aimai:
The 18 year olds who voted for Obama are 26 now. Oooooooooooooooooold. They just don’t understand the youth today.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What the fuck does any of that have to do with a pathologically self-righteous old narcissist shitting in the Democratic pool like an incontinent who ate a big bowl of prunes for lunch?
(anyone know what Andrea Mitchell is talking about? Jane Sander whining that Hillary Clinton has been “personally undermining” her asshole of a husband?)
aimai
@Kropadope: Irrelevant. No one but the Sanders people are arguing for changing the rules of the game midway. MA does, indeed, have a semi open primary in which we permit unerolled voters to vote in the Democratic Primary. But New York does not. Its incumbent upon the voter to either join the party and change the rules, or not join the party and be unable to affect things.
aimai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Preach.
Stacy
@Villago Delenda Est: Republicans are an existential threat to me but then I would be elevating them to ISIS level.
Shana
@efgoldman: Rachel just said, with regard to Hillary’s poll numbers in NY, that the Sanders campaign is disputing that her lead is as big as the polls show.
patroclus
Well, I’m with the Bernistas in vastly preferring open primaries to closed primaries. Open primaries allow all citizens (or at least registered voters) to vote for the candidate of their choice and encourage them to join/switch parties depending on the issues that are then important rather than issues that might have been important months or years before when they “registered” their party preference. Open primaries were a progressive initiative originating in Wisconsin and a few other states; closed primaries are much more indicative of machine-based politics where those in power want to limit the voting base. Here in Illinois, we have open primaries, and I don’t want to switch, period. That said, I don’t think the existence of closed primaries is automatically an indication of corruption as the Bernie campaign implies. Just as the Bernie campaign implies that any fundraising at all is an indication of corruption. Just as the Bernie campaign implies that any contact at all with “Wall Street” is automatically corrupt. Just as the Bernie campaign implies that anyone from the South is not entitled to have a say in the Presidential selection process. In my view, Bernie should make the case that open primaries are preferable but not whine about it when there are closed primaries. Encourage independents to re-register but accept the system as it is. Bernie likes to take these hard positions and imply that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is inherently corrupt. It’s not a very good campaign tactic, in my view.
Mike J
From the top:
The question becomes, why doesn’t Bernie run a coördinated campaign like every other Democrat since the beginning of time?
The Thin Black Duke
@Cacti: And Cacti drops the mic. I need a cigarette.
Kropadope
@aimai: And I set, right in the beginning in fact, that if they wanted to vote for Sanders they should have found out their basic local election rules and reregistered if necessary. I don’t disagree with you that they could and should have done this, I just disagree that the party should exclude independents from its primaries. Not just this year and not just to Bernie’s benefit, always.
Mike in NC
@Cacti: Letter of Recommendation from Bob Shrum?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Shana: Sounds like Karl Rove disputing Ohio.
Kropadope
@patroclus:
Ummm…did they really though?
Ella inNew Mexico
@Cacti: yes, I am aware of that. I double majored in PoliSci waaaay back when. I got A’s in political history.
But you’re missing my point. You being a “good Democrat” means you simply cannot understand how a ton of people out there who would be great Democrats do NOT see the party the way you do. The typical “indie” who leans liberal thinks the Party is too corrupt and doesn’t focus on the right issues. Right or wrong, we’ve got an image problem.
Unless you think a 37% turnout is a GOOD thing for America.
WarMunchkin
There was that chart from earlier that argued that people who thought things were broken and blamed the rich voted Bernie. What’s actually going on is that they think it’s Democrats who messed it all up.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@schrodinger’s cat: Is there tamarind chutney for the samosas? Not to be a demanding guest, but it’s my favorite combination.
Joe Bauers
@redshirt: Actually, I *am* a Democrat, although I’ve only voted straight ticket since 1996 so you’ve got me beat there. But I believe that the Democratic Party has come to represent the interests of really rich people, just like the Republicans. It’s just that *our* really rich people are from Wall Street and Silicon Valley, unlike their rich people, who are from who fucking cares but fuck them in half because they reach out to troglodytes to win elections. Democrats don’t care about the labor movement any more, and only care about *anything* to the extent that it doesn’t piss off “our” really rich people. “We” are now the party of welfare reform and mass incarceration and NAFTA and TPP and “grand bargains” to sell out Social Security that Obama desperately wanted but couldn’t get only because the Republicans are too fucking stupid to take yes for an answer.
Hillary isn’t the only one beholden to big money, but she’s the only one currently running for president with a D after her name. That D used to mean something. Now all it means is a different set of billionaires than the ones with R after their names. Yeah, SCOTUS, yeah, the other guys are nuts, all true. I’ll hold my nose and vote for Hillary in the general if I have to, even though she’s our version of Mitt Romney (like him, she’s got a nine figure net worth, and like him who the hell can say for sure what she believes in, given her constant “evolution” and “learning from her mistakes”?) and a terrible candidate (more than half the country loathes her). But if we don’t demand more than “the slightly less-bad bunch of assholes”, not even in primary season, then that’s all we’ll ever get. Slightly less objectionable assholes than the worst bunch of assholes on the planet.
So yeah, I’m voting for Sanders in the Indiana primary, and I don’t care how irritated Cole and Anne Laurie and the echo chamber here get that he doesn’t quit and doesn’t stop trying to win, because he’s right about the corrupting role of money in our politics. And if he loses, I’ll be back in two years, supporting anybody who will fight the moneyed interests instead of joining them.
aimai
@Kropadope:There are good arguments to be made against open primaries when they encourage spoilers to come in and run on your ticket, spoilers who may have no intention of actually fostering long term growth or strength in your party. I think theres damned good evidence that Bernie’s voters and Bernie’s voters’ money accrue only to Bernie. He’s running a charismatic religious campaign not a political campaign. He’s running for king of the country, not head of the party. I’m very disturbed by the notion that the Democratic Party should encourage more Bernie type people by working to attract more of the kinds of people who don’t understand how politics works in the first place. The kind of people who show up only if they are baited, bribed, teased, excited, and tittilated.
Iowa Old Lady
@Sasha: That is so true! LOL
dr. bloor
@Mike J:
“The question becomes, why doesn’t Bernie run a coördinated campaign like every other Democrat since the beginning of time?”
Ooh! Ooh! Pick me–I know the answer to this one!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You have some data on that?
ETA: including what the “right issues” are?
aimai
@Joe Bauers: Well, this is why we lose the midterms, I guess.
PhoenixRising
@Shana: That would be a weird thing to spend energy on, as we will all know within hours which was correct. But okay.
patroclus
@Kropadope: Yeah, unfortunately, they really did imply that Southerners are inferior. They didn’t say it directly, but I’ve heard them complain about Southern primaries way too many times to believe that that’s not their implication. I’m from Texas originally and the Bernie campaigns’ anti-South dog whistles are clear as a bell to me.
Matt McIrvin
I always thought one of the strongest complaints about Clinton was that she had a poor nose for hiring staff–her people were incompetents like Mark Penn.
I admit, Podesta’s whole UFO thing is still incredibly annoying. But she’s got Obama’s poll people now and her main opposition in this primary campaign is the guy who hired Jeff Weaver and Tad Devine.
schrodinger's cat
@Ella inNew Mexico: Being a good Democrat means not shitting on the sitting President of your party and making noises about how you plan to roll back his signature achievement.
Gin & Tonic
@Ella inNew Mexico:
Maybe it would be good for that person to show up at a meeting of his/her ward/district/town/county party committee and move the party in the direction he/she thinks is appropriate rather than waiting for *somebody else* to form a party that’s more to their liking.
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
Right, and NY, despite reliably voting for Democrats statewide, can’t seem to dislodge Republicans from the levers of power in its assembly.
Ruckus
@aimai:
Is well worth repeating.
It is hard to sometimes remember that we are a coalition rather than a totally unified party. We have fractions, we cover a lot more ground than republicans normally allow. This time they have fractured and that does not bode well for them. But we have almost always been fractured and pull together as a coalition rather than a unified single voice. I like that, is allows us to be inclusive and not exclusive. It is both a downfall and a strength. But for it to work we can not forget that we are the party of everyone, not the members only, restricted, bigoted, misogynistic country club who only allows those people in to clean up.
divF
@Kropadope:
Get over it kiddo. We have a Two Party System in this country, and that is not going to change anytime soon. If you want to meaningfully participate in the process, you have to choose a side. Making people “check a fucking box” is the first step towards raising the awareness of this fundamental fact, and if your feelings are hurt by this, too bad.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Bravo.
@aimai: Brava.
schrodinger's cat
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Sure, why not. Its pretty easy to make actually. My home made chutney is much better than the treacly sweet store bought one. I use dates and unrefined sugar lumps to sweeten the chutney.
Joe Bauers
@aimai: No, we lose in the midterms because for whatever reason certain members of our coalition don’t show up to vote in them. I’m there every fucking time, pissing into the wind by voting against the Indiana Republican supermajority.
Kropadope
@patroclus:
Well, maybe in Texas you’re spending too much time around Republicans, but not everything is a dog whistle. For example, consider the recent “distortion” comment. He didn’t say that their votes are worthless or should be worth less, the argument is that having a concentration of culturally similar states do their elections right together, particularly right near the beginning, feeds the momentum narrative that the MSM just loves eversomuch
I will say one thing for Southern Democrats, though, they sure know how to pick winners.
PhoenixRising
@Ella inNew Mexico: I will see you and raise you: It’s not that I don’t see how indie leftist legalization-positive hippies around our state would be great additions to the DPNM meetings, it’s that they don’t do the work.
The bar in New Mexico is so fucking low. All you gotta do to be a precinct captain is show up a 2nd time. It’s not hard to make the Democratic Party reflect your preferences, and those of your friends (assuming you have like-minded friends). Unlike other states where I’ve been active in politics (OH and CA) you don’t need a union membership or a minimum $$$$ to get involved. You just have to do a tiny bit of scut work every 2 years.
If you know people who would be Democrats if only the party were more reflective of their wishes, you know lazy, entitled people who are welcome to put down their keyboards and attend a meeting of their county party. Third time’s a charm, your name is probably going on a ballot (offer not valid in SF or BernCo).
My ward meeting included 7 youths of all ages (one was into her 60s if I’m a day) there to vote for delegates for Bernie who didn’t recognize the name of their state Senator. For the love of God.
aimai
@schrodinger’s cat: This is very true.
But, even though I’m arguing with her here I think Ella in New Mexico’s post is a sign of good things to come. Because it indicates that at least one of Bernie’s supporters recognizes that when Bernie drops out we are all going to need to pull together to elect the Democratic Nominee. So lets not beat up on her too much.
As a Muslim taxi driver (really) said to me years ago when he was driving me away from the Code Pink march on the White House against the looming Iraq war “You are not of my religion, but you might convert some day. Shall I frown on you today, and smile on you tomorrow? No, I have to smile at you today and smile at you tomorrow. You are the same person now that you will be tomorrow, and I have to treat you the same way.” So lets smile on Ella now, knowing and believing we will smile on her tomorrow.
Ella inNew Mexico
@aimai: I’m not sure if people who feel like you do are,truly setting aside your preconceptions and actually sitting down, shutting your mouth and LISTENING to what the Sanders Dems and independents really care about. Some of this has to do with the individual personas of the two top-ticket candidates, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. But seriously, they don’t think the Democratic Party is , well, “democratic”. They see it as a corrupt clique that has lost its way, even with all its great successes.
I’m not saying I agree with that, and I do a lot of active listening and then gentle challenging with my 20 and 30′-somethings in my life right now. But seriously, your words were actually pretty revealing—you can’t ask them to “jump in and help you bail a leaky tub” and expect enthusiasm.
aimai
@Joe Bauers: What members of our coalition would that be? Oh, right, the youth vote. And (sadly) white women. But not AA women. They show the fuck up and they vote.
Kropadope
@divF:
Why does everything have to be about my feelings? A little projection perhaps? I’m arguing that it’s shortsighted and unhelpful. That isn’t a feelings-derived critique.
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: Oh, right. If I don’t agree with Sanders and his evaluation of my party its because I don’t “shut up” enough? Ok then.
Barbara
@Kropadope: This is one of those things that probably goes in cycles. I think that many states adopted a more inclusive approach for the reasons you stated. On the other hand, that approach tends to result in people thinking that only voting matters — canvassing, working with the party to raise funds for organizing and recruiting candidates are not the things independents typically get involved in, so they are what I think of as “shallow” voters, and I don’t mean that pejoratively, just that their attachment to the political process is weak overall. I think you can make an argument either way.
PJ
@aimai: Many people for many years have been alienated from the political process because they do not see either political party representing their interests – this is the primary reason why voter turnout is so low. And the fact is that the Democratic party, while it pays lip service to working people, has done its best to represent the wealthy. People in this country under 40 are, in general, far more liberal than the Democratic party. There were many people who thought that Obama would actually try to be a liberal President, but he turned out to be the centrist that he campaigned as. So when a candidate like Bernie appears and finally starts saying the things that people have been waiting for so long to hear, they get excited. And you would like to exclude them from the Democratic party for this very reason – that they are not triangulating centrists like Clinton.
J R in WV
Burnspbesq wrote this in the Some Folks Are Serious thread a little while ago:
Also, you might want to try explaining how the Sanders campaign received over 200,000 contributions of $35 each from a single zip code in DC on a single day, as its FEC filings apparently say.
Wow! Just Wow… and that keep the average individual contribution, well, small. More than $27, but still, small. But 200,000 of them? Isn’t that about a $7,000,000 contribution when aggregated?
Wow! So that’s how he does it !!!
MikeBoyScout
Spitballing here
If you’re a Bernie supporter or just fed up with the archaic unfair election rules for Democratic Party primaries, why not use Bernie’s significant Democratic National Convention delegate count to begin the drive for change you believe in?
But, WTF do I know.
I’m just a guy who did it in 68 and 04.
Or else y’all could just dig the Repug hole we’ll fall in to.
spitballing
Ella inNew Mexico
@Gin & Tonic: many of them have, and to be honest, THAt was the problem. Local parties- particularly where I’m from are actually NOT very hospitable to outsiders with new ideas.
divF
@Kropadope:
Your = your side. And my comment is not feelings-derived – it is articulating a hard fact about American politics. The left in the US has not learned what the right-wing has known and acted on for 40 years: if you want to be heard, you become a faction in a party with enough juice to make your voice heard. The fact that Bernie and his crew don’t get this is what has people around here in a lather.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
You don’t suppose Democrats, in building those successful policies, might have been influenced by those independents, socialists, etc?
Stacy
@Chris: Yes I agree. Mostly I’m really happy that I have a kid who is really interested and engaged in politics. Her 13 year old sister is engaged too because of her so thank you Bernie!
patroclus
@Kropadope: Well, I live in Illinois now, and it’s the Land of Lincoln and is definitely not in the South. And I voted for Chuy Garcia against Rahm and I’m usually a fairly reliable member of the left-leaning primary electorate. And I like Bernie a lot and I like open primaries, but I didn’t vote for Bernie for President because of all of what I said in my first post on this thread. Closed primaries are not inherently corrupt, raising money, even in the current system, is not inherently corrupt, having ties to Wall Street is not inherently corrupt and Southerners are not inherently inferior. Bernie’s campaign has implied all of that and I just don’t agree. Chuy didn’t imply any of that in his campaign; Bernie’s campaign throws dollar bills at women and calls women “whores.”
amk
@Joe Bauers:
why, jill stein is not running?
Aqualad08
@Kropadope:
Nope. The State Assembly is overwhelmingly Democratic. It’s the State Senate that’s been gerrymandered to all hell in an effort to keep it close. It’s 31-31 right now, with convicted felon Dean Skelos’ (R) seat up for a vacancy election tomorrow. That’s my district, and it’s close right now.
RaflW
He wanted to run on the Democratic ticket. Now he’s mad that the other top candidate is raising money for … Democrats.
Under pressure, Bernie and his team are turning into total asshats. Which is reason #147 that I don’t support him. Is he gonna file a complaint with the UN if Putin does something perfectly permissible under international law that Bern just doesn’t like?
As I said to my FB peeps this afternoon (in my one and only FB post about this whole f’ing Dem primary season), the late stage of the campaign shows how Sanders makes decisions under stress. He sucks at it. Let’s face it, tossing up model legislation Senate session after Senate session that no one paid attention to was a pretty stress-free job.
Presidentin’? Not so much.
Ella inNew Mexico
@J R in WV: hmmmm… Anyone know Act Blue’s zip code?
Baud
@PJ: That’s silly. No one is being excluded. But there can only be one nominee in the end, and people need to respect that. If they walk away, then they walk. They are not being excluded.
schrodinger's cat
@Ella inNew Mexico: So how is whining on a blog going to change that?
FlipYrWhig
@Ella inNew Mexico:
My suggestion is that he go fuck himself hard on something jagged. That’s what I expect him to do. He’s vile, his staff are worse, and I hope he disappears from politics with his arrogant idiocy and his cohort of intolerant bully-boys as fast as possible. I hate this fucker and anyone who likes him is diminished in my eyes.
Kropadope
@divF:
I am my own side, just one person. I will never find the individual who agrees with me on everything. And, frankly, I’m tired of having my arguments handwaved away with dumb “but the OTHER Bernie supporters…”
Engage the arguments presented, not the ones you wish to have.
Gin & Tonic
@Kropadope: Here in Rhode Island, an “unaffiliated” voter can show up and vote in either of the Presidential primaries next Tuesday, but the act of voting will “affiliate” him/her with the party whose ballot you voted on. Once you are “affiliated” (i.e. registered as a member of that party) you would need to “disaffiliate” to vote next time in the other primary. This needs to be done three months in advance of said primary. This strikes me as a decent compromise between “open” and “closed.”
divF
@Kropadope:
Then engage my argument. We have two parties, and have to pick one in order to have a say. You buy that, or not ?
Ruckus
@Ella inNew Mexico:
I have to ask, Why not? This country is based on a two party system. Third and independent parties just don’t work out here. And in a parliamentary system groups form basically two coalitions after the voting, to get things done. If they don’t, it mostly doesn’t work. So in the end really they are no different than what we do. So your choice is to stand outside and complain or to join the one that comes closest to your ideal and work to make it different. If one doesn’t do that, all the complaining is wasted. It isn’t a perfect system but it is the one we have and it does work. And works much better with active participation.
japa21
As I said earlier, Clinton has been remarkably gentle with Sanders this campaign, far more so than I would have been. Reminds me of 2008, no matter how nasty she got, Obama stayed above the fray, so to speak.
But in all her nastiness she never went after the party because she knows that the Democratic Party is the only hope for this country. That was one of the reasons I would still have been willing to vote for her if she had won.
Sanders, not his supporters, is driving me to the point that my vote for him, if he somehow won the primary, would probably be the most reluctant vote I have ever cast. If the GOP had even a moderately sane candidate running I would be very tempted to vote for that person.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a lot of sweeping assertions for which I suspect the underlying data is Things I Think Should BE True, Or Things Everyone I Talk To On The Internet Agree On
aimai
@Kropadope: Sure they were influenced, in a sense, when those groups were strong enough to get out and vote. Otherwise, not so much.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
When Bernie’s campaign manager says “Democrat Party”, them’s fighting words. That is straight up New Gingrinch bullshit. Gingrich right in the forefront of impeaching Bill, shutting down the govt., and foreshadowing the Tea Baggers. Bernie and his bullshit need to be gone. I hope Nana kicks his ass tomorrow.
amk
@RaflW:
that’s pretty much sums up bs’s ‘legacy’.
PJ
@Baud: I was referring to this statement by Aimai:
This sounded very much to me that she would like people who are excited by Bernie’s policies to very kindly GTFO of the Democratic party.
japa21
@RaflW: I have mentioned before that I think the main reason BiP supports Bernie is because he knows that is who Putin would want to win the election because he could get away with so much stuff.
Betty Cracker
@divF:
QFT. And I consider myself part of “the left,” but we do tend to whine about the lack of progress and disengage rather than working from within to drive the change we want to see. That might be because there really are fewer liberals than conservatives, or at least have been historically. If that’s changing, huzzah! But we still have to do the work.
amk
@Kropadope: you have any evidence of that “influence”?
Barbara
@Kropadope: What they intended I cannot say, but as someone who lives in the South, what they have said on multiple occasions demeans the participation of Southern voters in the Democratic primary. It’s ridiculous on so many levels that I have a hard time believing in their sincerity, and think they must simply be rationalizing. But it’s stupid as all get out.
Mike J
As much as I despise berniebros, it could be worse:
Davis X. Machina
@divF:
You make it heard often enough, and loud enough, and grow large enough, and your faction can take over a party — the Dixiecrats of my youth are now the Republican party.
Baud
@PJ: I’ll let her speak for herself, but I would interpret that to refer to the second half of her statement.
aimai
@PJ: Oh fuck off. You have zero evidence for this argument. People don’t vote in this country not because they are too progressive for it but because they are prevented from voting or too fucking lazy to get off their asses and vote if they aren’t appealed to in every particular. Your precious “under 40 non voting” white asshole (because you are talking about white people, by and large) is not refusing to vote because they don’t like this or that candidate. They are refusing to bother to vote because they are lazy and they figure someone else will do the work for them. Because they don’t turn out to vote for the local ballot races either. Its not because they won’t vote for Clinton this time round. They don’t vote period.
And fuck off for being dissapointed that President Obama couldn’t make the skies rain down gold and diamonds while the Republicans (and fucking Bernie Sanders) blocked his every move to fulfill his campaign promises. You people are just nuts. And no, no one is going to cater to you or kiss your asses to get you to vote. Vote, don’t vote. Just stop whining about it and admit that your whole attitude reeks of “fuck you world, I’ve got mine.”
PJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t actually talk to people on the internet, except, occasionally, here. But it’s true that my evidence for this is entirely anecdotal, based on the people I know where I live.
Mike J
@MikeBoyScout: You going to the CD caucus? I didn’t run as a delegate (I’ve only lived here 8 years and everybody was talking about how they went to this very HS, etc), but I’ve volunteered to herd cats.
Kropadope
@patroclus:
I would say that the former was a commentary on the excessive influence that money has on our politics, do you disagree with that message (if not the execution)?
As far as the whores comment, you’re asserting the speaker said a whole lot more than he actually said. This was, again, a message about the excessive influence on money in the political system. Unfortunately, in the context of a contested primary between a man and a woman, there are some unfortunate implications, but I seriously doubt Dr. Song intended to refer to Hillary specifically or women generally as whores. What gender are most elected officials again?
opiejeanne
Yesterday we attended the Legislative Caucus in Washington. We are both delegates for Hillary and were outnumbered about 2-1. Most of the Bernie fans were nice, some were even fun to talk to, almost all were very poorly informed, and then there were the Bernie Bros. I reserve that term for the worst behaved people I’ve seen outside of drunken Yankees/Red Sox fans at an Angels game in Anaheim (most of whom couldn’t find NY or Boston on a map, but I digress).
The process was a bit of a mess and we were told that it should have ended 4 hours before it did finally grind to a halt, but there were problems with computers, problems with the credentials, and then lots of resolutions and a protests over a line or a word in the resolutions, then back and forth about GMOs and Muslims and changing “the” to “a” in a resolution regarding global warming,
There was a speech calling for unity from one of the party officials, for support of whichever candidate becomes the nominee, and the booing started, and then quite a few shouting “Bernie or bust!”.
Took many hours to get through before we had a delegate report, then it took them another hour to appoint 88 alternatives for the missing delegates.
After this someone was allowed to speak about each candidate, make a little speech about them. Bernie’s was first, and we listened to the speaker and applauded a couple of lines in his speech, clapped when he was done.
Then the speech for Hillary was announced and the Bernie Bros came out in force, shouted him down, wouldn’t let him speak. The line that got them agitated was when the speaker pointed out that Sanders has not felt the heat from the Republicans that Hillary has, and they went nuts. To be fair, a few Bernie fans yelled at them to shut up and let him speak, but it had little effect. The speaker pretty much gave up trying to be heard over the din. These guys were big and loud and it was a bit intimidating.
When we finally broke up into sub-caucus groups to elect the delegates for the next level, it was a relief to leave that room. It didn’t help that it was hot in the school gym and that added to the frustration of the slow-moving process.
I met a lot of great people yesterday, and don’t let anyone tell you that Bernie’s fans are mostly college-age youth. The median age is closer to 50, and the ugly behavior came from guys in their late 30s/early 40s. The Hillary fans averaged about the same age.
I met a young man who is going to go far if he chooses to continue in politics, and he was one of the few elected to attend the Congressional Caucus and the state convention. His name is Ben and he is 18, a senior in HS, just accepted to Georgetown and UW. He’s thinking about majoring in PoliSci. Hiram was another one that we spent a lot of time talking to, and he’s about to graduate from UW in a major that I can’t remember the name of and is something I’d never heard of, but had something to do with information distribution. Sorry, my brains were fried by the time it was over.
Dave and I both ran for the next level and were not elected, which was a bit of a relief because we are having a wedding here in our garden this summer and we will need all the time left to get ready.
aimai
@PJ: I’m simply pointing out that the kinds of people who are excited by Bernie, and who demand Bernie or Bust, are not good political actors. They are demanding, vain, ineffective and weak political actors and thinkers. They are all hat and no cattle, all demands and no action, a hand full of gimme and a mouth full of never mind. Its not that I don’t think they should be in the Democratic Party. We’re full of assholes as it is. That’s no bar. But I don’t think that any person who gets excited about politics once every four years, and then cries buckets of tears that they didn’t get everything they thought they could get in a perfect world for the next four years, is much of an addition to the world, let alone the party.
Kropadope
@amk:
What put the “social” in social security, I wonder?
patroclus
@Gin & Tonic: I disagree. There really shouldn’t have to be a “compromise” between open and closed primaries. Open primaries encourage greater participation and enable voters (especially independents) to make up their minds on primary election day who they wish to support. Closed primaries or “compromises” like Rhode Island’s limit participation and forces voters to make choices long before the actual primary date when they probably don’t even realize there is a deadline and may not even know who the actual candidates are. I don’t think such compromises are inherently corrupt – they are well within the “laboratories of democracy” federalism theory that allows states their choices on how to structure their system, but I vastly prefer open primaries.
ThresherK (GPad)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Hey, I will put that, the mint stuff, and the Red onion stuff on all my Indian food. Is there any rule I should be following of what goes with what, so I don’t seem like such a gauche American?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PJ: Can I ask where you live? You know, personally, a lot of under 40 liberals who stayed home in 2010 because they were disappointed in Obama’s centrism? What House/Senate races are you and/or they involved in now that we may be shed of the albatross that is Obama and we can make some real progress?
magurakurin
@FlipYrWhig:
I’ve come to the same point.
I hope New York comes through for Clinton tomorrow.
amk
@Kropadope: so, you got zilch then? got it.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: let me see if I’ve got this straight. People who don’t want to register as belonging to a political party should TOTALLY have the chance to choose that party’s candidate. That sounds an awful lot like “right-to-work” logic to me.
Ella inNew Mexico
@aimai:
Well, maybe. If you’re always trying to convince or persuade or always thinking of what you’re gonna say next in the discussion, you’re not listening. And there’s no communication that happens. Just cross talk.
PhoenixRising
@opiejeanne:
That may be the most Establishment Democrat sentence ever posted on this blog since ever.
Should def be a new tag: Drama Needs Fulfilled By Wedding in Garden, Thanks
Kropadope
@divF:
Well, I haven’t “picked” one, not really. And I feel like I have sufficient say; so, no, not buying it.
Mike J
@opiejeanne:
You had computers? WE lived in a box in the middle of a motorway!
But seriously, everything was done on paper and hand counted, all check ins were paper lists, with no cross refs between declared candidate and precinct, etc. Fucking stone age, We voted by dropping dinosaur bones in a box,
Ruckus
@PJ:
That is at best a twisted reading of what she wrote and if you have read much of what she has written here over time would not be your reaction.
I can’t actually speak for her and she doesn’t need me to either. But I will say what my take is on her comment that you quoted. People who show up at the last minute for anything, especially the last minute for something that requires thought, work, effort, consideration, compromise and do nothing but complain that the thing they came at the last minute to, isn’t what they want, doesn’t exactly meet their desires, should be changed either at the last minute or even after the last minute to accommodate their whiny asses at the expense of all of those who showed up on time and worked and compromised can and should go fuck themselves. Your and her mileage may vary, after all these are my words.
rikyrah
Maddow has been covering this.
…………………………
Special interest groups want to privatize the VA and nobody is paying attention
By Paul Glastris
APRIL 18, 2016
Should America’s veterans receive health care at hospitals and clinics run by the federal government, as they have for more than a century? Or should they be treated by private doctors and hospitals, with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) picking up the tab?
This enormously important question will be discussed, and perhaps decided, at meetings on Monday and Tuesday of the Commission on Care. That’s a federally chartered group that is writing binding recommendations on the future of the VA.
If you’ve never heard of the Commission on Care, you’re not alone. Virtually none of the mainstream news outlets have covered its public hearings, which have been going on since the fall. This despite the fact that the VA health care system, with 300,000 employees and a $65 billion budget serving more than 9 million patients, is the federal government’s second largest enterprise after the Department of Defense.
The reason Washington is even considering such a radical restructuring of the VA has to do with widely publicized reports in 2014 that 40 veterans in Phoenix died waiting for first-time appointments with VA doctors. These reports led to bipartisan legislation mandating the creation of the commission. But as investigative journalist Alicia Mundy reveals in Washington Monthly, the reports turn out to have been baseless allegations cooked up by a Koch brothers-funded group, Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), and key Republicans lawmakers who ideologically favor the outsourcing of VA health care.
Ella inNew Mexico
@Miss Bianca: if we continue to allow two parties to monopolize our electoral system, then yes, we should open our selection process to all voters. There is no other way to maintain this Democracy.
divF
@Kropadope:
Then we have nothing to talk about.
I’ve got to go.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: Except that party registration doesn’t require money, unlike union participation requiring dues. I say the Democrats have a better product and they should be encouraging more people to be shopping around at every stage of the proceedings.
aimai
@Kropadope: Francis Perkins?
Mnemosyne
I just want all y’all to know that you are harshing on my Pulitzer buzz. Damn it.
patroclus
@Kropadope: Of course I agree that Buckley v. Valeo and Citizen’s United should be overturned, and I believe that there should be contribution limits and spending limits on political campaigns. We have no disagreement there. We need a 5th USSC Justice and then we need a new campaign finance statute. Either Hillary or Bernie would accomplish that, so I’d vote for either one. As between the two though, Hillary would be far better at getting down ballot Dems elected because she and Clooney are actually trying to raise money for that whereas Bernie’s campaign has Dr. Song and yesterday’s dollar throwers at women protestors.
Peale
So far, I’ve not been very impressed by anyone’s voter contact efforts. Team Bernie sent me one text a week ago and that’s been it. We had a street fair here on Sunday and only Trump had someone, working a Veterans for Trump booth. not a knock on my door or a phone call from Hillary.
Gin & Tonic
@opiejeanne:
Paulistas? Or ratfuckers?
? Martin
@Miss Bianca:
What does it mean to ‘belong’? What skin do you have in the game? What responsibility does the party have back to you?
That’s the difference with right-to-work logic. ‘Belonging’ to a party in reality means jack shit outside of the minority of people that actually work for the party. Would it be acceptable if only people who made a minimum financial contribution or volunteered a certain number of hours could vote in the primary?
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: You have no idea what I’m like in person or in real life discussions. But what you are saying doesn’t hold true for online discussions at all. Online and text based discussions include the possibility that I can go back and read and reread the points you’ve made, or read other people on the same topic, before formulating my response to you. In fact I have spent quite a bit of time “listening” to Bernie people, or rather reading their comments, diaries, and tweets. That is exactly how and why I have come to despise them. Not because I wasn’t listening, but because I was.
RaflW
@Villago Delenda Est: But, but, registering as a Democrat stains your pure as snow soul!
Seriously, though: Bernie wanted to run in the Democratic primary race. Democrats in some states would like the voters in said primary to be Democrats (even if in name only, and revocable next cycle). If that soils kropadope’s britches, well tough luck.
jibeaux
My husband is tepid Bernie-over-Hillary but fortunately doesn’t spend hardly any time talking or thinking about it. His dad, who is a legit Marxist professor more or less straight out of a Republican playbook but is a sweet guy as well, and his dad’s wife, are the obnoxiously weird senior citizen Bernie supporters on FB. I do not engage, for many reasons. But the truly, truly, weird thing is that my moderate Republican nonreligious dad, who refuses to vote for Trump or Cruz but Hillary is just a nonstarter for him, said, heck, he might write in Bernie in the fall. Which is both a reflection of his complete “fuck this noise” feeling towards the R party and the fact that Bernie is pulling some weird, random, anarchic support from outside the expected Marxist professor demographic. But I think ppl like that are small in number.
At any rate, I really cannot wait for this primary to be over. I was tired of the #feelthebern hashtag on earnest postings by, I dunno, Christmas.
Ella inNew Mexico
@aimai:
See, now that’s just bull shit- throwing Sanders in with the Republicans is lame. People can criticize and disagree with Obama and still support him.
I for one wish to God he could run a third term, because even with all his flaws he’s a better choice for this country than anyone running now.
And not to have to endure all this all this fucking Clinton-Sanders ugliness for at least a few more years would be icing on the cake.
Chris
@Peale:
All Bernie here, both door to door and at the metro station. Not a peep out of Hillary.
aimai
@? Martin: Yes, it would be acceptable. It might not be a good idea, but it would be acceptable. Because parties are private entities and are entitled to set the rules for engagement as they see fit.
Also, and I don’t know why people are conveniently forgetting this, its quite possible for a billionaire to put someone up to running in a party’s primary to siphon off votes or spoil the chances of a candidate they truly fear. Its pretty clear the Republicans, for example, were backing Nader. The republicans are also backing Bernie. And people have run in elections using deceptive names or taking on party identity at the last minute because they know the party ID means something to the voters. So parties have a right to try to protect the brand, insofar as they can, by screening out some candidates or by requesting or requiring that voters take the responsibility seriously.
Sly
@PJ: “The millions of non-voters in this country actually have my heretofore unrealized political preferences and that’s why they don’t vote (but for some reason I do)” is one of the most tired arguments there is about American politics. There are actual surveys of non-voters, and while “I don’t like either candidate” is on that list, it only accounts for around 8-10% of the reasons cited for not voting.
Overwhelmingly, the reason why people don’t vote is because they either lack the time or the means to get to a polling place. And for all the unjustified conspiracy-mongering bullshit being flung at New York because people just discovered a week before the primary that you have to be registered with a party to vote in their respective contest, we are one of the few states that grants legal protection to people who need to take time off from work to vote.
Ella inNew Mexico
@aimai: well, if you start from a place where “you despise” a handful of writers online and therefore the rest of us out there who support/sympathize with Sanders, I don’t see how you’re going to make any headway.
Gin & Tonic
@patroclus:
Which is precisely what the Rhode Island system allows. If I’m independent (the technical term is “unaffiliated” I can walk in next Tuesday and pick up either a D or an R ballot.
Having done that, and voted in the Democratic primary, the Secretary of State then says “oh, so you’re a Democrat.” Which is logical.
Amaranthine RBG
@Chyron HR: You’re estimation of “completely outraged” is a bit hand wavey.
patroclus
@efgoldman: I agree with kropadope here – socialists and independents have often influenced Dems on very important policy issues. The graduated income tax, union rights, civil rights, the expansion of the commerce clause, social security, medicare, medicaid, environmental laws – the list is long. Now, it’s always been the Dems that got em enacted because that’s what Dems do, but Dems have often borrowed/stolen ideas from others in pursuing liberal policies.
BBA
@Aqualad08: Last time the D’s took the state senate, there were coincidentally just enough “Independent Democrats” to defect to the Skelos caucus and maintain Republican rule, thus ensuring that the shady backroom deals could continue uninterrupted.
I’m in Silver’s ex-district. According to this thread the nominal Democrat (a Silver crony) would be preferable to the WFP candidate (an actual progressive) because Democrats rah-rah etc. Color me skeptical.
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: Sanders voted against letting Obama close GITMO. I didn’t throw him in because of “bullshit” but because he literally voted with the Republicans against Obama’s attempt to close Gitmo. He also urged people to primary Obama in 2012. The first African American President and one of the top 5 Presidents of all time. He deserves to be kicked to the curb for that alone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella inNew Mexico: still waiting for your data on those Dem-leaning indies who think the party is “corrupt”. and which issues they think we should focus on
@Chris: You didn’t get Carol King knocking on your door?
(I don’t want anyone knocking on my door or ringing my phone. I was surprised at not having gotten very few emails from HRC, given my donor history– I assume she has Obama’s lists– but once I started donating, I’m getting several a day)
dr. luba
@Origuy:
Ted Devine is the bastard who helped Yanukovych get elected? Fuck him.
Kropadope
@efgoldman: I disagree, the party’s policies have at least a soupcon of socialism built in. Look at social security, Medicare, and the century-long push (still incomplete) for universal healthcare for example. The wrongness of Republican attacks on Democrats for being outright socialists notwithstanding, you can’t pretend there isn’t just a hint of it.
Mike J
@? Martin:
People love to point to Engerland as the way to do it, but it’s about four squid a month to join Labour, the Democratic Socialist party.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
So when protesters scream that Hillary is a whore and throw dollar bills at her, they mean she’s a different kind of whore than the kind you throw dollar bills at?
Somebody did not think through the implications of this protest. It’s like the Republicans who sent around pictures of Obama as a witch doctor during the PPACA fight and then insisted they didn’t mean he was that kind of witch doctor. They meant he was the totally race-neutral kind of tribal witch doctor, just like the anti-Hillary protesters mean she’s the not-female, not-sexualized kind of whore.
Ryan
And a good Democrat knows the difference between Democrat and Democratic. Let us not forget.
Kropadope
@patroclus: Beat me to producing a better list. I would also say one of the main things that drove me to support Obama in 08 was his tendency to accept good ideas from any source, even the dreaded Republicans (who happen onto such good ideas, I imagine, as related to the broken clock principle).
PJ
@aimai: Who’s whining? I was trying to point out that many people are not happy with the way things have gone in this country for a long time. Economically, over the last 40 years, wealth has been accruing to the top .5%, while incomes have stagnated or shrunk for most everyone else. The middle class is shrinking. The Republican response is to blame immigrants and minorities. The Democratic response is to shrug and say, “sorry!” After the crash in 2008, many people were angry that no one was held accountable, and that large banks were bailed out (enabling bankers to get bonuses, instead of unemployment checks) while homeowners were told,” sorry!”
So it’s not a surprise that Sanders has people worked up. His campaign has been not run that well (I don’t think he ever thought he’d get this far), but he has been drawing massive, diverse crowds where I live (NYC), and the campaign did work to raise awareness of registration. Now, the Democratic party can embrace these voters, or it can, as you would wish, tell them to “fuck off.” I know that I would rather be in a party which is inclusive.
PS: As for your assertion about non-voting “white assholes”, here are a few figures re who is not voting:
1) This report from Pew from 2014 indicates 43% of non-voters polled were minorities, and 34% were under 30 http://www.people-press.org/2014/10/31/the-party-of-nonvoters-2/
2) This chart taken from census data indicates that for the last three presidential elections, the percentages of black and non-Hispanic white voters are pretty close, while Hispanics and other minorities lag far behind: http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics
opiejeanne
@oz29: I’ve been a registered Democrat since March 26. In WA we were registered voters but not affiliated with any party; the party insists that you declare yourself a Democrat in order to caucus, but you can do it the day of the caucus, before it starts.
Before that we moved here we were registered Republicans in California for many, many years even though we hadn’t supported a Republican since Gerald Ford’s was in office. I volunteered on local elections for city council and mayor for years, rang doorbells and made phone calls for them; most were Democrats even though these were non-partisan offices and none of them told you what party they were, but you could tell.
Gin & Tonic
@dr. luba: Yes, he is.
EBT
Gotta say watching Bernie fuck up like the last five weeks or so is pretty demoralizing. Not enough to keep me from voting but damn if it doesn’t make me feel extra cynical.
divF
@Kropadope:
Social Security was first introduced in an industrial economy by Otto von Bismarck, hardly a raving socialist.
He also coined the aphorism, “politics is the art of the possible”.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@WarMunchkin:
black president side effects.
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: Well, I do despise you, actually, and a handful of writers on line. But five or six people aren’t a movement. I’m sorry to break it to you but your votes don’t really matter much. But if you are really worried about it I can assure you that I speak very, very, kindly of Bernie to people I meet in real life who like him, and I listen carefully to what they have to say and if they have any ability to be reasoned with I am happy to reason with them. But people are actually entitled to vote for whoever they want to. They don’t need my imprimatur to do so. And I don’t think my arguments are necessary at all. If Bernie was going to be able to win actual voters, in actual numbers large enough to take the nomination, I have always thought he should go right ahead and do so. He can’t adn he won’t. So my only concern is that he and his followers should stop trying to blow the building down when they discover they can’t take it over by normal means. He and his fans are turning towards destruction–attacking everyone around them that is insufficiently respectful of Bernie and his voters. They have attacked the DNC, they have personally attacked the poor functionary DWS as though she were the great Satan, they have attacked HRC personally as well as anyone who hasn’t endorsed Bernie, and if you were wearing your great listening ears you might have read Opie Jean’s report of the harrassment of Clinton supporters at her local delegate meeting. Its not the Hillary Voters, who are pretty sure they are going to be fighting this election all the way through to the white house, who are pursuing a scorched earth policy against the Bernie voters. It is quite the other way around.
patroclus
@aimai: Obama got Saudi Arabia to take 9 GITMO detainees just today. He might not be able to get it closed (partially because of Sanders albeit the vote was huge), but he’s gonna get it down a pale shell of what it was under the economy-ruining, torturing, waterboarding, invading the wrong country Bush.
Kropadope
@divF: Having trouble distinguishing between socialist influence and outright socialism, are we?
geg6
@Ella inNew Mexico:
This is maybe the most historically ignorant statement I’ve ever seen posted here. Maybe not but pretty damn close.
Mike J
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Kropadope:
Social Security, when passed, didn’t cover 50% of the working population, in a compromise with the Southern Democrats. 50% of the jobs at that time were wages paid for agricultural and domestic work. Guess which demographic did most all of that work? One guess. It took almost 20 more years to rectify that injustice, and it was only liberal Democrats that kept shoulders to the wheel to do it. Liberal Democrats have been the only consistent force for progress since FDR, and Bernie, instead of being a fucking PITA, needs to help by pulling.
geg6
@efgoldman:
Seriously. What a joke!
divF
@Kropadope: Turns out that I am not.
Davis X. Machina
@Sly: If a loud-and-proud, out progressive of impeccable lefty credentials were to run for a major-party nomination, he or she would carry all before them, the mass of silent voters being essentially social democrats at heart, and all that.
I wonder why that’s never happened.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@geg6: Don’t forget she got A’s in PoliSci or whatever.
aimai
@Mike J: That may be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
patroclus
@Ella inNew Mexico: I don’t despise you. I want you to support the Dem nominee, be it Clinton or Sanders. We need more voters; not fewer. Even though I didn’t, please feel free to vote for Sanders, whom I like, proudly and enthusiastically in New Mexico. I’ve been to Philmont many times and ski at Taos virtually every year. I love your state and I love New Mexicans!
RaflW
@Kropadope: Political parties don’t sprout out of the ground for free, dude. They are complex human systems that require shit-tons of volunteer work, donations, field organizers, staff, etc. You are sounding like a classic libertarian — wanting to access all sorts of public goods but not do jack shit to build them.
Sanders could have run for president as a Democratic Socialist. Or an Independent. Or on the My Little Pony ticket. He didn’t because he knows that the Democratic party, if he won the nom, would put all those complex human systems that require shit-tons of volunteer work, donations, field organizers, staff, etc. to work to elect him.
This wanna free ride whingy bullshit re: closed primaries is naive and annoying. Particularly as Bernie has been getting more and more aggressive about dissing the party he is running within.
Ella in New Mexico
@geg6: STFU you’re just trolling
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jimmy, stop with the “show me the data” crap. That seems to be the latest way to try and make yourself look smart when in fact you’re the lazy ass who doesn’t do HIS homework. I’m not writing a fucking term paper, asshole, and I’m not doing your God-damned homework for you.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Well said.
patroclus
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yeah, but it got expanded in the post-WWII Congresses (by the Dems under Sam Rayburn) and is vastly better and broader now than in 1935-6.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Liar. FDR never compromised and LBJ got legislation passed by yelling at Dem Senators from the crapper with the door open. If Obama had any balls….
Miss Bianca
@SarahT: I {heart} this comment. That is all, thank you. : )
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@patroclus:
He’s trying to clean up for the next occupant. He’s all about his legacy now. I keep saying that if it’s Hillary, she’ll get handed a turn key operation.
Renie
@Ella inNew Mexico: they are located in MA.
patroclus
@Kropadope: Me too. But, then again, adopting Republican ideas got us some Republican policies. It’s better for the Dems to steal/borrow ideas from their left-leaning critics than their center-right opponents. Which is what I hope Hillary is doing right now – $15 is better than $12. If Bernie sticks to issues, he’s doing a great job. When he implies that everyone is corrupt, he isn’t just sticking to issues.
geg6
@divF:
Glad you jumped in and gave the history lesson I was about to.
Ella in New Mexico
@patroclus: I’ve stated repeatedly here at BJ for months that I have lots to like about Hilary Clinton and that I will vote for her if she wins. I’ve also acknowledged that Bernie the candidate vs. Bernie’s political positions are not one-in-the same, and that he has flaws that concern me.
The question is not “but will you vote for the Democrat if it’s Hilary?”
As far as I can see here at BJ, the question ought to be “will you vote for the Democrat if it’s Sanders? And more importantly, will you accept that there are a lot of Democrats who agree with him and want our party to include our issues?”
PJ
@Ruckus: Voting, however, is a right (I realize that there has been a discussion about how much of a right). It’s not a matter of earning anything. Primaries, of course, are different, but many first time voters don’t know that. Your response is, “too bad.” My response is that people who are excited about the prospect of political change should be encouraged to participate more, not shut down.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: LOL! Nothing like an emoprog asked to show their work.
And what exactly is MY homework.
Extra points for the “Jimmy”
ETA:lot of Democrats who agree with him and want our party to include our issues?”
At the risk of provoking another hissyfit, what are “our issues”?
amk
@Ella in New Mexico:
so all that lecturing about you GOTTA LISTEN is all bs then? just like your beloved leader? polisci major with all A’s nonsense?
Denali
Sounds like the BernieBros are just misogynists. Just like those who support Trump’s treatment of women.
aimai
@aimai: Oh, can’t seem to edit my own comment. The whole discussion of whether “whore” can be considered specifically offensive to women, and to female supporters of HRC, reminds me of just how angry white guys get about “pc” attempts to “police language” so that they “don’t offend.” Rather than just trying not to offend people (voters, female candidates) they go all in insisting that its “just a joke” or “just a very common phrase” or “they didn’t mean it like that” and that “intentions” trump implications. Its a very priviliged attitude in which the speaker’s right to say whatever (he) wants is considered way more important than other people’s rights not to hear their candidate or themselves slurred with sexualized imagery.
PhoenixRising
@patroclus: Could you love those of us who sacrifice 4 hours every year, even though our weather is almost always beautiful, to actually attending Democratic Party meetings?
Because frankly I’m out of love for my local Bernie supporters. Bunch of holier-than-thou whiners who can’t be arsed to *make* a party that is desperate for basic support tasks like door-knocking fight for what they want a better party to fight for.
It’s simple, but that’s not the same as easy. There is a small amount of work involved.
PJ
@aimai: My response went into moderation, maybe because it had links? Anyway, here it is without links:
Who’s whining? I was trying to point out that many people are not happy with the way things have gone in this country for a long time. Economically, over the last 40 years, wealth has been accruing to the top .5%, while incomes have stagnated or shrunk for most everyone else. The middle class is shrinking. The Republican response is to blame immigrants and minorities. The Democratic response is to shrug and say, “sorry!” After the crash in 2008, many people were angry that no one was held accountable, and that large banks were bailed out (enabling bankers to get bonuses, instead of unemployment checks) while homeowners were told,” sorry!”
So it’s not a surprise that Sanders has people worked up. His campaign has been not run that well (I don’t think he ever thought he’d get this far), but he has been drawing massive, diverse crowds where I live (NYC), and the campaign did work to raise awareness of registration. Now, the Democratic party can embrace these voters, or it can, as you would wish, tell them to “F off.” I know that I would rather be in a party which is inclusive.
PS: As for your assertion about non-voting “white a-holes”, here are a few figures re who is not voting:
1) This report from Pew from 2014 indicates 43% of non-voters polled were minorities, and 34% were under 30 http://www.people-press.org/20…..nvoters-2/
2) This chart taken from census data indicates that for the last three presidential elections, the percentages of black and non-Hispanic white voters are pretty close, while Hispanics and other minorities lag far behind: http://www.electproject.org/ho…..mographics
amk
@RaflW:
nailed it. the troll has asserted here that he will never vote for dems. ever.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Ella in New Mexico: So you didn’t do your own homework then? You just take whatever you hear at face value?
aimai
@PJ: No one is discouraging them. They can vote just like the rest of us. I was young once. I managed to get myself registered as an independent and voted for John Anderson. No one stopped me.
geg6
@Tilda Swinton’s Bald Cap:
Yeah, I have a poli sci degree, too. Plus I have a minor in history and graduated summa cum laud. Big fucking deal. I also have common sense and political experience. I think we know what is lacking in the othe argument.
amk
Obama’s birth certificate. Hillary’s speeches. Special standards only for black/female. White man doesn’t even have to release his taxes.
Gin & Tonic
@Ella in New Mexico:
I don’t read every comment in every thread, but I have yet to see *anyone* say if it’s Sanders, they’ll take their ball and go home.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
Sanders is great on pontification, but never took a tough choice that he would have to defend. He wants everyone to do things his way, but will never bother himself to actually do the work to get stuff done.
Which kinda reminds me a lot of his supporters online.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@ThresherK (GPad): Hell, I’m a gauche American, yet I have a sekret personalized proportion of tamrind->mint->red onion that I created back when there was 1 Indian restaurant in this town, and the lunch buffet was what taught us – to the extent we could be taught – how to enjoy Indian food.
The chutney mash described above is for samosas. Pakora get tamarind/mint, and I like to dip pappardum (lightly) in tamarind. Mr Q. is a bhatura fan, but I am not. Sauces over rice are accented by naan dipped in raita, and biryanis need no accent for me. The owner of our preferred lunch buffet brings starts a batch of garlic naan.
The owner of the (now defunct) 1st place has become a good friend over the years, and I had the privilege of introducing him to the restaurant above (he enjoyed the food) and its owner. The next time I was there for lunch (3-4 days later) the young woman who’d filled out water glasses told me wide eyed and apparently star-struck “the gentleman you had lunch with Monday opened the 1st Indian restaurant in this town!!” It was quite cute. Now that I think of it, the comped garlic naan we get now may be the owner’s nod of thanks for bringing Swammy there – he always orders it when he eats there.
But enough about me!
geg6
@Ella in New Mexico:
Go fuck yourself. You come here spouting ignorant bullshit and try to play some sort of expert card, you should expect to get called out on it.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: All of us here have said all the way along that we will vote for Sanders if he is the nominee. Just because I don’t like him, and really don’t like most of his current voters, doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t vote for him. Not only would I vote for him in the general but I woudl work for him and donate money to him. And I’d expect the money I’ve already donated to the DNC or to Hillary’s pac to go to him too. The idea that Hillary voters won’t vote for Bernie is just completely out of bounds and, in fact, I’ve been assured many times by Bernie voters that they know they can just “assume” Hillary’s voters while they, themselves, reserve the right to vote third party or sit it out if Bernie doesn’t get the nod. There is no “Hillary or Bust” movement, only Bernie or Bust. So I really don’t know where you are getting this line from. It seems to be a wholly fictional concern on your part. And totally non responsive to anything that anyone has said on this blog (though I can’t speak for other HRC supporters elsewhere).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@geg6: Oh Christ, I didn’t even make the connection between that sad little tantrum and her straight A’s in political science.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@aimai:
Immaterial nitpick:
She spelled it Frances, which is the feminine spelling of the name, though I’m reasonably certain she saw it misspelled as often as not. I’m rather insistent on correctly spelling the names of important historical figures (especially women), pedant that I am.
RaflW
@patroclus:
What this describes to me seems like basically you just want to vote for the eventual president now, and then again in November. Switching parties whenever it suits you to be with the flavor du jour. Why even have a primary then?*
*In fact, we now have dispensed with said rigamarole in Minneapolis with IRV. All the serious candidates and all the whackjobs in one glorious pile, and a computerized runoff that makes yer head spin.
marduk
Honestly this is great. I’ll vote Bernie tomorrow knowing he threw the goddamn kitchen sink. Adds to Clinton’s credibility when she wins. Adds to Bernie’s credibility if he hits the inside straight. Go team, kill those right wing assholes.
opiejeanne
@MikeBoyScout: We had a guy dressed all in tan, pants and shirt, with a black beret perched jauntily on his head. We wondered if he was trying to look like Che, but really he just looked like a guy in a beret. He wasn’t a delegate or alternate, he had no credentials, but he was part of the loud, shouty group to the side of the speaker.
At my niece’s caucus in Federal Way someone protested the Pledge of Allegiance. She didn’t tell me he was a Bernie fan, but she is so she was being a bit coy about the nonsense she was griping about, and claiming that there were some noisy Hillary fans near them, so “both sides”.
patroclus
@PhoenixRising: Oh sure! If you’re from Arizona – especially. After spending time in New Mexico, I’ve often gone to the Grand Canyon, and I’ve hiked down to Phantom Ranch from both the North and South Rim. But you’re already in the Hillary tent – I’m trying to make nice with Sanders supporters, so this (primary season) gets less out of hand than it is already. Actual liberal Dem workers do great work – my brother is friend’s with one of your new members of Congress (Kirsten Cinema (sp?)).
aimai
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I missed the STraight A in poli Sci comment–link? Its a bit Monty Python. Reminds me of the skit where the guy goes to get a job as a lion tamer because he “has the hat” already.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
as I say all the time on twitter – #FeeltheBullshit
aimai
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Don’t I get partial credit for Perkins?
Diana
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah. As a registered NYC democratic voter, all the local elections are fundamentally decided at the primary level — for some positions the Republicans never even bother to run a candidate. So if you live in NY and you’re not registered to vote democratic, you’re not participating in local politics. At all. Ever.
Tell me again how the magic Bernie is supposed to fix everything from up on high?
Gin & Tonic
@aimai: Here you go.
Ken
@Mike J:
Seriously? Well, then, as a tribute to all that Rumsfeld did for this country, Congress should immediately make Social Security a flat tax – 15% on all income, from whatever source derived. Employment income can come half from the employee and half from the employer, as now. Income from other sources such as capital gains, dividends, and interest will come from the earner of the income, as with self-employed individuals.
aimai
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks! Reminds me of my favorite line from the long dead rom com Hart to Hart. Mrs. Hart, super glamorous professor, writer, thinker and quasi spy is brushing up the exposition on a subject on which she is supposed to be an expert. “Oh” she says thoughtfully, furrowing her brow like thoughtful thinkers do “it goes back into…history.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Bernie could have flipped the script if he’d courted the South with as much energy as all the flailing bullshit spinning he’s expended since Super Tuesday. I will always wonder why he didn’t. It was fatally dumb. Maybe he just didn’t think it through, like everything else he finger wags on about.
PhoenixRising
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
AFAICT, the only issue on which there is daylight between Bernie and Hillary (aside from the dispute about which of them would be a better POTUS, natch) is on the priority of reforming campaign finance during the campaign.
That is, both are sure that until this election* money had an oversized role in politics, and both would like to see more acitivity at the grassroots levels to add more and differently diverse (in viewpoints to the left) candidates to national politics. Bernie thinks this can be accomplished starting at POTUS, Hillary thinks that this country will be better off with more liberals and leftists on local school boards working their way up–not coincidentally, that would lead to a stronger Dem party as well.
But on the issues, I’ve heard form a LOT of Bernie supporters in NM and they’re all looking for the same thing: They want a party that reflects all of their preferences, including getting the $$$ out of politics right now unilaterally as the price of their vote, without doing any of the small tasks that make a national party. Also, once they have purified the US political system by getting all the money out of politics, they have no plan to fund any of the activities that make a national party relevant.
There are no ‘issues’. “Our issues” are a fable to explain distaste for a candidate they don’t like…everything else they say is a rationalization.
IMO the burden to prove otherwise, by pointing out differences in these 2 candidates’ positions and plans for ‘issues’, is on them and they cannot fulfill that simple request, no matter how you ask.
*Someone in an actual “poli sci” (who uses that term?) dept somewhere is warming up a dissertation on this cycle and it’s gonna be a whopper. CU lasted 3 federal elections and then imploded. Jeb! couldn’t buy a nomination. Literally. Why not? and What does that portend? are much more interesting and important questions than How can people who were always going to vote for the Democrat in Nov 16 convince people who want ice cream and a pony to do the same rather than watching the world burn?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@aimai: Of course! But pedants gotta pedantify, even about names.
aimai
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: He didn’t because originally he wasn’t trying to win. And it would have been very costly and tiring to try to build relationships with the kinds of serious, base, voters that the South offers. It was easier and more cost effective to go to crowded college campuses and rely on word of mouth to organize his movements. He wasn’t planning a serious run for delegates until after he lost the South but began seriously winning elsewhere.
geg6
@Gin & Tonic:
Hahahahaha, A’s in political history, ya’ll! *drops the mic*
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PhoenixRising: I think CU should be overturned we should have much more rigor in transparency about who gives, but you’re never going to get money completely out of politics. At least I don’t see how you can stop George Soros or Charles Koch from airing TV ads. But I do agree the affect of money in politics can be overstated. The Chamber of Commerce and “Wall St” want immigration reform, love infrastructure spending and hate the brinksmanship of Boehner-era budget negotiations. I doubt many billionaires are losing sleep about Obama’s proposed gun safety regulations. They lose on those issues because of Republican voters.
Miss Bianca
@opiejeanne: Sounds a lot like the CO state delegation. And then what got me into it on FB was realizing how many people I knew there who were Bernie delegates, bragging – BRAGGING – about how exciting it was that these people had behaved so badly, because “FINALLY OUR VOICES ARE BEING HEARD”. I won’t say they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid – but they’ve become a left-wing Tea Party, and they are swigging that tea as hard and fast as they can. And these are people who older than I am! It’s like the old hippy/freak Boomers are reliving some fantasy of “sticking it to the Man, man!” along with young Millenials.
SarahT
@Miss Bianca: We aim to please, Miss Bianca
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai:
First of all, you have no reason to “despise” me unless you’ve made up an entire fantasy about who or what I am. Or unless you have gone so far down the Rabbit Hole that you’ve lost any perspective. And I will say that I find that statement sad, even hurtful and unnecessarily personal, given that you and I are on the same fucking team. I’m a real human being, not a cartoon. I’ve come to my positions on issues in a complex way, over a lifetime of unique experiences, some very painful and disheartening, some joyful and mind opening.
If I told you that my mother was a physically and emotionally abusive alcoholic who during my childhood had episodes of psychosis and suicide attempts, who once tried to kill me and my brothers, would that help you despise me less? If I told you of how I spent years making less than minimum wage to help voiceless, often “illegal” domestic violence victims find peace, wholeness and safety, sometimes at risk to my own safety, would you pause and rethink whether I’m just lazy? If I told you that I spend almost $500 a month working with a local animal rescue organization and right now have a litter of three tiny abused puppies who’s mother was shot in the face and had to be euthanized, sleeping in my laundry room, would you wonder why I believe in the miracle of hope and change and love? If you knew that I fostered two abused and neglected children over the years who have struggled to feel “normal” in spite of what me and my husband tried to love them out of, and who we still welcome with huge hugs and kisses as “whiney 20-year old college students who should get involved instead of questioning the Party” , would you have empathy for the fact that some of us will forever feel like we’re outside the system? And yet, deserve to be given the chance to be inside?
I’ve tried to dialogue with you. You, apparently, cannot communicate with other humans who don’t share every single belief you do. Worse yet, you won’t allow yourself or your positions to change when you’re presented with reasonable, factual arguments. But I still give you the benefit of the doubt, aimai, and I believe that you are a good person. I do not despise you.
And I promise you, my vote DOES matter.
aimai
@Miss Bianca: Right. I am really sick and tired of hearing/reading people describing their experiences as bernie voters as a kind of peak aggressive tribal thing. Its not healthy and its extremely hostile to political action. But if you say it, over at Kos, you will be accused of “liking politics as usual” or being a “corporate whore.” Politics is a team effort and Bernie’s voters are refusing to realize that there are only two teams that matter: dems vs. republicans. You can’t get anywhere politically if you frag the other members of your team before you even get into the big game.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: You haven’t tried to “dialogue” with me. On the contrary when I offered an olive branch you slapped it away by informing me that I didn’t know how to “listen” and needed to “shut up.”
It is you who have told me, repeatedly, that Bernie voters and Hillary voters are not on the same team. As you put it one set is “inside” the system and one set is “outside.” That’s just not accurate. It has nothing to do with your feelings about the matter. That is not accurate. Bernie voters are, by and large, well within the mainstream of the system and many Hillary voters (again, the Obama coalition) are themselves outsiders or impoverished or minority w/r/t “the system.” Bernie voters are whiter than the rest of the Democratic coalition and they are not poorer or more disenfranchised, no matter what may or may be true for any individual person.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@aimai:
He caught the car, so, good job old man, but the last thing this country needs now is a 74 yr cranky old white fart shitting all over Obama’s legacy because he drank his own white male independent privileged kool aid. Go home grumpy grampa.
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Nothing like a lazy literalist who doesn’t understand nuance.
Gex
@Ella in New Mexico: Now, now. You made assertions about a certain subset of voters. Jim was just asking you to show your work. It is not incumbent on the person who doubts your assertion to prove your point. You should prove your point. Him asking for sources to back your assertion doesn’t make him look smart. But you acting as though you should get to assert something and have others take it as fact on your say so doesn’t make you look smart.
@Ella in New Mexico: And on this you clearly haven’t been listening. I’d say almost to a person, Hillary folk have been saying they would vote for Bernie. I don’t recall seeing any “take my ball and go home” posts from Hillary supporters. Seen lots of them from Bernie supporters.
Dr. McCoy
@Miss Bianca: –It ain’t the “Boomers”. They all grew up, and are “the Man”.
Cacti
@Ken:
At 83, Rumsfeld is proof that only the good die young.
Darkrose
@WaterGirl: How do you know when Darkrose is awake? She swears.
Michael
Some people are unscrupulous and voted for Rick Santorum in the 2008 Republican primary simply to torture Mitt Romney. Such horribly unscrupulous people (whoever they may be) should have to plan in advance.
RaflW
@PJ:
That was true 24 years ago, too, when I was young and activated and went to the state convention and saw the gaping maw of the Texas Democratic party spit out liberals like we were spoilt milk.
I’m getting old now, but I see some remarkable young people in some of the (non political) volunteer work I do. If these 20-somethings want to remake the Democratic party as their generation comes up, they can. Maybe not revolutionarily, but in big ways. I think the country is primed for such change.
But it ain’t gonna come handed on a platter. Never has. And it will involve compromise, loss, victory and stalemate along the way. Fortitude is needed. I hope our under 40s have it … we need all hands on deck.
Miss Bianca
@Ella inNew Mexico: Um…we have a selection process that’s open to all voters. It’s called “the general election”. You want to pick who runs in the general election, as a member of one of the two currently relevant parties in the system? Then…why shouldn’t you register as a member of one of those parties?
@Kropadope: So that should be *even less of a barrier to participation*. Seriously – you want the goodies? You want a say in who the candidates are, what issues are to be worked on? REGISTER WITH A DAMN PARTY AND WORK WITH IT. Really, seriously? Too much work?
Villago Delenda Est
@divF: In fact, Bismarck did it to steal the issue from the Socialists. As in, “hey, you working people, look who actually delivered a government run old age pension system! That’s right, the Kaiser did!”. True, the Junkers bitched and moaned, but Bismarck was a very smart cookie, even if you don’t cotton to every last policy he advocated.
patroclus
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I believe that Sanders and some of his staff have a condescending attitude towards the South and Southern voters. It’s not that uncommon – sometimes, even on BJ, when a an issue arises concerning a Southern state, I see some of the same type of comments. But this is just a blog – he’s supposedly running a serious campaign for the Presidency. To write off southern states was a serious campaign miscalculation, but he has compounded it by almost constant churlish comments. Like I said above, I’m originally from Texas, and the Sanders campaign’s dogwhistles are crystal clear to me – it sounds haughty, supercilious and demeaning. If he’s nominated, it would be a serious problem for the general election, even with Trump as the opponent.
Mnemosyne
Can we get a new thread at some point? This one is getting a little bloody. I’m starting to feel like this movie character:
Scott Alloway
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes, yes and yes. It’s a political party, not an open house. You need to join to decide what the party represents. If someone won’t join, he/she can’t complain. This shouldn’t be hard for the Bernistas to understand.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai: would you be so kind as to cut and paste where you offered an olive branch I slapped it away by informing me that I didn’t know how to “listen” and needed to “shut up.”
I learned long ago–in therapy but also in my training as a counselor– that I talked too much TO my teenagers when instead I needed to actually shut my mind off and listen to them as if I didn’t have all the answers. To be open to what I’d learn about them and myself.
And–Mother of God-I actually learned and grew from doing just that. Cuz my teenagers are/were human souls with real ideas that were legitimate and real.
I’m not saying you’re a teenager, but when I said “shut up and listen” I meant that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: What does “nuance” have to do with your assertions about indies and the Democratic party, angry little emoprog?
Renie
As a registered member of the NYS Democratic Party since 1976 I will be thrilled to vote for Hillary tomorrow and hope when I come here tomorrow night to read all the postings, there will be great news and, hopefully, the nomination will be locked up.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: That’s funny, I’ve lost hope that the war criminal will ever be forced to answer for his crimes.
Miss Bianca
@? Martin: I don’t see what you’re getting at. Seriously. I don’t understand what is so damn hard about JOINING THE FUCKING PARTY if you want to vote for a party’s candidate in a primary or caucus for them.
ETA: Just as I despise the notion of being allowed to join in a union’s benefits without being obligated to pay union dues, so I look askance at the notion that somehow people who won’t bother to affiliate with a political party are somehow entitled to a say in who that party’s candidates should be.
Dr. McCoy
@RaflW: —Hopefully true. But, some might see this as a last gasp effort, when stars align. Another 4 years down the line, with the state of education, the state of Oligarchy, the apathy in general, we might be Brazil.
A Ghost To Most
Epic post and epic thread. I gotta finish reading this in the morning. I’m guessing a Tbogg+
Kropadope
@RaflW:
I have volunteered for Democratic candidates and issue-oriented campaigns frequently in the past. Funny, not one of those campaigns asked about the partisan affiliation on my registration.
Ruckus
@PJ:
So now we are supposed to dumb down everything because people can not be bothered or entrusted to find out how things actually work? How many people have explained how things work in this post alone? What part of my comment said that people should not participate? Let me type slower. It is not that they should not participate. It is that they should participate by the fucking rules. There are democratic party rules and state rules. (also republican party and state rules and they are different than democratic rules) It is not rocket science to find them and understand them. To come in at the last minute and complain that the rules don’t favor the person losing, not because of the rules but because not enough people like that person, is fucked up. You participate with the rules you have, not the rules you want. How fucking hard is that to understand. It does not reduce participation to have rules and procedures, all human events have rules and procedures. I know I used to write and enforce rule books for a professional sport. And there were people there who argued that the rules didn’t favor them and that’s why they cheated. They still got thrown out. Because everyone was given a rule book long before they competed. Some had no idea what was inside some could quote any page or paragraph verbatim. Those last types were the ones that cheated the least because they played by the rules. That’s how life works, there are rules, you obey them and life works. It may not work how you like, but that’s why you get involved and help change the rules. I used to tell people that if they wanted a new rule they should write it down and send it to me and I would present it as a requested rule change. In over a decade I received not one written request. Not a fucking one, in over a decade. But at every event someone would complain about a rule they didn’t like. Not one would take the 2 minutes it required to ask for a change. That’s fucking lazy is what that is. Not getting involved, waiting for an invitation, that’s not playing by the rules, that’s fucking lazy. Being an adult is work, harder for some but it’s work for everyone. That’s why so many remain children their entire lives because being an actual adult is work.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai:
And I did not say this, not in one single post. YOU think this, Not me.
aimai
One of the things that I think is frustrating Ella is that people seem unwilling to see Sanders the Icon as distinct from Sanders the Actual Politician. Lots of people have been willing, I think, to give Sanders the benefit of the doubt for quite some time. Lots of people liked that he was “pushing Hillary to the Left” or “keeping the race exciting” or “bringing new people into the party” or whatever. But lots of us were also concerned that his ego, and his promises, were going to get out of hand and lead him to try to burn the house down around our ears if he couldn’t get enough adulation and votes. We were, in fact, quite prescient about this because this is what Sanders is doing, egged on by his more fanatical followers and Weaver and Devine. This is unfortunate–its unfortunate for the Democrats and its going to be damned unfortunate for the country if Sanders behavior, his accusations, his wanton attacks, cost us the election. But I can see that it hurts the romantics out there who feel like Sanders was their grandpa, sticking up for them in this heartless world, and who therefore feel that voting against Sanders is (emotionally and psychologically) a vote against themselves. This entwining of the voter with the candidate makes everything very messy. Because every argument about policy or electioneering has a hidden subtext “why don’t you love meeeeee like my candidate loves me?” “Why don’t you take me seriously like my candidate takes me seriously.” This is my first chance at a candidate I love. This is my last chance at a candidate I love. But how can you have a political discussion with someone on this basis? I’m not “against” Sanders because I haven’t been listening to the man, or his voters. I’m voting for Hillary because I actively prefer her and her approach to politics to Sanders’ approach and because I have been listening to his speeches and his followers.
Mike J
@opiejeanne: Ask her about the applause when it was announced there were no Hillary delegates left.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Well–are we on the same team? Are we all committed Democrats? Are we all committed to defeating the Republicans? Because you have consistently attacked people here because they are Hillary supporters and you consider Hillary supporters to be unsympathetic to young people, or some people who like Bernie, or something.
RaflW
@Kropadope:
For g-d’s sake, can someone drive this benighted person to a library, help them with the task of filling out a library card form, and get them a couple history books?
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: again, you both can go fuck someplace. Use lube, and since I’m a nurse, I’d highly recommend a condom because you both seem a little sketchy to me in terms of hygiene.
Felonius Monk
Here’s another little gem for New York State primary voters to stew about. If you live in NYC and and a few adjacent counties, your polls open at 6 AM. Everywhere else they open at noon. So some places get 6 more hours to vote than others. That seems fair, amirite.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@aimai: There have been reports of booing mentions of HRC at SandersSanders rallies since Iowa. If anything like it is happening at Clinton rallies, I haven’t heard it, and I think we would have from the Martyrs for Bernie!
patroclus
@aimai: Well, I’m still in the glad that he’s pushing Hillary to the left, bringing new people in and keeping the race exciting camp. But in the last two weeks, he’s been veering off the rails a bit, and in my view, that is counter-productive. The primary rules are not inherently corrupt, the Democratic party is not inherently corrupt, ties to Wall Street are not inherently corrupt, raising money for down ticket races is not inherently corrupt, Southern states and Southern voters do have a legitimate role in the process and on and on. And Dr. Song and the dollar throwing protestors and the shouting down of Hillary supporters at state conventions is seriously destructive. He needs to tamp it down soon.
Cacti
@RaflW:
The word “social” was invented by Karl Marx in 1850.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai: No, I’ve raised important issues and concerns and reasonable counters to the “Hil-speak” conventional wisdom. And said fucking a MILLION times I’m voting for her if she wins.
Apparently that’s not enough for some people. Or else the late night alcohol-driven commentary here is all about short-term memory impairment and not about principle.
Jesus it’s fucking Ground Hogs Day every day for some of you people. ;-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: My god, you’re a nurse? That’s frightening. You’re this angry and unhinged because someone pointed out you’re full of shit on a blog?
Ella in New Mexico
@patroclus: totally agree with this post.
Not that it matters because some people will never remember that I totally agree with this post.
opiejeanne
@PhoenixRising: What? Having a wedding for one of our kids shouldn’t be important to us? Having her use our yard in order to keep the costs down is making a lot more work for us, but Jebus, what is wrong with that?
I’m still working with the Democratic party and for Hillary, I’m still volunteering, I’m just not going on as a delegate. We ran for the next level for 9 seats out of about 70 candidates. We got up and gave speeches, limited by necessity to 30 seconds.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Apparently a nurse who majored in political science.
Dr. McCoy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who isn’t?
Mike J
@Felonius Monk:
The NYS Supreme Court last ruled on this in 1982. I agree it’s fucked up, but it’s not a surprise. It has been this way for a long, long, long time. The time to fight to change it was a year or two ago. These fights should not depend on waiting until on candidate or another is going to be hurt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Reasonable and important, that’s you!
all substance you are, Ella.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: You can go back and look. I can’t be arsed. I’m 55 years old, have two teenagers myself, a Ph.D. in Anthropology, did my fieldwork in Nepal on family property law, and am about to start an MSW. So I don’t need any training or help from you on listening to people. Your continued insistence on this point is just bizarre. I have told you several times that I am not supporting Bernie because I have been listening and reading what his supporters say and I think they don’t know what they are talking about. They don’t understand politics, and they don’t understand their candidate, and they aren’t going to get what they are dreaming they will get if they vote for him or if they manage to persuade others to vote for him. But its not really relevant because the time for listening to the crap that Bernie supporters say they want is nearing an end. After Hillary has the delegates sewn up the portion of the Bernie people who are really not voters at all, or who are spite voters, or who are green party will walk away from the party and the election to soothe their hurt feelings. And the rest of the Bernie supporters who are simply ordinary, sensible, democrats will vote for the democratic nominee. No one needs me to listen to them. They will vote their interests just like I do.
amk
@Ella in New Mexico:
nice little racist dog whistle there.
RaflW
@Ella inNew Mexico: It is a little more complicated than “allowing the two party system.” The setup could be changed, but I’ll again sound a theme that is probably off-putting: It would be a fucking monumental task. Megatons of effort. Maybe worth doing, don’t get me wrong. But we don’t just sort of lay about on Saturdays ‘allowing’ the two party system.
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not angry and unhinged. I just don’t give a fuck about you.
Unless you code and need to be intubated and are on 15 pressor medications. Then I’ll bust my ass to save your life.
But until then, STFU.
Ella in New Mexico
@amk: Given I have NO IDEA WHAT THEIR RACE IS you’re basically a troll. Off with your head, now.
seaboogie
@Ella in New Mexico:
Well, I know that I’ve also overshared here giving personal context, and I am correctly ignored unless what I’ve shared is actually germane to the situation. But in the not oversharing department, I made a comment the other night about preferring Carter’s post-presidency work to Bill Clinton’s. I was questioned and given examples, so I did some spelunking on the interenets and realized that I was really uninformed WRT to scope of the Clinton Foundation’s works. I listened to my critics who cited examples, and then got busy educating myself. I was wrong in my assessment, which likely came from a preference for Carter’s more humble personality v. my perception of Clinton’s need to be in the spotlight – which is anathema to me for my own reasons that have nothing to do with him.
But good works are good works…and my understanding changed; I pled Mea Culpa, and am now wiser because I listened and then got curious, v tenaciously hewing to the tendencies that come from my own history.
Dr. McCoy
@amk: No,No,No…..Christ.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
I have worked with it. I have volunteered for and knocked on doors for and made phone calls for and donated to Democratic candidates. I advocate for their issues to my friends and family or publically if the issue is important enough. But I checked “unenrolled” on my voter registration, so fuck me, right?
Mike J
For the Game of Thrones fans: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgX8eWDXEAEvnpB.jpg
Cacti
Bernie’s flight to Rome definitely showed him to be a socialist of the old Soviet politburo variety.
The proles send their money, Bernie and his wife and grandkids charter a 767, and dine on lamb and lobster on the way.
Truly a working class hero.
opiejeanne
@Mike J: That would have been better than what we had. They did take floor votes by counting raised credentials. We got to watch several videos by various candidates, run from a little computer; the sound system was problematic.
When we got to the sub-caucus it ran smoothly. We had Matt Eisenhower as our chair. He ran against Andy Hill for State Senate but lost. I told him I was ready to vote and work for him again next time.
chopper
@aimai:
nothing says “clueless male privilege” more than some dude mansplaining how the word “whore” is totes non-sexual.
patroclus
@Ella in New Mexico: But I’ll remember. Hey everyone! Ella agrees with me, so stop giving her so much shit. Sanders voted for the ACA, he voted for Dodd-Frank, he voted for the Iran deal, he voted to confirm Kagan and Sotomayor, he voted for the assault weapons ban, he voted for aid to Katrina victims, he favors the diplomatic opening to Cuba, he’s for raising the minimum wage, he’s for overturning Citizen’s United. He’s said that he’ll support Hillary if he loses. He isn’t the devil and he isn’t a proto-fascist that wants to carpet bomb, water-board, deport millions, build a useless wall and outlaw women’s freedom. Yeah, he’s been a dick lately, and I certainly didn’t vote for him for a wide variety of reasons, but let’s not completely pile on all his supporters, who we’ll need in November!
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti: I have had two careers in my 50+ lifetime.
Sadly, it required three Bachelors and a Masters degree for which I will be using my Social Security to pay my student loans.
Let me be a horrible warning to all the 18 year-olds who are being pushed to finish their majors in four years.
amk
@Ella in New Mexico:
and yet that didn’t stop you from dropping that turd, did it, shouty drama queen?
aimai
@Kropadope: I don’t think even you know what point you are making. You can work and donate to any candidate or political in this country even if you never register to vote at all–are too young, or are a felon, or just have a green card (though you actually might not be able to donate if you are not a citizen, come to think of it). But if you want to vote in a primary, which belongs to the party, you have to register as a member of that party (in some states.) Its not a big deal nor is it surprising. Just like if you want to be the trustee for an arts organization they expect you to be a member in good standing in some way. Or if you sit on the board at your kid’s school you have to have a kid in the school.
Miss Bianca
@Dr. McCoy: Yes, it is the Boomers. The most rabid BS supporters I know are all in the 50-65-year-old range. If that doesn’t make you a Boomer, what does?
Dr. McCoy
@Cacti: At 74, maybe he earned it for himself. Unless you have some inside info…..
Kropadope
@chopper: Except not what I said at all.
aimai
@amk: Its not a racist dogwhistle. But its just bizarrely offensive and rude. Makes Ella’s occasional forays into sweet reason and more in sorrow than in anger posts seem a bit schizophrenic.
Ruckus
@patroclus:
This is exactly what so many have been saying. Including me. It’s getting to the point that while if he somehow managed to actually win the nomination according to the rules of the democratic party, I’d still vote for him but it would be with me holding my nose and in disgust. It would be my worst case of voting for the least worst candidate ever. This is what running and primaries are for. To find out if a candidate is at least qualified for the office they are running for. As none of the republicans running are even within a Saturn 5 launch distance of qualified, yes I’d vote for him. But I was far, far, far more enthusiastic about Sanders when he announced than I am today.
opiejeanne
@Gin & Tonic: They had credentials, most of the ones I could spot, except for the guy in the beret. There were a number of people who were not part of the event but were there to watch.
gwangung
@marduk:
Heh. Not disagreeing with this statement.
chopper
@Gin & Tonic:
I haven’t seen anybody here say “hilz or bust”. I’ve seen a lot of people saying “fuck that guy” (me included) but as far as I know all of us BJ hillbots will pull the lever for whoever is on the ticket this year.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai: So I’m not allowed to be offensive and rude to people who are being offensive and rude? But you can because you’re voting for Hilary? Or wut?
I’m sorry you’re such a cynic you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Kropadope
@aimai: The point I’m making is that people right here are telling me that just because I chose not to register as a Democrat, that means that I have no skin in the game, that I have never done even the most rudimentary thing to help build the party or encourage my preferred policies to come to pass. These throbbing dicks don’t know me and are wrong and should go piss up a rope.
RaflW
@Cacti: Hey, no Cliff’s Notes!
Mike J
@opiejeanne: There was no list broken out by precinct, so you had to count on the delegates to know and accurately report how many delegates they were supposed to have. There was no list broken out by who they were pledged for, so you had to rely on the delegates who were there to know and accurately report how many were supposed to be. Total goat rodeo.
The sign in sheets should have been pre-printed with the names and candidate of each delegate and alternate. Instead, a blank form with nobody in charge knowing if counts were the least bit accurate. Had I been evil and known how unorganized it would be, we would not have picked up one delegate, I could have grabbed five. It would have meant cheating (and possibly violating the law), but if I were not an honest person, I could have done it and nobody could have proved how any of it was done.
aimai
@Ruckus: For this reason I think Sanders has done (me) a favor. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with HRC running again. I mean, I wasn’t against it but it wasn’t exciting to me and I worried that the field was too empty. But watching her run against the Republicans at the Benghazi hearing, and watching her run against Sanders, has made me root for her like nothing else. I hated that stupid slogan “I’m ready for Hillary” but you know what, in the end, as we stagger through this awful primary, I find that I am ready for Hillary. Actually excited to be able to vote for her and pretty sure that, more or less, I know what I’m getting when I vote for her.
Kropadope
@Ella in New Mexico:
You’re right exactly.
aimai
@Kropadope: They aren’t saying it about you. None of this is personal. They are saying it about the Sanders voters quoted in the NYT article in the head post who seem blithely unaware of what politics is.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Ruckus:
Every word of this. Every word. Shorter: GROW THE FUCK UP WHINY REVOLUTIONARIES
Miss Bianca
@opiejeanne: I think that was intended as snark. (she said, meekly. I don’t want to speak for PR).
Cacti
@Dr. McCoy:
Dear leader is important and deserves things. He hates the 1% but lives it up just like them at the first opportunity.
Thanks for the $27, sucker.
And no, you can’t charter a 767 for an executive class transatlantic round trip on a Senator’s salary. He paid for it with campaign money, but said the trip wasn’t political.
Wonder if the FEC is watching and taking notes.
Ella in New Mexico
@seaboogie: Good for you!
I actually LOVE it when I find out I’m wrong. I get to learn a whole new buncha stuff.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Cynic doesn’t mean what you think it means. For instance, I’m not particularly cynical at all. I may be snarky and rude and I may have made fun of you but I’m not cynical in the commonly used meaning of the term. For instance I’m chosing Hillary because I’m an idealist and a pragmatist and I admire President Obama and I want to see his work pushed foward into the next two terms.
Dr. McCoy
@Cacti: I’m sure they’re waiting for your call…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Asking you to back up your assertions (that turn out to be bullshit you pulled out of your ass) is “offensive and rude”?
I can see why you’re not bothered by St Bernard’s lack of policy specifics, and why his shouting has such appeal for you.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
Pretty much. To quote the immortal words of Beyoncé, if you liked it, you shoulda put a ring on it. Your commitment issues are not the problem of a national political party.
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti:
Yes, I hope so because a liberal Senator who takes time out of his Presidential campaign to go present at a conference at the Vatican on helping the poor and suffering people of the world must be stopped.
Please call the Koch brothers and let them know the details so they can avoid detection in the future.
gwangung
@patroclus:
Seriously. Especially when there are ways to state it without insulting the South, like “Well she and her husband began their political careers there and came to national prominence there. Tough nut to crack. Let’s see elsewhere.”
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh dear, have you not found your tube of lube yet? CVS and Walgreens are on every corner of every neighborhood in America. Most are open right now.
Kropadope
@aimai: Oh, so this…
…and this…
weren’t directed at me personally?
aimai
@Cacti: How do you use Campaign money to fly your grandchild to rome for a non political event?
The Thin Black Duke
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: There’s a famous Bob Fosse quote that I think sums up these loudmouth jerks perfectly: “They’re the guys who step on the battlefield after the war is over and start shooting the wounded.”
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: So you’ll work for Democratic candidates, but won’t join the Democratic Party? That’s your choice, bra. I think that’s a little weird, but to each his own. I have to ask why actually *joining* the party appears to be such an onerous thing to you. Since you’re apparently already doing the work and all.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne: Well, good thing the MA state Democratic party is smarter than the jackasses here.
aimai
@Kropadope: Those were questions. Which you answered. Also the “you” in “you sound” is not exactly a definitive statement about you, personally. Its a kind of observation which you were expected to challenge and respond to. But maybe we should have called you a corporate whore. Then you would be sure that we meant nothing personal by it?
Cacti
@Dr. McCoy:
Oh they’ve already got their eye on him.
Some of Mr. Integrity’s filings have been a bit problematic.
chopper
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
perfect. just perfect.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: that the kind of insightful arguments that got you those A’s at Hollywood Upstairs College of Political Science and Candle-making?
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: I feel I should be judging candidates for reasons beyond their partisan label. Any asshole can register as a Democrat and even run for office. The D label doesn’t automatically mean they have all the answers, or even the better sampling of answers.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
No, I get it. You want to feel like you’re young and free and not tied down to all the “rules” that The Man lays on you. I did it myself for a long time. But in 2004, I figured out that if I wanted to have a voice within the party, I had to demonstrate that I was committed to it and didn’t just have one foot out the door waiting for a better opportunity to come along.
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
Not for lack of trying.
Ella in New Mexico
@aimai: I accidentally clicked on your nym instead of the @. And it took me to your blog in which you say you’re going to get your Master’s in Social Work.
Good on you. The degree is one thing, but the education afterwards is priceless.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: No one is stopping him. But they are queryig his use of campaign finance money to do so. The money that was donated to him has to be handled in an open and above board way. Is that controversial? Bernie has a pretty good salary. He could have paid for his own coach ticket to Rome to give his very important statement on the poor which has never been given in such detail or care before.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@The Thin Black Duke:
They wouldn’t even shoot the wounded – they’d wait until someone else did, and then endlessly complain about how they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and then how that someone did it all wrong. Useless whiners.
patroclus
@gwangung: It reminds me of Gary Hart in 1984 after he lost the New Jersey primary – he kept referring demeaningly to it as “that State” and was really rude about it (saying that “at least I’m not in New Jersey today”). The grace with which one handles defeat is an important test for a Presidential candidate, and regarding the South and Southern states, Sanders has handled defeat there appallingly. Hillary’s chances of taking Florida, Virginia and North Carolina (and even possibly Georgia) are good – Sanders’ chances would be far diminished merely by how he’s handled defeat there in the primaries.
Ella in New Mexico
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, William and Mary. Putz.
aimai
@Ella in New Mexico: Why thank you.
Cacti
@aimai:
Good question.
I guess it’s possible that Bernie is a lot richer than he lets on, and paid for it out of pocket. In which case the slipperiness about his tax returns makes a lot more sense.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: So, the last time you voted for a Republican was…
chopper
@Ella in New Mexico:
♩ ♪ I’m not crazy
You’re the one who’s crazy♪ ♫
gwangung
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yeah, these are the kind of statements that make me think you’re not particularly cogent in your thinking.
You don’t use campaign funds to do that. It’s just not a campaign function. It’s not part of an election.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: Ted Kennedy’s opponent in his very last Senate election, good old what’s-his-name. I think there may have been a Ryan in there somewhere.
ETA: I had also been a reliable vote for whoever was running against Stephen Lynch before redistricting. Any party, primary or GE.
Ella in New Mexico
@gwangung: You work for his campaign, then? You know for a fact he paid his bill with campaign funds? And it wasn’t a legal use of what funds he may have used?
Cuz your on the inside, right?
patroclus
@efgoldman: I hope not. He’s been a good effective Senator for Vermont and I’d hate to see a 3-way race that let in someone like LePage (albeit a Governor) in Maine. As Churchill said: “In victory, Magnanimity.” if Hillary beats him (as expected), we should be magnanimous towards Sanders and his supporters.
PhoenixRising
@opiejeanne: oh dear. That was not a criticism of your priorities in any way. I was joking about the fact that we Establishment Democrats, who are sold out and primed to be purged by the Sanders revolutionaries, just show up, do our share of the work, and go home to fulfill other obligations…because it’s a political party running an election, not an opportunity to yell at the less pure.
Sorry that came off wrong. In fairness of like to point out that it was a Tbogg unit of ‘no, fuck YOU’s ago & that may have affected how you read it.
chopper
@gwangung:
well he did start sending out shit with his logo on pics of the pope, so it looks like it was a campaign event amirite?
Cacti
@gwangung:
This.
It’s not just a matter of bad optics. If you’re spending campaign funds on your family for non-campaign related matters, it’s against the law.
Dr. McCoy
@Cacti: “This happens all the time in campaigns, and the FEC’s rules explicitly allow 60-days from receipt of an over-the-limit contribution for campaigns to remedy the excessive portion of the contribution,” Briggs wrote.
From your source article.
Mike J
@chopper: All I wanted was a Pepsi.
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti: If I made $200K a year, you bet I’d find a way to scrape the money together to pay for my grandchild to fly with me to Rome. Or I’d put it on a credit card.
Which is why I’ll die in debt to my eyeballs one day…
gwangung
@patroclus:
Yeah, I keep forgetting to mention that, but that’s correct; he’s shooting himself in the foot with those comments. Just on a tactical basis, that’s a dumb move. Don’t want that in a president.
chopper
@PhoenixRising:
it did come off as a shitty comment. a case of text not translating well.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: And what would prevent you from voting for other candidates in general elections if you *were* a member of one party or another? I’m still trying to grok this “just because I’m not a member doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to choose the candidates!” mentality.
aimai
@gwangung: Well, this is the thing. The romance of Bernie as a lone teller of truth to power, the last honest man, the man who speaks for the birds and the trees, is so strong that it transcends politics (for his fans). That’s very dangerous. Its dangerous for our society because its so absurd and its dangerous for our voters because it raises fantasies of what Bernie can accomplish which he obviously can not fulfill. A far more skilfull, thoughtful, and graceful political actor than Bernie, President Obama, couldn’t fulfill all those fantasies. Bernie would crash and burn in an instant. And he will drag down his voters with him because they won’t understand why its happening and will lash out at everything an everyone (as they are already doing) for betrayign the revolution. Bernie will end up as either a martyr or a betrayer. There are only two modes of escape from this messianic trajectory. To get into the lore he’ll either end up as Jesus Christ or Shabbatai Zvi.
Cacti
@aimai:
I was thinking Simon bar Kokhba, but either one works. ;-)
aimai
@patroclus: I don’t understand why you keep saying this. Obviously we should be magnanimous towards Bernie and his voters. But will they let us? That is the 64 thousand dollar question.
Mnemosyne
Imma go talk about “Hamilton” in the new thread. Who’s with me!?
columbusqueen
@Ella in New Mexico: You know, repeating this kind of insulting garbage again isn’t exactly calculated to make you look better–quite the contrary.
Mike J
@Cacti: Where’s your messiah now?
gwangung
@Ella in New Mexico: More loose and muddy thinking. Particularly with this comment: @Ella in New Mexico:
Don’t treat us like idiots.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ella in New Mexico: I bet the alumni magazine can’t wait to to feature you, you special person.
You really are extraordinarily angry about being called out for being a bullshitter on a blog. You must have thought you made a great point with that stuff you pulled out of your ass.
Maybe just don’t make shit up to make yourself sound more thoughtful and well-read than you are? I’m here to help.
Cacti
After Bernie’s excellent Pope-stalking adventure in Rome, the Dalai Lama might want to hire some extra security before the California primary.
redshirt
Jeebus a lot of you are being super mean to Ella in New Mexico for reasons I do not understand.
Sorry Ella! Not everyone here is mean!
redshirt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’ve been super mean. Why are you so upset?
aimai
@Cacti: I LOL’d.
PhoenixRising
@chopper: really? Damn. Sorry. I was impressed that they were grown ups who didn’t get enthralled by the excitement of angry folks yelling but instead did what needed to be done & went home to work in the garden. We should all aspire to that level of commitment to politics. The level where it’s not about my feelings, it’s about making my democracy function.
I contrast this to my own ward and county party meetings at which I wasted 2 glorious hours I will never get back listening to purity ponies who didn’t know the name of their own state Senator whine about the corruption. Gardening would have been a far more useful thing and I’d have liked it better too.
patroclus
@aimai: Well, I said it to efgoldman because s/he wanted to primary Sanders, which I think is a bad idea. I don’t know if Sanders’ supporters will accept magnanimity either, but we have to try. Hopefully, it’ll start tomorrow night when Hillary wins New York handily. And certainly by June 5; after California and New Jersey wrap it up. I’m just getting an early start. You can wait if you want.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
Maybe because I live in a state with over 50% “unenrolled” voters and the MA Democrats let us vote in their primaries and it’s working out pretty well here. I think it’s the better model. You disagree. That’s fine, but that’s no reason to interpret my registration choice as an unwillingness to work toward my professed goals or tell me I should have no say in the nomination process despite the rules where I live which say I do.
gwangung
@aimai: As I’ve said before, he’s got the right ideas, but he’s the wrong man to see them through. There’s all this fumbling and political incompetency he’s shown on a regular basis in the campaign. Having true ideals will not prevent you from fucking up if you don’t have the basic skills–and it’s not unwarranted to think that fucking up will create a bigger mess than any possible “corruption.”
aimai
@redshirt: No. We are mean. We have contumaciously refused to admit that if we just listened harder, to the real people, the people on the outside, who are excluded by the people on the inside, who are young and independent, that we would all naturally be Bernie supporters. Ultimately belief in Bernie, like belief in Jesus, is something that everyone has, deep down. Only some people, like gays or jews or hillary supporters, are stiff necked and refuse to admit it.
magurakurin
@Ella in New Mexico: whatever. Sanders isn’t going to be the nominee. Filing deadlines are coming up, so will know soon enough if he is planning an independent bid. Other than that, nobody is going to be voting for Bernie Sanders in November. It really is time to move on…not that that is going to happen, but…
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: Frances, please.
burnspbesq
@Amaranthine RBG:
I’ll reply now, since in November I’ll be too busy helping people get to the correct polling place with the necessary ID.
Wrong. That’s not how actual Democrats roll.
Miss Bianca
@Cacti: Ooh, you’re wicked! ; )
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: Alexander Hamilton was WAY too corrupted by the big money interests, with his Philadelphia-centered National Bank and his mercantilist ways! He was a corporate whore who deserved to have $20 bills thrown at him when he was leaving his well-heeled friends’ houses on his horse-and-buggy!
aimai
@patroclus: I doubt if Sanders will be primaried, but he should be. Because he’s been an asshole to our President and will continue to be an asshole to the next one. Any replacement Dem would be better.
redshirt
@aimai: You’ve been really mean to Ella too.
Kropadope
@magurakurin:
My sister will be. I’ve been trying to change her mind, maybe her opinion will soften by the time the GE rolls around.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Jesus Christ. You’ve already got *everything you want*, then. So, sorry – what is it you were bitching about, again? Why “independents” can’t vote in the Democratic primary?
aimai
@Kropadope: You know who are really the majority of the unenrolled in MA? Republicans who are too embarrassed to say they are republicans. And people who really want to be called “independent” for purely cultural and emotional reasons who are disgusted and enraged to find out they are called unenrolled. I’ve had people complain to me, while I’m trying to take their information and hand them their ballot, that they “are too independent!” like toddlers stamping their feet. MA also has a tendency to ticket split so people like to maintain flexibility because they imagine they might vote the other party for national elections, or for the governor’s mansion (because they can’t make any headway as Republicans for the most part). But what works for MA might jus tnot work for some other state. You can’t know a priori.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: I want the freedoms I have available to everyone, duh.
Matt
Well, state Democratic parties run the gamut from completely morally bankrupt organizations to bastions of activism and sanity…I would see what the locals say before quoting representatives of state parties…the Virginia Democratic Party has been a pretty crappy organization for the last 10 years…it has basically relied solely on the kindness of governors and senators while basically leaving local party organizations to pick up the slack, I’m not sure what it really does but take our money during primaries
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Need a like button.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: You throw dollars at a stripper. You hand money to a whore. The pedantry doesn’t remotely negate the obnoxious sexism the dollar tossing or whore-calling.
aimai
@redshirt: She was extremely rude to me as well. She doesn’t see it that way but then she, and the other Bernie voters, seem to start from a position of victimization. If you are the victim, of course, every strategem and attack is open to you since your opponent simply deserves it.
chopper
@redshirt:
let’s all be mean to TBogg. 40 more posts!
redshirt
@chopper: Boo! That’s just bad form.
Ella inNew Mexico
@aimai: No. That’s a silly exaggeration of what I said in regards to understanding why some people support Sander’s and why some people feel locked out of the process.
To paraphrase the Clinton-Gore campaign “It’s not Sanders, stupid.” It’s the issues. And the way the Party conducts itself.
Try not dismissing thousands of perfectly decent people just because you wish they’d just go away.
Kropadope
@aimai:
As an unenrolled voter in a state with open primaries, I have more options available to me. Is it so hard to understand that I think of that being inherently better, even if 90+% of the time I’m going to keep choosing off the left side of the menu?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
The funniest part about Sanders’ complaints about closed primaries is that he constantly praises the political systems of Scandinavian countries. You know, where you not only have to register with a political party in order to participate in selecting its leadership, you have to actually pay dues in order to do so.
Kropadope
@aimai:
I don’t know about her, but I was dragged there.
chopper
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
yeah but that’s different.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought you left it on the dresser. That’s what movies and TV shows have taught me anyway.
MikeBoyScout
@Mike J: Mike, yes I am. I am not credentialed, but effective politicking is more than getting selected. It’s the hard iron ass work of being present and listening and building coalitions.
And I’ll be in Tacoma for the state convention too. Credentialed or not. So should you.
Meet people. Make the change you believe in.
It becomes your Democratic Party BECAUSE you participate. :-)
aimai
@Ella inNew Mexico: We will have to agree to disagree. Obviously there are disaffected people out there and there are many people that the party doesn’t serve well. There are people who are voting for Hillary Clinton who feel the exact same way but who think she will be better at handling “the issues” than Sanders will. I’m one of them. The Party is an abstraction, a vehicle, a tool. Its too large and unwieldy to be wholly good or wholly bad. But Bernie isn’t going to get anything done outside of the party, and he won’t do anything about the issues which he purports to care about outside of winning the presidency through using the party and then workign with party members to pursue actual legislation. The idea that there is something outside of party politics, different from it, that Sanders is going to make happen (or a Sanders like figure is going to make happen) is absurd. Politics is what is happening right now and its winnowing Sanders out of the picture for very good reasons. And politics, which we will all have to keep pushing on/through/around is the only thing that is going to enable Hillary Clinton to deliver on the promise of the Obama years. There’s lots of stuff that happens outside of electoral politics–BLM, Occupy Wallstreet, hundreds of tiny organizations and that has to be fostered and respected but ultimately if we can’t take back the Senate, House, Supreme Court and hold the Presidency its all pretty much null and void. Sanders to me is completely beside the point. He’s a romantic figment of people’s imagination.
aimai
@Kropadope: No. I can’t think what options those are that are available to you. Do you routinely vote, or even ten percent of the time vote, in Republican primaries? I don’t. Its not my business to interfere with another party’s internal negotiations.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: um…whoa. Glad we…uh…got those fine, *fine* points of pedantry straightened out.
Kropadope
@aimai: But if a legitimately good, right thinking candidate hazards his/her way into the Republican primary (I know…I know), I want an opportunity to support that candidate. Who knows? It could be the person who puts them back on the path to being a normal governing party again.
SIA
I thought surely we’d get a TBogg unit outta this one.
redshirt
@Kropadope: lol
Mike J
@MikeBoyScout: I’ll be there for the 9th CD.
gwangung
@aimai: In my mind, you don’t beat a machine with an ad hoc effort. The machine is DESIGNED to withstand ad hoc efforts. You either take it over or build a more efficient machine.
(And there’s the Republican machine to contend with as well….).
ETA: The Parties are designed to reduce hit and run voters. And that’s for good reason, actually. There’s little continuity and thus no ongoing organization if you churn members. And this is the nature of ANY organization, not just the two American parties.
PJ
@aimai: And yet, despite all your wonderful credentials (how ironic that you would drop that, given your ridicule of Ella), you devote so much time to telling Bernie supporters to f- off and get the hell out of the Democratic party for preferring the possibilities he offers than the ones offered by Hillary. Where do you find the time? A rational person would just say, you know, we disagree on this, but good luck to you. (ETA: I see you did come around to this below, except for the good luck part). Somewhere above, you maintained that you were actually a polite, considerate person in real life. I hope that is true, because you sure come across as a bitter, nasty, small-minded person here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ella in New Mexico: Her policies have been on her website since she started. He had shifted her left on policy. He may well have shifted the conversation to issues important to the left.
Ella inNew Mexico
@Omnes Omnibus: Do. Not. Go. There.
A desperate stretch of a talking point, nothing else, and already floated by some young, shiney-faced Clinton campaign supporter on Hardball. Did not fly. Will sound like she’s playing the gender card way too hard.
eemom
Good evening all. Anything I can help with?
Ella inNew Mexico
@PJ: sadly, I think you’re right on this. But I’ll remain hopeful…
PJ
@eemom: We seem to be running out of Vitriol (TM), you wouldn’t have any to spare, would you?
chopper
@Omnes Omnibus:
yeah but “corporate strippers” just doesn’t sound as good.
RaflW
@aimai: : I try to be careful about word choice. “you are sounding like” is pushy, but it is, as you suggest, a provocation that one can parry. Kropadope says he does volunteer and do work for Dems, so while some of his whining sounds like libertarian gibberish to me, it apparently isn’t his functional frame, nor indicative of his putative behaviors.
Mike J
@Ella inNew Mexico: You think objecting to being called a whore is “playing the gender card.”
You’re a fucking moron.
Miss Bianca
@Ella inNew Mexico: Oh, I’m sorry. Am I missing something? Are the optics of throwing money at a woman and calling her a “whore” somehow, actually gender-*neutral*? Just some frolicsome hijinks from some enthusiastic young people too innocent and pure themselves to see how it could possibly be construed any other way? What a fascinating modern age we live in, to be sure.
chopper
@Ella inNew Mexico:
jesus if you were any more precious you’d be a belle and sebastian record.
PJ
@eemom: Sorry, I was mistaken, looks like there is plenty of Vitriol left to get us to 500.
seaboogie
Okay…pushing it a little further towards TBogg unit…
On Sanders and Trump fronts, it is “I am angry, I don’t like how the system works for me…REVOLUTION! even if you can’t explain how you’ll actually do it! Neither of you were party members (until just before yesterday), and you hate how things actually work, so LET ME VENT WITH YOU – I AM ANGRY!!111!
Did you ever take a civics class? Do you know how the government actually works? Not how you feel, but how government works, with all the branches of it, and what they do and such? Rage-a-holics on the right, and Purity-ponies on the left….
eemom
@PJ:
Just as well….my stash is pretty much depleted after today’s FB wars.
Tomorrow evening should be interesting.
redshirt
“I want to overthrow Miami!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Ella inNew Mexico: Why not? I am a professional white straight guy and I can hear the dog whistle.
chopper
TBOGG! TBOGG!
Aqualad08
@BBA: I’d say screw it and go for the WFP guy. The Dems are so up in the assembly it barely matters. Silver was a joke.
And yeah, those two “independent” Democrats both ended up in prison. Albany, baby. Live the dream.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
Part of the problem here is that you’re treating these like they were the same event. You’re linking the dollar bill protest to a campaign speech where one didn’t really have anything to do with the other. Dr. Song called Democratic elected politicians generally whores, which I think was a bad approach, but it wouldn’t be fair to say he was referring to Hillary specifically.
As far as the dollar bill thing, they were mocking six figure/plate fundraiser dinners. It doesn’t bear the described stripper implications unless you purposefully try to twist it. Would it have been better if they used 5s, 10s, 20s, 100s?
WarMunchkin
The dumb part about it is that these Greenies could actually help out by running for seats that Democrats aren’t able to contest (there are many!). Do that, develop a clear governing record and demonstrate that destroying the Democratic Party actually helps meaningful public policy, and maybe then someone will actually think you’re credible.
Aqualad08
@chopper: Shhhhhh… we have to make it look natural…
redshirt
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
chopper
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
patroclus
Well, I’ll help to get closer to a TBogg unit, but I’m sure y’all are tired of reading my opinions. So, everyone root for the TCU Horned Frogs men’s tennis team to win the national championship this year!
redshirt
@patroclus: No way. Down with the Horned Frogs! Go Salamanders!
Omnes Omnibus
@patroclus: Huh? You should goddamned know that I am a Div-III guy, you shit. Or not. Please respond appropriately.
patroclus
@Omnes Omnibus: I think Trinity University in San Antone will win in Division 3. I don’t know who the Salamanders are. TCU is 21-2, and ranked #2 as of today, but we’re gonna be #4 tomorrow when the official ITA rankings are released because UCLA beat USC and UNC has two victories over #1 Virginia.
opiejeanne
@geg6: Sounds like she’s quoting a college teacher she really liked.
Omnes Omnibus
@patroclus: Good effort.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Would it have been BETTER if these smug little shits – who sound like just the smug little shit I was back in the day – realized that that Hillary was *raising money for down-ticket Democratic candidates*, which is apparently something that St. Bernard doesn’t sanction – and possibly saved that cash to do some good with themselves?
Oh, but I forgot – no one should have to *raise money* for Democrats. No one should have to actually belong to the Democratic Party at all. The Democratic Machine is Corrupt, man, Bernie Sanders tells us so! But go ahead and give him the superdelegates, tho’, because his purifying energy can’t cleanse the country without the Corrupt Machine. Or something.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: I think Ella is a nice person. I have seen her previous posts. I also think that she has gone of the rails in her Bernie commentary.
PJ
@Miss Bianca: Bernie has been soliciting contributions for progressive candidates Lucy Flores, Zephyr Teachout, and Pramila Jayapal. I’m sure that is insufficient for you, but he has, in fact, been trying to raise money for down-ticket candidates.
Miss Bianca
@PJ: Wow, *three* candidates?? That’ll roll the old revolution right along, won’t it? You’re right, it’s insufficient for *me* but considering the purity test I’m sure he made them take, I’m surprised he found *any*.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
Back in the day, huh?
Emphasis on smugness. And you’re also wrong. He is telling his donors to support down ballot races, has supported the DSCC and other candidates in the past. So, you’re wrong, and you pulsing members have been wrong about this from the beginning.
David M
@Kropadope:
His support for down-ticket Democrats seems to be quite selective, as evidenced by the original post. I view this as a bright red line that he crossed here. If this continues, his campaign will end up being a net negative for the Democrats, which isn’t something I thought would or even could happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope:
: Link?
gwangung
@PJ: Given there are 535 representatives, that’s less than 1%. That IS insufficient (and Pryapal is in a deep blue district where the winner would have voted for Sanders’ policy anyways). A more coherent plant would be to target vulnerable districts and flip them from red to blue. That’s useful and would help his ultimate plans.
As it is, it’s haphazrd, unfocussed and lacks coherent strategy. It’s not going to last longer than his candidacy.
opiejeanne
@Dr. McCoy: There was a cute, sweet old man who really looked like Bernie and was there supporting him. He was 74, had white hair (but more of it) and told us about his Jewish parents getting out of Poland. He also told us he knew he looked like Bernie and that’s why he’d worn a suit, and I don’t know why his suit wasn’t rumpled after being in that hot gym for that many hours. Supposed to start at 1 but didn’t open the doors until then.
We had an interesting time, but we were there from 11:30am until after 8 pm.
patroclus
@Kropadope: Cool! The next time he does raise money for the DSSC and other Dems, should we go throw $1 bills at him like he’s some sort of male stripper? Why or why not?
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: “pulsing members”? heh heh. I like that one. As opposed to the flaccid members, which are “party opportunists”.
@patroclus: Oh, no. God no. not only because he’s too pure, but the optics on that image are just *horrifying*.
AxelFoley
@starscream:
Yup.
patroclus
@Miss Bianca: Well, it’s either inherently corrupt or it’s not. If Kropadope and PJ are right and Sanders does raise money for down ticket races, then isn’t he just the same sort of lewd lascivious g-string wearing stripper (er, exotic dancer) that Hillary is?
opiejeanne
@Mike J: No Hillary delegates left? I’m not sure what that’s about.
There was loud cheering for the two “undecideds” who switched to Bernie, and it was pretty quiet for the “undecided” who switched to Hillary and for the Bernie delegate who switched to undecided.
opiejeanne
@Miss Bianca: I wondered about that after it was too late to edit.
Hard to tell sometimes and I my tough hide seems to have a few sore spots after yesterday’s romp and today’s toxicity on Twitter.
Miss Bianca
@opiejeanne: we’re all there, m’dear. I too am allowing noisy fools to upset my equanimity along with the gorram apple cart.
opiejeanne
@PhoenixRising: Ok, I thought maybe that was it after the edit option was dead. Thanks. Sometimes I miss snark, and I tend to be too serious. Also, following a fuckton of Fuck You’s may have helped me miss the humor.
Lit3Bolt
B-b-but John, what about all the Bernie voters who will be D-d-disillusioned when their wished-for fantasy world doesn’t materialize because they demanded it? We can’t alienate them!
/s
opiejeanne
@aimai: Oh hell, one of the Bernie fans sitting with us looked at the loud idiots and mumbled something about Kool Aid. That cracked me up.
Ripley
Show of hands: Who changed their mind tonight based on this thread?
*leans closer to microphone* HELLO? ANYONE?
horatius
@Kropadope: Your SLS (Smug Little Shit) rating is definitely higher. As an impartial observer, I’m the only one qualified to judge.
David M
@Ripley:
Does ending the thread with a much lower opinion of Sanders count? Before I was a Hillary supported who thought he would push her to the left and would be basically harmless. Actions like this seriously call into question his judgement and make me worry about my assumption he couldn’t or wouldn’t cause the Democrats trouble this fall.
horatius
@patroclus: No. Bernie’s money is clean by definition. Unlike the corporate stripper Hillary’s.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I think so too. I did not say that she had a crush on this teacher because that would have been kind of mean. I had teachers many years ago that I really liked, and I absorbed some of their ideals, which is what I meant.
nutella
@Cacti:
This plus the ‘Democrat party’ thing: Could it mean that he is actually … a mole for the other side?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
wufnik
Bye! It’s been a good 10-12 years or so, but the anti-Bernie hysteria here has gotten a bit much. I’ve been voting straight Democratic for 40 years now, and none of this has prevented the steady rightward lurch of the party. For people like me who think that Clinton is Republican lite, no more. Whatever his faults (and I find them constantly enumerated here), Sanders wants to take the party closer to its roots. (Cue fiery debate.) But my energies, such as they are, are better devoted to doing some of the actual work involved in this than reading blogs that treat people like me with condescension and outrage. Good luck to you all.
different-church-lady
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You feel the Bern; the Bern’s doesn’t feel you. Don’tchaknow.
akryan
@Kropadope: If he wanted “independent engagement”, he should have ran as an Independent. He has been an Independent his entire political career and hasn’t helped to build up an Independent party. He’s been free fucking loading off the Democrats to help him get any of the few things that he’s gotten passed since he’s been in office. In return: Fuck owning the Democrat’s name during the Tea Party uprising, fuck raising money for the national Democratic party every year, fuck doing anything hard. When he wanted to run for president, he decided he’d free fucking load off the Democrats again though to have their name and infrastructure. He wouldn’t have even had a place on the stage for debates, had his name on any ballots, or given any national attention if he’d stayed in the race as the Independent he’s been his entire political life. Now he’s calling out Hillary for doing joint fundraisers with the national party, when he has had the same chance this entire campaign but didn’t because fuck doing anything for anyone but himself. Now his supporters are pissed because they can’t help pick the Democrats’ candidate because they aren’t Democrats. It is totally fucking hypocritical. Fuck off.
amk
@wufnik:
good luck with that self-declared indie carpetbagger saving your dem party. you must have missed the part where he declared going back to being indie after this fanciful run.
AxelFoley
@FlipYrWhig:
LOLOLOLOLOL
Applejinx
@wufnik: This. (note my unparticipation: I will only post/snark/argue if I don’t actually hate you people and your absurd, corrupt party). It is exclusively Balloon Juice that is driving me away from even supporting the Democratic Party, so the more I avoid this place, the better, and I wish I hadn’t read this TBogg-sized thread.
Keith G
It’s a weird place for me to be where I am not siding with the revolutionaries – at least not in their choice of candidates. Many of the issues that they are so enthusiastic about are terribly important, but unfortunately Bernie Sanders is not the person that can get them to where they want to be. The sad truth is neither is Hillary Clinton. But, she is a political leader who can keep progress from slipping backwards.
She can hold the Democratic Coalition together enough to be a placeholder until a time when we can get better leadership than we have now. There are a handful of very important long-term conditions grinding down the health of our society. We really do need to deal with these things, unfortunately the political status quo seems to not be up to the task. There is so much that has been left unaddressed. Not only do I understand the current frustration, but I am worried about the growing disenfranchisement and disillusionment which might serve to create future political dysfunction.
While some are very intelligent, none of our current political leadership seems particularly insightful about ways to deal with the long-term issues we are confronting. Like Obama before her, I am counting on Hillary to keep the ball moving until we do get a generation of better leaders. She is up to that very complicated task. Bernie Sanders has not shown that he is.
different-church-lady
@Ella in New Mexico:
Which is clearly the kind of thinking I look for in my presidents.
qwerty42
@Feebog: … Devine was just on Chris Hayes, repeatedly referred to the Democratic Party as the Democrat party. Fuck him and the unicorn he rode in on. …
He … WHAT? That is an old Sen. Robert (Mr Republican) Taft formulation. Even Bill Buckley made the quip “why use a noun when you have a perfectly good adjective …”. Went to bed early with hay fever like never before so only now seeing this. The terminology disappeared for years, occasionally surfacing, and always sounding like some really old fashioned usage. Then it suddenly reappeared.
Kropadope
@akryan:
The Democrats should want that and most do, I believe, but if your such a pure, righteous Democrat that you don’t see the need, that’s on you.
PNW_WarriorWoman
Faux controverses? Lecturing on what it means to be a good Democrat? Ok, how many home receptions/fundraisers have you hosted at your home for downticket races, John? How many receptions/fundraisers have you attended? Tell us about your phone banking and door belling. How about voter registration drives. Have you participated in those? Tell us all about it. HRC will never get my vote.
Paul in KY
@Stacy: Well, she can’t vote this year, so don’t worry too much.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Poor baby, everybuddy cowwupt ‘cept Bernie-wernie. Fuck you and go away again.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Enjoy losing the general election, and sure, my pleasure. You are who I thought you were.
chopper
@wufnik:
but you’re such a consistent commenter here!
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Alas, overzealous Bernie Sanders volunteers stole my FucksToGive file.
opiejeanne
@chopper: LOL!
I think I’m going to be telling a lot of people to fuck off today; or maybe I’ll just boycott Twitter for a day.
Nick Reynolds
Hilary Clinton is Neo-Liberal trash. Spent 6 years on Wal-Marts board fighting unions. Sold F-15s to Saudi Arabia as head of the State Department. And will sign off on Trans-Pac as soon as she’s president. She’s a shit candidate that’s cynical and pandering.
chopper
@Nick Reynolds:
wow, trash and a whore.
A Ghost To Most
@wufnik:
@Applejinx:
GBCBJ.
Buh-bye.
tweedstereo
@Kropadope: Seriously.
tweedstereo
@wufnik: For real.
tweedstereo
@Keith G: Hey, thanks for leaving a level-headed comment that makes sense! They are becoming infrequent here over this election. Kudos :-)
tweedstereo
@patroclus: Doesn’t seem to be the M.O. here.
Bob In Portland
Will they bother to change the name of TPP before Hillary signs the bill?
I still think it would be great to have a lottery about where our next war will be, because we know that under Clinton there will be more wars.
And, yeah, what are state Democratic parties supposed to say when they are caught in Clinton’s money-laundering scheme? The fact is all that money didn’t stay with the state parties. Maybe enough to pay off the superdelegates but most of it landed in Clinton’s PAC. It’s money-laundering to circumvent the post-Citizens United turf, which in itself pretty much circumvented existing laws.
You don’t like it that Hillary’s pockets are filled with money from the 1%? Ignore it. I suggest we devote time about Sanders’ finger-pointing instead. Also, you kids stay off of my lawn.
Yeah, Cole, you may have escaped Republican stupidity but your candidate is still owned by the same people.
Bob In Portland
@Ella in New Mexico: Despite the occasional good discussions on issues here it’s clear that there are a core of haters here who immediately resort to personal attacks. Aimal is one of them. Cacti and chopper are two others. It would be nice if the person running this site (I presume the rumored Cole) would police things a little better but I’m pretty sure at some level Cole still functions at the same thug intellectuality of his past.
So everyone just shut up. We’ll all whine and complain when Hill’s got us in a few more wars, and make excuses why she couldn’t get this or that past Congress. And the money-laundering? Hey, the folks in on the scam at the state level don’t mind, so why should any of us even point it out? So as the fearless leader here says, “Just shut the fuck up Bernie.”
Anyone else here launder money? A show of hands?
Bob In Portland
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jim. Shut the fuck up yourself. Leave her alone.
Bob In Portland
@Keith G: The working class has lost dramatically over the last 25 years. I see nothing in H. Clinton’s resume that doesn’t say status quo, and status quo is the constant slippage of wealth into the hands of the wealthy. And the great minds of Balloon Juice will gratefully vote to watch the working class go over the cliff. So be it. Hold your heads up, villagers.
Miss Bianca
@Bob In Portland: Why, yes. I launder money *all the time*. With my jeans. I love that faded look.
Oh, crap – what have I said? AIEEE…I’ll have to “take care of” you now, Bob in Portland…if that is in fact your name.
bigOlPuma
Bernie is an egomaniac imho.
John Cole
@Bob In Portland:
Go fuck yourself. Is that the response you wanted?
This place has been around for almost fifteen years, and we’ve always had a light touch on policing the comments. Get over yourself, you passive/aggressive wanker posing as a voice of moderation while throwing out insults.
No One You Know
@Kropadope: I thinking that independents in this cycle have demanded Democratic commitment to them, as a precondition for engagement. I can’t see how that works, given that independents don’t actually have a platform, in fact, create an identity of, well, independence.
No One You Know
@PJ: I disagree. I think means that people are being asked to remain in dialogue, not just shout louder until everyone else agrees with them, and then quitting (“GTFO”, as you put it) because everyone else kept compromising keep the coalition together. The pure don’t compromise. We need a unit of people in agreement on a broad statement of values. Having that rejected routinely as “corrupt” in one form or another doesn’t keep the tent big.