Obama: Someone else will be standing here next year. It's anyone's guess who she will be #WHCD pic.twitter.com/tWyHTGjtKk
— Caroline Weatherwax (@CarriWeatherwax) May 1, 2016
Obama jokes that Clinton's slogan doesn't work as well as #FeeltheBern pic.twitter.com/PARprLPhDD
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 1, 2016
#WhatsInHillarysPurse your insecurities about the changing face of this country's leadership going forward.
— Allison F. (@ablington) April 25, 2016
People keep saying to me that if Clinton gets indicted (she won't) she'd lose to Trump. I'm pretty confident she'd still win
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) April 27, 2016
Trump is the best Clinton surrogate ever
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 27, 2016
Pretty excited about how miserable all the worst people are going to be when Hillary Clinton is president. https://t.co/6KiVuYQRIX
— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) April 28, 2016
If not for that last bit — and for all the young girls who’ll finally see a President who looks like them — I’m not sure how I’d make it through till November.
Mnemosyne
I haven’t started making my political donations yet, but I have to admit I’m tempted to get one of those “woman cards” Hillary’s campaign keeps advertising.
smedley the uncertain
Good Morning.
S
smedley the uncertain
@Mnemosyne: I’m not sure what the significance. Not snark really don’t know
hellslittlestangel
Yes, pretty sure that Clinton will beat Trump even if she’s indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced. The ignorant oaf will get 27% of the vote. The dumb and crazy 27%.
Mike J
@smedley the uncertain: People accusing Clinton of “playing the woman card”, which has historically always been the path to getting high paying, powerful positions in the US.
RK
Americans worship wealth. celebrity and John Wayne; Hillary inspires no one besides some older women and is a mediocre campaigner at best. Underestimate Trump at your own peril.
Mnemosyne
@smedley the uncertain:
Apparently Trump made some reference to Hillary not really being qualified because she “played the woman card” to get all of her jobs, get elected, etc, so now her campaign is offering donors their very own “woman card” in exchange for a donation.
IOW, it’s a joke, son. ;-)
Mnemosyne
@Mike J:
Strangely, they all seem to be the same people who insist that Obama must have played the “race card” to get where he’s at. Funny how that works.
nutella
@RK:
Yep, that’s why so many Americans are upset that Hillary made off with a good chunk of Wall Street wealth for those speeches. Because Americans worship wealth. Or hate it. Or something.
Mike E
@RK: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
Mnemosyne
@RK:
You may want to take a look at who the most reliable voters are. Hint: it’s not white men. And a majority of women across all demographics hate Trump.
sharl
Regarding that last tweet, the misery won’t likely be felt solely by the assholes, misogynists, and wingnuts, as Lindy West notes
Not a happy news kind of opinion piece, but a necessary one (probably more useful for a lot of us guys than for women old enough to have experienced all this already, especially the socioeconomically unprivileged).
BBA
@RK:
You’re a troll but this much is true.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
It’s going to be especially fun because you can already tell that Obama is going to be sticking the knife in at every opportunity as well. My only fear is that Trump will stroke out before he can be humiliatingly defeated at the ballot box.
ETA: Also, too, Obama has two daughters and a wife that he obviously respects as well as adores. He’s not going to put up with any sexist bullshit.
bago
Whatever you do, don’t be complacent. I don’t care how big of a lead she has, it needs to be bigger. This misogynist warmongering wealth worshipping zeitgeist needs to be clocked in the head, bled out, set on fire, pissed on, and buried at sea.
Mike J
@bago: While wrapped in chains attached to an anchor.
BillinGlendaleCA
@hellslittlestangel: Obviously you missed Morning Joe on Friday where I was informed by Donnie Deutsch that Trump would win and Mark Halperin saying that CA would be in play in a Trump/Clinton matchup(I closed the TV player window so guzzling my mouthwash would not be necessary).
trollhattan
@RK:
Where the fuck have you been since 1957? Americans worship guns, boobies and flat screens >60 inches diagonal. Duh.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike J:
77 cents on the dollar, baby!
TriassicSands
I wish I were that confident in HRC’s electoral future.
Confidence, or lack thereof, aside, the idea of our first female president is almost as exciting as the idea of our first African American president. The idea that Hillary Clinton will be that woman is less exciting. Her’s will be a similarly difficult task — nearly half the country never stopped rooting for Obama to fail; I expect HRC to get much the same reception — only her negatives are up there with Trump’s. If historians give Obama a fair shake, I think he’ll rank very high among past presidents. If right wingers rank Obama, he’ll be below Harding, when he should be well above Reagan, which could put him in the top ten.
If Clinton wins and nominates a replacement for the vile Scalia, will Mitch McConnell announce that he thinks the winner of the 2020 election should be the one to fill that slot? More likely, if Clinton wins, the Republicans will be begging for a speedy approval of Merrick Garland.
Mike J
@BillinGlendaleCA: It worked for the previous 43 presidents, from Georgia Washington on down.
trollhattan
@TriassicSands:
Step back and look at who the Republicans are offering the nation. Consider how any of them–and it will be Trump without some significant party hijinks–will run a coherent national campaign that harvests more than, say, twelve states. They cannot win. They will not win. The real battle is for the senate, which I didn’t consider in play until about two months ago.
The Republican party is in deep, deep trouble.
Anne Laurie
@Mnemosyne:
From a purely consumerist point, I can report that both the signature tee and the statement bag are very nicely made, sturdy and comfortable. (Spousal Unit & I have been donors since the beginning, but it’s nice to have some political swag that’s also worth using.)
amk
@RK: r2r ? is that you?
Anne Laurie
@smedley the uncertain: Trump claimed that Hillary was “playing the woman card — otherwise she wouldn’t get five percent of the vote.” Snarky feminists immediately seized on the phrasing to produce memes, posts & merchandise about the value of said Woman Card: I used my woman card in the ATM, but it only gave me $79 of the $100 I asked for.
(I’ve been saving bits for a post here but there’s been too much else going on.)
amk
@efgoldman: After jebombed, I thought it had started to kiss donnie’s a$$ ?
Anne Laurie
@sharl: Guess which Lindy West article I read just before putting this post together.
Seriously, when I was a worker bee for Women’s Rights Are Human Rights back in the early 1970s, I did not imagine that the country would make so much progress and then backslide so hard. I mean, Phyllis Schafly has been resurrected to whine about unisex bathrooms all over again! And now some Repub dillweeds have dug up the “betcha wouldn’t want equal rights if it meant you might get drafted, little ladies, har har har!” kabuki — hey, it worked just fine in the Good Old Days…
I keep telling myself this is what behaviorists call an extinction burst — the frantic escalation of a flawed behavior which no longer brings the expected rewards, something that just has to be endured until the organism gets over its mindless panic at the new system.
A Humble Lurker
Sigh.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Also, if you believe McKay Coppins, Utah. Apparently the hardcore rightwing Mormons hate Donald Trump even worse than they hate HRC — his unfiltered sexism/racism/jingoism make it entirely too obvious that the RNC considers “evangelicals” as just another bunch of dumb rubes to be fleeced.
sharl
@Anne Laurie:
Here’s hoping you are correct.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: He’s a bandwagon rider, as long as it’s a Rethuglican bandwagon.
Redshift
@bago:
Fortunately, with Trump (or Cruz), even people who think it’s in the bag will want to see them get crushed by the maximum possible margin. There may be some people on the margin who don’t get involved who might have if they felt it was closer, but I think they’ll be balanced by people who want to get on the bandwagon.
Citizen Alan
Honestly, while I really do think HRC will be a good President, a big part of why I support her is that I genuinely hope that as she’s sworn in, a lot of hateful rightie scumbags will surrender to despair and eat a bullet.
Mandarama
@Mnemosyne:
I sent my first $10 to HRC’s campaign to get one of those cards. I teach women’s & gender studies, so I want to add that card to my “This is what Barbie SHOULD look like” and “Well, I guess the patriarchy isn’t going to fuck itself” buttons.
You know, in the excitement of 2008, I wore all my Obama gear and put all the stickers on my car and just felt the wave. But I live in the South, and by 2012, I was more cautious: what if my car got keyed? Tires slashed? ODS was really scary, in the water here. I really worry that wearing Hillary gear will get me outright targeted. Isn’t that ridiculous? I have to be braver than this.
Mandarama
@efgoldman:
Molly Ivins called Schlafly “the worst case of Episcopal thighs in America.”
Ruckus
@Mike J:
Wouldn’t tRump Tower make a better anchor?
ruemara
@Mandarama: No, you’re already brave because you haven’t stopped supporting what’s right. You just should remain cautious. There’s no shame in that.
I do plan to get me one of those woman cards. But not the black woman card. It didn’t come with that free Obamaphone and tons of free stuff like the brochure said.
Oh, I have to clear something up. Negro Pokemon is definitely an Elon James White thing. TWiB mentioned it and I swear, every conversation I’ve ever had regarding failures within the Sanders campaign, has lived right up to it.
“Symone Sanders, I chose you!” “Dude, fuck off. ‘Acceptable Negro Propaganda Attack’ does not work on me. And you can put away Killer Mike-achu. I’m immune to HipHopHype Spin too.” Ok, that dialogue, that is me.
Origuy
@Anne Laurie: From what I seen in my Facebook feed, it isn’t just the right-wing Mormons that hate Trump. The church sees Latin America as a growth market and his xenophobia isn’t helping, Also many Mormon men and women have done their missions outside the US. They have more of a world view than most rightwingers.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
FWIW, my first three contributions this year will be HRC, Kamala Harris, and Roy Cooper (Dem candidate for Guv of NC).
Amir Khalid
Yet again we hear that Bernie plans to contest the national convention, even as the numbers he needs to make his case keep going more and more against him. Maybe it’s Jeff Weaver or Tad Devine leading him astray, or maybe Bernie’s caught the “I can be President” bug for reals.
piratedan
from what I read here in the locals, AZ may well be in play too. Grandpa Walnuts has real competition this time around and the hard core wingers hate his guts, can’t be overly fond of Trump, so Kirkpatrick has more than a punchers chance to unseat him. My guess is that even if defeated, the fucker will be on MTP every other week as a policy expert.
NR
@Amir Khalid: It obviously won’t work, but the Democrats brought this on themselves by having superdelegates in the first place. Those fuckers need to be done away with posthaste.
Anne Laurie
@NR: Ya gotta admire the irony that Tad Devine, one of the people who invented “Democratic” superdelegates (to protect the party from uppity wimmen ‘n yoots ‘n similar troublemakers way back in 1972) is now operatically wailing about how the whole idea is terribly terribly un-Democratic.
Whose ox (or similar beast of burden) is now gored, Tad?
NR
@Anne Laurie: It’s been over forty years. I think someone could legitimately change their mind in that time, don’t you?
Anyway, I don’t particularly care who invented them, superdelegates suck and should be done away with. I don’t want them ever flipping the nomination away from the elected delegates regardless of who it goes to.
Tokyokie
I find it amusing that this country’s loudest proponent for the maintenance of unearned privilege is accusing his presumptive opponent of same (even when the supposed privilege isn’t one).
Amir Khalid
@NR:
That might be a thing to do for 2020 onwards. But even if Tad Devine himself hadn’t been one of those who instituted the superdelegate rule in the first place, the rules for 2016 were known well in advance. Bernie’s the boss of his campaign and it’s his own fault that he’s losing by the current rules.
divF
@Mandarama:
I actually met Phyllis Schlafly once. Her son was a grad student in math at Berkeley the same I was (mid-70’s), and she showed up at a student party while she was visiting. She was wearing a gold stop-sign shaped pendant which had “Stop ERA” engraved on it. Of course, she was just spoiling for a fight with some lefty students, but no one (certainly not I) was willing to rise to the bait. Finally, one of our more apolitical friends took pity on her and commented on her pendant, and she got what she was looking for.
burnspbesq
@NR:
Wrong on every level on which it is possible to be wrong. There is not a damn thing wrong with rewarding “party insiders,” i.e., the people who do the hard, unsung work to keep the party going for the long haul, a level of influence commensurate with their commitment. You’re welcome to disagree, but there is no principled basis that i can see for your disagreement.
BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq: As Barney Frank pointed out the other day, I think on LOD, if those party leadership types and elected officials are not “super delegates” they’ll be regular delegates. The “super delegates” opens up the process to more “regular” folk than it did in the past.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
I agree.
The superdelegates are democrats who are elected officials or who have been elected officials so it isn’t as if no one ever got to vote for them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: I think it includes state party officials as well. Some former officeholders are also superdelegates, ie Bill Clinton.
JGabriel
@Anne Laurie:
I can believe Mormons/Regular Church-Goers hate Trump, but I’m skeptical that they’ll vote for Hillary. I think Clinton winning UT is almost as big a fantasy as Halperin’s hallucination of Trump winning CA. That said, I suppose it’s remotely possible Clinton could take Utah IF enough of them stay home or vote third party, such that SLC Democrats can carry the state.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Amir Khalid:
He won’t contest only because there is no way to contest in a 2 person race.
This is just a ploy to gin up fundraising.
His fundraising fell 44% in April. I would imagine donations took a steep drop after the NY landslide, which means he’s raised little the last 2 weeks. So he’s just trying to give people a reason, false as it is, to give.
Kropadope
I actually like that “Trudge up the Hill.” Not as an official slogan, granted, but as a liberal in-joke. Perfect.
Although, the implied direction of the force explains pretty well it’s been so hard getting the boulder up that Hill rather than staying in place, at best.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JGabriel:
Halperin didn’t quite say he’d win out here in CA, he said that HRC would have to defend the state. OTOH, I’d still define that as a hallucination.
ETA: The “thinking” seems to be, since the Governator managed to win the state, Trump shouldn’t have a problem.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid: Even if he convinces Superdelegates in states he won to switch allegiance, that still won’t be enough to get him over the top for obvious reasons. This is one of two things, either a play for representation or a play to get the Supers to hew closely to the desires of the voters in their state, but break glass in case the voters nominate
TrumpKanye.Linda
@efgoldman: and this: when she hands him his ass, he will think every day for the rest of his life that he will go down in history, in his misogynistic little mind, as Hillary’s bitch, the person her pumps had to walk across to get to the presidency.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne:
Nice to be reminded that Democrats understand ironic humor far better than Republicans and their air pressure gauges and purple heart bandaids.
Aimai
@bago: look–the sane people are going to vote for clinton and the insane assholes gor trump. If enough sane people dont get off their fucking asses to vote for clinton then its because they are too proud, too lazy, too stupid, too arrogant, or too few.
Aimai
@ruemara: lol
Kropadope
@Aimai:
As a regular reader of Balloon Juice, I know for a FACT that Trump doesn’t have the insane vote completely locked up.
Applejinx
@TriassicSands:
I don’t know. The female of the species is deadlier than the male. The trouble with Hillary is that she’s prone to forget everything and just go for the win, abandoning any principles or civilized rules. The GREAT thing about Hillary is exactly the same thing.
Pretty much literally the only thing I fear about a Hillary Clinton presidency is that she might take it into her head to represent the wingnuts in some way. It’s not the 90s anymore and I can’t see her acting like it is: I’m convinced we’ll never see ‘the transcripts’ because they’re not consistent with her current path. Suddenly, it’s her time (much as it was Bernie’s): suddenly the liberal policies she’s always favored are looking like a mandate.
Anything she did to stay in the position where eventually she could break the largest glass ceiling of all, is now null and void. It’s all politics.
Here’s another thing that’s politics: I don’t think the Republicans will feel as safe obstructing her as they did Obama. Obama has always understood he had to maintain his legacy as the statesmanlike first black president. I don’t think Hillary will feel any such restraint as the first woman president. I think taking down Bernie is just the warm-up. I’d almost feel sorry for the Republicans except that they so deserve it…
It’s ‘be careful what you wish for’ time. I think we can get a republic-breaking victory, possibly wreck the House, end up with the one party government the Republicans thought they had, backed by a Republican-engineered police state and the full support of the Silicon Valley billionaires and all their amoral social media manipulating genius. An unpredecentedly powerful Democratic rule, for… what?
Not the wingnut laundry list. Not socially reactionary prejudice. Not ‘hate’ per se. On the other hand: expanding global power, especially economic, by whatever means are necessary. Military dominance (unlessened). No domestic dissent, by whatever means are necessary (if the wingnuts couldn’t hurt Obama, they’re really going to be up a creek trying to plot against Clinton. And the Berniebros? Please. Cries of outrage are not the same as sedition)
I hope Hillary is game for reinventing what an economy is, because it’s a pressing issue and could make or break her. I want her to succeed because she wouldn’t fail gracefully, so I’m feeling hostile to Bros poking the beehive with sticks. Guys: you can get honey out of that, or you can get a world of hurt. Just because bees scare you, doesn’t make that calculation any different.
I want the ‘alarmingly tough and ruthless’ Hillary for a reason. If there’s enough public support for strong liberalism and progressive values, she will find effective ways to make them happen. I just don’t want her distracted by a bunch of sideshow action and personality journalism wearing a ‘End Corruption’ mask. I wish some people could listen to themselves, is all. YES, all of Washington is mind-blowingly corrupt and captured and totally fucked. And you want to replace it with… what? And how, precisely? What makes all those people just go home and stop being corrupt politicians? How are you going to peel their fingers off our country?
I can believe Hillary will do that. It’s only a question of what she’ll do with the prize, and that’s no foregone conclusion.
Kropadope
@Applejinx:
Let’s take back a few statehouses and Governors’ mons before declaring absolute victory, shall we?
Applejinx
@Amir Khalid: I read that. Here’s my take:
Bernie still won’t win, so he should have just the proportional superdelegates he asks for. Why? To make the ‘contested contest’ look like what it is, a significant insurgent movement looking for representation.
Nothing Bernie wants is inconsistent with Hillary’s platform. Hell, even the economic populist stuff is within her reach if she decides that’s a vote-getter.
On the other hand, using superdelegates to make it appear like a blowout when that’s not truly representative of the voters is a technique to marginalize and turn off the Left, just to show organizational strength that’s not needed against Bernie anymore.
Bernie lost. Let him have his proportional delegates and let the narrative be ‘he represented a major largely youth movement which is still very much there’. And let the conventional wisdom be that the ‘berniebros’ saw Trump and chose to support Hillary without ceasing to be who they are.
This is wholly, entirely about staving off a ‘disappearing’ of what, 40% of the Dem tent? This is not a melting pot. Bernie is rightly preserving the identity of his voters going into the convention, for the expected (and somewhat symbolic) platform-wrangling to come.
And that’s all this is.
msdc
@Linda:
Just when I thought I couldn’t be more motivated for November. Thanks!
Kay
@Applejinx:
No one will care. It doesn’t have to be unanimous. Clinton had plenty of supers and delegates who voted for her in 08. Lots. They know hours ahead of time what the numbers are because there’s an actual delegate vote, the day of, before the evening broadcast. The delegates go into a room and vote. Hours later they call the roll.
I thought they called the states in a particular order to make a certain state the one that put Obama over the top, which they could do because they know the tally for each state hours prior.
Sanders would need a huge Clinton defection to make news- hundreds of delegates switching – or it will just be business as usual.
Robert Sneddon
@Applejinx:
As long as he does what Senator Clinton did in 2008, immediately announce that all her pledged delegates will vote for Senator Obama in the convention. Will he do that? I don’t know although I am pretty sure that SoS Clinton would have done it if the circumstances were reversed this time around.
There is no requirement for superdelegates to vote proportionally as their states went in the primary/caucus. Supporters of Senator Sanders have said previously that all the supers should go for the winner of their states, now it’s proportionality as the California train is steaming down the tracks at what is left of the Sanders campaign.
As I understand it, superdelegates are a backstop for a nominating process, there to cover the situation where there are three or more viable candidates at the convention, no-one has a simple majority of pledged delegates and a fight breaks out. They can also block a Trump-like candidate, maybe. They will vote for the winner this time around and the winner is SoS Clinton, not Senator Sanders. Bargaining is part of the process but it’s not going to change the final result.
Kay
@Applejinx:
So say he flips a couple of superdelegates. He probably won’t, but say he does. It would then be something like “Illinois: 126 Clinton, 116 Sanders” changing to “124 Clinton, 118 Sanders” and on down the line- or whatever the number is. It’s just not important in context other than “Democrats in disarray” narratives which they also said in ’08 based on Clinton delegates voting for Clinton.
AxelFoley
@Anne Laurie:
Shocking. ;-)
Kay
@Robert Sneddon:
She can’t (and didn’t) announce that “all” her pledged delegates will vote for Obama and all her pledged delegates didn’t vote for Obama at the convention. Many of her pledged delegates voted for her. It didn’t matter. What matters is a winning number.
Kropadope
@Kay:
What she did do was move to have Obama nominated by acclaim. For the television audience, that has about the same effect.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, he said that. But he’s still trying to convince people that he shouldn’t just surrender now, so he’s got to have some argument to keep going. I wouldn’t take it as being anything more than that at this point.
He also said at the National Press Club that he’ll do everything he can to prevent Trump from winning. Start around 25:25 or so for the statement.
I don’t think he’s going to be a problem after California, but we’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropadope
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Apparently the idea that the delegates should follow the will of the voters is controversial to some people.
Kay
@Kropadope:
There was a roll call vote for each state. Many, many Clinton delegates voted for Clinton. Ohio actually met hours prior and they polled us – I was sitting with delegates who voted for Clinton.
Clinton did a good job bringing the Party together but let’s not go into fantasyland in order to turn Sanders into some outlier spoiler. There’s no loyalty measure based on a unanimous vote. I was an Obama delegate. I don’t and didn’t think the Clinton delegates who voted for Clinton were bad Democrats. It was fine. It doesn’t matter.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: I ordered one. I was already going to give her hte money so I just clicked the link. I have a few stray bits of campaign stuff hanging around in a box. Figured this could go in with it.
aimai
@Applejinx: You do realize that this? Is completely made up:
Can you point to any time that this has actually been true. Or more than one time? I don’t even know what this could possibly mean. Did she shoot a guy in reno, just to see him die? Did she start a war to fix her father’s mistakes? Did she castrate Bill Clinton for infidelity? Did she backstab the President of the United States while serving as SOS? What are you talking about?
D58826
I’m really getting tired of listening to the Berrnie Brfos complain about the election rules. The rules are the rules. Bernie knew, or should have known, what they were when he entered the race. You don’t get to change them in mid-stream just because you are losing. Many of the complaints are legitimate but they were legitimate in 2008 and 2004 and ……
Organize and vote for the political leaders, state mostly, who can enact the necessary reforms. As for the independents who don’t like closed primaries well join a party and make your voice heard. If you don’t want to join a party and help decide how the party picks its candidates then STFU.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kropadope: Bernie’s statements are a little more nuanced than that. Roughly:
“A lot of the superdelegates announced for her before I even entered the race. We’re talking to them and getting them to think about going with their voters, especially in states where we had blowout victories, …”
It’s a weak argument, and I think he’s smart enough to know that it would take something extraordinary to get a politician to change from committing to the winning candidate to vote for the loser. This counter-factual isn’t going to happen very often:
“Yes, I know I announced support for Hillary over a year ago, and yes, she’s going to win, but I’m going to throw away the chits I collected in supporting her at this late hour so that I can help my buddies – Bernie, Weaver and Devine – who will have almost no ability to help me and my constituents in the next 8 years. No, I’m not insane, why do you ask?”
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropadope
@Kay:
That’s not what I’m trying to do by any stretch of the imagination. I’m just pointing out that the roll call vote isn’t likely the aspect of the convention that will stand out in most people’s minds.
Robert Sneddon
@Kropadope:
Which delegates? The superdelegates are “one person one vote”. Some of the superdelegates aren’t affiliated to a State Democratic Party (Presidents Clinton and Carter, for example) so how would they follow the will of the voters?
Generally SoS Clinton has been winning the endorsement of superdelegates in the same way she’s been winning the primary/caucus voters (currently over three million votes ahead of Senator Sanders) but the superdelegate votes won’t be counted until the convention, if at all. The supers will be expected to line up behind the winner of the pledged delegate race in a show of Party unity because that’s what the Establishment wants, after which follows a call by Senator Sanders for a nomination by acclaim, followed by the dead-enders crying “he sold us out!”.
D58826
Ah I think it’s called winning more votes than the other guy. I thought that was the point of an election.
But lets change one of the rules on the super delegates. On the first ballot they vote the way the state/caucus voted. According to the article I read yesterday that bumps Bernie’s goal by 77 votes. He still badly trails Hillary.
aimai
@Kay: The problem isn’t so much what happens at the Convention as what is reported to be happening before and after the convention which, as you’ve pointed out, is “democrats in disarray.” I don’t have a proble with Sanders delegates voting for him, or even trying to scalp hunt the superdelegates. That is what you would do if you wanted to make sure that Hillary Clinton doesn’t come out of the convention as a unity candidate–what you would do if you still thought that she needed to have a “message” sent to her that she is being “watched” by the “real democrats” to whom she has to prove herself over and over lest they pull their support. That’s basically the message the Sanders die hards are still pushing, by the way. Or the right wing trolls posing as real Sanders supporters over at Kos.
I guess I just think it would be good if Sanders worked a little harder an dmore generously to calm his supporters down and help them go through the convention in a non adversarial way. They should absolutely still vote for their candidate but he should be proposing to put her over the top by acclaim just like she did in 2008. It was not only a gracious thing to do but the right thing to do politically and visually for the entire country. Especially after the ugly, personal, anti democratic party line he’s been running.
The Democrats are going to run a liberal, even progressive, womanfor the top slot against a howling raving loony fascist. I get that Bernie and his fans think he’s the next coming of the partyand FDR/JFK rolled into one but right now he’s just an also ran and the big battle is coming up. He can either be part of that battle or not. Its up to him. But he can’t pretend he doesn’t know how to do it because she showed the way last time.
Kropadope
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: The statement you replied to I meant more as mockery of people whose response to anything Bernie is to denounce and despise, then figure out the reasoning after (sort of a center-left v firmly left corollary to cleek’s law). I described what I think Bernie’s intent was more completely here. In short, I think he’s angling for a de facto change in the role of the superdelegates by way of culture.
Kay
@Kropadope:
Okay. The vote was divided in state after state. Obama won. Because it’s a tv show they know that hours ahead of time. Any motion Clinton made was predicated on the fact that no matter how you sliced it Obama had the votes.
I was kind of amused in ’08 because Rachel Maddow was (to me) one of the main promoters of the idea that there would be some kind of wild ruckus at the convention brought on by a divided delegate count. I watched her the other day. She’s doing it again. I don’t know if it’s nervous nelly-ism or what, but it had no connection to reality at that convention.
aimai
@Kropadope: You know what? You don’t know that even people who “denounce and despise Bernie” for particular actions discussed on this blog take the same attitude towards “anything” Bernie, or even many things Bernie. Again and again people have told you that they almost voted for Bernie, or agree with some of his points, or admire some of his stances. But in talking politics and tactics lots of us have become bored with Bernie, or annoyed with Bernie–with Bernie’s posing and incompetence as a tactician. With his slanging of the Democratic Party as a whole. With his personal attacks on Secretary Clinton and her voters. Bernie is a really familiar character to me–I know lots of Bernie’s in real life and am related to several. I feel no need to spend a lot of time massaging his ego and praising him for saying the same shit my Uncle Alan says at the dinner table. He’s a politician who runs an anti-politician shtick, he has marketed it very successfully and almost did well enough to run as the nominee of my party. If he had done so more persuasively, or been a better candidate, I might have voted for him in my own primary and I would have voted for him in the General. But as a losing candidate he is a pest and not helping me with my main goal which is defeating Trump in the election and gaining back the Senate and House.
Kropadope
@Kay:
I think it’s her television news personality-derived hunger for controversy.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: Bernie Sanders doesn’t do “generously.” He’s a stubborn whiner who’s sure he’s always right. When he loses he’ll still think that he _really_ won if you count the votes of the people who _really_ matter.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: She’s been very bad all primary season. I’m starting to warm to the Bob Somerby view of her.
Keith G
Very true for me too since so much energy here and throughout most media will be the meta discussions (often in 140 characters or less) that cover most everything but the deep dives into the details of policy and their impact on the most fragile in our society.
Mandarama
@ruemara:
You are so kind to say that, but I keep thinking that all these years of struggle for social justice, and I actually let worries cross my mind about how some pissed-off old dudes might respond to my t-shirt. Jeez. I think part of it is that I live in Tennessee, which is trying its hardest to make national news on a regular basis with gun-related stories. And that’s just our legislature.
Kropadope
@aimai:
Obviously these aren’t the people I’m talking about. The people I’m referring to are the sorts of people who respond to my pointing out that Bernie has spent decades consistently working on issues important to BLM such as voting rights, profiling by police, militarization of police, excessive imprisonment, access to quality education, etc. with “Hur de hur de hur he marched with MLK.”
You know, the folk who argue “Bernie has no back up plan if his pie in the sky initiatives fail.” Upon my rebuttal that “Yes, he does, in fact. For example if he can’t get debt free access to education for adults, he still wants to bring down interest rates for loans and allow refinancing and make books cheaper, etc. Furthermore, he has demonstrated repeatedly in Congress that he can pragmatically temper his goals to help get them passed through Congress.” The typical response? “Bernie supporters don’t care about that.” If we don’t care about that then y am I making the argument? Beyond that, who do you think brought it to my attention? Hint: it wasn’t Hillary supporters.
This has been happening from day one, mainly people who are butthurt about things said on Twitter, but would rather take it out (unfairly) on Balloon Juice denizens who are making entirely different arguments. Then, for added dose of complete self-unawareness, call Sanders supporters thin-skinned or butthurt if they don’t just immediately agree. This makes sense, of course, because Hillary supporters, simply by the fact of being Hillary supporters, are automatically more reasonable and always correct.
Matt McIrvin
@Anne Laurie:
Yeah, and a bunch of female Democratic legislators immediately said “hey, great idea; if we have to have draft registration, making our daughters register as well as our sons is only fair.” The tactic was a complete fail.
Kay
@Kropadope:
It’s weirdly legalistic and abstract, in that unrealistic way where people say “this COULD happen” but everyone else knows it’s a remote possibility. I don’t know what it is- overthinking or over-researching or something :)
The Clinton delegates voted for Clinton because they genuinely believed she would make the better President. A lot of them thought that was the PRACTICAL approach- that Obama could not win a general. Our county chair at the time believed Obama would lose. He retained that belief until the Obama organizer left and headed off to drive to Chicago for the victory party. He’s not a bad Democrat. This is what he believed.
Mandarama
@divF:
My condolences! No, seriously… Of course she would be the type to have such a sign cast into a cross of gold. ::massive eye-rolling:: Whenever I talk to my students about women who fought against suffrage and the ERA–making the point that patriarchy is not some cabal of men, but a system– I always mention that Schlafly was a lawyer who constantly gave public appearances and media interviews. They recognize right away the “do as I say, not as I do” brand of hypocrite.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Who? Wha?
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Bob Somerby thinks she’s the Hannity of the left. I’m not quite there yet but I’m wearying of her various cutesy-poo antics and her meandering monologues about nothing.
aimai
@Mandarama: I was attacked by a Bush supporter on fucking Cape Cod, at a pond for people with little babies, during the 2004 election. The guy was hysterical that I had accidentally parked him in. He knew I was a Kerry supporter because of my bumpersticker and he began shrieking “you did it on purpose because that is what Democrats do!” He had a Bruce Springsteen sticker on his car so I pointed out that he must be really really pissed off at the Boss. His wife kept trying to calm him down and drag him away. I thought he was going to punch me.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: Well, I don’t watch her often because I avoid television news whenever possible. She does seem to have at least a fundamental grounding in reality, though. That puts her way the fuck ahead of Hannity, who doesn’t seem to have so much as his baby toe in the real world.
Keith G
@Kropadope: Over the run of a number of years, I have valued reading what you have had to say whether I agreed with it or not.. Thus it seems to me that you are no less rational than at least the average B-J commenter (I meant that in the best way). You do allow yourself to be provoked by some others who are more tribal, more self righteous, or those who just get off on diminishing others whether their observations are basically valid or not. Give such interactions the emotional energy and space that they deserve.
Save your attention for those discussions that come from a balanced and sincere place.
aimai
@Kropadope:
Of fuck off already. This is so dumb it makes the rest of what you said a waste of time. People make fun of candidates all the time. It doesn’t mean they didn’t give the guy a good hard look at his record and his plans first. Bernie’s a good guy who has done some good stuff. But he isn’t the last honest man and his plans are in fact not very well developed. And he knows it. His NYDN interview as a disgrace and if he’d been a woman or he’d been the black guy he’d have received even more contempt for it. IF he had an A game he didn’t bring it that day. Whose fault is that? He originally got into the race to push Hillary to the left. He wasn’t planning on having to deliver on any of his promises he was planning on forcing her to deliver on his promises.
Kropadope
@aimai: One time I was taking a left at an intersection; a perfectly normal left; I kept my lane, I went quickly as soon as it was safe, sued an appropriate turning radius, etc. Dude behind me blares his fucking horn like a crazy person, pulls around me on the right, and cuts me off as close as possible. I couldn’t think of any reason for his anger other than my Deval Patrick for Governor bumper sticker.
Mandarama
@Applejinx:
Uh, we aren’t praying mantises. Not even HRC. (Jury is still out on Phyllis Schlafly.) And why is being “tough and ruthless” “alarming”? Many on our side seemed to want President Obama to be more ruthless towards his political opposition, and one of the arguments in favor of Senator Sanders is that he would be “tougher on the 1%.”
I must disagree. Like President Obama, Secretary Clinton is constantly representing her identity and being judged. When she shows emotion, she is called feminine and weak. When she is tough, she is the nutcracker that PaleoBro Tucker Carlson guffawed over. Even her voice is frequently criticized. And I have seen all of that just from people on the left. She will have the now-graphically-represented Sisyphean task of needing to govern while also being a Symbol and worrying about paving the way for others in the future. Her legacy concerns will be many.
aimai
@Kay: Correct me if I’m wrong but I see a lot of anger on the Bernie side precisely for this reason–that they think Trump is a uinquely bad Republican candidate and so if a Bernie like Democrat were ever to have a chance at sweeping the country it is now. I’ve seen a lot of talk like that online. So the injury that Clinton is getting the nomination is because she seems to be stealing from Bernie his world historic chance to get elected. Conversely, when it comes to Clinton’s chances, the Bernie people think Trump is an extremelly strong candidate and so they see the Party giving the nod to the weakest candidate against a strong candidate.
ITs the same Trump, of course, with the same voting base. He isn’t both uniquely strong and uniquely weak. The election isn’t going to be a cakewalk no matter who is our nominee. Both have strengths and weaknesses and will tackle Trump from those angles.
I’d also like to add that I’m amazed that people on the left still don’t get that Trump is exactly the division of the working class along race lines. Trump and Sanders (to hear their voters talk about them) are promising almost the same thing: rising tide, spreading the wealth, protecting people from the oligarchs and the politicians. The only difference is that Trump voters believe that people of color and ugly feminists will be shut out and Bernie’s voters want them included. But the notion that Bernie can appeal to Trump voters (the “independents”) is ridiculous precisely because of that difference. Trump independents (republican leaning independents) don’t want a non racist solution to economic problems.
Kropadope
@Keith G: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Unfortunately, some of the people I described in my post just now were people who, in the past, I felt were reasonable and whose opinions I valued. It’s really tough to watch that change in tone from so many people and to read comment threads larded up with endless “don’t Bernie and his supporters suck?” (Regardless of the presence or lack of Bernie supporters doing the things they were complaining about)
I decided for a few weeks to be the monster they seemed to want to believe I was and it was fun for a little while, but got old fast. It was pretty impressive, though, how similar the responses I got were whether I used logic or emotional ranting.
aimai
@Kropadope: YEs, I used to keep track of bumper stickers for just that reason. I mean–my theory that people with Scott Brown or Don’t Tread On Me or the various anti Obama stickers would be assholes has been borne out. But I also realized I tended to be more forgiving for people with Liz Warren stickers, even when they seemed to be doing kooky things in traffic. I instinctively assumed that they were “rushing to the hospital” or “having an emergency” or just hadn’t seen me. There is a great book on this subject “Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me” about the science of motivated reasoning.
Kropadope
@aimai:
That has nothing to do with making fun of a candidate. Also, there was one time here that someone explicitly argued that what I’m saying doesn’t have any merit because I’m supporting Bernie. It wasn’t some rando schmuck either, but a pretty well-regarded poster here.
Mandarama
@aimai: @Kropadope: Holy crap. My husband is from Massachusetts, and he has been telling me for years that there is plenty of crazy in his home state as well. It just seems so unlikely when y’all elect people like Elizabeth Warren, and I am from the land of Trent Lott.
Mr. MA and I have spent the last 25 years discovering all the ways that we essentially grew up in different countries. Two Americas, indeed. Is it comforting or depressing to know that assholes are the same everywhere?
Kropadope
@Keith G:
Also, it’s an unfortunate truth in this world that controversy draws more attention than sincere argumentation. “Clickbait” is a real phenomenon.
aimai
@Kropadope: “How similar the responses were whether I used logic or emotional ranting?” That’s a really odd thing to base your argument on–your argument that other people are not arguing in good faith, or that other people are just dismissive or nasty with no cause. People here are regulars. Regulars have a persona and a history. If I respond to Kay I know she is a long time political activist with a deep and important understanding of Democratic Politics. Or if I’m talking to efGoldman I know he has a daughter, who he loves, and a new granddaughter. So we might have conversations about those things. IF he’s having an off day my ressponses will be tailored to fit the person I know he is. If you are not maintaining a consistent persona, and jumping about between ranting and (as you see it) logic which Kropadope am I supposed to respond to? How are my responses “wrong” if I respond to rants as rants and respond to the “logic” bits as misdirection or unresponsive to previous arguments you brought up?
Parenthetically I thought I was misremembering you because I remembered “Kropadope” as being quite an unpleasant fellow. Then you had several days when you were calm and rational and added to the discussion, then you went back to slanging everyone for not being sufficiently enamored of Bernie. So perhaps the situation was not the way you thought: perhaps people were simply responding to you in kind, or missed your rational comments and were responding to your intemperate ones?
aimai
@Kropadope: Heh. I assumed it was me! But well regarded puts the shiv in that!
Kropadope
@Mandarama: In fact, if you came to MA completely unaware of our politics and judged it solely on interactions with random people who simply volunteered their opinions to you, your impression would likely be that we are a nutty right-wing bastion.
Kropadope
@aimai:
One personal failing of mine is that I am horrible at remembering names, so even though I’ve been here a long time there are very few commenters about whom I remember personal details. My tendency is just to respond to arguments as presented on a particular thread.
And if the first time I caught your attention was in that two or three week span that I was pretending to plan to boycott the Democrats and was just slagging on a bunch of people who pissed me off, I could see where you might have considered me an unpleasant person. Still, I try to stick to facts and reasoning (for the most part) when posting here. My “emotional ranting” as I described was an intentional choice that I stuck to consistently for a discrete period of time, so I do believe I can fairly say that I used both approaches in scenarios that were separable enough for me to determine that both approaches achieved similar responses from certain bad actors (not everyone, of course).
D58826
I know Sully isn’t the most popular voice around here but he has a long piece on Huffington today in which he makes two interesting points. Many contend, of course, that American democracy is actually in retreat, close to being destroyed by the vastly more unequal economy of the last quarter-century and the ability of the very rich to purchase political influence. This is Bernie Sanders’s core critique. But the past few presidential elections have demonstrated that, in fact, money from the ultrarich has been mostly a dud
Sanders, who is sustaining his campaign all the way to California on the backs of small donors and large crowds, is, to put it bluntly, a walking refutation of his own argument.
Kay
@aimai:
It’s probably a mix of that. My middle son is a Sanders supporter and he genuinely believes Clinton will lose, so if I say to him “how could you risk Trump?” it doesn’t make a dent. Part of this is (frankly) because he’s young and he doesn’t understand the difference btwn advocacy for a particular position or candidate and what will actually happen. His union are Sanders supporters because they are advocates and advocates push and part of pushing is saying you will win, you are the majority position, the other guy will lose,etc. It doesn’t mean that much in that context, but to him it’s just people stating facts.
Kropadope
@D58826:
Sully is the one who helped me discover this site, so I can’t blame y’all for hating him.
Kay
@aimai:
I do think there’s a lot of truth to the idea that Clinton’s supporters in ’08 were the “regulars” of the Dem Party so more reliable and likely to come along but to me whatever Sanders voters are they are “voters” which is a good problem to have, voters, so I can’t imagine complaining about them as potentially disloyal.
I think we should also maybe figure it out, because my sense is younger voters believe political Parties are olde-timey and many of them don’t believe they belong to one. If I’m like “you’re a bad Democrat” they say “that’s okay because I’m not a Democrat”.
D58826
@Kay: I agree. Look if the Bernie magic can be distilled and bottled then the democrats should be selling it on Amway.
gogol's wife
@bago:
Absolutely.
FlipYrWhig
@D58826: “The Bernie magic” is 45% liberals eager for a battling populist candidacy (most of the people older than 30), 20% a mishmash of complaints about money, corruption, and banks (most of the people younger than 30), and 35% skepticism-slash-boredom with The Clintons (a combination of the older and younger Sandernistas). I don’t think it’s magic nor bottle-worthy. The first group and the older part of the third is Dean ’04 and Edwards ’08. The second group is the only interesting one.
gogol's wife
@efgoldman:
No, he’s always been anti-Trump. He’s had to shift his allegiance from Jeb to Marco to Cruz. It’s srv who’s the Trump troll.
negative 1
@Applejinx: Why would you think she would do that, I’m genuinely curious? She appears to be very politically similar to Obama so far from her campaigning; for instance she wants to use existing ideas to combat speculative trading (Dodd Frank vs ending the Bank Holding Act); favors tax breaks to corporations for manufacturing jobs created in the US vs tearing up free trade agreements (see bullet point 2 https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/manufacturing/ ) and her jobs platform could literally have been lifted from the ARRA (minus the unemployment benefits extension which was more a product of the cratering economy in 2009). This, and she’s campaigning for the Democratic vote so there is every reason she won’t become *more* liberal in the general since everyone tacks more to the middle when they’re done the primaries. I know any time I ask questions here I get flamed but I genuinely don’t see any difference between her and Obama on any kind of real level.
negative 1
@Kay: Unless a political party pays your salary in some way I don’t know why anyone should care about party affiliation as a ‘loyalty’ idea anyway. The idea of political parties as ideologically homogeneous is fairly recent anyway, and honestly may not survive forever (what are Blue Dogs if not conservatives?) I’m not a millenial and I truly only care about the issues I’m voting for; if a Republican were to suddenly come out in favor of tearing up free trade, protecting the environment, ending college debt and ensuring a $15 minimum wage who among us wouldn’t vote for that person and why?
They are at heart private fundraising groups. That is their mission.
D58826
Give them credit for vision if not understanding exactly how ‘Congress’ is elected.
D58826
@negative 1:
Well assuming his democratic opponent isn’t a grand dragon of the KKK, it is because this mythical republican doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You need 218 votes in the House and 51 in the Senate to elect a leader and control the legislative calendar. You also need the same number of votes (60 in the senate due to the filibuster) to pass legislation. One idealistic Republican will not make a bit of difference to the crazy party.
chopper
@Kropadope:
yeah, those and all those other threads.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@divF: When I was in college I briefly hung around with a bunch of Young Conservative dudes. It was more of a social hadn’t-found-my-place kinda thing, rather than me actually agreeing with their politics. They used to sit around listening to Rush Limbaugh and play video golf on their HP computers. Anyways, one day they encouraged me to go see some conservative speaker who was visiting our campus. It was Phyllis Schlafly. I went with them and it was crazy. She was ranting about Bill Clinton and how he was ruining America and people were cheering and laughing and getting all riled up. I remember thinking: what the hell are these people talking about. We weren’t at war, the economy was booming etc. It was the first time I realized how these people live inside a fantasy world that allows them to scream and holler and fret for…reasons. It was also probably the first time in my life that I realized that while I had no idea if I was a Democrat, I definitely was NOT on board with these bitter whackos.
schrodinger's cat
@negative 1: I wouldn’t because economic issues are not the only issues that matter.
Citizen_X
@Kay:
Pfft. That’s what the founding fathers thought, too, two centuries and change ago, and they were pretty swiftly proved wrong.
People coalesce into political factions, which form parties. Our system is such that there will be only two viable parties at any given time. If you don’t like that, you’re gonna have to change the Constitution. ETA: You’re still going to be stuck with parties of some form.
DCF
@TriassicSands:
Obama Roasts Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton At 2016 WHCA Dinner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmBQhW3C00
Against Fortress Liberalism
For forty years, liberals have accepted defeat and called it “incremental progress.” Bernie Sanders offers a different way forward.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-dnc-primary-moderates/
FlipYrWhig
@negative 1: For Applejinx it’s very important to see Hillary as ruthlessly ambitious, self-interested, and a blank slate, because that way he can read any evidence of her liberalism as proof that she’s been pushed in that direction by the overwhelming popularity of the ideas that people like Applejinx and Bernie Sanders believe. And this is the MOST positive version of Hillary Clinton Applejinx can come up with.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: “Ineffectual lefty purists say that being ineffectual lefty purists is the wave of the future. For proof, read some more links from ineffectual lefty purists!”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Uncle Ebeneezer: Reminds me of my freshman year in college (’79-’80). I’d attend “Spartacus Youth League” meetings occasionally to get their perspective and argue with them a bit. They had a way of looking at things that was so disconnected to what seemed to me to be reality.
I still remember one person talking about how horrible it was in Afghanistan for women because they were forced to wear veils and they would get tuberculosis and so on due to the patrimony and the traditional tribal society, so we should support the Soviets in their invasion and modernization efforts, to protect the women…
Kinda like the arguments many of W’s people were making 20+ years later.
:-/
It’s sorta amazing how the human brain can construct such intricate models of reality that are so different from person to person.
Cheers,
Scott.
smedley the uncertain
@Mnemosyne: Thanks Senator. Have to buy a couple for the family.
D58826
@Citizen_X: Even in countries like Israel with a coalition government they still have parties.
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
The ‘purity’ trope is beyond tired. FYW – and is inaccurate/misleading as well…perhaps, someday, the cynicism and defeatism so consistently evident in your comments will no longer be emblematic of the current Democratic party establishment….
Amaranthine RBG
The conventional wisdom is that Clinton will crush Trump.
That’s -tribally what presumptive GOP Jeb Bush thinks, too.
D58826
@DCF: Yep ‘incremental progress’ the past 8 years has sure been a failure. Let’s list them –
Obamacare – fail
repeal doma/dadt – fail
dodd frank financial reform – fail
opening to Cuba – fail
avoiding war with Iran – fail
saving the domestic auto industry – fail
72 months of economic growth – fail
unemployment at 5% – fail
Yep nothing but epic failure using the incremental approach.
To twist a phrase from that old war criminal Rumsfield – ‘you campaign with the electorate you have not the one you want’ and for most of those 40 years the electorate leaned more to the right than ther left and certainly not as far left as Bernie.. Just ask President Mondale..
scav
@Citizen_X: I mean, people working together long term to obtain objectives, what is this antiquated BS? It’s always a little disconcerting to see the distinctions that can be made between collectives of people. Governments Bad / Corporations Good (even with a revolving door of individuals circulating between the two). Unions Good / Political Parties Bad (or the opposite) even when political parties are rather like collective bargaining by people not in the same industrial field. Yes, institutionalized coalitions can go off the rail and be distorted by fossilized structures and self-serving individuals, but that’s common to all of them, not just the target du jour.
Kay
@negative 1:
Right, and everyone has “most important issues”- you just listed yours. The idea that Sanders supporters are unique in believing their issues are the most important is just not true. Ted Strickland is pro-death penalty and pro-gun. The notion that he’s not “a Democrat” because he veers on guns is ridiculous.
DCF
@D58826:
It would genuinely help our exchange of views if you would 1) drop the defensiveness around current Democratic party neo-liberalism and 2) read the included quotes in their entirety:
FlipYrWhig
@DCF:
I’m not sure how losing and calling it radical qualifies as a “way forward,” but that’s Bernie-ism for you.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: So was Obamacare the result of a “brief flurry of bold action” or slow-moving incrementalism? Because it kind of seems like your rogue’s gallery of nitwits likes to talk about it both ways, depending on their mood, and depending on how much they want to bullshit about how well anything they want to do has ever worked or ever remotely come to pass.
DCF
Neoliberalism Is Destroying Our Lives and Many of Us Don’t Even Know What It Is
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/neoliberalism_is_destroying_our_lives–and_many_of_us_20160427
Read the entire article here:
The Zombie Doctrine
http://www.monbiot.com/2016/04/15/the-zombie-doctrine/
DCF
@FlipYrWhig:
How about ‘…a brief flurry of bold incrementalism’?….
Your deprecating and dismissive tone (and perspective) makes me wonder how you even manage to get out of bed in the morning….
D58826
I guess what I find most depressing about the current political environment is the federal government cant even address the threat of the Zita virus because of the political paralysis in Washington. The feds are unprepared due to lack of money and so are the states. Currently Obama is moving 500 million from the Ebola fund to the Zita fund as a stop gap. The pain, and some might say well deserved pain, well be felt in the deep red Gulf states as that will be area most heavily impacted by the epidemic.
Kropadope
@D58826:
Funny, your list of “incremental” achievements looks like a series of either large-scale interventions into the economy or complete reversals of prior policy. I’m all for incrementalism and have lauded both candidates’ similar history of success at making incremental policy changes, but your list does not reflect incremental policy change at all.
negative 1
@Kay: I don’t disagree that everyone has electoral priorities, I tried to list the most liberal ones I could think of and probably listed my own. Ironically though it seems to strengthen my argument about the limits of ideological homogeneity.
Basically if the argument is that Bernie’s supporters are more interested in their ideals than the label of a fundraising organization why are we surprised? I’m more surprised that this is an issue. Here’s the thing — I live in an area that is so heavily Democratic that there are frequently conservative and liberal Democrats running against each other. In a two party system there will always be an opposing party. Always. So rather than support liberal ideals we care which party? What if in 15 years a triangulation has them voting for closed borders against new immigrant group x — do we suck it up? Obviously I don’t expect you to say yes. It’s my point that to all of us the ideals matter more than the actual party.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: Political change tends to happen when politicians… do… stuff. That’s all you’ve listed. It’s not a theory of change. It’s certainly not a theory of change due to “mobilization” of some sort. Why are you so intent on peddling fables about how radicalism is just around the corner if we just try? It’s not remotely true. That’s the whole bloody point. IT IS FUCKING HARD. IT IS FUCKING FRUSTRATING. It requires thankless work. It doesn’t just spontaneously go right because an shouty old man wills it to be so.
D58826
@DCF: And exactly what triggered those ‘brief bold flurries’ of action? Surely Bernie isn’t suggesting that in order to replicate the new deal we have another great depression. And even Obama’s bold moves owed as much to luck (Arlan Spector providing a critical 60th vote) as bold vision/action For better or worse our system is designed with a multitude of veto points. It seems designed to favor, using a baseball analogy, a team that scores runs using a lot of singles and doubles rather than a team than depends on the home run and grand slam. Hillary/Obama are singles and doubles hitters. FDR could go for the home ruin because of the depression. Bernie is playing for the home run but I don’t think the environment is right for it. .
D58826
@Kropadope: Well Bernie doesn’t seem to think they were bold changes since he is running against the Hillary ‘third term’ Obama. He doesn’t like Obamacare, not bold enough. Dodd-Frank doesn’t break up the big banks so its not bold enough.
Kay
This is from 1993- Bill Clinton:
Can you see how people who have been listening to Democrats say these same things for years and years while income inequality increases might believe something more radical is called for?
“Growing wage gap” kept growing.
That’s not unimaginable, right? I hear it myself. I cringe a little when I hear “green energy jobs” simply because I have heard it for so long :)
aimai
@Kay: I’m not really interested in accusing anyone of being a “bad democrat”–I don’t think that is a relevant issue when talking to new, young, voters. But we aren’t always having that conversation. Sometimes we are talking about politics and tactics in a complex general election in which you have to first figure out who your base voters are–who are the people who, if they turn out (and they have some history of doing so) are going to win you the election. Historically the Democrats have turned to the center/white male voter even as that voter was proving unreliable or rejecting the Democrats because of racism/misogyny/homophobia. This year the Democrats, as a party, are turning towards AA and Hispanic voters, and young white college age or college voters. That is an ENORMOUS step forward. That, in and of itself, pushes the party to the “left” where left means a progressive perspective, if not specifically a marxist perspective. I think that is something to be celebrated.
As for “young voters” there is mounting evidence that young voters, to the extent that they are going to vote, are going to support the candidate and the party that most closely aligns with their interests. Not all of their interests since neither party nor candidate can legitimately propose to entirely reverse decades of economic harm or the fact that there are many stakeholders and regional divisons that will persist regardless of who gets the top slot. But very few are going to sit this one out because they “don’t like the Democrats” or, if they do, we have to look hard both at “the democrats” and at the current darling of the far left edge of the party who ran against the democrats and specifically called out President Obama and SOS Clinton as basically crooks, liars, and tools of the oligarchy. Bernie and his surrogates called out “fire” in a hotly contested political debate and can’t pretend to be shocked that people got crushed as others stampeded for the exits. If, indeed, that is what is happening.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Something more radical having come to pass would be good. We should have this, we should have that, it’s stupid that we don’t. You name it; I’m virtually positive I already agree. Asking for it is the easiest part. _Getting_ something radical seems to be a trifle difficult. _Organizing_ to get something radical, knowing that there are headwinds and structural forces and all manner of opposition already against you, that’s where the rubber hits the road. I don’t see that Sanders’s rubber is anywhere near the road.
D58826
@Kay: I understand what your saying but ‘hamstrung by tight budgets’ and a 60 vote threshold in the Senate means nothing will happen until those changes happen. Clinton had a two year window but could not get Hillarycare pasted. In 1994 he lost the House and the Senate. Obama had a brief, not even two year window if you include the Scott Brown era, in which he got a lot done. The window slammed shut in 2010 with the loss of the House. And until something happens to reopen that window the best that will happen is to work the margins. I’m not opposed to pushing for the more ‘radical’ as long as it wins elections. Bernie or someone like him has to move that bell curve of voters in the middle to the left and start turning red states at least pink where a blue dog has a chance of winning.
prob50
@BillinGlendaleCA:
But you get shy-nee coins instead of dirty old grubby looking paper. Then make pritty necklace out of dimes and wear it to accentuate breasts in order to please men who make 30% more than you for same work. As a bonus you also get disrespected by a crasshole like Donald Drumph.
Yeah, baby, we get so excited when you work that woman’s card.
aimai
@Kay: I missed this because I just got in. Let me respond by saying “tough crowd.” Sure, Democrats have been fighting to close the wage gap for a really long time. And you fault them for not being able to do so? They aren’t magicians! The wage gap arose because 1) Republican union busting, 2) sclerotic and racist/classist unions that didn’t accept women and minorities early enough, 3) careful breaking of private unions and now attacks on public unions which didn’t stand together against unionbusting, 3) globalization and mobile capital, 4) consumer demand for low cost items, 5) producer demand for open markets for American goods, 6) enormous military budgets, 7) inability to do anything because half the country reliablly votes for REPUBLICANS all the fucking time regardless of promises or offers Democrats may make because: racism, religious bigotry, misogyny, homphobia, and xenophobia.
Against these headwinds no one can make much headway. This isn’t because there is something other than job retraining and green jobs (or tech jobs) that can be done. You don’t have to convince the Democrats to do something, you have to convince voters to stop voting for Republicans who are averse to letting anyone else do anything.
Kay
@aimai:
All I’m doing is trying to put the Sanders campaign into context. The first campaign that I saw do effective outreach to young voters was not Obama’s- it was John Kerry’s. Obama built on Kerry here (Ohio). I know because there was this big drama with the lists – would Kerry “turn them over” to Obama or whatever. Kerry’s was actually the first “data-heavy” campaign I saw- they had reams of it. My point is no one can deliver voters for someone else. Sanders identified younger voters (email addresses) and got a large group of them to vote and a larger group to attend a rally. That’s a piece she’ll have to put together. I personally think Sanders campaign managers are 1. gross and 2. borderline grifters but that’s not a reflection on his supporters. There were a lot of grifters around in ’04 in the Kerry orbit.
Kay
@aimai:
I think they would say it was not a priority. There’s truth to that. Clinton spent enormous political capital on trade deals. It was reported that the Obama Administration spent a solid year, all hand’s on deck, for the TPP. They want to see equal energy put towards their economic issues.
Kropadope
@D58826:
Funny, considering he contributed to its development and voted for it. He points out, correctly, as anyone here would tell you, that it doesn’t solve all the problems in our healthcare system. This idea that he wants to get rid of it or even simply doesn’t like it has been false from the start.
D58826
First point – I think just about everyone on this thread believes that access to affordable health care is a basic human right. You can’t enjoy the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration when your sick.
Second point – For a long time I thought that a single payer system was the way to go. Richard M. has explained in great detail why this might not be achievable.
The US tried for years to pass some type of healthcare and failed. In 2009 the stars aligned and by the skin of it’s teeth Obamacare was passed. Even with the congressional majorities that Obama had there were not enough votes to pass single payer. There were not enough votes to pass the public option. I don’t think the democrats should have to apologize for the fact that they ‘settled’ for Obamacare. It is way better than what came before and with some changes in the congressional map can be amended to fix some of its weaknesses. Yet Bernie is campaigning on replacing it with his single payer plan. Would President Sanders in 2009 backed the ‘incremental’ Obamacare or would he have held out for single payer and missed the chance of a generation to pass a national healthcare plan If I remember my history Teddy Kennedy walked away from a deal on national healthcare with Nixon because it wasn’t ‘good’ enough.
So I guess that while I won’t reject the whole loaf if offered, I just think you have a better shot at getting the loaf one slice at a time. I might have felt differently when 20 something and still wet behind the ears.
Kay
@aimai:
The level of capture and corruption also resonates with me when Sanders supporters talk about it. NOT specifically Hillary Clinton. I don’t think she personally is corrupt.
Instead I mean “Democrats”. The example I would use is for-profit colleges. There were too many Democrats backing that and it was unconscionable. There’s no defense for it. They robbed those students and they knew it. Congress has been studying it for a decade. I want that shit stopped and I don’t care if Republicans are worse because I’m not a Republican.
D58826
@Kropadope: I know it doesn’t solve all of the problems.
aimai
@Kropadope: Well, why are all his supporters convinced that its so evil it must be destroyed, rather than built on? Why do they keep repeating Republican lies about its inception and its meaning vis a vis insurance companies? Why do they keep insisting that it has to be single payer or nothing? Bernie has been very, very, clear that he considers Obama a failure and Obama’s greatest success a failure. If he is planning on keeping Obamacare and mending, not ending, it he’s just doing what Republicans do when they complain that we don’t need all this regulation because the air is so clean nowadays. He’s accepting the benefits of this hard won fight but not recognizing how hard it was to get, or appreciating what a disaster it would be to fail to follow through on funding and supporting it.
aimai
@Kay: Sure, Democrats are corrupt. I hate for profit colleges. But the non profits are just as bad, by the way. Where there is money and assets there is corruption. Sweet Briar college just got (nearly) done to death because of Trustee Malfeasance. Its ridiculous to hold a candidate accountable for the fact that individual political actors are corrupt. Bernie, if he got in, would simply be working with the same damned people. He doesn’t have a magic wand to uncorrupt corrupt people. If people, Bernie’s people, bothered to vote in every election they would have slightly more control over their own elected officials. They could spend some time studying their elected officials and booting them out over corruption, instead of letting them be untouched incumbents. But Bernie’s voters aren’t proposing that. They are voting for a leader with some kind of green lantern like ability to overcome the reality of political life. Its always going to be full of grifters and con men but in amongst them there are always going to be people who you can bully or cajole or, yes, bribe, to get some good shit done. The idea that its a war between all good and all evil forces is wrong. Its a war between good and evil that is fought with all mercenaries.
aimai
@D58826: This. Very good. Again: 20 million people got health insurance and through that health care, and it would have been more if the medicaid expansion hadn’t been stifled. And the medicaid expansion alone is enormously valuable to millions of individuals. That isn’t “half a loaf” that is life itself to particular people and their families. Its not perfect but, damn, there is a reason they say “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Because while perfect is preening in the mirror the pretty good is saving millions of lives.
J R in WV
@TriassicSands:
If a president is ranked beside Reagan, he would be in the bottom 5 Presidents ever, as Reagan is in that rank of Presidents. Next to Nixon, Harding, etc. Maybe between Hardisng and Jackson? Somewhere around there, anyway.
Obama, on the other hand is in the top 5, with FDR and (I can’t believe I’m going to type this, because anti-war protester until drafted) LBJ, Lincoln and Washington. Just my opinion, not a professional historian, just an autodidact historian.
Kay
@aimai:
But I’m not talking about Bernie. I think Sanders supporters are really misguided when they focus on “Hillary Clinton is corrupt”. First I don’t think it’s true and second it turns what should be their issue into anti-Clinton. I know Sanders can’t end corruption. What I object to is the conflating of what is a valid issue with “Bernie Sanders”. Democrats should talk about corruption. If they need a model they have one- Elizabeth Warren or Zephr Teachout. IF THEY DON’T frauds like Ted Cruz will. It is a major talking point for him. They can’t allow the Right to co-opt that just like they can’t allow the Right to co-opt “fair trade”. That’s a mistake. They can lead on corruption.
Kay
@aimai:
They aren’t. You would not believe the for-profit rip-offs I see. They specifically target low income/vulnerable students and rob them.
Read the Senate reports put out by Durbin.
D58826
A bit of history from 2009, some of which I didn’t remember. From good old Wikipedia
Notice any name missing from the gang of 6? And the Conyers universal healthcare plan in 2015 only has 49 co-sponsors. Yes I know that co-sponors are not the same as a final vote but folks are rweally lining up behind single payer even in 2015.
Bernie in 2013 –
‘
A good republican program’ hmmmmmm. I’m not opposed to single payer if it will pass. I am opposed to tilting at windmills or letting the pursuit of the best get in the way of achieving the good if the good is thebest you can do today.
D58826
@Kay: agreed
Kay
@aimai:
The for-profit college regs were an intra-Party fight among Dems. Warren, Cordray and Labor were fighting Arne Duncan . The CFPB actually took it away from Duncan’s ed dept (using really clever lawyering) because Duncan refused to act.
This is a corruption problem, not a Bernie v Hillary problem. It needs to be talked about.
Kropadope
@aimai: You’re full of it.
D58826
@Kay: Arne Duncan and the entire ‘education reform’ agenda with its emphasis on high stakes testing in k-12 is one of Obama’s worst policies
D58826
And just a different point on trying to get anything done in washington –
Now 3 of the 6 were democrats but they still came from red to red leaning states. I’m not sure of the exact number but the population of the 20 smallest red states is less than the population of California but they have 40 seats in the Senate. One more and you have a filibuster proof margin. While the filibuster was not part of the Constitution the founders did tip the scales in favor of the smaller states,. End of story. End of progressive legislation. While I agree with kay on the democrats problems, if you don’t flip the red states then the argument is moot.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@D58826:
This!
Too many people on our side who are upset with Obama should ask themselves:
1) Would Obama have vetoed a Public Option?
2) Would Obama have vetoed a clean bill closing Gitmo?
3) Would Obama have vetoed Card Check?
4) Would Obama have vetoed a $2T stimulus plan?
etc.
Maybe Obama’s pen wasn’t the problem. Maybe having enough votes in the House and Senate was the problem.
In order to get more progressive policies, we need more Democrats holding office. The window can’t move left if there aren’t enough people inside pushing and pulling to keep it from being dragged to the right…
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: AGREED!!!!!!!!!!!
liberal
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I’m sure you have an excuse for why Obama spending considerable political capital on TPP doesn’t matter.
D58826
@liberal: Well as a totally off the wall wilda** guess is that he thinks its a good deal for the US. You can be an Obama supporter and not agree with everything he does.
DCF
@D58826:
We read the current political zeitgeist differently…IMV, we are at an ‘inflection point’ in our history….
I hear you when you write of a baseball analogy…singles, doubles, and triples (even bunts) are all important…those ‘lesser’ hits all lead up to the possibility for a ‘grand slam’…IF we do all we can to load the bases….
DCF
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Agreed…which is why news items like this are so disturbing – and frustrating, given the public emphasis the HRC campaign has placed upon ‘trickle-down’ funding:
Clinton fundraising leaves little for state parties
The Democratic front-runner says she’s raising big checks to help state committees, but they’ve gotten to keep only 1 percent of the $60 million raised.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670
Keith G
@Kay:
Lord Almighty, there are both hard and poetic truths to this two sentence statement. It is not enough for a good idea to be advocated by a person. The correct (approved) person must be advocating that good idea – even in the reality-based community.