Though, sometimes… https://t.co/sn0Osd7to7 pic.twitter.com/AuAyI9Z62U
— Lisa Tozzi (@lisatozzi) May 16, 2016
… If only because kindergarteners are expected to have achieved a higher degree of bladder control than most Congressional Repubs. From Buzzfeed, “Obama Says Republican Concerns About Trump Mean His Supreme Court Pick Should Get A Vote”:
President Obama told BuzzFeed News Monday that the GOP is “looking at a Republican nominee” — Donald Trump — “who many of them say isn’t qualified to be president much less appoint someone” to the Supreme Court. And that, he said, means his nominee should get a vote, which Republicans have vowed not to do.
Obama’s comments came during a live interview with BuzzFeed News Legal Editor Chris Geidner from the White House’s Roosevelt Room.
“it seems to me [Republicans would] be better off going ahead and giving a hearing and a vote to somebody that they themselves in the past have said is well-qualified, is fair, and to treat the Supreme Court with the seriousness and the sense that it’s beyond politics,” Obama said. “Precisely because this election year has been so crazy, precisely because you have a number of Republicans who have said that they’re concerned about their nominee, it shows you why you don’t want to politicize a Supreme Court appointment.”
The issue, Obama said, is that some members of the GOP “are on record saying this is a very well qualified candidate.”
“In that circumstance it is up to them, in terms of their constitutional obligation, to have a hearing and have a vote,” he said. “Now here’s the good news. Originally they said they wouldn’t even meet with the guy. And they heard from a lot of their constituents that said well, this isn’t kindergarten; just because you’re not happy with what’s happened, you don’t do your job.”
“My hope is that the closer we get to the summer, and the more pressure that viewers are putting on senators just to do their job, and to give the guy a hearing, give him a vote, then more and more Republican senators will recognize that the position they’re taking is not tenable,” he said…
When asked why Obama didn’t nominate someone who is not a straight, white man, he said, “I never think about it in terms of ‘this seat is for a Hispanic man, and this seat is for a gay black woman,’ that’s not how I think.” He added he nominated people who are “extremely well qualified.”
“Judge Garland was the perfect candidate for this moment for this seat,” he said. “You’re looking for a judge who will play it straight and apply the law.”…
Seriously, it’s a good interview with a sterling President. Who shows up at approximately the 4min mark on the clip below, if Geidner’s understandable pre-show anxiety is too much for you:
msdc
Here’s some shocking news: Trump supporters more likely to feel racial resentment, no correlation with economic anxiety.
piratedan
@Corner Stone … if you’re around, drop me an e-mail to [email protected]. Perhaps we can meet up while you are here in Tucson.
Dog Dawg Damn
Continuing the conversation re: evangelical Christians from the last thread, I think it’s important to note that Fundamentalist Christians and Evangelical Christians are two identities, that overlap very much, but can be distinguished. Of course, fundamentalism is a shifting term as 100 years ago certain things were fundamental (women can’t teach men; must wear dresses, etc.) that are no longer fundamental. But, the number of fundamentalist Christians I have seen embrace gay rights–with vigor–is mind-boggling. So either they are no longer fundamentalists, or fundamentalism doesn’t require a hardline stance against gay rights.
These are the people who we should be reaching out to. These people, and their families. Should we bow to all demands–as someone suggested–or seek common ground? We actually have a lot in common. Concern for the poor, the common good, ameliorating the negative social aspects of globalization, providing healthcare to the needy–lots of common ground.
The sticky widget is abortion, and I think Democrats should downplay the importance of this issue, as it is settled law (for the moment), and if Democrats can win the Presidency, it will be settled law for the rest of the foreseeable future.
If downplaying abortion to attract new evangelicals is the price we must pay to secure gay rights, abortion rights, overturn Citizens United, and secure a solid liberal Supreme Court for the next generation–THEN SO BE IT. Good, sincere people have legitimate disagreements about abortion. Yes, let’s invite them into the tent. The tent is big, and we would be foolish to lose this opportunity to turn the country blue.
lollipopguild
I am really spoiled- a President who can actually think and speak at the same time. This beats the hell out of “I am here to help you put food on your families”
Keith P.
I can tell I need a nap when I read an article about President Obama trying to push for SCOTUS vote for Judy Garland.
Lamh36
Bernie statement on Nevada.
Matt McIrvin
@Dog Dawg Damn: Depends on what you mean by welcoming them into the tent, I suppose. If it means actually supporting more abortion restrictions, I think that’s a deal-breaker.
I remember that right after the 2004 election, The Editors at The Poor Man made a despairing post in which he said that, next time, the Democrats needed to run a candidate who supported a total ban on abortion, because that was the only way we were going to win the White House and get progress on anything else. He was in the bargaining phase, so to speak.
lollipopguild
@msdc: I am SHOCKED! Shocked i say! Did I mention that I was shocked?
lollipopguild
@Keith P.: Judy would do a far better job than any GOP pick.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Lamh36:
Here’s his whole statement. Lies and blame – blaming the victims, no less. Leadery!
Major Major Major Major
What a lovely day! I’m off to get things frozen from my foot so I can be stuck in a chair at not enjoy the weather.
Mike J
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Fuck that worthless piece of shit.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Lamh36: Meh. ABC made it impossible to read the statement.
Horse’s mouth
But, yeah, he completely ignores what his people (or people who claimed to be on his side) reportedly did in Nevada.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mike J
In good news, a former Bernie supporting superD from the Virgin Islands has now flipped to Clinton.
Linnaeus
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Keep in mind that a lot of attacks on reproductive rights happen at the state level – and the people making them don’t regard reproductive choice as settled law at all.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: And I see the Conster got there first.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
Well, we see how important that seat is on the SC.
Up or down vote.
Major Major Major Major
Just saw some real rough trade Russian River types buying a lot of shitty beer. Wonder where they’re headed.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
WarMunchkin
I was going to go to Philadelphia just for the fun of it, but I’m || <– that close to recommending my friends and family to stay the f away from the Democratic National Convention.
Separately, burn caucuses in fire. Not trying to excuse the Sanders people, but holy crap, burn caucuses in so much fire.
ETA: I take that back. I shouldn’t contribute to violent rhetoric. Instead of burning caucuses in fire, let’s remove them through a peaceful democratic process where we build consensus and realize that caucuses are a confusing way of deciding presidential preferences.
dr. bloor
Since it’s an open thread, when the fuck did Billmon jump the shark?
Miss Bianca
@Lamh36: What.an.ASSHOLE. I was so done with the guy weeks ago, but now I am Beyond the Shadow of the Valley of the Planet of Done. If I needed any further proof, to assuage any lingering shadow of doubt, that he’s bought his own BS bs, big-time, I haz it now.
So, OK, who here still believes that Senator Sanders can be trusted to play nice for the good of the party and the country? Anyone?
Emma
@Dog Dawg Damn: Really? You’re bargaining with my body now?
Linnaeus
@WarMunchkin:
Agreed on caucuses. They’re terrible.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Miss Bianca:
I never believed he would play nice. He’s an asshole. Ask anyone who’s ever had to work with him. Plus, he’s got Jane running scams in the background. That’s what’s in those tax returns. Time for the Dems to shut this shit show down.
WaterGirl
@Mike J: I will say again how sad it is that Bernie appears to have lost the plot.
Chyron HR
@Miss Bianca:
Oh, sure, several people do. They’ll be along shortly to flood the thread with hundreds of posts ranting about what a great glorious holy man Sanders is, same as every day.
Iowa Old Lady
i personally am not willing to trade away abortion rights.
Linnaeus
@Miss Bianca:
While I’m definitely dismayed at how the Sanders campaign has operated in recent weeks, Sanders has said that he will support Clinton if she’s the nominee. I’m willing to wait and see what he does at the convention and after.
Percysowner
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I don’t live in Vermont, but if the Democrats decide to run someone in the next Senatorial election, I’ll happily give money to try and defeat this guy. I was interested in Sanders for a while. I thought he had some good ideas, but now, screw him!
hovercraft
I think that Bernie and Jane are getting a small taste of what real vetting would have been like, and they are not reacting well. Ignoring questions about financial crisis at an institution you led, and walking away from questions about Nevada does not look good.
On the other hand mealy mouthed statements about your supporters tantrum and death threats shows us who you really are. His reputation as an irascible, and unpleasant person to work with are well earned. Keep it up Bernie, I think you may be doing more to unite the party than you realize. Yes it’s ugly but it’s causing a lot of feel the berners to wake up.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Linnaeus: Yes, and they’ve made *Great* strides toward ending abortion without banning it at the federal level, but they’ve only been able to do so because of Scalia. Scalia is gone, this our chance, and downplaying the issue *for this election* is the best strategic choice.
Democrats should absolutely not elect someone who is anti-abortion. But that doesn’t mean it needs to be a centerpiece of the campaign, and it can be downplayed via targeted outreach to evangelical millennials and women and single women, in particular.
Frankensteinbeck
@Lamh36:
Holy shit. Ho. Ly. Shit. I… look, I didn’t like Sanders’ message because I thought it naturally, but unintentionally encouraged the paranoia and assholery of some of his supporters. I have tried to respect him as well-meaning and badly represented.
This is not ‘unintended effects.’ He’s siding with the worst elements and claiming they’re the victims.
I didn’t want to say this, but… fuck you, Bernie Sanders. Fuck. You. You are a selfish, arrogant asshole who should get out of the race now.
I feel dirty.
dr. bloor
@Dog Dawg Damn:
What the fuck does “downplay” mean in this context? Don’t bring it up because it’s settled law? NEWS FLASH: The word “abortion” would probably never come up in Democratic campaigns if a woman’s right to control her own body WASN’T RELENTLESSLY BEING ASSAULTED BYvTHE GODBOTHERERS.
“Downplay?” I mean, Jesus Christ on a cracker. Really?
Major Major Major Major
@Dog Dawg Damn: people who say that they’d vote dem if it weren’t for abortion are not telling the truth.
Mighty M.
@Dog Dawg Damn: No. How should we “downplay” abortion? Accept increasing limitations? Accede to clinic shutdowns? Agree that some/all forms of birth control = infanticide? Defund Planned Parenthood? No. No. No. The assault on abortion rights is an assault on women’s rights. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one.
dmsilev
@Lamh36: Oh, for fuck’s sake. The contrast between Sanders and the Obama clip at top is pretty damn stark.
Time for Cole to drag out that ‘I can no longer rationally discuss the Sanders campaign’ tag again.
Percysowner
@Dog Dawg Damn: Sorry, although I’m beyond needing reproductive rights,I have a daughter and even if I didn’t I know women who would like to be able to control their own bodies., thank you very much. You are aware, are you not, that in some of these groups abortion is being described as any method that is not a barrier method and pretty soon, I’m sure diaphragms will be declared abortificants because men don’t control them. No thank you.
Linnaeus
@Dog Dawg Damn:
My point, though, is that reproductive rights are (and have been) under attack all over the country, at multiple levels of government, and women are a vital voting bloc for Democrats. This is a serious issue.
dmsilev
@hovercraft: Yep. A wise man once said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” Sanders is not measuring up very well.
Dog Dawg Damn
@dr. bloor:
Downplay in the context of targeting these voters to vote for Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump. The Supreme Court is the bulwark, of course. It will be much easier to roll back abortion restrictions with a liberal Supreme Court than it will be to re-take every statehouse in the deep south one by one by one.
Christ on a cracker, do you actually care about outcomes, or is posturing more important than advancing your goals?
Might be a Bernfeeler if . . .
msdc
@lollipopguild: “Your winnings, sir.”
dr. bloor
@Linnaeus:
There is absolutely no evidence in the record to date that he has any interest in or capacity to rein in the lunatic fringe that is garnering all the press in his campaign. He has never been a member of the Democratic Party, nor does he have any interest in being a member. His credibility is nil at this point, and nothing about his actual campaign suggests he merits the benefit of the doubt.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Linnaeus: Yes, exactly. And it isn’t going to be changed as a central part of the platform. However, micro-targeting can DOWNPLAY CERTAIN ISSUES and TARGET VOTERS to woo them, where they are at.
Just listen to yourselves….seriously. What if the Hillary campaign sent Black Lives Matters issues mailers to working class and rural whites? Wouldn’t that be fucking stupid? Of course it would!
We can win these voters by micro-targeting them. This is how national campaigns work. What is so controversial about this?
schrodinger's cat
@Dog Dawg Damn: Last thread you were telling us to be understanding of fundies and their retrograde views about women.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
Amen.
Suzanne
@Linnaeus: Yes, we should sing about how we are pro-women at every chance we get. Keep those fuckers defending their position. We should be aggressive and vehement.
Linnaeus
@dmsilev:
No, he’s not measuring up well, which is sad, because I expected better. I was sympathetic to Sanders early on, but then decided to support Clinton at my caucus back in March. That decision is looking more and more like it was the right one (though most of my precinct went for Sanders anyway.
Emma
@Dog Dawg Damn: Let me put it this way. The moment a Democratic president “downplays” my rights as a full sentient being is the time I stop voting Democrat. And I’m not the only woman that would do so. I expect my enemies to try to smack me down, and any so-called friend that would take the same attitude automatically becomes an enemy.
Percysowner
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Because the Republicans would never, ever consider making it a plank of their party and wouldn’t DREAM of bringing the subject up? You want to play with rights that are essential to women being able to control their own lives. Maybe we shouldn’t talk voting rights? Or whether POCs deserve to be treated fairly. And gun rights, we can pull people over is we just don’t mention THEM. How about immigration? Keep our heads down and don’t support immigration reform? OOO! We can’t respond to Trump’s racism because if we just downplay our objections we may get a few more of his voters. Basically you are asking the Democratic Party to abandon women, once that happens why not just tell them to take on Republican positions. It can’t hurt? Can it? Or is it just that it can’t hurt YOU!
rikyrah
@msdc:
I consider that water is wet news.
April
If Reid and Schumer tell Bernie to play nice or kiss the budget committee goodbye, will he change anything? Is he even capable of being part of the
Democratic party?
Poopyman
@dmsilev: Oh, since Cole doesn’t read his own blog we can expect his rant to post in 3…2..1…
Dog Dawg Damn
@schrodinger’s cat:
Shame on you. I never said that. I said EVANGELICALS (not fundamentalists), and I never said we need to be understanding of their views on women. I said in order to win, we should target these disaffected voters.
What is wrong with the left that it seems constitutionally incapable of compromising its posture in order to advance strategic goals. It’s maddening. This is the Bernie movement, the Nader vote, the inability of our party to get the fuck off their high pedestal and build a coalition that can win–even though we are in the majority.
Also, you should be ashamed of yourself for such a silly straw-man argument.
dr. bloor
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Never was, never will be.
Your argument is ludicrous. You can preach “downplaying” it all you want, but the other side is going to “up play” it to the ninety-eleventeenth degree. Or did that not cross your tactically genius mind?
Dog Dawg Damn
@Percysowner: Donald Trump is relatively pro-choice. This is the time to make our move. Do you want to win, or do you want to feel good about yourself?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Emma:
The main reason I CAN’T.WAIT. to vote for Hillary is because that particular Democratic president won’t be downplaying women’s anything.
hamletta
@Dog Dawg Damn: Lord Saletan, is that you?
Dog Dawg Damn
@dr. bloor: See comment above. Trump can’t go full bore on this as he has said nice things about Planned Parenthood (maybe donated to them) and has been pro-choice.
He doesn’t want to raise the issue, because it alienates his base, and so we shouldn’t raise it either. What do you not understand about DOWNPLAYING….this is politics, not debate club.
hovercraft
Bernie got a taste of power, the crowds the money the media, the secret service. He is so close he can taste it. I think he truly is in denial, and Weaver and Devine want to milk the gravy train for all it’s worth so they won’t tell him it’s over. To come so close and still be so far at his age this is his last shot. But this end to what could have been an admirable legacy, is just sad and pathetic.
dr. bloor
@Dog Dawg Damn:
LOL. No one expects the Clinton campaign to go after religiously-inclined voters with a rabid prochoice message. If that’s really what Dog was suggesting, it wasn’t a controversial argument, it was too obvious to waste pixels on in the first place.
rikyrah
@Iowa Old Lady:
Who’s asking you to trade them away?
Miss Bianca
@Linnaeus: Yeah, I’m willing to keep breathing. In the meantime, this type of scorched-earth policy leading *up* the convention is making me deeply skeptical. This “non-pology” is just more proof that he’s playing a rhetorical game that is going to be extremely difficult to walk himself back from – if not impossible for someone who appears to suffer from a level of delusion that would be almost poignant if the stakes weren’t so fucking high. How’s he going to stand up at the Democratic convention and say, “oh, yeah, all that shit I said about how corrupt the Democratic Party is? HA – PSYCH! Just kidding, folks! We’re all good now! Vote Democrat! because remember – now matter how bad I told you this party sucks donkey balls, the other guy is *worse*, amirite? Can I get an amen!”?
Emma
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I wonder if the strategic genius realizes that getting a few hundred thousand evangelical votes won’t make up for a few million women kicking the Democratic party in the gonads?
Schlemazel Khan
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I watched the anti-abortion folks depart the party in the 70s. It was . . . interesting. The would show up at precinct caucuses with only one agenda, make abortion illegal. Being in Minnesota these were primarily Catholics who were traditionally Dems because of the WASP factor of the GOP and that they were generally labor not management. But this faction was willing to sell everything they had gained in order to make abortion illegal. Because of the rules they always had representation at county and state conventions, they huddled together & voted in a block based on a floor-leaders command. They voted against everything suggested by anyone not in their block and for anything and anyone that was of their block. They never had the numbers to win nor any desire to compromise or to join with other factions to support any Dem policy. I very much doubt they have changed in the 40+ years they have succeeded in the GOP. While I support the idea of getting them on board with the economic polices of the Dems I think they are too far down the rabbit hole that now includes gay rights, transgender rights and availability of birth control to the exclusion of all else to believe they would join us on any issue. They have become the embodiment of “if the Democrats suggest it it is evil & must be opposed” thinking that marks the modern GOP.
FlyingToaster
@Dog Dawg Damn: By losing more voters than your strategy can possibly gain.
Abortion hasn’t been the centermost issue ever. It’s one of a plethora of issues where the Democratic Party has the correct plank.
Since most people who are opposed to abortion are also opposed to birth control, your strategy means that young women and liberal parents of daughters are going to think twice before voting for the Democratic candidate.
No thanks.
hovercraft
@April:
No. He is a true believer, only he can save this country. No one else is pure enough.
Percysowner
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Christ on a Cracker yourself! It isn’t like the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton in particular haven’t been clear about their stance on abortion. The only way to “downplay” it is to reverse course. You think that when wooing these voters, they won’t ASK about abortion. Good Lord, other people’s sex live is the only thing they really care about sometimes. It isn’t like the people who care abortion are willing to work to make contraception and accurate sex education readily available.
Don’t tell me that I have to throw away my rights and then tell me that it’s a win. That fact that it doesn’t affect your doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be stood by.
Matt McIrvin
@Linnaeus:
Indeed, he’s said that. What do you think are the chances that he’ll believe she is the real nominee?
Miss Bianca
@Dog Dawg Damn: Thats easy for you to say, presuming you’re a man. That’s not easy for me to say. No – reproductive freedom is a hill I’m prepared to die on, and I expect no less than full 100%, loud and proud commitment to it from any Democratic candidate worth her/his salt. Sorry – “downplaying” and running defensive is what has *got* us to this mess.
Ramping Up
Trump hitting back hard against Crooked Hillary’s lame opening ad gambit on Twitter.
How can Billary use the “War on Women” card when Trump has no bones about throwing Bill’s own women issues right back in their face?
BTW, latest NBC SurveyMonkey tracking poll has the national race as TOO CLOSE TO CALL–three points, well within the margin of error!
Percysowner
@Dog Dawg Damn: Donald Trump is relatively in favor of whatever he thinks will get him 1) elected and 2) viewed positively by the person he’s talking to. He stated that he was pro-choice, until he stated that women who have abortions should be thrown in jail, until he stated that he didn’t really mean that. So don’t give me the Donald Trump is relatively pro-choice line.
Tom Levenson
@dr. bloor: He’s gotten very touchy indeed. I tweeted back at him the most mild of responses (in full: “Ummm. I think you badly misread the current state of play.”) and he rage-blocked me. It’s too bad, as he’s capable of better.
Jeffro
@WarMunchkin:
…and then burn them in so much fire.
LOL
When something’s this antiquated and counter-productive, the rhetoric’s perfectly ok.
Cacti
Bernie makes statement on Nevada.
Blames “establishment” for thug behavior of his Bros.
rikyrah
@Dog Dawg Damn:
If you think that they’re only after abortion, then you are being willfully ignorant. This is about completely controlling a woman’s reproductive choice- which includes birth control. I thought they’ve made that quite clear these past few years.
Linnaeus
@dr. bloor:
I get what you’re saying, and frankly, the more I see, the more disappointed I get in Sanders as well. But I also think Clinton’s got this pretty well wrapped up, and Sanders’ campaign knows it. So they’re pushing it – I don’t like how they’re doing it, mind you.
LAO
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I’m joining the chorus — because even though it’s been said — it apparently can not be said often enough or loudly enough. My reproductive rights are NOT negotiable. The right to make decisions for ourselves is a fundamental right that, in light of the roll back in access to abortion and related services in the states, should never be traded away at the federal level.
FlyingToaster
@Ramping Up: You’re joking, right?
Bill got a blow-job from an intern who boasted that she was going to get White House kneepads. Hillary didn’t divorce his ass.
LeDonald boasts about all the women he’s screwed, and is on his 3rd imported wife.
Honestly, are you even paying attention?
Schlemazel Khan
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Some have tried to pull this on guns & it never works. They end up not getting endorsed by the NRA because even if they are a gun humper they are a Democratic gun humper and that just won’t do. Why, its almost as if guns & abortion were not really the important part but only a cover for their real agenda.
eclare
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: She started it! Reminds me of….Drumpf. I am starting to get worried about media coverage of Philly.
LAO
@rikyrah:
This.
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Very well put.
Whomever’s been assigned to bring Bernie back from the edge here might want to read all of that, and then realize their best hope of getting him to do the right thing is talking about leaving a strong legacy…and this NV stuff ain’t it.
schrodinger's cat
@Ramping Up: New handle, old troll!
Is D3 new or a troll sock puppet?
jl
@Dog Dawg Damn: Whether HRC or Sanders, I don’t think downplaying on abortion is a good idea regardless ‘settled law’ (whatever you mean by that term, I don’t see how it is settled if a very vocal minority with powerful allies in the judicial branch all the way up to the SCTOUS oppose it). The issues are too fundamental to what this country is, and that include separation of church and state, right to privacy, and other human rights.
As far as I am concerned, abortion is no business of anyone but the woman’s until the fetus is viable out of the womb. Then things get complicated, but I go with what I understand to be the reasoning I’ve heard from Buddhists, which is that woman’s life has to be given more weight because she is an established living person and the fetus is not. And that accords with Biden’s statement that current system is reasonable, to weigh the relative rights of woman and fetus by what trimester they are in.
If abortion is an important issue to some people, and you may have to agree to disagree in order to cooperate on other issues, far better to be honest. And will have better chance of getting votes of those who are sincere about the issue but willing to be reasonable, as opposed to religious nuts and politically motivated. (Edit: and I think clear evidence that much of the fanatical abortion opposition is not only political but partisan. Fundies and evangelicals has a reasonable and moderate position on abortion, until some cynical operators decided to turn it into a political movement, and partisan politics was anathema to a lot of very fanatical fundies until then, but that has changed. Some like Jehova’s Witnesses have stood strong, but others did not)
What tactical downplaying and uplaying gets you, when it is used to cover over issues and leave people feeling betrayed and mislead, is the GOP train wreck. We can fight over the HRC/Bernie wars all we want, but the current GOP is in worse shape and their dishonesty and con with much of their coalition is one of the main reasons, I think.
Linnaeus
@Matt McIrvin:
Good question. He’s probably engaging in some brinksmanship here – which I don’t advocate, but which might explain his campaign’s actions.
hovercraft
Is Ramping Up a new troll?
Yes women are going to blame Hillary for being cheated on.
You know it was her fault.
She wasn’t supportive enough.
She was a ball buster.
Too ugly.
Too busy.
Not nurturing enough.
She didn’t keep popping out kids, to prove Bill’s virility.
Since it’s all her fault, I’m going to vote for Trump since he loves women and the “blacks”.
Yes, why don’t you Trumpsters hold your breath till that happens.
No more food for you.
Linnaeus
@Miss Bianca:
Yeah, I don’t expect a walk-back like that. He’ll find some other face-saving way to do it – if he does, that is.
Ramping Up
@FlyingToaster:
TOO CLOSE TO CALL according to the tracking poll–how ya like them apples?
His affairs will be thrown right back in his face. People will blame Hillary for the affairs and for harassing the women. This will be a kind of “redpill” election as I said the other day, that’s Trump’s strategy!
dmsilev
@Linnaeus: The thing is, their behavior is now actively counter-productive to their own goals. Sanders isn’t going to win the nomination, so he should be pushing for creating a friendlier environment for downticket candidates with similar views and making it more likely that the next Presidential nominee will be molded in his image (and shaping the environment in which President Clinton operates). Going full kamikaze against the Democratic Party now would just mean that it would be a cold dark day in Hell before anyone in the Party will give him and his movement the time of day.
FlyingToaster
@schrodinger’s cat: D3 is a new troll; it’s not a purity troll (thank goodness) but some weird “compromise or we’ll LOOOOOOZZZZE” troll. We need a name for that.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
The problem is there is no designated driver, from all the accounts I’ve read he is his own chief strategist.
Hopefully when he officially losses on June 14th he will finally accept it.
dmsilev
@hovercraft: ‘Ramping Up’ is just the latest iteration of Brinks Truck Guy.
JMG
If Sanders doesn’t play nice, and if his people don’t play nice, and Clinton loses, the progressive wing of the Democratic party will be cast out of any influence in American politics for a generation. If anyone thinks the Sanders people would be allowed to pick up the pieces of what would be left, they are certifiable. But are the actions in Nevada a sign of the convictions of millions of voters, or is it more the rage and despair of a few? Damned if I know.
FlyingToaster
@Ramping Up: Too close to call on a NATIONAL POLL?
Ever hear of the Electoral College?
Jeebus, you need to go back to troll school.
Linnaeus
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I know that pragmatism is a cardinal virtue here at Balloon-Juice, but there is a point at which you have to recognize that the outcome you may get can harm your bedrock values more than benefiting them.
Cacti
@JMG:
The tantrum of a generation that was never told “no” in their formative years.
ETA: When your biggest complaint is that college is too expensive, you’ve had an easy ass life.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Just to put Bernie fucking Sanders’ unmitigated bullshit and delusional fucktardery into perspective.
Linnaeus
@dmsilev:
Oh, I’m not saying that the Sanders campaign is doing it right, and I wish they would realize that.
Ramping Up
@FlyingToaster:
TOO CLOSE TO CALL nationally means TC2C in the swing states, too. One follows the other.
What happened to the “Hillary landslide”?
Time for Dems to start getting real nervous…
Trollhattan
@hovercraft:
No, the Same Old Troll who disappeared after the SS Mittens smashed into the Obamaberg, then reappeared to toungewash JEB! then remoraed to li’l Marco then to…oops, outta dudes. Now apparently casting about for a Koch buck or two to pay mom’s AOL account.
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
Eh, not sure we really want to go with “get off my lawn”.
FlyingToaster
@Ramping Up: No, it doesn’t. Wishful thinking on your part won’t make it so.
eclare
@hovercraft: Have to say I agree it’s time to shut this shit down, but I also admire Clinton for playing the long game and waiting for this stuff to come out on its own and self-destruct rather than flinging it at him. Smart, to me. Clinton had to have known about this stuff, read a alot yesterday about Burlington College. Thank you to whoever it was who posted yesterday about the email regarding closure.
ruemara
I’m not sure what glorious legacy Sanders has, beyond talking head of choice. It would be nice if he and his surrogates would stop behaving as if the first up against the wall in their glorious rebellion are those who are insufficiently pure. But I also get that they don’t care about anyone else except punishing banksters & oligarchs. Not too surprised by their actions. And Berniebros are totally made up. Those death threats are just illusions.
Trollhattan
@hovercraft:
Magic 8-ball says: “Doubtful.” Media will oblige.
schrodinger's cat
@FlyingToaster: Concern troll is concerned.
JMG
@Cacti:I’m not sure this is generational at all. As far as I can tell, Sanders has plenty of loud supporters my age, too. It’s only natural for younger voters to be attracted to the new thing. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to stay home in November.
Miss Bianca
@Linnaeus: well, if you can figure that one out, you’re smarter than the average bear, for sure. In fact, I’d say you have a future as a political consultant
Ultraviolet Thunder
My big worry about Sanders is that he’s been a Dem for about the time it’s taken my hair to grow an inch.
He has no investment in the party. Why shouldn’t he go right back to his Independent stance when he loses, and take the Bros with him?
Mike J
@Dog Dawg Damn:
The guy who wants to send women who have abortions to prison?
What does it take to be anti-choice?
eclare
@Major Major Major Major: I know one person who votes D because of that one issue alone, there may be others.
germy
@Jeffro:
Terry chay
@Dog Dawg Damn: you mean evangelical Christians supporting gay rights, not fundamentalist Christian Right. The reason they are embracing them is because being against gay marriage soured an entire huge generation (millennial a) to their religion and their numbers are in steep decline.
The irony is they adopted a hard line stance on social issues (abortion, contraception, gay rights) in response to their dwindling numbers due to the end of the Cold War–not all of them were abti-abortion, anti-contraception in the 80’s but all of them were anti-Communist.
Not sure it will work. Most of the growth in evangelical Christianity has been at the cost of mainline Protestantism. There is no territory there left untilled and traditional religions have already mimiced tactics in response to keep their congregation, if not exploit their money (televangelism). Heck even Catholics sing songs, have youth outreach and have bible study not tied to confirmation.
Linnaeus
@Miss Bianca:
I’d like to think so, but I’ve been wrong before.
Schlemazel Khan
@FlyingToaster:
At this moment I am willing to assume d3 is a young guy for whom reproductive rights are not really an issue. Not malicious just a tad naive. Nothing wrong with that if they can listen, learn and grow. He has been pretty well set upon in this thread, enough so that he might be feeling a bit defensive. I’ll give him that for the time being, I always try to assume an honest ignorance and hope they can learn. But its a wait and see thing too. This could be a new, more sophisticated concern trolling and that will show in time.
As for whacking it off, yes, this is the latest iteration of unlimited corporate cash (which worked so well for Rmoney) and JED?s brinks trucks in reverse. Monty Python’s “Upper-Middle Class Twit Of the Year” skit has a line that fits him well. “This boy doesn’t know when he is losing!. Of course he wouldn’t know if her were winning, he appears to lack any sort of external perception.”
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
So, just to be clear, in a country where the majority of voters are women (54 percent), you think it’s a winning strategy to propose downplaying the issues that are most important to that majority?
Leaving aside the moral issues with that, it’s idiotic politics. You’re shooting yourself in the foot while patting yourself on the back for being so smart that you’re willing to trade millions of votes for a few hundred thousand votes, at best. Have you done even the most basic research into voter demographics before making this modest proposal? Do you even know how to fucking COUNT?
Dog Dawg Damn
Some of you have such a distorted view of religious voters, it’s difficult to make sense of your positions.
In general, protestant evangelicals are not opposed to birth control–AT ALL. This is primarily a Catholic issue, with the odd protestant sect here and there. This is an issue that is waiting to be exploited.
Many evangelicals–younger and female and minority and single women–are much less bullish on abortion than their older, whiter, maler counterparts. There is room for compromise ON THEIR PART (not on ours!)
The way to make this happen is to downplay this issue WHEN TARGETING THEM. As in, create common ground on the issues they care about other than abortion. Focus on access to healthcare, access to birth control, access to good clean drinking water and education, and the whole host of economic issues that drive most everyone’s basic needs.
The knee-jerk reaction to this here is disheartening. I would like a future where everyone’s rights are guaranteed and we are literally one election away from securing that (via SCOTUS), so I would think it would be all hands on deck and play every possible advantage you can because — surprise — winning a third term isn’t easy and Hillary Clinton isn’t the most well-liked candidate there ever was (thank Dog for Donald Drumpf!)
You all need to get some perspective and chill the fuck out. While you’re busy spitting on people with shared interests, the Supreme Court has been rubber stamping abortion rollbacks in state after state after state. Take a longview of the matter and expand the tent for the benefit of all.
BTW, these are voters who may be persuaded to vote for Hillary even though they vote Republican downticket. This is the ballgame. They can be convinced. The way to do it is to not rub in their faces the one issue with a sharp disagreement, but to downplay its significance in targeting them.
Bill
@Dog Dawg Damn:
You have a deep misunderstanding of what it means to be fundamentalist and/or evangelical. These people – as a whole – are not just opposed to abortion rights. They’e opposed to birth control. They’re opposed to women’s rights. They’re opposed to open liberal societies. Hell, some of them are opposed to popular music. They want a theocracy favoring they’re own brand of regressive religion. They tend to really love guns. And I have no idea where you’re getting the idea they’re embracing gay rights. Gay people may be the group they hate the most.
Simply put, there is no way for Democrats to woo evangelicals/fundamentalists. They’re never voting for a Democrat in anything approaching a meaningful number.
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Turns out that Bernie’s political revolution is of the Maoist variety.
Who knew?
(raises hand)
Schlemazel Khan
@FlyingToaster:
BUT . . . but . . . but . . . #TakeItToTheOutHouse
Trollhattan
@Ramping Up:
This nervous?
Chris
@jl:
Honestly, Roe v. Wade in this day and age reminds me of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Yes, in theory, the right is well established. In practice, a plethora of rules and regulations and court decisions mostly passed at the state and local level (but even the feds aren’t immune from this) have been subjecting it to death by a thousand cuts for years, a process which shows no signs of easing. Heck, aren’t there states now in the Deep South where abortion may be legal in theory but all the clinics have been forced to close?
It’s not possible to downplay something that the other side is so determined to turn into a front, nor, as long as they’re doing that, is it even desirable.
Cacti
@Linnaeus:
As opposed to “please don’t burn the house down, little snotley, that would make mommy and daddy sad”.
Terry chay
@Dog Dawg Damn: by the way the fact that an evangelical Christian supports Trump instead of sitting the election out reveals them as a fundamentalist more than evangelical (no surprise, liberal evangelicals are more churchgoing than conservative ones by a significant margin). It also belies your statement that democrats need to budge on abortion in order to win their vote. In fact, it implies that the voting issue for them is NOT abortion, but rather something else.
Schlemazel Khan
BTW – if anyone is particularly worried about whacking offs newest approach: At this time in 2012 polls showed Willard Rmoney up by 5% over the Kenyan usurper.
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
Well, when you put it that way…
Seriously, though, I tend to be skeptical of generalizations about generations, simply because I’ve seen too many bad ones.
singfoom
@Dog Dawg Damn: How does one “downplay” abortion? I’m truly curious. It’s either a right or it isn’t. The Democratic party and their supporters seem to fall pretty squarely on the “It’s a right” side.
We’ve been fighting a rearguard action against all the bullshit state and local challenges to that right for a while now, so please hold forth and talk about “downplaying” abortion.
I won’t ever need it as I am a man but I firmly believe in the right of my fellow citizens of the lady persuasion to control their bodies…. From my perspective the divide seems to be one side wants to control their own bodies and the other side wants sex to always lead towards birth (fuck if they care about what happens to the kid afterwards, or the mother)….
So how do you downplay the fact that you think women should control their own reproductive systems rather than have old white men tell them what to do?
What’s downplaying in that context? When you’re being attacked on every front, you better defend yourself on every front or eventually you’ll be flanked. Downplaying sounds like a recipe for getting flanked…
D58826
@Jeffro: I’ve been saying for awhile that it is time for Bernie to make the pivot toward being a team player. He can still run out the clock like Hillary did in 2008 but aim his criticism at the GOP. What happened on Sat. may or may not have been in Bernie’s control but it did happen and he could have taken a really bad moment and made something positive out of it. He didn’t period full stop. It was the party’s fault. It’s always someone elses fault. I think the Hillary folks will keep a low profile and just let Bernie stew in his own juices. But it certainly gives them no incentive to offer a staring role at the convention.
And if the statement was already bad enough he includes this bit of crap
Obviously there is no justification for these things to have happened but why include them in this statement? He presents no information to show that it was anything but the usual random violence that happens all over America every day of the week. So why even bring it up, Other than the old guilt by association routine. Surely Hillary or Bill were sneaking around the brush one night taking pot shots at Bernie.
Mike J
@Linnaeus: The problems in NV weren’t limited to the youngs.
jsrtheta
@Lamh36: This idiot is burning (pun intended) whatever goodwill I had toward him.
No, Bernie, you’re not the savior of the nation. You’re not the savior of even the Democratic Party, which you have joined only to loot its funds.
You’re a cranky old ideologue with a history of legislative failure that has rarely been equaled. Just, go. Please. Now.
Chris
@Terry chay:
Really? That I didn’t know.
It doesn’t help that the term “evangelical” seems to be about as vague in its own sphere as “socialist” is in politics.
LAO
@Dog Dawg Damn:
As a woman, an attorney, a supporter of Planned Parenthood and someone who pays attention to both state legislatures and court challenges relating to abortion rights (both state and federal) — my reaction to your argument is not knee jerk. Women’s access to reproductive health services is not settled.
I’m sorry you can’t grasp that certain issues are deal breakers for certain voters. Women’s reproductive health and access to abortion and related services is my deal breaker. I would never vote for a candidate that does not fully support what I consider to be a fundamental issue/right.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
It’s really more like a dog who just caught a car and thinks he can race Formula One, now egged on by red pill basement dwellers and other all around failures at life. Buncha spoiled delusional children (of all ages) COSplaying at revolution that target women.
D58826
@Chris: And the red bible belt states have higher divorce, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and other social ills than the ‘heathen’ blue states.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Unless you’re playing “no true Scotsman” I’m not sure where you’re coming up with this.
Lots and lots of Catholics take The Pill and use other “artificial” forms of contraception. There is Catholic orthodoxy about artificial birth control, but that doesn’t mean that US Catholics agree with it.
Too many Teabagger people in the legislatures around the country and in DC want to control women. They try to do it all kinds of ways, including trying to define various forms of birth control as abortion. They are elected by people who think that abortion is a huge issue, and by people who hate paying taxes, and by people who are (fill in the blank). And lots and lots of those people are “protestant evangelicals”. Are they pro-contraception? Maybe, maybe not. But they’re supporting people who are trying to take contraception away from others.
Of course, GOTV drives should know the people they’re trying to reach and appeal to them by citing shared interests. Nobody disputes that. We shouldn’t act like we’re trying to sell people on a pig-in-a-poke though.
“Downplaying” abortion and contraception rights is not something that any Democrat should do. Ever.
The Democrats need to increase turnout in their own voters. When Democrats vote, Democrats win. Chasing after “protestant evangelicals” isn’t something that should be in the top 5 of the national party to-do list.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ramping Up
@Trollhattan:
Trump has the potential to scramble the map.
TOO CLOSE TO CALL–get used to that phrase! No Hillary landslide after all!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Ramping Up:
UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH made much more sense, and had a better beat you could dance to. Sad!
Matt McIrvin
@Linnaeus: Brinksmanship with what purpose? That’s what gets me. What is he trying to accomplish now? Does he still think he can sway the superdelegates (not gonna happen, especially now)? Is he trying to get something done with the party platform (kind of pointless, really)?
My big worry is that what he’s really trying to do is build an emotional justification for Nadering us, because of a personal grudge that he shares with his core supporters. He can get ballot access if he joins the Green Party and becomes their presidential candidate. It’d be political suicide for him, and probably literal death for a lot of people, but he may not care.
Chyron HR
@Ramping Up:
Do you use a computer program to generate these frighteningly accurate political predictions, or some kind of amazing psychic powers?
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I know, it’s so weird that women get upset when you propose soft-pedaling their fundamental rights. Why can’t women just sit down and shut up and let the men decide what’s best for everyone, amirite?
And if you think the Clinton campaign doesn’t already have these messages prepared and broken down by microdemographic, you’re an even bigger idiot than you’ve already made yourself appear.
Terry chay
@Dog Dawg Damn: people like Kerry and Gore “downplayed abortion” but they didn’t get any votes because of it. As Major-cubed said. Anyone saying they’d vote for a democrat if they changed their stance on abortion is lying.
It was never the liberals that made abortion an issue. As Samantha Bee points out, it was a manufactured issue by politicians to capture a voting bloc whose main voting issue (racism) had become politically toxic.
The reason that people are jumping on you is because your idea was tried and tested (blue dogs, Jim Webb, etc.) and any gains were extremely temporary, politically backfired (Overton window), not to mention morally wrong (republicans can be hypocrites but democrats are too big tent to condemn such a large voting bloc as women).
gogol's wife
@Keith P.:
This keeps happening to me too.
D58826
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I think your third sentence hits the nail on the head. ‘Take it away from others’ but not themselves. I read an opinion piece written by a doctor who was opposed to abortion and how one morning his pastor, fresh from an anti-abortion sermon, asked him if he could help him out with a problem. Well actually it was a little problem that his teenage daughter had and could the doctor recommend some one who could provide the need medical services discretely. If I remember correctly the doctor did make a recommendation but the double standard was obvious
Mnemosyne
@Bill:
There are such creatures as liberal evangelicals — I work with a few. There is NO such thing as a liberal fundamentalist. D3 seems to be making many such category errors today.
Trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
The ever-so-brief Li’l Marco phase, best measured in Drosophila lifespans.
Trollhattan
@Ramping Up:
Here’s a prediction for ya: Hillary gelds Trump and in the process brings four new women senators with her, each taking a current Republican seat. Book it, hippie!
carame
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Triple D’s so far out of the ballpark on the statement that you’re replying to that it’s difficult to believe she’s posting in good faith. It’s not the huge Midwestern and Southern Catholic population (lol) that keeps passing laws to make it legal for pharmacists not to fill BCP prescriptions if it “conflicts with their moral beliefs.”
Getting Turgid!
Trump’s PAC is getting ERECT!
LOADS of cash are about to fountain down on Trump!
EXPLOSIONS OF UNLIMITED CAMPAIGN CASH
It’s going to get ALL OVER HILLARY! Get used to that phrase?
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
My cousin was head of Plane Parenthood in Sterns County (heart of Batshit Bachmann country) back in the 70’s. At the time the Catholic Church was the driving force in the anti-abortion, anti-birth-control movement there. The 2 doctors performing the most abortions in the county did not work for PP, they were independent. They only worked discretely because it would have upset their fellow parishioners on Sunday to know the good doctors anti-abortion position only held on Sunday.
Bill
@Mnemosyne: “Liberal evangelicals” exist. They are few and far between though. (See link below.Evangelicals are overwhelmingly Republican voters.) Often, they aren’t all that liberal either, they just look more liberal than their cohorts in evangelism.
Certainly there are very liberal Christians out there. Few of them attend evangelical churches though.
Jimmy Carter is a bit of a unicorn in the American political landscape.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/
singfoom
Boo, my rolling downhill parody got caught by the first time commenter moderation rule.
Mnemosyne
@Terry chay:
Also, this. The Protestant voters who are most vocally opposed to abortion are also quite likely to have racist (or at least bigoted) views. Ceding ground on abortion will do zero to attract them to the Democratic side because, frankly, we’ll still be the n-lovers party to them.
Again, anyone who doesn’t read Fred Clark’s Slacktivist blog needs to go do a deep dive. Racism and anti-abortion are way more closely tied together than a lot of people realize. And, sure, we could betray both women and minorities by downplaying civil rights for both groups, but then who’s left to vote for the Democrats once you eliminate their most reliable voters?
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@JMG:
e
The neighborhood in which I came of age in the ’80s was very, uhhm, eclectic, aanfd there were still quite a few hippie die-hards. Late Boomers and early Gen Xers who were into the Dead would flock to the old hippies, who’d usually politically indoctrinate the youngs with all the old hippie beliefs (and grab the the youngest looking of the freshly indoctrinated young hippie girls). The crowd of youngs would turn over every five years or so, with the old hippies and one or two of their last set of acolytes.
So this past fall/winter these old hippies started getting on Facebook. I’ve got friends who are still friendly with ’em. I post something about the primaries,my friends respond, and I’d get swarmed by old hippie and newest group of ten or so twenty-something acolytes, spewing the worst of the worst Sanders talking points (I’ve had to block a lot of assholes).
So, yeah, that’s my experience with older people from the Sanders side this primary season. Make 0of it what you will.
Terry chay
@Dog Dawg Damn: your belief that Trump will defend his “relatively pro choice” stance and not go full fundie retard on abortion shows your political naïveté. The fact that you are being flamed so hard shows why for every vote you think you’ll gain with this tactic the democrats will lose two. Nobody not already decided is going to change their voting action (even to sit out the election) based on the first female presidential candidate in American history with a history of protecting women’s rights is suddenly going to downplay the largest issue affecting women in the country she is seeking to lead.
You think you’re being a more clever democratic version of a young republican circa 1980’s but you really need to be a better student of our political system if you expect people here to not treat your comments with the derision it so rightly deserves.
tsquared2001
@Emma: Fucking A! Thank you!
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan: The old country doctor (think doc. Adams from Gunsmoke) who delivered my mom, aunt, me and my sister plus countless others, also helped out girls who had a ‘slight’ problem. I remember reading years ago, that after Roe, the number of reported ‘D&C’s’ performed on young women went down dramatically. For those with the connections/money there will always be a safe way. For those without the back alley or the coat hanger are their only options. sad very very sad
Linnaeus
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s possible he’s trying to maximize his influence at the convention, with the idea that he’ll get some kind of movement from Clinton toward some of the policies he favors. Perhaps I’m being overly charitable here, although I don’t think he’s going about things the right way at all.
I don’t see him trying the Nader route – he’s still a US Senator who will go back to being one when the election is over, unlike Nader who never held any political office at all. If Sanders does pull a Nader, though, I will have no use for him at all.
Mnemosyne
@Bill:
Somebody else had an interesting link yesterday showing that the self-identified “evangelical Christian” voters who were most likely to vote Republican were the ones who reported they rarely or never attend church. It’s a tribal marker, not a religious group.
Mnemosyne
@Bill:
Also, too, this is a category error that I know commentators (and commenters) will be making over and over again until November, but *white* liberal evangelicals are few and far between. *Black* liberal evangelicals are everywhere.
ruemara
@Dog Dawg Damn: Speaking as a fundie raised woman of color, I do understand religious voters. I also understand the nature of the conservative candidates. None are truly pro-reproductive rights. We couldn’t win them without completely denying women the right to control their own bodies. Better a full-throated defense of birth control access and, yes, abortion. If my antiabortion parents can vote Dem for decades because “it’s between a woman and God”, then so can other religious people.
Chyron HR
@Linnaeus:
“He’s just a little misguided, he’s still good, he’s still good!”
D58826
@Linnaeus: Depending on the final outcome of the Senate races he could be the 51st vote (50th if Hillary wins) needed to give the Senate to the democrats. He might view himself as the 2016 Joe Lieberman regardless of his performance during the general election campaign. . If he goes rogue and the demcrats don’t need his vote to control the Senate, then he should be given the chairmanship of the committee for cleaning the bird droppings off of the Capitol dome.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
There’s a stupidly simple thing about race and religion here:
Who are the “Nixon/Reagan Democrats” who used to be New Dealers but were convinced to switch sides by the Southern Strategy and the racial anxieties that it appealed to? That would be, first and foremost, white Southerners; and, in lesser but still very significant measure, urban “ethnic white” Northern voters (the “working class problem” the Democrats have that we’re always hearing about). Mapping that from ethnicity onto religion, that would correspond roughly to, in the first case, fundamentalist and otherwise conservative Protestants; and in the second case, mostly, Catholics.
Guess what the religious right just happens to be? An alliance between Protestant fundamentalists (most of whom vote Republican) and the right wing half of the Catholics (who are pretty much a 50/50 split vote).
It’s not hard to conclude that the shift has little or nothing to do with religious issues, and that the social conservative faction is simply the religious expression of the Southern Strategy voters.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Linnaeus: I’ve come to the conclusion as of the Sanders campaign’s last missive that the senator is in way over his head and has no clue on how to land this thing gracefully.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Also,
Forgetting all about the moral issues for a moment, this would be the most politically stupid thing we could do. Alienate women and nonwhites and what are we left with? The white working and maybe middle class? That’ll pit us against the powers-that-be (the rich and powerful who don’t ultimately want to indulge these people any more than the nonwhite ones) and against the demographic tide (a country that’s becoming less and less white). It’s freaking suicide.
Terry chay
@Miss Bianca: Nothing to worry about. Hillary is not going to “downplay” abortion. she is
Going to run hard on women’s issues. She is going to win. She’s going to dove that mandate down the throats of people who can add “electoral irrelevance” to their “politically uncompromising” one that caused them to leave the party 36 years ago.
Major Major Major Major
@eclare: right, I was talking about people who say “we only vote for republicans because democrats want to kill babies”. Like my libertarian friends who would vote for Dems if it weren’t for guns. Or regulations. Or drones. Or surveillance. Or…
Linnaeus
@Chyron HR:
No, I don’t think “he’s just a little misguided” – while I think his main issues are important, he’s clearly not the guy to be Democratic candidate. That’s why I didn’t vote for him at my caucus.
Linnaeus
@D58826:
No argument from me on that one.
Linnaeus
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Yes, it’s pretty clear that Sanders wasn’t ready for a national campaign.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Terry chay: abortion is a losing issue. Nothing wrong with downplaying losing issues (not abandoning them entirely). This whole argument comes down to people here willfully misreading what I am saying and creating a straw man where Hillary Clinton “softens” her stance on choice. That is explicitly NOT what I am saying. I’m saying let sleeping dogs lie WHEN TARGETING THOSE VOTERS.
Good people can have sincere disagreements about abortion. That Democrats spit in their face rather than extending a hand isn’t helpful. A liberal SCOTUS is more important than your political posturing. But I’m talking to the left, so of course it’s all about purity and dying on some hill.
Bernie Sanders Redux.
Terry chay
@schrodinger’s cat: he’s Right to Rise along with other nymswhivh changed when when his successive candidates got their ass whooped by Trump (including the fantasy 3rd party candidate).
There was a two hour period where I was worried when he had a crisis of faith and waffled on Trump vs. Hitlery. But the two hours passed and he went to being reliably wrong by supporting Trump. I guess he was in negotiations with the astroturfing PAC that pays his bills. Thankfully the BRINKS TRUCKS were just a couple hours behind their scheduled deliveries.
Bill
@Mnemosyne: This is a really good point actually. I tend to think whiteness is a defining characteristics of “evangelical.” African Americans of some faiths may see that very differently.
Major Major Major Major
@Dog Dawg Damn: So your structural analytical insight is that we shouldn’t send NARAL mailers to black evangelicals for part of the GOTV operation. Somebody get this man a job at HFA HQ!
Mnemosyne
@Chyron HR:
It’s gone, Homer.
;-)
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
With whom? As many people have already pointed out, it’s a winning issue with the current Democratic base. Do you really think it’s worth potentially losing millions of those voters in exchange for maybe a few hundred thousand white evangelicals?
The Lodger
@Getting Turgid!: Cleanup in aisle 149.
Bill
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Abortion is exactly the opposite of a losing issue for Democrats. Unless they stupidly want to lose huge swaths of voters in favor of trying to persuade voters who will never vote for a Democrat.
But don’t worry, I’m sure that when Hillary kisses babies in Georgia she won’t lead with: “Hey how come you didn’t murder this kid like a good Democrat?”
D58826
Technology is a terrible thing. Cnn has an audio tape from SAt.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/17/1527511/-Sanders-issues-statement-about-Nevada-and-it-is-horrible
And even Harry Reid can’t get thru to him http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/17/1527497/-Sen-Harry-Reid-talks-to-Sen-Bernie-Sanders-about-NV-Dem-Convention-This-is-a-test-of-leadership
schrodinger's cat
@Dog Dawg Damn: You used the word shame in your reply to my comment, not once but twice. Honor and shame is the language fundamentalists have used to silence women, since forever.
Your concern is noted and filed for future reference.
Miss Bianca
@Dog Dawg Damn: Oh, for Christ’s sake. Now you’re pissing me off. Do you really think any attempt to find common ground with the sort of voter you’re talking about ISN’T ALREADY UNDERWAY? Hasn’t been for years, if not decades? Who are you, anyway? Are you down there in the trenches “downplaying abortion” to reach these putative voters yourself? and if so, what’s been your success? Give us the game plan, D3 – how *is* that supposed to work? What “winning issues” have you found that somehow trump reproductive rights? How many hearts and minds of single women, et al, who aren’t already Democrats, or democratic-leaning, have you won by appealing to their economic interests? Or whatever issue you think is somehow more central to the mission of winning more votes for Democrats. And if you haven’t found ’em yet…why do you suppose that is?
Terry chay
@Dog Dawg Damn: they are not putting up straw men. You are by claiming that a persuadable anti-abortion evangelical cohort exists.
Voting software targets persuadesables or activated your base. People who state that anti-abortion is a voting issue are not persuadable (when “pro life” democratic candidates run they don’t receive any noticeable increase in votes among this cohort) and they haven’t been a part of the Democratic base for 36 years– big tent democrats have been trying to com promise with this base since before they became a thing in the 70’s.
Their voting habits have revealed that their stated issue (pro “life”) has not been their actual voting issue for the last decade at least. Any attempt to triangulate on this issue has led to goalpost moving a la Overton window without any corresponding electoral gain. They have, however, energized the opposition which is now just making them an electoral force to be reckoned with (pro choice has always been a general majority but now it is a political one — which is why pro-life dems are nearly non existent).
Finally you are wrong that abortion is a (politically) losing issue. Just because the country has flipped dramatically on gay marriage doesn’t mean that all issues which “bend toward justice” bend at the same speed. I was trying to point out that the reason you’ve seen your evangelical friends change so dramatically on that issue is because it is existential (their hardline stance on this issue has emptied their pews of young people which the increasing fewer of them who actually bother to attend church see every week). Their stance on women has not had the same existential impact. It has a huge political impact because over the years it has revealed to the opposing party this stance has nothing to do with how they vote so there is no need to appeal to or compromise on this issue with this group.
In other words the evangelical Christians who are persuadeable (not goalpost moving fundamentalists) have been persuaded long ago. The ones who claim that abortion is a voting issue to vote republican have already revealed that that is not true and are crying wolf. At this point only naive people such as you believe them.
And people like me just have to nod our heads when women say “I told you so.” They were right, we were wrong and too clever by half to believe otherwise.
Dog Dawg Damn
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t know your gender. I do know you lied about what I said, which is shameful no matter who does it.
Telling that you can’t defend the issue and run to the barricades of an imagined gender sleight. Very telling.
Dog Dawg Damn
Abortion is a losing issue in particular regions of the US. We can make dramatic improvements in securing this FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT (and there is no right more fundamental than that over your own body) for a generation by tactically targeting voters who normally would vote Republican, but this year alone, may be persuaded to cross over due to Donald Trump.
This is so no controversial, I’m surprised it’s devolved into the 68 convention in this thread. But okay. It’ll be fun being right about abortions in the gulags. At least we were always right and always loud and obnoxious about it. That will make us feel better.
Terry chay
@Ultraviolet Thunder: his committee appointments in the senate because he caucuses with the Democrativ Party. Also the future jobs of all the people associated with the campaign since they won’t be getting them from the Republican Party (unless they worked for Rand Paul).
In fact the only one on the campaign who doesn’t stand to lose is Jane Sanders which is probably why the most toxic stuff coming from the top is coming from her. Someone will have to reign her in at some point.
People need to gave Bernie chance until June to do the right thing. His actions and non actions have hurt his campaign and its stated goals more than its helped Trumps. If you think Trump latching on to this is going to persuade anyone who wasn’t already going to vote for him, I got a bridge to sell you in New York.
Terry chay
@Chris: evangelical refers to their belief that salvation occurs by “accepting Jesus into your life” (or some variation of salvation through Jesus). There is no political connotation there except that certain (albeit large) sects have co-opted the term (and are co-opting Christianity itself) to include fundamentalist views which rationalize their votes against their own political and social interests. But calling them as representative of all evangelicals is like claiming Isis speaks for all Sunni Muslims.
African American baptists for instance are evangelical and vote liberal (it was not too long ago they’d be conservative on gay rights). They are more reliable churchgoers than many other evangelical groups. Jehovah witnesses are sometimes classified as evangelical but would hard to pin down as voting reliably republican, etc.
Most of the liberals who don’t attend church regularly are part of the mainline Protestantism, Catholicism, atheism/agnostics, Jewish, etc. which is why there is a statistic that overall republicans are more churchgoing, but when you start looking at cohorts you’ll find that sometimes the statistic can sway in another direction.
schrodinger's cat
@Dog Dawg Damn: There is nothing to defend, you said the following
I disagree with you. I don’t like your name-calling and concern-trolling.
singfoom
@Dog Dawg Damn:
It is to laugh. Listen, people don’t think your idea is a good one. These people you think exist don’t exist, multiple people have told you that. But comparing the fact that you got piled on by multiple people for your bad idea to the 68 convention is beyond ridiculous.
“I stubbed my toe and it was like the Hindenburg.”
Dog Dawg Damn
@schrodinger’s cat: You lied about what I said. You said I wanted to accept fundamentalists abhorrent views on women, or some such.
Actually, I said evangelicals, and I said “reaching out and bringing them over” (THEIR VOTES, in context). Nowhere did I accept their backwards views on women.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: You may (or may not) note that the extreme reaction to your suggestion by damn near every woman commenting on this thread indicates that soft-pedaling the reproductive rights might well cost Dems far more than it gains. .
joel hanes
@Bill:
It’s my perception that DDD defines “evangelicals” much more broadly than you, to include people like Slacktivist’s Fred Clark — that is, to include denominations and congregatins that are not Biblical literalists nor end-timers nor pre-millenial dispensationalists nor Christian Dominionists.
There is a huge variation among “evangelicals” included in the broad definition.
Your admirable rant is certainly applicable to the hard core that I term “fundagelicals”.
Many congregations that call themselves “evangelical” don’t fit your stereotype.
joel hanes
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
the senator is in way over his head and has no clue on how to land this thing gracefully.
That’s been clear ever since the Cornel West fuckup.
NotoriousJRT
@Dog Dawg Damn:
You want to trade women for Evangelicals? Good luck with that.
schrodinger's cat
@Dog Dawg Damn: You said you want to soft pedal the issues that are important to women to woo evangelicals. You are the one resorting to name-calling, you have called me liar twice, for paraphrasing what you said. You are not arguing in good faith. So this conversation is now over.
D58826
@Terry chay: I grew up a Lutheran. Our church name was Grace Lutheran Evangelical. The Denomination name today is ELCA- Evangelical Lutheran church of America. But it is solidly mainline Protestant. Now the crazy Lutheran fundamentalists are the Missouri Synod and the Wisc., Synod that Michelle Bachmann belongs to,
Mnemosyne
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Still waiting for you to explain why it’s a good strategy to lose millions of votes from African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and liberal white women in exchange for (at best) a few hundred thousand votes from white evangelicals.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@singfoom:
HOEKSTROIKA!!
J R in WV
@Ramping Up:
There is no candidate named “Billary” in any race I’m aware of. How long have you been a racist, anti-immigration, anti-women’s rights republican ?
Voting for Trump is voting against America.
J R in WV
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I don’t know where you have been the past 20 years or so but this:
is stone wrong. Birth control pills are “abortifacient” to the whole religious right, as are IUDs. Simple Google searching will inform you, if you care to be educated.
Give it up.
My mother was a life-long Republican who stayed alive ( while dying from COPD ) through sheer will power to vote against the last two Republican presidential candidates of her life, because she was pro-choice. I believe she lost a beloved cousin in her youth to a botched illegal abortion, and that never left her.
You need to wake up and smell the Republican hate, son.
laura
@Major Major Major Major: Back to Monte Rio – Duh!