While Bernie stans practiced protests for the DNC, millennials for Hillary registered folks to vote in key states. pic.twitter.com/yHaS3uqHLV
— Marv (@Marv_Vien) June 19, 2016
I’m writing up a post about last weekend’s Sanders-centric “People’s Summit”, which was… not nearly as big a fustercluck as one might have expected, given the participants. But there’s still an excitable #BernieorBust core having a little trouble with a certain enemy of the state known as “math”…
panelists at @pplsummit talking about Bernie's "130 million person email list." @rosariodawson: "Bernie cannot give up that email list."
— E McMorris-Santoro (@EvanMcSan) June 18, 2016
for perspective, the Obama list at its biggest was no more than 12 mil. And 130 mil would = 40% of the U.S. population
— laura olin (@lauraolin) June 18, 2016
@EvanMcSan @pplsummit @rosariodawson to clarify, she meant 130 million people engaged on @People4Bernie's facebook page over a 28day avg.
— Winnie Wong (@WaywardWinifred) June 18, 2016
@WaywardWinifred @RedwoodGirl @EvanMcSan @pplsummit @rosariodawson @People4Bernie only 176 M FB users in US.
— Gretchen Donart (@gbdonart) June 18, 2016
Nina Turner on Bernie's nomination fight: "The math is not on his side, but the social studies is on his side." #PPLSummit
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) June 18, 2016
In related anti-DNC actions: Cheri Honkala has some experience at grabbing free media, but I’m not 100% convinced this is her most viable publicity idea. (On the other hand, since she’s protested food insecurity among the homeless, collecting canned beans could be useful.) Via commentor Ecomcon:
Cheri Honkala, the leader of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, announced that her group was organizing the world’s largest “fart-in” to be held on July 28 at the Wells Fargo Center during Hillary Clinton’s anticipated acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination.
“We will be holding a massive bean supper for Bernie Sanders delegates on American Street in my Kensington neighborhood on the afternoon of July 28,” she said. “We are setting up a Clintonville there, modeled on the Hoovervilles of the 1930s where the poor and unemployed built shanty towns. The Sanders delegates, their bellies full of beans, will be able to return to the Wells Fargo Center and greet the rhetorical flatulence of Hillary Clinton with the real thing.”
Honkala said she would issue an invitation to Sanders to join the bean supper, which she is calling Beans for Hillary. She has asked donors to send cans of beans to 1301-W Porter Street, Philadelphia, Pa., 19148.
h/t truthdig
Offering oneself as an expert in flatulence seems… open to misinterpretation?
Major Major Major Major
If I recall, to “engage” on a Facebook page includes “people seeing it as a suggestion”, so that number may be accurate.
Jeff Spender
These people are certifiable.
And isn’t Sanders contracually obligated to turn that list over?
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: I posted on my campaign page a rebuke of Newt Gingich’s HUAC idea, and I garnered 20,000+ views in a day–which is not bad for a small campaign page.
It’s all relative.
NotMax
Dibs on the Beano concession.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
3,000 left wing activists turned out for the People’s Summit.
Not bad, I’d say.
I’m glad you’re writing something up about it, considering Balloon Juice fashions itself a leftist blog.
The difference between the PUMAs of 08 and the Berniecrats of today is that we are a hellava lot more organized :)
PatrickG
I don’t think people are giving the Bernie-or-Bust people a fair shake here.
What better place to end than in a possibly flammable stink of their own invention? Plus, they’ll feel the Bern going in AND going out!
P.S. I’m still halfway convinced that this Beanie-or-Bust event is a hoax story, or at least a blown up idiocy story, because my god. Beanie Babies stuffed with dynamite would be less explosive than Beanie Berners, and would provide less fun for the media.
amk
taking the #feelthebern to a totally another level?
inventor
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: So y’all are going to fart Bernie to the nomination? Y’all are going to weaken Clinton so Trump wins? Are these the organizing principles that will give BernieBros success where PUMAs failed?
What the fuck is a win for you people at this point?
Jeff Spender
Speaking of nonsense…
I called this election the “meme election” because most of the information I’ve seen passed around about it has been in meme form.
It’s convenient because you don’t have to bother checking your facts, and you can more seemlessly self-reinforce whatever narrative it is you want.
Case-in-point: memes about how the election was rigged.
All you have to do is claim it was. If you ask for evidence, you either get a link to a website that doesn’t actually provide factual infotmation or…nothing.
Like that exit poll conspiracy. IT SHOWS FRAUDULANCE! But, um…we don’t use those kinds of exit polls, and it isn’t hard to find out the major differences between the ones we use and why they might be flawed and the ones they use to find fraud.
But by the time you get around to doing that, it’s too late. The meme has already been reinforced and it goes from mere accusation to “known fact.”
Major Major Major Major
@Jeff Spender: Lie, truth, boots, etc.
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: “Poll workers say that Bernie won in their locations 2:1!”
“Which ones, and how do they know that?”
“They say!”
Major Major Major Major
@Jeff Spender: What was your story about drawing a challenger again, by the way? I don’t quite recall. Nutshell works.
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: Oh, no challenger in the race from the Bernie people. Just a concerted effort to smear me and get other Bernie supporters to work against me.
The only Bernie-or-Buster I know in my district is actually friends with me on Facebook. Almost immediately after their self-righteous clarion call went out about how I was “complicit in fraud” and all that she started to question me about my views on the alleged voter fraud and suppression.
She’s got a choice: she can either not vote for me, or she can let a two-term tea party person who actually is corrupt win becausr I disagree with her about the California primary and exit polling and all that.
It’s actually quite stunning. I’ve never met anyone who agreed with me 95% of the time turn against me because of a minor part of the 5%.
Mary G
The Republicans are having an historical meltdown, and Democrats have an unprecedented opportunity to brand themselves as the adults in the room, and we stage a fart-in? Head/desk. This gives the Villagers “both sides do it” ammunition through the end of the decade.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jeff Spender: This is how the wingnuts operate. Chem trails? They’re real, and they’re bad! Every single election the right wing is alive with rumors of huge masses of Mezkins who aren’t documented being brought to polling places to vote for Democrats fraudulently. The clowns on the right are absolutely positive that these things are happening without the slightest scintilla of actual evidence to support them.
Origuy
“Engaging” means liking, sharing, commenting, or clicking a link. A “reach” is when the post appears on someone’s page. I just ran a three-day campaign for a local event that got a reach of 1400 people with an engagement of 16. Since it only cost $25, if three of those engagements result in attendance, the ad paid for itself.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeff Spender: Ah, yes, that’s right.
Well, the narcissism of small differences and all, eh? Sigh. Yeah, that’s been my big annoyance too. Some people are just like that, I guess. Hopefully they’ll be as sad, few, and relevant as the PUMAs were.
Jeff Spender
@Villago Delenda Est: One thing this election has done is to expose the authoritarian left. First thing: claim election fraud with little-to-no proof and really bad understanding of statistics and methodology. Second thing: express disdain in democracy and democratic outcomes and institutions. Third thing: viva la revelucion!
Major Major Major Major
@Jeff Spender: That’s not the authoritarian left, that’s just the left, in the old-timey Marxist sense. It’s a forced flattening of hierarchies, which usually requires stifling free expression/speech policing, the elimination of democratic institutions if they don’t go your way (and the boosting of them if they do), as a means to an end. Free speech, democracy, etc. are liberal ideals.
And like anything else, if you drink the kool-aid you’re impervious to reality. So the “anybody who criticizes Dear Leader/boosts the loyal opposition must be eliminated” thinking isn’t that unique to any one ideology, that’s just sort of human nature.
What this election’s done is expose the left/liberal divide in the party.
magurakurin
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
I’d say most people here consider themselves liberals rather than leftist. Leftist is an actual communist or socialist…like maoist guerrillas or Hugo Chavez. Hillary Clinton is a liberal, she isn’t a leftist. Bernie Sanders claims his brand of socialism isn’t leftist…but his supporters…many are definitely leftists. The history of the Soviet Union is just too fucked up to get much behind leftist ideology for me.
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: That makes a lot of sense.
That’s also why people like me are first against the wall when the revolution comes.
I criticize everyone and everything.
Cat48
Why dont they stay home since they hate Clinton so much? Lots of white privilege abounds with Bernie & his supporters.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeff Spender: Eh, their revolution isn’t coming any time soon. This country isn’t wired for leftism. We’re too selfish, for better and worse.
Major Major Major Major
Too bad JHB has descended to a full-blown troll, too, by the way. Sad!
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, but I like being tongue-in-cheek about it. They like to use the rhetoric of revolution without thinking through the grizzly details of what revolution actually entails. Like leftists who wear t-shirts with Che on them unironically. Conveniently ignore the body count.
I know Bernie groups that have expunged a lot of their members lately for being cool about their “revolution.” Makes me wonder what they might do if they had more power than just a Facebook page.
magurakurin
@Major Major Major Major: There aren’t many success stories of actual leftist governments. Scandinavian socialism is firmly rooted in capitalism. Most other state-directed economies have met with limited success if any. Chinese state-sponsored capitalism really no longer seems to qualify and the unregulated nature of their industrial expansion is producing an ecological nightmare in China…so no real success either way you call it. A strong social safety net and strong democratically elected government regulation of a market economy seems to be the most successful model we have come up with. The unique cultural and racial make up of the United States adds an extra layer of difficulty that more homogeneous like Denmark (Bernie’s favorite) don’t have to grapple with. I’m proudly liberal and actual would favor greater nationalization of certain industry (power generation and pharmaceuticals) but full on planned economy, no…I’m not a leftist.
GregB
I knew this campaign would end with a giant beef.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Jeff Spender:
So the Stanford Academic Article documenting election fraud is completely without merit?
What the establishment Dems fail to understand is that at this point it’s not about Bernie. He lost the nomination. It’s about dragging the Democratic Party back to its progressive roots.
Schlemazel Khan
The “fart-in” is an idea, badly misunderstood and poorly executed, that they stole from the much beloved Saul Alinsky. When Kodak refused to discus equitable hiring Mr. A knew that the CEOs pet social project was the Rochester Symphony so he spread the rumor that he was buying a large number of tickets for the season opening night and was going to distribute them in the black neighborhoods. He was going to offer a free beans and beer dinner before the concert to all ticket holders. Within a day of that rumor Kodak officials contacted him and arranged meetings that lead to more minority hires. The man was a genius of nonviolent action, these pathetic imitators miss the point of the threat & make it look childish.
Aqualad08
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Somewhere, a bag of dicks sits upon a table, uneaten…
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin:
Yep. At this point I’ll go ahead and add “liberal trade policies with the concomitant partial redistribution of productivity gains to affected domestic workers” too, especially because of the essentially existential requirement for liberal trade if we’re going to deal with climate change & hunger.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Major Major Major Major:
There’s hope for me yet, Major!
Jeff Spender
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: It wasn’t a “Stanford Academic Article.”
It was two grad students who wrote a paper that, as far as I know, has not been peer-reviewed.
Big difference.
Major Major Major Major
@Schlemazel Khan:
Ahhhhh. I figured there had to be something more going on there.
@Jeff Spender: I was going to say–what’s the Stanford Academic? I work there and I’ve never heard of it.
Jeff Spender
@Major Major Major Major: I basically trust that paper as much as I trust a miracle anti-neoplaston cancer cure that, strangely, has no peer-reviewed science backing it up.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Aqualad08:
Lol, here is the Balloon Juice I know and love!
Elizabelle
This is a really unappealing blogpost. I don’t like spite and poking sticks at people, some of whom might ultimately vote for your candidate. (Could care less what the Cheri Honkalas of the world do; so juvenile.)
@Schlemazel Khan: Thank you for the Alinsky explanation.
Somewhere, a pet is going undiscussed ….
amk
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Whatever your definition of “progressive roots” is, you lost. Big time. So, time to rethink your definition?
Elizabelle
@Aqualad08:
Love this comment. How Balloon Juice has expanded my vocab …
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Major Major Major Major:
Why do these studies and lawsuits against the DNC keep popping up?
Seriously, I’m not trolling here. Clinton will be the nominee. Why did her surrogates feel the need to do all this obnoxious shit?
shoggoth
My god the puns write themselves:
“Dead-enders plan to raise a stink.”
“The toot will out.”
“You can’t handle the toot.”
“Fart-in may be shart-sighted”
Jeff Spender
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: “Studies” and any schmuck with a few hundred dollars can file a lawsuit.
Now, if any of the claims are shown to have merit when they undergo intense scrutiny, then we can talk.
For now, I’m not buying it.
As for getting the Democratic Party back to its “progressive roots,” from where I’m sitting it’s pretty damn progressive.
But I live in an area where even the libertarian candidates are anti-abortion.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@amk:
Yeah, no war. There’s a reason Clinton lost in 08 as the pro Iraq candidate.
since when has the Democratic Party become the War Party?
Bernie lost the nomination, but he won the messaging war.
Major Major Major Major
@Elizabelle:
Samwise Gamgee the Brave contemplates life, also a fly.
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Well, for the most part, they didn’t. Why did Bernie’s people need to have that kerfuffle in Nevada? Elections suck, but you don’t contest the results after the fact unless you’re within the margin of ratfuckery, which this primary is not. 2008 was close, and but for Michigan and Florida might have gone very differently. I was in Denver when they were in the meeting hashing that out (not in the meeting), the tension in the party was quite palpable. That was real drama. Why do Bernie people feel the need to have a persecution complex when they lost far, far outside the margin of ratfuckery?
Because her campaign was shit, her opponent’s was incredibly well-run, and Florida and Michigan jumped the gun and lost their delegates.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Jeff Spender:
It’s primary season, of course it looks progressive.
Jeff Spender
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: Yeah. You know, when you live in a conservative area where a defense for lgbt peoples gets you irate phonecalls after an anti-lgbt group puts your personal cell number on an attack piece mailed to every voter in the district, a lot of things look really progressive that might otherwise not look progressive.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Major Major Major Major:
So you can’t blame the opposing side when they call you out on it.
SHENANIGANS!
Nevada? You mean where Boxer thumbed her nose at the Bernie supporters? Yeah, you stay classy!
Elizabelle
@Major Major Major Major: Sam is a cute kitteh. Thank you.
Jonathan Holland Becnel
@Jeff Spender:
And that’s the whole point I suppose. The rightward drift of the country continues inexorably.
Major Major Major Major
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Huh?
In which you turn right around and do what I think you were trying to accuse me of.
Cat48
I think the time for “dragging someone” to your position is over. I’m just going to be my liberal self.
Jeff Spender
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You misunderstand. I’m the most liberal liberal who ever liberaled. Conservatives think I’m everything that’s wrong with America. Oh, do I get angry voicemails and emails. Commie, socialist, etc.
But now progressives think I’m all that’s wrong with America because I have disagreements on substantive issues with them ranging from the direction of the Democratic Party to the strategies for long term change.
Simply put, I disagree with Bernie on strategy, even if I may agree in principle (and I can’t say there’s really that much disagreement there).
Where some see a rightward shift in the Democratic Party, I see the cycles of policy and politics. From my perspective, something as large and, yes, powerful as the Democratic political party will be vulnerable to corruption. But that’s true of any institution, coming from any political philosophy. Bernie, had he won, would have become the new Democratic establishment, and under him there would be, inevitably, corruption.
These things have checks against them, though. It is a democratic institution, and as long as people stay highly committed and involved, corruption can be rooted out.
But there will always be places for new seeds to germinate.
Elizabelle
@Jeff Spender: Well said, Jeff.
Major Major Major Major
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: the whole point of what?
magurakurin
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
uh, Woodrow Wilson?
seriously, Bernie isn’t a pacifist either. He loves himself some drones.
AxelFoley
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You say that, yet it’s Bernie’s supporters trying to start a fart-in.
I mean, really?
magurakurin
@AxelFoley: and practicing a hassle line but practicing to be the hasslers…major fail right there.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporate Shill
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
You’re a helluvalot more fucking stupid than the PUMAs, as your candidate is a certifiable moron.
#fuckthebern2018 #senatordean2018
different-church-lady
Nope. Not taking this bait. Done taking this bait.
different-church-lady
@Jeff Spender:
The very example of the “narcissism of small differences”
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporate Shill
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Yes.
Next question?
Major Major Major Major
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporate Shill: I still want to know what the Stanford Academic Is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: You know, when you start to sound just like Kris Kobach, maybe it’s time to think about what it is you are actually trying to accomplish.
different-church-lady
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
I know what you mean, man. Gays being legally entitled to be married and subsidies for health insurance are things Rick Santorum could only wish for ten years ago.
different-church-lady
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Which is why your type is trying so hard to kill it first — easier to drag that way.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. gasp,,,, wheeze…. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
You are a hoot.
different-church-lady
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, I think he’s already accomplishing it. Exactly as intended.
different-church-lady
@Jeff Spender: Let me simplify this for you: the disconnect you’re having is because you’re engaged in policy, whereas Jonathan and his ilk are engaged in tropes and clichés.
(And Anne Laurie is engaged in troll baiting. Or perhaps trolling in and of itself.)
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I used to feel the same way, but I’m starting to feel like we’re being swiftboated from the left. I’m not sure what the right approach is now.
Donut
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Are you high? I guess if we go all the way back, we’re looking at Old Hickory, and that bitch was no progressive. Maybe you’re thinking Buchanan? Worst. Presidenting. Ever. And then, as someone said above, you got your Wilson, which, uh … Okay. Then you get your Roosevelt. Maybe that’s what you’re getting at? Same guy who locked up Japanese-Americans for the sin of living while Asian.
Shall we continue? You want to talk about the post-WWII political landscape? Let’s talk about how the Southern Democratic Party reacted to the civil rights era. What happened and why during Truman’s tenure? Kennedy? Johnson, Carter, Clinton? Gosh, I’ll go out on a limb and say progress was often the result of political expediency rather than principle. Each Democratic president of the 20th century including and after FDR also had major shortcomings when it came to being a “progressive.”
None of them were as pure as Bernie, though, so I guess you got that going for you.
Central Planning
@Schlemazel Khan: I worked for Kodak for a few years in the 90s, so I had to look that up. As you can imagine, that was not mentioned in the recruiting material. Here’s one link to an interview with Saul
Aimai
@Jeff Spender: my favorite is the guy in kos who phone banked into california for bernie. Every person he called, from bernie’s list, was supporting bernie. Ergo:there were no hillary supporters at all in california. Qed.
RealityBites
We all know that crossing a cocker with a poodle gives you a cockapoo. The Bernie bros are crossing bulldogs with shit zus. The result is the perfect mascot for their arguments.
Princess
“Progressive roots?”
Oh yeah, when white men helped white men and no one else. No thanks.
Jeff Spender
@Aimai: I had someone claim that NO Hillary supports got provisional ballots.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
I have noticed since I started reading BJ – about eight years, I guess – that any thread praising Democrats attracts a troll who does their damnedest to change the subject. Usually they succeed. Since this was just a ‘Boy, there are some fruit loops in the Bernie Or Bust crowd’ thread, I don’t think it qualifies or much care what happens.
Weaselone
What does it say about the integrity of a movement when they elevate a paper written by a couple of grad students without even a professor listed as a coauthor to level of an institutionally backed study? Just asking for a friend.
Jeff Spender
@Weaselone: Worse, the paper is more like a short essay. Only 4 pages long and doesn’t really…do anything.
Bobby Thomson
@PatrickG:
1. We collectively shit our pants in front of thousands of people and dozens of journalists.
2. ??????
3. Revolution!!
Bobby Thomson
@Major Major Major Major: descended?
Matt McIrvin
LGM has pro-Sanders blogger MaxSpeak doing a series of guest posts about economic leftism and the Bernie movement that look like they will actually be worth reading–no conspiracy theories about the primary election. But it does strike me that right at the beginning, he describes LGM as “a hive of Hillary-mania” when most of the headliners there who expressed a preference were actually Sanders supporters. They haven’t been fanatic enough, I guess.
Bobby Thomson
@Elizabelle:
Are you new here?
They deserve it just as much as the PUMAs did.
El Caganer
@Bobby Thomson: A different type of ‘movement’ indeed.
Bobby Thomson
@Matt McIrvin:
Bullshit. In the very first post he writes that Clinton “stole it fair and square.” The only stealing I saw was by the Sanders crowd in Nevada, and they boasted about it.
Emily68
I was on Bernie’s email list. Every day for months he’d ask me for money and every day I’d delete the email. These days, I hardly get any. I take this as a sign that Bernie really has realized he’s going to come up short at the convention.
Xantar
@Weaselone:
But the father of a Booman Tribune blogger also supports their conclusion so there!
Robert Sneddon
@Emily68: His campaign might just have run out of money to pay for the servers and bandwidth to handle their mass-email system.
It costs money to raise money, or indeed do anything in a campaign — one of the more expensive operations to put on are rallies and that was a Sanders signature move, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Even selling swag rallies cost at least ten dollars an attendee for premises, equipment, logistics, security, personnel, permits, advertising etc. They’re good in moderation and a great ego-boost for the main speaker but not as a substitute for voter engagement, one-on-one contacts and registration for the primaries and elections.
Monala
@Jeff Spender: @Jeff Spender: I keep wondering about those claims about Sander’s supporters being dropped from voter rolls and such. How would anyone know in advance that any particular voters are Sanders supporters in order to target them for voter suppression?
Robert Sneddon
@Monala:
Minions, millions of them. Evil is always super-efficient and organised and all-knowing and have minions to do their bidding for them. Mind-control rays may also be involved.
Carolyn Kay
@Major Major Major Major: The PUMAs were ultimately successful, in that Hillary will be the Democratic nominee this time, and at least some of those who were so crazy for Obama realized that he couldn’t deliver what they thought he promised them.
The Sanders supporters could ultimately be successful, too, if they could just get over the Hillary hate their Dear Leader taught them. They could win the long game by joining the movement started by some of his former staffers to elect more progressives to Congress (http://bit.ly/25mkoMm). And I hope they will. I’d love to see more progressives in Congress, just not the left’s equivalent of right-wing crazies.
Miss Bianca
@Jeff Spender: Late to the thread, but just wanted to say I was sorry to hear you’ve been having trouble from alleged allies.
I’ve gotten to the point where I despise Green Tea Partiers even more than their right-wing counterparts. because rightly or wrongly I just *expect* leftists to be smarter than right-wingers.
Matt McIrvin
@Monala: It’s the Greg Palast protocol for dealing with election troubles: you calculate the maximum number of people who might possibly have been disenfranchised, and then assume that every single one of them would have shown up and voted for the candidate you’re claiming got rooked.
This bothers me because the problems Palast is uncovering are usually very real–I don’t want to see anyone get disenfranchised–but I wish he weren’t always compelled to erode his own credibility by turning it into “candidate X stole the election/candidate Y would have won” when there’s little evidence of that.
Matt McIrvin
@Bobby Thomson: Eh, it’s one wisecrack. Max’s posts are mostly about policy. I strongly disagree with the one about race; thought his criticism of Clinton’s attack on the free college proposal was very much on point.
martian
Hey, y’all. Can someone be a safety spotter for me and let me know if I’m wandering far down the conspiracy trail? Does this article on Sanders ad buys look legit? No easy to spot Republican ratfucking and so forth?
I’ve been curious about where Jane is getting paid and, since ad buys is how Bernie has paid her before, I’m looking askance at Old Towne Media (or Olde Town Media?) and how little is known about them. Slap me if this is bullshit.
martian
Hey, I went back to close a link and, lo, it is gone. Try again:
martian
Okay, kinda feeling rejected. Here’s the addy: https://medium.com/@VonEbsy/old-towne-media-llc-buying-a-political-revolution-40cbac5cb4c3#.5hg0dy7u2
SFAW
While it seems to be fashionable to trash the Honkala bean supper, I find the lack of environmental awareness here to be breathtaking. I mean, where else could we get such an abundant supply of natural gas without fracking?
And I have to back up JHB on the Stanford Academic Study Which Is Really, No-Shit, Academical: I have heard, from an extremely reliable source — the Best source — that their paper is getting nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for
BullshitPolitical Analysis.So, suck it, libtards.
nastybrutishntall
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: 1) There is no conspiracy against Bernie or the left. Obama (the more left candidate in ’08) went up against the same odds Bernie went up against, but Obama won in 08 and Bernie lost in 16. Period. And Bernie lost by a lot. Those that constantly change the goalposts in order to game the system and eke out a closer, more damaging loss are in Bernie’s camp (Superdelegates bad! No, now we need Superdelegates to win! Democratic participation is good! No, it’s bad, we prefer caucuses that poor/black people can’t attend! The Democratic Party is ours to remold as a leftist utopian project! No, actually, let’s open the primaries to Libertarians and Republicans to fuck with the process and make it more white and racist!).
2) There is no right-wing constituency in the Democratic Party, except in Bernie’s camp (see: Bernie-Trumpers, ex-Paulistas, etc). Hillary’s victory is a centrist-Dem to liberal-Dem coalition, Bernie’s is a left-Dem to anarchist/right-wing libertarian coalition, plus anti-Hillary Republican protest / ratfuck voters. Bernie’s fans would rather see the world Bern than have a traditional liberal President continuing the most progressive and successful admin since LBJ and the first female President to boot.
3) If you can’t address this with substance — i.e. real, actual, verifiable facts showing that Clinton would likely govern in any way other than as a liberal Democrat, as opposed to an ideal leftist such as Noam Chomsky (not even Bernie, who loves him some Israel and dronezzz, would qualify as an ideal leftist), or actual data, appearing in a legitimate journal or paper of record, showing how Bernie gotz robbed — you get the pie filter, and your audience grows closer to the asymptote of zero relevance. Your choice, Bro.
nastybrutishntall
@different-church-lady: OOH. I need a smoke now.
daves09
Conspiracy theories are a search, a demand, for simplicity.
Much simpler to claim HRC stole the election than to ask why Sanders lost.
A curse of the liberals has been the effort to give complex, nuanced answers to complex, nuanced, questions.
Bernie’s appeal is his simplicity.
Free college? Hang the expense.
Free medical care? No problem.
Income equality? Just say the words and it will happen.
Jeff, the Bernies, whether consciously or no, realize that you can’t ask just one question. Once you doubt one article of the catechism it all falls apart. So to them five% is exactly the same as 100%.
SFAW
@nastybrutishntall:
I agree with most of your comment.
However, re:
I see their “argument” in this case, as being akin to “It’s unfair and it sucks! But instead of continuing to whine, let’s see if we can make it work for us somehow,” which leads to trying to flip SDs. I don’t have a big problem with that, as long as they’re not pulling underhanded shit to get SDs to flip.
The Other Bob
@Jonathan Holland Becnel:
Dragging the party to the left is something most people here would get behind. The problem is you suck so bad at it with your garbage about fraud and superdelegates.
A better model would be the Deaniacs. Alot of people thought those lefties would leave. Instead they elected their guy chair of the party and then many of them got behind that Obama guy.
ruemara
@Jonathan Holland Becnel: progressive roots that demand disenfranchisement of POC voters because they keep having a demand for progress not posturing. I’d say GFY, but I’m opposed to self-harm.
gerry
It’s shocking how awful the Bernie people all are and how wonderful and enlightened all the Hillary people are. Thank goodness John and the BJ crew have pulled the scales from my eyes! I’m a tribalist for sure now.