From my inbox:
WASHINGTON – Today, the Democratic National Committee announced moderators for the DNC’s Future Forum series, which will feature candidates for DNC Chair and other DNC offices.
[…] The third DNC Future Forum, which will take place in Detroit, Michigan, on Saturday, February 4 at Wayne State University Community Arts Auditorium, will be moderated by Ron Fournier of Crain’s Detroit Business.
[…]
A Democratic party that has anything to do with Ron Fucking Fournier after his years of trolling, bitching and whining about every goddam thing that the Obama administration did, not to mention his role as GWB’s chief toady in the media, is a Democratic Party that isn’t ready to win an election.
I’m so fucking disgusted I can’t write another god damned word.
Update: Zach was fucking right.
Elizabelle
Ron Fournier?
Was Joe Scarborough not available?
Insane.
Baud
Agree. Major fail. Who actually hired the guy?
ETA:. Stop trying to make Zach happen.
tofubo
1st question: so, how will you sell out your constituency to help pass the Republican platform this year?
Thoroughly Pizzled
We’re so insecure. Every time we lose we want to go to the right. Insanity.
Yarrow
I thought when he moved to Detroit that we wouldn’t have to hear from him much at all. WTF?
Baud
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Whoa, now. It was a dumb move but the choice of moderator does not signal the direction of the party. Look who’s actually running for DNC chair.
Yarrow
And it’s in Detroit. Hey, Economically Anxious White Working Class ™, Tell us how you feel about everything.
Baud
The only way this is excusable is if this is a test to see how our potential chairs will handle the idiot press.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Baud: Fair. Every time we lose some of us want to go to the right. Thankfully, President Obama’s tenure has reduced a lot of that nonsense.
Thanx
@Baud: #6.
Corner Stone
Are you sure this isn’t from The Borowitz Report?
Corner Stone
This has to be some staffers idea of parody or something. Who is on the committee that makes this decision as to moderator?
Aimai
@Baud: yup.
amk
@Baud: Yup. It’s so easy to yank the dem chains. 99% of the voters don’t even know who ron fucking fournier is.
Thanx
@Baud: #6.
Agreed, in every aspect. Choosing Fournier is certainly worthy of a WTF are “they” thinking response but cramming “ZACH” as the person with the answers doesn’t automatically follow..
OMG, I just discovered that when I posted, my nym was changed to “Thanx”. How can that even happen?
EllenH
@Yarrow: A majority of Detroit’s population is African American. Something like 80% I think.
Corner Stone
Found the full listing for these forums and moderators here.
This is an actual thing. Ron Fucking Fournier.
mistermix
@Baud:
I will be interested in seeing how they handle this – the one who is best at handing Fournier his ass in a bucket will be my candidate. That said, putting one cent in Fournier’s pocket is inexcusable. Why not get a local media person involved? Cheaper and probably better.
Miss Bianca
Fuck Ron Fournier, maybe, but fuck ZACH – “I’m a young white guy and let me tell why I THINK YOU’RE ALL WRONG, cuz White Male Opinions Matter!” – even harder.
errg
Seriously, there is something very wrong with these people…
Yarrow
@EllenH: Yep. But they aren’t the darlings of the moment. And who knows if they’ll be allowed to vote going forward. Their votes certainly got messed up and perhaps not counted during this last election.
It’s the White Working Class world now. We’re just living in it.
hovercraft
Candidates should refuse to attend, no good can come of anything involving that useless hack.
But, Zach can go fuck himself, BS, WOULD HAVE LOST. And criticizing ‘establishment’ figures for supporting the DEMOCRAT in the primary is bullshit. If you hate our party, it’s leadership, who we represent, and what we stand for, FORM your own goddamn party and leave us the fuck alone. Our coalition is multifaceted while we understand that different factions have different areas of focus, we do not try to delegitimize others priorities, period. Primaries are about choice and we chose the direction we wanted to go in, your candidate lost., get over it
Corner Stone
It’s also a way of signaling that the DNC believes in Fournier’s take on politics. And even if they say something like “we don’t agree with RF on every thing, but…” it doesn’t matter. You are lending him legitimacy. And denying an actual Democratic partisan from participating in forums that may help to decide who will lead the DEMOCRATIC party.
Mike in NC
Was Hannity their first choice?
Jinchi
@Baud:
When Ron Fournier is their choice as moderator of the DNC Forum, it means that they still think the world of acceptible discourse is “center-right”. I’ll be happy if the discussion strays beyond his control, but this tells us a lot about what the DNC “learned” from the election.
Yarrow
@mistermix:
Yes. Exactly. If the point in having these forums in places other than D.C. is to get local people involved or bring up local or state issues, then why have someone like Fournier, who spent years not in Detroit moderate it? Use someone who has been toiling away in Detroit for longer than a month.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I don’t think this should be public, though doing it behind closed doors would infuriate Bernie loyalists. The DNC Chair isn’t THAT important! But I fear that Bernie loyalists have already been lost for the next few years, at least.
Betty Cracker
Fournier is a Nimitz-class douchebarge. But then again, so is Zach. In fact, he’ll probably morph into Fournier someday. He’s got the sanctimony down cold.
Tokyokie
@Corner Stone: The moderators for the other three forums are local independent journos. I guess somebody thought Fournier must fit that description as well.
pamelabrown53
Okay. I refreshed the page and my username went back to Thanx. Testing…to see if this posts correctly. Sorry for the intrusion.
Looks like I’m back to reality. D~pamelabrown53.
GregB
Was Milo Yiannopolous busy bringing his Dangerous Faggot Tour to Liberty University that night?
Jinchi
@Yarrow:
Let’s see who’s in the room before we start this argument, again.
BGinCHI
Maybe Michigan’s own Betsy Devos will show up and she and Fournier will pull out scimitars, or longswords, or crossbows and fight to the death.
Baud
@Jinchi:
It’s the world of discourse our chair with have to navigate, whether acceptable to us or not.
mistermix
All of you talking about Zach in this thread: My point is that he was right about one thing: Donna Brazile and the rest of the insider clique currently running the DNC are not to be trusted.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Tokyokie: Yeah, Ralston did some great work covering the Nevada primary and election. So Fournier is the odd one out.
GrandJury
Hey Marky Mux. Bernie will NEVER be president. Get past it.
Everyone knows you are a Sandernista. Stop trying to hide behind Fourniers skirt.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone:
It also signals that the Dems are still thinking from a national/D.C. perspective. They haven’t recognized the importance of bringing in people who understand state and local politics. Like Kay keeps saying, the DNC should hire a few local people, give them a living wage, and have them organize their own states. They know them better than anyone else.
A local reporter would understand Detroit/Michigan issues better than Fournier who has just parachuted in after decades in D.C. Sure, he was born there and grew up there, but hey, times have changed. A person who has been living there longer than a month or two is better positioned to moderate a forum in Detroit.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@mistermix: But if they’re not to be trusted I think it’s a question of competence. People like Zach just don’t see them as allies to begin with.
Corner Stone
@pamelabrown53:
I like it! We’re talking about Detroit and you manage to channel in some Eminem!
Jinchi
@Baud:
If you can’t expand scope of acceptable discourse in your own house, then you can’t expect it to become mainstream. These are places where the full range of left-wing ideas should be hashed out. It’s not a practice session for an interview on Meet the Press.
mistermix
@Yarrow:
Yes, a thousand times. There are so many reasons why including local media at a local fucking event is smart. First, the discussion will almost certainly be covered in that media person’s outlet. Second, they have a better perspective on what’s really going on in their city. Third, it forces them to get a little better educated on politics. Local media have to cover a hundred different things and they can’t be experts on everything. Make one of them study up for this forum and they’re going to have more insight covering the next House and Senate races.
pamelabrown53
@Miss Bianca: #19.
Agreed (“”fuck Zach harder”. While i’m interested to know who and how Fournier was selected, I certainly don’t like how mistermix tried to conflate Zach’s pov with how we must listen to the white privilege boys.
Aleta
From the actual Borowitz report, in New Yorker
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Inorite? I had blissfully forgotten who the hell Zach was.
Baud
@Jinchi:
Look, I don’t like the choice of Fournier but this
Misses the point that handling the media will be a big part of the chair’s job, while ideology will not be.
aimai
@mistermix: Fuck I am so sick of the angry leftist white male hangdog bitchery about this election. HRC won FUCKING THREE MILLION MORE VOTES than Trump. He had to be helped over the finish line with millions of free advertising, Putin, wikileaks, and the FBI. Anyone who thinks that the GOP wouldn’t have drummed up the same damn attacks (emails, benghazi) on ANY OTHER DEMOCRATIC CANDDIATE has simply not been paying attention. This was a revenge election for the right wing and it was a change election for white people generally who were unhappy with what they thought Obama was representing or doing. They didn’t want another democrat. ITs true that they also probably didn’t want another novelty president–after a black president they weren’t willing to go for a woman president. But that is because they are shitty people, not because HRC wasn’t a good candidate. The soft bigotry of low expectations for the hypothetical, imaginary, other democrat out there with the name recognition and the experience to fight this election is just gob smacking to me. She won the most votes. I’m sorry that asshole white people didn’t get a thrill up their legs voting for a damned good candidate, and that a significant portion of our electorate positively wanted to burn shit down. But that is not because of HRC or Brazile. The cycle and the delayed, eight year backlash, of anti democratic sentiment is what did us in. Oh, and fuck Zach.
aimai
@Miss Bianca: Oh, I missed that got there first with this observation. Seconded.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
I think we may have a fundamental disagreement on what the DNC and the DNC chair’s job should actually be.
mistermix
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
It’s definitely a question of competence. One of the first steps in ousting incompetents in positions of power is speaking some truth to them. Of course Zach doesn’t see DWS or Donna Brazile as an ally – nobody wants to ally themselves with incompetents. What other explanation than gross incompetence is there for the existence of Ron Fournier at an internal Democratic function designed to help the base gel around one candidate for the DNC. I don’t want to be allied with a DNC that does that – I want to be building a new party that doesn’t fuck up like that.
Baud
@Corner Stone: You and me, or we and they?
Percysowner
I admit that I have not followed the DNC ins and outs, so I can’t talk about what Donna Brazile did right or wrong, but for the life of me I can’t see what was wrong about wanting the candidate who had been a Democrat for her ENTIRE career to win over the guy who joined the party just to run for President then ditched it as soon as it was no longer useful! The only person who has an actual beef with the party MIGHT be Martin O’Malley, who was a Democrat and was running on a more progressive platform than HRC, but who got shut out by Bernie deciding to jump into the fray, and he’s not complaining. If Joe Biden’s son hadn’t died and he had decided to run, I don’t think the DNC would have necessarily favored Clinton. Maybe, but not for sure.
And I will point out my dying day that “Clintonworld” WON THE FUCKING VOTE. And did that after years of the Republicans trashing her name, holding bogus hearings AND having the Fucking Russians and Julian Assange decide to “intervene” in our elections.
Do we need the DNC to work harder to give us candidates in Red States, especially at the local level. Hell yes! But don’t tell me how horrible a candidate Clinton was.
So sick of our circular firing squad.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, why did they bring him into the discussion?
Villago Delenda Est
The only way this works out properly is if both Fournier and Zach don’t leave the room alive.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: So what do you think the job of the DNC and the DNC chair should be?
amk
@Percysowner: This.
Corner Stone
@Baud: Let’s you n him fight!
mistermix
@aimai: Clinton certainly wasn’t aided by Ron Fournier, was she? He was Benghazi 24/7/365. Yet here we have Donna Brazile’s organization putting money in his pocket. So point your outrage in a direction that might help, rather than at some kid who had the guts to point out the bloody fucking obvious to his new boss.
kc
@aimai:
Zach was right. When you get out of your feelings, look around the political landscape on every level and consider the possibility that the Democratic Party has really dropped the ball.
hovercraft
@aimai:
I’ll have what she’s having ;- )
A-fucking-men.
Yarrow
@mistermix: Yep. Irrespective of Fournier’s political leanings it’s a dumb move for the DNC not to involve local journalists in key roles in an event like this. If for no other reason that to create stronger communication paths and ways to get out their message in the local media. The added coverage in the local media would be great. And it highlights what should be the Dem commitment to improving the Democratic party in the states.
For all of those reasons, without even going into his political background, Fournier is a dumb choice and shows the DNC has a long way to go if they want to strengthen the party in the states.
jeer9
Aimai:
I’m very disappointed that your post doesn’t include more Sanders-bashing. Please work on this. As for Clinton, she lost to the fucking Browns. This was not a GB/Seattle match-up. The game should never have been so close that a fluke in the EC flipped the outcome.
As a recent 538 article suggests:
Moreover, voters who didn’t identify with or lean towards either party were slightly more likely to prefer Clinton to Trump. That means that had the non-voters cast a ballot in accordance with their party identification, Clinton’s advantage over Trump nationally would have expanded by about 2 to 3 percentage points. That almost certainly would have been enough to flip enough states for her to win the Electoral College.
The large gap in party identification between registered voters who cast a ballot and those who didn’t also helps to explain why pre-election polling underestimated Trump. Pre-election polls suggested that the gap between these two groups would be smaller than in 2012; the SurveyMonkey data suggests it was larger.
The biggest reason given by non-voters for staying home was that they didn’t like the candidates. Clinton and Trump both had favorable ratings in the low 30s among registered voters who didn’t cast a ballot — both had ratings in the low 40s among those who did vote. That’s a pretty sizable difference. So why was Clinton hurt more by non-voters? Trump was able to win, in large part, because voters who disliked both candidates favored him in big numbers, according to the exit polls. Clinton, apparently, couldn’t get those who disliked both candidates — and who may have been more favorably disposed to her candidacy — to turn out and vote.
And while I get that shitty media coverage, Comey’s intervention, and apathetic registered Dem voters are not unrelated, it was her campaign’s job to make sure that those people showed up.
And they weren’t able to do it.
Corner Stone
@Yarrow: Briefly, fundraising, ID’ng local positioned candidates and promoting them / providing an infrastructure for them, expanding/protecting the voting base everywhere, staying off MtP and Face the Nation, etc.
If I never saw the face of the next DNC Chair on TV I would suspect they are doing a better job than DB or DWS was doing. The DNC Chair should not be a slingshot to higher office so the PR aspect should be eliminated, IMO. Do the work. The actual work of building a party and a bench. And a coalition that “can vote” and actually will vote.
randy khan
@Corner Stone:
My take on the job of the head of the DNC is that it doesn’t have that much to do with ideology, except that the head should be in synch with the party’s key positions and in a general way needs to be somewhere in the mainstream of the party. (And the two leading candidates both meet that standard.) What I’d say about ideology is that the head of the DNC has to be a follower, not a leader.
In reality, these days the head of the DNC (or the RNC, for that matter) largely has two tasks. One of them is to build the party broadly; that’s a technocratic, competence kind of task. The second, though, is to serve as a face for the party. Like him or not (not!), Preibus actually did a very good job with that, and you can expect whoever wins the job to show up on the Sunday talk shows, etc., quite a lot over the next couple of years.
All that said, Fournier seems like an odd choice, particularly in the context of the other three moderators. He is easily the most prominent writer in Detroit these days, so probably that’s why he was chosen, but even then I’d rather they’d gone with Mitch Albom. (Okay, I take that back.)
Baud
@Corner Stone: I don’t know how the DNC chair can avoiding dealing with the media. I agree it sucks, but I think that’s reality.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
My thought exactly, why bring the douche bag up in your post, then bitch about our taking exception to him?
Yarrow
@Corner Stone: Yeah, I generally agree, but I also agree with randy khan that they’re going to have to appear on MTP and the like. In general those appearances should be less frequent. Most of the energy should go to building the state parties, identifying qualified candidates, and sadly, fundraising. Wish that last one wasn’t necessary. I’d like to get the money out of politics. But then unicorns, rainbows, etc.
randy khan
@jeer9:
I would guess that in most elections the non-voters lean Dem.
But, honestly, I’m not interested in litigating the election for the 1,000th time. There are a hundred things that would have flipped the Electoral College if they’d gone differently. Telling me that the candidate did not run the campaign the way you wanted her to does not impress me. I have opinions on that topic, too, but I’ve figured out that sharing them doesn’t help.
wuzzat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Obviously mistermix agrees with Zach that if only we’d run our own angry white guy who doesn’t believe in racism or actual policies and likes to “creatively reappropriate” other people’s money and , we could have won this one. They’re wrong, of course. Even ignoring the outside forces that were specifically gunning for a Trump presidency, Bernie’s biggest demographic consisted of people who couldn’t grasp the concept of registering to vote and then actually voting, and the “conservative morals” crew was hardly going to switch teams to vote for a communist jew. In fact, the only things that Sanders would have had going for him that Clinton didn’t were 1) a dick and balls and 2) Clinton’s supporters wouldn’t have protest voted for Jill Stein or Harambe. But hell, why let reality get in the way of a good story?
pamelabrown53
@mistermix: #35.
The DNC are not to be trusted? Total BS. Of course any organization so huge and encompassing such a large coalition needs criticism but outright condemnation? This is why I don’t trust you, mistermix, in my foxhole.
shortribs
The media’s framing is always posed from the right, so I’d really like our incoming party leaders to be able to respond to questions from that perspetive. It’s the answers that are important and if one of them can tell Fournier that his framing is inherently wrong, bonus points.
Emma
Is Ron Fournier being hired by the Democratic party? Will he be going to make decisions for the Democratic party? Because until/if he does, I don’t give a rat’s ass if he moderates a debate. We are always putting appearances before actions. Could we please stop?
Jinchi
@Baud:
I’m not missing the point so much as rejecting it. Fournier is a pundit and he was picked because his views are considered valid by the members of the DNC.
Here’s a sample:
“Obama faced a choice in the 2012 lame-duck session of Congress: Lead with humility and seek compromise with the GOP on a long-term budget deal, or rub Republican faces in defeat. Obama forced his rivals to accept higher taxes on the wealthy. It was his prerogative; he won the election. And he set the tone for a harsh and humiliating 2013.”
mistermix
@Percysowner:
I wish things were different, too, but you play the cards you’re dealt and Clinton lost. Period.
I’m sorry that you and a lot of people in this thread are having a hard time with the simple fact that Clinton’s team needs to be ejected after they lost the election. That’s what happens when you lose, and, again, she lost. Whether in the mouth of young Zach or old mistermix, the words “Donna Brazile must be fired” are true. I brought up Zach because–young, white and petulant he may be, Sanders supporter he might have been–he was fucking right about one thing.
Baud
@Jinchi:
That requires a citation.
mistermix
@Emma:
Yes. He is being hired to moderate a debate. And probably being well paid to do it.
Baud
@mistermix: Is there any prospect that Brazille is sticking around at the DNC? Why bother with her?
Emma
@aimai: Seconded. Dittoed. Bookmarked.
Emma
@mistermix: I. do. not. care. He is not being hired to be part of the decision-making, direction-setting group. He is not going to be making strategic decisions. That’s what is important.
mistermix
@pamelabrown53:
My condemnation is for every person at the DNC involved in the decision to hire Ron Fournier. Since this is the most important set of events they’re hosting in the next few weeks, I assume that included Donna Brazile. If not, she’s out of touch.
Shantanu Saha
Hey, isn’t Fournier from Detroit? And didn’t he publicly say he was done with D.C. and going back to Detroit? That would make him a “local independent journalist.”
MomSense
@aimai:
Yes!!! Woo that was good.
amk
@mistermix: Guess only self-righteous zach’s have all the gravitas to show the dem party the future path, then.
Yarrow
@Baud: Yeah, no kidding. He could have been hired because he has dirt on someone and threatened them if he didn’t get the job. Maybe the Detroit Business Journal (or whatever he works for now) isn’t going so well. Maybe he’s someone in the DNC’s side piece and that person wanted an excuse to spend more time with him. Maybe it’s tossing an old friend a favor. Maybe it’s laziness – “Hey, Ron Fournier’s in Detroit now. Just call him.”
Baud
Do we know that these moderators are paid? I can see them doing it for exposure and resume value. Honest question. I just don’t know how this works.
hovercraft
The writing’s on the wall, this thread will be yet another HS vs Clinton wank off. At what point do we all just agree to disagree. One side sees a the worlds worst candidate, ever, corrupt, incompetent, and who had the election rigged in her favor, the other side sees a candidate who parachuted into a party he didn’t belong to, and tried a hostile takeover, all the while attacking his opponent with right wing talking points, and refusing to bow out long after it was clear that he had lost. Rehashing this over and over again distracts us from what we need to do going forward.
I am clearly not impartial, but my candidate won, yours lost, it’s over now, so can we move on. I know from personal experience that if in a relationship the parties insist on injecting past disputes into every new one, the relationship is doomed. Can we stop ?
If not, it’s snowing outside and cold as hell, so I can go a few rounds. It’s just that I’d rather not, it’s pretty boring going round in circles.
pamelabrown53
@Betty Cracker:
Super grins, Betty Cracker, super grins. Lately, I’m finding myself defending/agreeing with folks I’ve believed to be less liberal. “Sanctimonious” white boys (I know I sound harsh), are IMHO frequently using bullying and an absolute ideological stance that is just as authoritarian as the wingers.
James Powell
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I think “we” need to figure out who “we” are because win or lose “I” have never wanted to go to the right. And I know this applies to quite a few of “us” who write and comment here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: as does the assertion that he’s “probably being well paid”. Jesus, does anyone really think this is about money?
Having Fournier host a Dem forum is a dumb fucking thing to do. It’s also pretty fucking meaningless. If Keith Ellison uses this as an opportunity to call out John McCain’s would-be press secretary, I’ll approve heartily. Other than that, I don’t really give a fuck.
Yarrow
@Shantanu Saha: According to Wikipedia he hasn’t lived in Detroit since Bill Clinton won his election. He only announced he was moving back in August. He raised his family in Virginia. There are probably many other Detroit journalists who have been there longer than a few months.
Marc
The Clinton dead-enders are still out in force I see. You got your candidate, she lost (in the actual sense that someone else is going to be in the White House), and no matter of blaming people for not clapping loud enough is going to change the outcome. A lot of us are really angry at Team Clinton for screwing this election up, and we’re tired of the pathetic excuse-making and blaming of the voters for not being good enough for the saintly candidate.
James Powell
@Yarrow:
If African Americans are any part of this, the Economically Anxious White Working Class ™ will not come.
Baud
@Marc: Yet here you are.
pamelabrown53
@mistermix: #80
Okay, she’s out of touch. You brought it to our attention. Thank you. (Was this a Donna Brazile decision; can you document it)? My aggravation with you is that you attempt to equate a reasonable criticism with an unreasonable assumption that this somehow represents the defunct DLC.
James Powell
@Percysowner:
The DNC is institutionally unable to give us candidates. They are, for whatever reasons, not in the candidate development business.
Emma
@Marc: You’re angry because you didn’t get your way. You stamped your feet, and cried corruption, and set out to do as much damage as you could, and the base of the party told you and your candidate to go pound sand. Blaming Hillary is the boys’ way of not accepting blame. Why do that when there’s a woman handy?
Shantanu Saha
@Yarrow: True, but if I were a low-level DNC staffer give the job of finding a moderator for this thing and given a list of Detroit journalists to choose from, I might spy Fournier’s name and think “I’ve heard of this guy! He might inject some gravitas into the event.” And reach for the phone.
Baud
I wish DWS were still DNC chair.
hovercraft
@Baud:
I believe the gig is unpaid, the entity that is hosting the event, in this case the DNC, pays for the costs associated with the event, venue, travel, hotel stay, but the reward for the moderators and their employer is exposure. Most media outlets do not allow their “journalists” to be paid because they want them to maintain their “objectivity”. I’m not sure how villagers enjoying barbecues hosted by candidates (McCain), or attending New Years parties at Mar a Lago, do not compromise the appearance of objectivity.
Shantanu Saha
@Marc: if you’re tired of us, why are you still here?
pamelabrown53
@Corner Stone: #40
Eminem, is not who I’d prefer to channel! D.
Corner Stone
I wish the DNC was not having any fucking forums.
Aimai
@wuzzat: bingo!
Marc
@Shantanu Saha: Being a Democrat and all, it’d be nice to have a place to hang out without having people still attacking former Sanders supporters at the drop of a hat. Call me a dreamer.
Baud
@Corner Stone: Wait till we move to closed primaries and eliminate caucuses. That’ll be a bloodbath.
amk
@Marc:
nice projection, asshole.
Marc
@Emma: Bullshit. I voted for a primary candidate who was different, then I voted for the Democrat in the general. And jerks here repeatedly find excuses to dump on people like me for trivial reasons. Like, for example, gender-based stereotyping (like you did), inserting imaginary things that I didn’t do and don’t believe. Instead of what I actually said, which is that I think the Clinton campaign screwed up massively, and that I’m tired of seeing people make excuses for them.
Yarrow
@Shantanu Saha: If the DNC is giving a low level staffer the job of choosing the moderators for forums held around the country that focus on the future of the party, then that’s not a good sign. Someone higher up should at least approve the choices.
PeakVT
Nobody here knows the decision making process and its a bit useless to speculate on the specifics. But mistermix is 100% right that – no matter what the reasoning – the decision to enable a noted “centrist” concern troll was a bad one. One of the reasons the Repukes punch above their weight is their success at working the refs (meaning, the media), and giving a gig (which may or may not pay) to someone who has bought or been bullied into regurgitating right-wing narratives does not help that problem. There are thousands of other journalists out there who could do the job. If DNC wanted name-brand recognition, there are at least dozens who could do the job better.
And while the DNC chair should be prepared to deal with the same tired questions about the WWC, there’s no point hiring someone who will trot them out once again. The DNC should have found someone who will ask pertinent questions, like “How will you improve the recruitment process for state offices?” or “How will you replace the support unions have given Democrats when ‘right-to-work’ laws are passed in [state X]? or “Which is more important: turning out known leaners who are less likely to vote or persuading swing voters who already turn out?” Etc.
Zach was right for the wrong reasons. The Clinton/Obama team at the top completely failed state and local parties. But running Bernie would have made that failure worse, given his dearth of connections to the Democratic party infrastructure, without guaranteeing the presidency.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I move this thread be busted open.
Bush family retainer Ana Navarro either had a lapse into honesty, or is incredibly un-self-aware
She’s talking about this story about Jared Kushner.
Jared Kushner, a Trump In-Law and Adviser, Chases a Chinese Deal
Emma
@Marc: Your belief is your belief. The rest of us do not see it that way. Why don’t you ever get it? We are not REQUIRED to accept your beliefs as facts and make decisions accordingly.
ETA: I would love to have discussions about going forward but not if it begins with “you must believe Bernie would have been better than Hillary.”
randy khan
@Marc:
Interesting what you read into this thread. “Dead-enders” is a nice touch, though.
As I said above, I’m very tired of litigating the election. It does seem that the people who didn’t like Clinton want to keep doing it forever, though.
liberal
@aimai: you’re the idiot who lectured us that HRC’s vote on the Iraq AUMF was no biggie, so you should STFU.
Marc
@Emma: You invented insults directed at me that had nothing to do with what I said. We’ve both been here awhile; why did you need to do that? It’s that sort of thing that ramps the heat up in discussions like this needlessly.
Ruckus
@mistermix:
I get this but what do you have to replace it? Is there something/someone better out there? Of course it’s an inner clique, those are the people that show up. Who regularly becomes the home owners association president? The asshole who wants to lord it over everyone else. The only time they get replaced is when they go too far, and then who replaces them? The second worse asshole. And I’m not saying that Donna Brazile was bad, she was/is only the interim leader.
So my real question is who was better positioned to be the Dem candidate? I saw no one other than Clinton. And she was a good candidate. And she won the popular vote. Is that important? Not really, as of course we don’t allow the most people to choose our president, this being only sort of a representative democracy. If it was a real representative democracy we’d have approximately the same population density for each representative and the electoral college would not give oversized power to states with smaller populations. And Clinton would probably be our president.
SWMBO
@mistermix: Why the fuck isn’t Zach running for DNC chair then?
Emma
@Marc: No. I answered your comment. Granted the whole “woman” thing was an inference and I do apologize for the cheap shot. But I am going to repeat myself. If your idea of a discussion begins with “Hillary fucked up massively and that’s the framing you must accept in order to move forward,” the discussion is over.
liberal
Fuck this Sanders vs Clinton rehash.
The point is that anyone who signed off on RF moderating should be promptly fired. I don’t give a shit how liberal or centrist they are.
Marc
@randy khan: The Clinton supporters clearly started this particular mudfight. It’s exasperating, and at the same time people like me probably shouldn’t respond and feed it (and probably make things worse.) Forums like this have become pretty much closed to any meaningful dissent and that’s pretty unfortunate.
liberal
@SWMBO: ah, the old “if you haven’t put in as much effort as the party elites, you can’t criticize them.” Go fuck yourself with a chainsaw.
Corner Stone
@Marc:
Doing a fuckton of work there boss.
Marc
@Emma: Fair enough, and I really appreciate that. I don’t think it’s the only way to look at it, but it is my actual position, not trying to rehash the primaries. I understand that others differ.
Marc
@Corner Stone: Getting called an asshole out of the gate in this thread, for example, is pretty goddamn hostile.
BobbyK
@Miss Bianca: And why should your opinion matter?
Bill
The very last thing we need is for Clinton to become mayor of NYC.
Corner Stone
@Marc: You do own a mirror, I presume?
Ruckus
@hovercraft:
Exactly why I don’t like NASCAR. They have to run into each other to make a show out of it. Exactly what is going on in this thread. How one might like to see life work verses how life really does work.
Baud
@Bill:
The media is playing with you again.
Cacti
@Baud:
Mixie still has a bad case of the “Bernie wuz robbed!” sore ass. The evil harpies that robbed him must be punished, because Zach or some shit.
Yarrow
@Bill: Wait, that’s a real thing? Sheesh.
Ruckus
@pamelabrown53:
As an old white boy, I’d say you are spot on.
Mnemosyne
So has anyone who knows a single goddamned thing about the state of Michigan commented yet? It doesn’t seem like it, and I know maybe a half a thing about Michigan, but I’m going to tell it to you anyway:
This forum is being held to attract WHITE PEOPLE. They invited Fournier because they listened to all of you whiners about “economic insecurity” and they want WHITE PEOPLE to explain why they voted for Trump instead of Hillary.
The problem here seems to be that the DNC actually thinks Bernie was right and white people voted against Hillary because of “economic insecurity,” so they’re going to have Fournier ask the white folks what their complaints are.
Congratulations, Berners — it looks like the DNC has bought into your preferred narrative and will be begging “economically insecure” white people for their votes instead of re-committing to our multiracial coalition. Don’t you feel better now?
(And for the record, I myself am white, but I’m pretty fucking pissed off at my fellow white people right now for being such fucking assholes.)
Baud
@Cacti: I thought he was robbed by DWS? What role did Brazille have in that universe?
Cacti
@Baud:
Not you. MM.
SWMBO
@liberal:
If Zach was speaking truth to power, why doesn’t he continue to take a stand and run for DNC chair?
And you can fuck right off.
Baud
@Cacti: Right. I just don’t understand the Bernie/Brazille connection. I understand the Bernie/DWS story.
Mnemosyne
@PeakVT:
You said more succinctly what I said in my rant above. Fournier was hired to talk to the WWC people, because the DNC has bought into Bernie’s claim that it’s all about “economic insecurity.”
We are so fucked.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Even if that was the motive, surely there’s another white whisperer other than Fournier.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it is a terrible mistake for Clinton to put herself in the line of succession for the throne of Romania.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I pretty much called that early on in the thread.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Will she never give up her quest for the Iron Throne?
James Powell
@Marc:
A lot of us are really angry – and are likely to remain so – at voters who held out or held back or did anything other than recognize that Trump presented a national emergency that required every person on the sane & decent side of the line to drop their personal and professional issues and do everything within his or her power to prevent what actually happened. We’re tired of the pathetic bitching about the Democratic Party and blaming the candidate for not being saintly enough for you.
zhena gogolia
@Bill:
I saw that headline in the NYT and was like lolwut I’m not reading this paper any more
Baud
@zhena gogolia: The NYT is garbage.
Yarrow
So…question. How does one go about getting invited to these forums? Are they for party members only? The general public? How does it work?
zhena gogolia
@James Powell:
Amen, brother.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PeakVT:
This. Oh, so much this.
Bluntly, I have no interest in being a part of a political party run by Zachs.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think we can all agree that Hillary emailing Ben Ghazi on a private server about Goldman Sachs speeches was completely unconstitutional.
Yarrow
@Baud: I love how you repeat that any time someone brings up the NYT. Brings a smile to my face.
Corner Stone
I saw a blurb somewhere that HRC is going to be CEO of a chain of recreational marijuana distribution centers on the West Coast. Something with the slogan of HRC+THC=StrongerTogether
SWMBO
@Yarrow: Will there be any questions about voter suppression and how the DNC is going to handle it in the future? Will there be any questions about lead poisoning thousands of people and who should be held accountable? Will it all be about how WWC are not respected enough to vote for Dems next time?
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
I used to defend it on the grounds of crosswords and good arts coverage. Well, they still have crosswords. Even the arts coverage has gone into the toilet now, I’m not sure why. Endless stories about what Carrie’s going to do on Homeland or some such tripe.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
If there is, then somebody should be able to name that person, right?
Michigan is a red state. They have a Republican governor and a Republican legislature.
Yarrow
@SWMBO: I’m sure lead poisoning of the water supply in Flint and suppression of non-white citizens’ ability to vote are two of Ron Fournier’s most pressing concerns. I expect endless questions on those issues. //
Mnemosyne
@SWMBO:
If I were you, I’d put all my money on door #3.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Don’t know. Not my state.
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia: I honestly never look at it. Just occasional click on a link. There have been a few good articles, and those should be praised, but the overall editorial leanings make it not worthwhile.
I’m not totally happy with the Bezos Post but it’s far, far better in general.
Taylor
@Marc: I still remember the NR troll doing victory laps in the days after the election, while many were in shock. It broke my heart to see my wife’s disappointment and grief, after watching the pilgrimage to Susan B Anthony’s grave the morning of the election. This was my daughter’s first election, she tried to reassure my wife when Michigan started looking bad, then went very quiet when Pennsylvania and Wyoming went bad as well.
I also still remember the boo-ing of Obama and Clinton at the DNC, and I have a special place in my heart for Susan Fucking Sarandon enjoining people to vote for Trump.
Every time one of you fuckers comes on a thread like this to relitigate the primaries, I swear I want to my put fingers around your neck and squeeze the fucking life out of you, you miserable piece of shit.
For the Mistermixes who want to pile on the female outgoing head of the DNC, try to remember that the election strategies of Democratic politicians all over the country were made public by Putin. As far as Brazille telling Clinton that she would get a question about Flint drinking water at the Michigan debate, seriously WTF!!!????
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
And yet it was a Black Dem President that saved their jobs. So economic anxiety as a reason holds no water. Neither does gratitude.
Another Scott
@randy khan: Yup.
It’s kinda funny how there’s so much anger at DWS and DB and HRC yet Tim Kaine was DNC chair during the 2010 mid-terms bloodbath yet one never hears about that.
Maybe DNC chair really isn’t that powerful a position?
Maybe DWS and DB and HRC are getting beat up by a certain old white shouty guy and his supporters for some other reasons than whatever the DNC did or didn’t do? I wonder what that could be…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who finally unsubscribed from OurRevolution’s mailing list today.)
randy khan
@Marc:
Actually, the front pager who put up the post started it.
Ruckus
@Baud:
There are lots of them. Would any of them be any better? Or any worse? Not that I think this is a good choice.
@Mnemosyne:
I get your point, just not sure I buy into it. It’s 2 yrs till the next national election, would it not make sense to at least check out the supposed reason for them not voting for Clinton? Opp research so to speak. I get the anger at the pick of RF, I even get the anger at Clinton, (although I still don’t get the fluffing of BS), but at some point we need to move on and forward.
The DNC is doing the 6th stage of grief, reconstruction and working through. Many of us seem to be still in the 4th stage, depression and reflection.
Baud
@Taylor:
Our five faithless electors also sticks in my craw.
The Thin Black Duke
@Ruckus: How can we move on when St. Bernie and his rabid followers are poisoning the well for 2018?
Citizen_X
@mistermix:
I apologize to everyone else for yelling, but DO YOU KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FACT AND AN OPINION?
And fuck you for so gleefully charging up the circular firing squad, mix.
Ruckus
@James Powell:
Well really their line hasn’t changed, they always did feel she was the worse candidate. And they got the same as us, a president that none of us deserve.
randy khan
Two more things I need to add:
1. Donna Brazile is not going to be chair of the DNC in the next cycle, so I think complaining about her is worse than pointless.
2. One reason I am very tired of the Bernie crowd saying the Dems nominated the wrong person is that Clinton won millions more votes than him in the primaries. It.wasn’t.close. So this stuff is largely the losers telling the large majority of the party that the majority was wrong, which gets old really quickly.
Yarrow
@Ruckus: There are far better ways to check out why white people didn’t vote for Clinton than having a forum. They’ve been shown to lie about their racism and sexism doesn’t even come up as a topic. A well crafted study could tease out the real reasons behind white people voting for Trump and not voting for Clinton.
However, if the Dems want to look like they’re reaching out to the mythical white working class, then this type of forum is probably an okay way to do it. They can say they held the forum and are listening to the WWC and then go forward with whatever they decide to do.
Still think Fournier is a terrible choice of host. They should choose someone local for all the reasons I mentioned above.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Ruckus: It’s one year until the special elections in NC.
There are other off-year elections around the country as well.
Find them. Donate to them. Work for them. Build the state parties up. When the state parties succeed, the national folks will follow them.
J R in WV
@Marc:
Getting called name right out of the gate at Balloon-Juice is a proud tradition. We aren’t called a pack of braying jackals for nothing!
Is this your first snowy Saturday afternoon here? And dumping on a great American like Hillary Clinton, that’s surely a great way to introduce your views on a hard-core Democratic blog, right?
Sanders was a never-gonna-win-a-general election fluke. And not only was he not gonna win in a general, he couldn’t win the nomination in a generally liberal left political party, much less win even more votes from know-nothing rednecks. Plus, tax returns, wife’s financial disaster bankrupting the college she ran into the ground. There are lots of reasons Sanders was a much worse candidate for the general election than Clinton.
End of story. Well, no, not really… Clinton WON the national popular vote. She lost a jiggered group of states where voting was seriously interfered with, which cost her the electoral college. An ancient piece of constitutional crap needed to satisfy the elite controllers of the Confederate Slave states. Which in its latest exercise failed to perform its stated purpose, to protect the nation from a foreign-controlled ass like Trump.
That said, I agree that anyone allowing Ron Fournier into the audience at an internal Democratic Party Forum, much less to be a moderator, should be fired immediately. Along with everyone else who thought that was an acceptable idea!
Might as well invite Rupert Murdoch to help out~!!!
Yarrow
@The Thin Black Duke: I don’t think it’s just his followers. Apparently Russia paid trolls to impersonate his followers on blogs, newspaper comment sections, social media, etc. Russia wanted Clinton to lose and keeping the resentment going was one avenue they felt would help that happen. They may have been right.
FWIW, Russia is also funding all the secessionist and independence movements around the world. The Calexit folks are in tight with the Russians. So we would all do well to keep that in mind as that issue will very likely come up a lot in the coming years. Stronger Together. No matter how much the rest of the country sucks.
James Powell
If the DNC or any other interested group really wanted to advance the long term prospects of Democratic candidates at the local, state, and national level, they’d be sitting down with white people and trying to figure out how to get past their deeply embedded racist views.
Obviously sitting them down and saying “Hey, quit being fucking racists!” won’t work, though it might make me feel better for an hour or so. But there’s got to be some way to ameliorate the situation.
Fact 1: These voters are reluctant to vote Democrat because they see the party as mostly or exclusively devoted to advancing the interests of non-whites and other people they regard as not fully human and therefore undeserving of any effort to advance their interests or even mention that maybe the police ought to be less eager to shoot their men.
Fact 2: The Democratic Party must remain the party that advances the interests of non-whites, non-rich, non-owning & running every fucking thing in the country and even though they’re already fucking billionaires they still want to cut people’s wages and pensions. If not, then Jill Stein is right and there is really no purpose for the Democratic Party.
So where do we go from here? That’s what we need to work on before we start choosing candidates for the next round.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
My point is that Fournier’s attendance is a sign that the Berners have won the argument and the DNC is going to focus on winning back the WWC by focusing on their issues. The Berners who are shocked that Fournier was picked to speak to the WWC weren’t paying attention to the election — the WWC who voted for Trump that the Berners want to win back are EXACTLY the people who will listen to Fournier.
Well, almost nobody goes through the stages in order, and it’s not uncommon for stages to be repeated.
Ruckus
@The Thin Black Duke:
A very fair and reasonable question, one I have no answer to.
The man has proven to have a few nice ideas on what would be nice, with no road maps on how to arrive there. Impractical politics is not a reasonable position, unless you run a dictatorship. And he doesn’t even run a dictatorship of one.
I suppose a reasonable answer is to find a few people who might be interested in running for office. So many seem to think that a fresh face is the answer, that all politicians are corrupt to a massive degree (and they are correct about quite a few of them) but who might that fresh face be? We’ve managed to degrade the office quite a bit in the last few months, so much so that I think it will be difficult to find another B. Obama or even a reasonable facsimile. And a good portion of the population thinks that B. Obama completely fucked up the country, reality be damned. I don’t hold out a lot of hope, just in case you hadn’t noticed.
Ruckus
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Thanks, forgot about NC, I live in the workers paradise of CA. You are right we do have state and local elections in other years, but we were talking about the Democratic National Committee, they don’t as far as I know, work on local elections, other than to hopefully build coalitions.
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
To be clear, I agree that it’s a terrible idea to allow Fournier in. As I said, to me it seems to be a signal that the forum is going to focus on what the Democrats need to do to win the WWC voters in Michigan, which is a terrible idea.
CarolDuhart2
@Taylor: And these dead-enders are pissed. Usually the people who lose a primary we don’t hear from about if the candidate they lost to lost the election. But Bernie (and I think it’s him) is pissed that he lost to a woman. And that he lost to that woman. Ponder this: if this was a loss to Joe Biden, would we still be hearing about “rigged primaries”? Martin O’ Malley? Also, these types are pissed for two reasons: one, they hate the fact that women and minorities are ascendant in the party. Second, it’s clear now that their purity pony “romance of revolution” isn’t being embraced by the rest of the party-precisely because it’s no way to win marginal districts and marginal cities. It’s especially not being embraced by the real party base of Hispanics, Blacks, and upwardly mobile women. They want a piece of the pie, not turn over that pie for a “revolution” that will never happen.
aimai
@Taylor: This.
I’m not “relitigating” the primaries when I stand up for the millions of actual democratic voters who donated, got off their assess and registered people to vote, worked their hearts out through the primary and through election night, to prevent Trump or any republican from winning while they and their candidate were being kneecapped and insulted by Bernie Sanders and the soi disant “left.” People were told, as usual, not to vote because it wouldn’t make a difference. Now that it obviously did make a difference they are whining that the Democratic Party somehow didn’t prevent America from shooting itself in the face. Well–maybe if they’d worked a little harder to keep Trump out of the white house he wouldn’t be heading to the white house. If I had a dime for every WWC or pseudo intellectual green head who told me that there wasn’t a “dime’s worth of difference” or that they needed to have their prostate personally massaged by a prettier candidate than HRC before they would deign to get out and vote for the democrat I’d be wealthier than the Koch brothers.
randy khan
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I’d love for the Dems to do well in the North Carolina elections (actually just 10 months away), but the really important elections are in New Jersey and Virginia. It’s critical to have a Dem governor in Virginia for the next round of redistricting (not to mention the Dems need to start getting more seats in the House of Delegates), and almost as important to have a Dem governor in New Jersey (to have full Dem control of the state government). In North Carolina, probably the most we can hope for is to eliminate the R’s veto-proof majority, which is important, but not enough to solve the problems there.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: So funny, because of course that is the Bernie argument right there! Fournier is going to make the dead enders very happy because he is going to explain why blacks and women and gays lost the election for the white working class.
Boussinesque
Apologies if this has been suggested before, but if everyone here thinks that Ron Fournier is a bad idea (and I know I sure as hell do), why not start a petition or contact the DNC to let them know that this is unacceptable, etc.?
We can complain about them not listening to us *after* we’ve actually tried talking to them, no?
Another Scott
@James Powell: I think first we need to figure out what the various Democratic Party groups do and not expect them to be some SuperGroup that runs everything. E.g. About the DNC:
Is that a sensible charter for the DNC? It seems so to me.
So, the DNC’s job isn’t to pick or groom candidates in the states, but to support them after the local parties pick them. If we can’t get decent candidates to run for Congress or state offices, it’s not the DNC’s fault (or not primarily the DNC’s fault), it’s the state party’s fault. The DNC’s job isn’t to be the Presidential candidate’s campaign organization, either, but rather to support him or her and try to push a consistent message with all the other state parties and candidates.
If you believe that quoted text, and I do myself, then most of our party-building efforts should be at the state level rather than screaming about the DNC. (Or maybe with the DCCC and DSCC for national positions.) The DNC is governed by the state parties (they have the votes).
I don’t think Democrats have a huge problem with their (our) message, we have a problem with execution and much of that is due to cut-throat competition (disinformation, voting registration restrictions, voting restrictions, etc.) from the GOP (and elsewhere).
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
I got your point and am not even arguing that you are wrong. Your suspicions are more than likely to be correct Just presenting a possible alternative concept. The people who run the DNC might not be the stupidest people on the planet. Although the pick of RF tends to make me suspect that a possibility exists that they are exactly that stupid. But if you are trying to get people who voted for your opponent to actually attend and discuss why, maybe you should have someone they will listen to on the masthead?
Marc
@aimai: The idea that Sanders supporters, who despise everything that Fournier stands for, somehow are responsible for his appointment is bizarre. You have to leap through multiple layers of assumptions, all dubious, to get there.
Major Major Major Major
Remember when that evil huge sellout president Obama (WORSE THAN BUSH) did an interview with O’Reilly and it ruined everything forever? Kind of how much I care about this.
Seanly
@aimai
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Yes!
Jim Foolish Literalist
“appointment”
Jesus Christ. This is one of four forums that probably fewer than a thousand people in the country will pay attention to. Reading some of these comments you’d think he’d been hired to be party spokesman at $100K/month. On an outrage scale of one to ten, this is maybe a two, and I despise Ron Fournier. If anything, this is a chance for the candidates to have some fun at his expense.
Yutsano
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Virginia elects a governor next year as well.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim Foolish Literalist: this is only a two on a scale of one to ten if the scale is logarithmic.
XTPD
@J R in WV: This. I gladly accepted Sanders’ role in pushing the Clinton candidacy to the left; while I thought he should’ve quit soon after winning became clearly impossible, I’ve never really held it against him, as the campaigns were far less acrimonious towards each other in 2008.
But I don’t think he had any chance of winning a national election. From what I’ve seen of him, he had never been especially good at playing defense, and in a general election he would be crushed under the weight of an anti-Sanders (Sandinistas/SOCIALISM/Burlington/etc.) Repug/media campaign – the only definite advantage he had over Clinton would be that it’d be less of a hassle to get the center-left to rally around him. My impressions are that with him as the GE candidate he wins Michigan but loses still loses Wisconsin and Florida, with Ohio and Pennsylvania being toss-ups. And the Democratic Party would have probably responded to a Sanders loss by running clones of Jim Webb and William Maher, SUPERGENIUS in the immediate future.
Also: Cross-post from LGM (h/t EliHawk) about Saint Bernard of Brooklyn: The Musical.
eldorado
i’m choosing to believe the invitation to fourier is so that someone will curb stomp him. but i ‘ve been feeling a bit stabby since early november.
Jim Foolish Literalist
this tweet made me chuckle
Ellison can be a bit of a dick, but I have a gut feeling that he may do a good job as DNC chair. And if he’s not elected we’ll have to listen to people like mix keening about betrayal and rending their tie-dye
WaterGirl
@Baud: hahaha
What, you didn’t think there was enough arguing in this thread?
Another Scott
Oh, and people who feel really strongly about the future of the DNC and its chair can also let them know directly via rebuild.democrats.org.
They might pay more attention to that than to angry typing on a Top 10,000 Blog™ on a Saturday afternoon.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Anyone remember the comment here a couple of months ago by the guy that worked for Obama and told all how the DNC wasn’t really relevant? Good times.
delk
It was some meaningless forum four years ago that allowed me to tune out everything for four years because the moderator was so important. Made the whole primary season effortless. //
Another Scott
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I remember that, but hey, that’s just old thinking.//
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Marc:
Like Sanders supporters, Fournier believes that the Democratic Party is corrupt, elitist, and out of touch, so it seems like a match made in heaven right there.
aimai
@Marc: He wasn’t appointed and I didn’t accuse the Berners of having anything to do with Fournier’s selection. Just noting that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” will apply five minutes after Fournier leads the discussion to the perfidies and incompetencies of the black/gay/female democratic party and lectures everyone on how only catering to white male working class sensibilities can restore democratic power.
Major Major Major Major
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: well, that Obama thinks so has certainly been reflected in his actions, I’ll give you that.
WaterGirl
@James Powell:
That is so well put. I saved it for future use. That’s exactly what I have been trying to explain to family members who can’t figure out why I won’t just get over it.
Iowa Old Lady
Time to go work on the giant jigsaw puzzle I got for Christmas. Duke it out (again), Juicers!
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
It’s okay, they’re just warming up the ol’ pipes for their cries of “(Perez/Ellison/A Player to Be Named Later) must be fired!”
I give it about six months after the new DNC head is named, if not before.
kindness
Ron Fournier is a terrible choice no matter what. Might as well have Fox News do it.
But Zach? I don’t agree with Zach. The flawed candidate stuff? The Corporate Democrat stuff? I think this last years platform was the most liberal in my lifetime. Zack is doing Fox’s work for them by publicly repeating Fox’s framing of Hillary. I liked Bernie till he started doing it (April, May…I forget). Then Stein did it (and 50,000 special snowflakes who apparently prefer Gestapo Republican rule to a middle of the road Democrat threw Wisconsin’s vote to Trump. What, 13,000 votes in Florida would have given us Hillary.
Now believe me. I’d have voted for Bernie had he been nominated. And had Hillary won, I would never have stopped anyone from saying things they disagree with wrt Hillary’s policies. That wasn’t the choice we had nor the decision we faced. Bernie and Jill had nothing to do with that picture. It was only between Hillary and Trump. Now the sooner those Bernie folk stop blaming me for supporting Hillary, and the sooner they stop using false Fox points (what corruption? There never was any identified ever!) we can all come together.
I don’t know. During the election I couldn’t stop my own FB friends from using the republican memes. I could get them to admit they were ‘exagerated’ but not false and they kept using them. I am mighty disappointed in a whole lot of folk. A lot of folk who should have known better (on both sides of the aisle) and didn’t act properly anyhow.
Be nice to your fellow liberals/progressives/Democrats. Don’t do Fox’s work for them.
Mnemosyne
@Iowa Old Lady:
It would be nice if there was a script that would auto-generate a neutral open thread when one of these fighting threads gets posted, wouldn’t it? Maybe Alain can come up with one?
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: I’m pretty sure Keith Ellison already sold us out.
XTPD
@kindness:
Per Kevin Hayes Wilson, ceding Lake County (IL) to Wisconsin and the westernmost 3/5ths of the Redneck Riviera to Alabama would’ve done the trick.
I’ll also cosign the rest of your comment, and add that Sanders’ late campaign rhetoric was only a problem insofar that the willingness to be a team player is rather asymmetrical between the center-left and farther-left.
Botsplainer
@kindness:
That Fournier choice reminds me of A&E getting suckered into picking up that KKK program. Ostensibly a good thing, but once you dig in, it stinks.
And speaking of digging in, I highly recommend Sarah Kendzior on Twitter. Her material on Trump’s Russia connections is amazing in a terrifying way.
J R in WV
I”ve been aware of Ron Fournier for years, ever since the day he was inexplicably appointed as Chief of Bureau of The AP’s Washington Bureau. He was dismally unqualified, not least because he couldn’t even put up a pretense of objectivity – they might as well have appointed Breitbart or that idiot fraudster with the video cameras to the position, James O’Keefe. Or Karl Rove, even.
Also not capable of doing the job of journalism he might have been expected to do. Picking good editors, assigning reporters to beats they might have known something about. None of that happened. Now he has fled to Detroit from the heartland of politics, Washington DC.
Why would anyone want any association with this failure?
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: it is also, re: what Bill said, actually NOT “the last thing we need.”
First of all, why would it be bad?
Second, many worse things are about to happen.
aimai
@WaterGirl: I really agree with this–both your statement and James Powell’s. I guess one thing that really still pisses me off about the whole WWC/Bernfeelers group is the way their feelings are treated as sacrosanct while my grief and despair are somehow represented as inconsequential. I’m angry that the far left and the far right basically treated Barack Obama’s eight years in the presidency as a problem. I’m angry that HRC’s historic run for the presidency, and her incredible skill/talent/and hard work were dismissed–like BO’s–as not pure enough. I’m angry that decades of right wing propaganda were accepted by some members of the democratic coalition and I’m furious that Bernie was such a sore loser and wasted so much airtime and oxygen convincing his die hards that he coulda/woulda/shoulda won. I’m angry that a misdiagnosis of the problem–not enough love for the white working class–is still being peddled by people who have a shitload of ego tied up in hating on the democratic party as a party and its candidate because: clinton.
XTPD
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not an NYC resident, but the shortcomings of a Clinton mayoralty were discussed here a few days back.
StringOnAStick
I missed 2 weeks of discussion right after the election so maybe someone tossed this idea out there, but isn’t it just a bit possible that all the polling that said Hillary had a huge lead resulted in a lot of low commitment voters deciding not to bother since it “obviously” wasn’t necessary? That polling is no nearly useless in an era of caller ID and no one answers calls from numbers they don’t recognize? And that we’re doing the circular firing squad thing over something that has to do with voting being an inconvenient to impossible PITA unless you are lucky enough to have mail-in ballots?
Seems to me our conclusions should be something along the lines that voting is inconvenient to impossible for far too many, and the rethugs plan to expand that. This is what we should be throwing our energy into, such as with Kay’s local paid organizers idea.
My husband is from Detroit and we have solid liberal friends there. I would love for them to attend and ask why Wayne County’s voting machines were mostly broken on election day and what the party plans to do about that (lawsuits, get a dem majority back, etc). As for the rural rednecky parts of that state, they are seriously redneck and racist for sure. The cities are where the reachable people are.
geg6
@pamelabrown53:
This. Fuck that noise. I don’t have much of a problem with the DNC that a simple change of tactics and a laser focus won’t fix. I loved the 2016 platform and want exactly that going forward. And I, for one, DO want our chair on tv just as often as Reince’s successor will be. The fact that our people aren’t on these stupid shows is one of the major messaging flaws of the party (and when they were, they were less than impressive). We may have disdain for those shows, but a lot of middle America takes them seriously. I think both Ellison and Perez would be good at that, at least, though I prefer Perez.
debbie
@StringOnAStick:
I’d like to think this will help.
Another Scott
@StringOnAStick: ThisX1000 for the voting issues you raise.
A great article, with lots of links, on the voting problems in Wayne County, MI, is here at the BrennanCenter:
There are lots of good groups out there fighting to reduce or eliminate these voting and voting access problems. We would do well to support them now so that they have less of a burden come November 2018, and so the will of the people is actually reflected in the election results.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@randy khan: The important thing is all of them. Use locals like the one coming up in NC to lay the groundwork for the national elections. Support the state parties during the locals, and the state parties will be ready to run when the nationals come along.
We can’t take a year off here. If you have that luxury, do what you can to boost the ones who don’t. The state parties that build and succeed will either take over from the national clique or make them irrelevant.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
We should be far more worried about Campbell Brown (Mrs. Senor) being made the head of Facebook news.
StringOnAStick
@debbie: I hope it does. Our voting infrastructure iis held together by too much bailing wire and chewing gum.
The last election was the first one with all mail in ballots here in CO, something the rehugs fought tooth and nail against. Colorado now has one of the highest voter participation rates, and I am sure it helps that standing iin line for hours is not required to exercise your franchise.
raven
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I’m more worried about Campbell Soup
Major Major Major Major
@XTPD: ah, I keep forgetting she doesn’t live there. Thanks for the link.
randy khan
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I agree that we can’t take any elections off.
Mnemosyne
@StringOnAStick:
My BFF is white and originally from Detroit and, as she has to say, she is from DE-TROIT, not the suburbs, because the massive white flight of the 1960s means white people living in the city is very rare.
Anyway, her brother (who still lives there) told her that most of his white friends voted for Trump. Why? Because they were pissed that Obama didn’t clamp down on Black Lives Matter.
People who still think that the Rust Belt was lost because of “economic insecurity” are morons.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@raven: Touche
zhena gogolia
It would be nice to have a new thread about something interesting. I hate snow. I hate these high-tech weather people who can’t forecast anything more than 5 minutes ahead. Just last night it was going to be 2-4 inches, now it’s 10-12.
StringOnAStick
@Another Scott: Thanks. When I read about all the voting machinery failures iin Detroit, my level of suspicion went through the roof. Things like that and getting help to people who need it to register and then vote are two areas we can make a HUGE difference. Not sitting back and assuming the DNC will handle it is absolutely critical.
I’ve read that the networks of Koch funded super PAC’s, think tanks, etc now dwarves the RNC. We’d be wise to not forget that Citizens United has created a shadow party infrastructure that we can’t see into, and not let RNC antics take our eyes off that fact.
Ruviana
@XTPD: I so wanted to x-post that here! You are braver than I, and thank you!
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
They’re getting really big rains in northern and central California right now. Folks I know up there are sandbagging their houses.
Our turn comes later next week as the front makes its way towards us in So Cal.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Well, I asked for a new thread about something interesting, and there’s now a football thread. I guess one out of two isn’t bad.
raven
@zhena gogolia: Delta is ready when you are. . .
Mnemosyne
@XTPD:
I didn’t think the Berners could become more annoying and delusional than the PUMAs, but they succeeded.
StringOnAStick
@Mnemosyne: Yep. My husband’s recently late brother was not racist, and 4 years ago had moved from Detroit to take a corrections (yuck) job west of Ann Arbor. He wasn’t racist at that job, but every white asshole he worked with was. I noticed that more black corrections officers came to his funeral than white ones even though we were told by the white ones that “everyone loved” him. He often had to work with a mouthy white racist who proselytized every coworker, and when he found out my BIL was Jewish the guy redoubled his efforts, once telling him that since he was white, he HAD to become a Christian.
What struck me about that town was how the only jobs left were at the prison, very little small manufacturing remained and what did had their building outside of town to avoid city taxes. The city was/is run down, looks like hell and is racist as it can be. Judging from the density, size, and frequency of drumph signs there, this town is a lost cause for Democrats; its a much better use of resources in the cities.
Mary G
@aimai: This was epic. I had to stop reading comments around #70, because I don’t participate in the circular firing squad, but I am so giving you a standing ovation here. Thanks.
Larkspur
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I grew up in the Detroit area, which is something I feel is necessary to point out. My grandparents lived in Redford Township in Detroit, but my family and I lived in a little all-white factory town downriver from Detroit, and later at 81/2 Mile Road in Southfield. You don’t get to say you’re from Detroit unless you really lived in the city. Poor Detroit. I haven’t been back there in many years, but I still wish it well.
aimai
@Mnemosyne: Yup! They have met and exceeded my expectations. See also: Naderites.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
They can’t seem to forecast accurately, yet they keep their jobs year after year.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: ICYMI, I hope you folks don’t end up needing an ark!.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Larkspur:
I can’t remember exactly where my friends grew up in the city, but I remember that it was somehow slightly above 8 Mile. They were working-class with a big Catholic family (6 kids) and couldn’t afford to move out to the ‘burbs.
ETA: My friend’s brother works for Detroit Public Schools and is married to a black woman, so he was particularly WTF is wrong with you people? with his friends.
Ian
@Yarrow:
Even the ones in Russia?
laura
Whoever suggested, green lighted, and made arrangements to hire Ron Fournier to moderate ought to be shown the fucking door yesterday.
If the DNC is serious about getting a ground game for the immediate future, the midterms and 2020, they can start by hiring Driftglass or someone of his ilk who would actually put the shoulder to the wheel and craft that unifying message.
Zach isn’t the answer, but he spoke truth to power where too many elections, not just this one lost for failure to make even the slightest of efforts.
James Powell
@Another Scott:
I mentioned that, somewhere up thread. The state & local parties aren’t what they once were because patronage isn’t what it once was, because union membership isn’t what it once was, and because political participation isn’t what it once was.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve seen this said a few times, so I went back to look at what he said
Ima go ahead and say, no he didn’t. Funny thing, as to the last point, as this Perez vs Ellison things become so contentious (well, as it gets the occasional attention a couple of hundred people on political blogs), the reason DWS had the job in the first place, IIRC, is because Jennifer Granholm (Obama’s first choice) backed out at the last minute, and nobody else wanted the job.
Keith G
In the year 2024 will there be Balloons Juicers still having the “Hillary was lame / Bernie sucked” argument?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Keith G: That depends. Will there still be Berners moaning that their Sainted One would totally have won?
ETA: Or will there still be Russian trolls pretending to be Berners moaning etc etc etc?
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
The distribution of sparrows and curtain rods will depend on it.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: lots of people speak truth to power. Some people shout asshole nonsense to power. Some people even have signs about how the end is nigh and stand next to power. Zach is not in the first category.
Corner Stone
@Keith G: What is this year 2024 you speak of?
Bailey
@aimai:
2020! Let’s run Hillary again, amirite?
Major Major Major Major
Bailey’s here, I’m going to go read this Alaister Crowley book I just checked out since it’ll be more realistic.
Thanx
@Bailey: Беги, товарищ! Лось и белки уже знают свои секреты!
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I guess his Google alert finally went off.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: Oooh, which Crowley?
Aimai
@Bailey: if you want. I think that some morons will want another authentic coot, like Bernie, because they overvalue the WWC vote. Others will want a glamorous TV personality. While others will look for a charismatic white male technocrat. The left has shown that misogyny and resentment are stronger forces than racisim when it comes to shaping votes.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: I’m looking for cereal boxes in the pantry with nothing but stale product so I can see what ingredients I have been missing.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: the collection about Enochian magic(k).
Bailey
@Aimai:
I don’t care if its a coot or a washed up TV personality–if its a Dem that can actually articulate a vision for the country and have an actual message many only mostly agree with, they’ll win an election. (With or without the Russians, the FBI, voter suppression or any other reason you’d like to attribute this loss to.)
We didn’t have a message this year or a vision for the country. At all. We had a laundry list of planks in the party platform that were rarely referenced, let alone messaged to the country at large. No sense hyperventilating about the WWC–if you have a strong enough message overall, it will pull enough of those voters in. That was absent this year and until Dems realize that, we’re going to lose again and again and again.
Shaking with fists in the air and blaming everything under the sun other than the campaign that sucked and the candidate that went absent for large stretches of time ignores the most obvious problem.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: The Equinox? Or a book about Crowley?
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I hope you’re okay.
Aimai
@Bailey: no. Thats not even wrong. Its incoherent gibberish.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Equinox vols. I and II. I’m writing an urban fantasy web serial this year. Picked up an early copy of the Seligmann last week. (http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/seligmann-magic.htm)
Corner Stone
@Bailey: There are a lot of words there. None of them seem to actually be in a coherent arrangement.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
That’s funny, because I actually have a t-shirt in my drawer with the campaign’s constant message on it: Stronger Together.
Perhaps you missed hearing it because it wasn’t the only message you were open to: Bernie Rawks, Hillary Sux.
Corner Stone
@Bailey:
Who could actually say this as if it were true? Are you in a long term care ward? Maybe I shouldn’t be so rough on you if you just emerged from a coma or other mental trauma.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
We’ll be fine — we’re in a second-floor apartment far from any floodplain or potentially slippery mountaintops.
The real danger will start happening this summer when all of this water soaks down to the undertable of the soil and hills start slipping down. But even then, we’re far enough away from any major hills that we would be fine.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: Wow. That’s dedication to your craft.
So you’ll be using the OTO Enochiana instead of Golden Dawn, or are you still deciding?
Steve in the ATL
@efgoldman:
Zach is the left wing version of Marine Todd
Stillwater
@aimai: But that is because they are shitty people, not because HRC wasn’t a good candidate.
Christamighty, she was the worst. She lost to an admitted serial sexual assaulter. She was terrible. And the fact that she couldn’t beat Trump ought to be sufficient evidence to end the debate.
Stillwater
@Thoroughly Pizzled: But if they’re not to be trusted I think it’s a question of competence. People like Zach just don’t see them as allies to begin with.
For good reason: Brazille and her crowd were in the bag for Hillary, and are presumably in the bag for anyone who reinforces their power within the party. Those folks aren’t allies: they’re interested in maintaining power within an institutional structure.
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: the gist is that there is no One True System for magic, that magic is a fundamentally unknowable thing; the practices that stuck around did so because they were closest to the truth. Borges: “It is venturesome to think that a coordination of words (philosophies are nothing more than that) can resemble the universe very much. It is also venturesome to think that of all these illustrious coordinations, one of them — at least in an infinitesimal way — does not resemble the universe a bit more than the others.”
So there are adherents to many different systems as well as groups who take sort of a natural philosophy approach to determining which pieces are most accurate.
Corner Stone
@Stillwater: Your mom is the worst.
Stillwater
@Corner Stone: Maybe, but she woulda beat Trump.
hovercraft
@hovercraft:
I just love being right. Unfortunately I missed all the fun, oh well having a snow fight with the kids was more fun ;-)
cbear
@Stillwater: Lol.
janeform
@Mnemosyne: Michigan should not be thought of as a red state. We’ve historically voted for a Democrat for President, and both Senators are Democrats, and the governorship goes back and forth. What Michigan is is a heavily gerrymandered state. The Democrats have to win way more than half the vote (I think 60%) to control the legislature. That’s a different fight than in e.g., Kansas.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: So starting with Crowley kind of at random? That works.
I’ll repost this for one of Cole’s house threads, but you’ll appreciate this Crowley-related tale: Raiders of the Lost Basement
Major Major Major Major
@hovercraft: not exactly a hard prediction to make given the author ;)
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Not random at all. Nowhere did I say I was just starting :)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Major Major Major Major: OK, but since you didn’t mention Zalewski, I figured you hadn’t dipped into the GD yet. You have looked at Enochian Chess, right?
Brachiator
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Is this a reference to Kung Fu styles, marijuana, craft beer or Kama sutra techniques?
Mnemosyne
@janeform:
Unfortunately, you guys also have a major problem with voter suppression (it ain’t a coincidence that voting machines broke down in Democratic areas), and your legislature just voted to make the problem even worse.
If you’re not involved locally with efforts to get photo ID for Democrats, you need to get on that, like, yesterday.
cain
I don’t feel like participating in this thread. I voted for Baud.
janeform
@Mnemosyne: Oh absolutely. The legislature didn’t pass the voter ID law this time around in the lame duck session (yes, we still have one), but it will come up in the next legislative session, and we’ll be fighting it tooth and nail. We’re doing a lot of local organizing and a top priority will be getting people IDs.
eta We had our monthly County Party meeting today, and it was standing room only. People are getting involved. Our new board has a LOT of young people on it — even a high school student!
Major Major Major Major
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: why don’t you follow my nym and shoot me an email at the contact form with some suggested readings? My co-author is more the point guy on this stuff than I am, I haven’t looked at it since high school.
Mnemosyne
@janeform:
Yay! I love to hear that. I’m in a deep blue part of CA, so I sometimes worry that I’m in a bubble and no one in other parts of the country is as mad about how we got screwed by the Electoral College in this election as I am. Keep up the good work!
janeform
Will do! People are mad here. I don’t know about people in other swing states, but I bet they are too.
El Caganer
This is great! Almost 300 increasingly hostile comments on a post concerning who’s moderating a debate that every sentient creature on Earth will have forgotten by noon of the following day. I have high hopes for the Democrats in ’18.
Bailey
@Aimai:
Really? Do you think Joe Biden is wrong too? Or Barack Obama?
Major Major Major Major
@El Caganer: don’t blame me, I mostly posted about magic.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Oh good lord. We didn’t get screwed by the Electoral College. We knew the rules as well as anyone else. We lost 6 states that weren’t lost in 2012. Deal with that.
Major Major Major Major
@Bailey: nobody cares what you think, dearie.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Perhaps some maps will help you understand what happened between 2012 and 2016. Remember Karl Rove’s famous meltdown on live TV during the 2012 returns? That was because the Republicans had already started gaming the system, and he fully expected it to work that year. When it didn’t, they made a few more tweaks to the voter suppression scheme, and here we are with fewer than 90,000 votes deciding the fate of our country, a fate that 2.8 million more people didn’t want.
Or perhaps not. You seem pretty impervious to actual facts and data.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
You haven’t presented any. Still. Weeks later convinced the voter ID laws were the cause of the loss in 6 states (even states where these laws don’t exist) and without the presentation of facts or data to back that up.
Bailey
@Major Major Major Major:
nobody cares what you think, dearie.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Didn’t follow the link, did you?
Corner Stone
@El Caganer: Go poop in your sho3s!
El Caganer
@Major Major Major Major: You a newbie Thelemite? Been many years since I looked at The Book of the Law or any of his other writings, but IIRC, he was very pushy about differentiating “Magick” from “magic.”
El Caganer
@Corner Stone: That’s the spirit!
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
I sure did. In fact, I’ve seen that before. I also see that Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Michigan were unaffected. (And N. Carolina, too, since the law was not put into effect for 2016 elections.)
I also see that there is zero follow up from after the election. Where are the interviews with the voters–any voters–who wanted to go to the polls but couldn’t? If this happened regularly, there would be plenty of evidence of it. The opposite was true–we saw lots of reporting and interviews with voters who previously voted for Obama but switched to Trump or wrote in Harambe or voted third party.
You have zero evidence for what you’re insisting on happened, particularly to the degree that it changed an election. When you get some, I’d be happy to look at it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bailey: There are other means of voter suppression than Voter ID laws. An inadequate number of functioning voting machines in heavily D leaning areas would be one.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Michigan unaffected?
You keep telling yourself that, bro.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Pennsylvania unaffected?
Cool story, bro.
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: Jesus, Mnem, if you’re down to squabbling about a handful of votes then the argument that Hillary was a terrible candidate is effectively conceded.
Unless you’re gonna ALSO say Trump had Wide Crossover Appeal and Brought A Lot To The Table, and yadda blah blah.
Bailey
@Omnes Omnibus:
Okay, then share the data on THAT. How many votes in D leaning areas were lost because of inadequate supply and/or functionality of voting machines?
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
Well, nice to see that pointing out massive, race-based voter suppression on a national scale is “squabbling over a handful of votes.”
I guess the march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge was no big deal because, really, it was just a local squabble that nobody else should have been worried about.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Who argued it? She often said so herself. She was the strongest candidate who tried.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
So what was the result? How many voters were turned away? Please provide facts and data on that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bailey: You, of course, know that what you are demanding is proof of the unprovable. One can make inferences based on the facts that are known. Some people have done so. The fact that you choose to respond by demanding the impossible rather saying that you are unconvinced by the facts and inferences.tends to indicate that you are not discussing in good faith.
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: Well, she lost. She was, and remains, widely reviled. And she lost to person who (amazingly!) might be more widely reviled than even she is.
Which is a truly stunning achievement.
EBT
@Stillwater: How about this. The average American is too fucking stupid to know what is best for them.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Why bother? You’ve already made it clear that it’s impossible for you to draw a line between the 60,000 “missing” voters in Milwaukee who voted in 2012 but not this year, and Trump’s 10,000-vote margin of victory in Wisconsin.
You’ve already decided that it’s impossible that the Republicans cheated their way to victory, so you refuse to believe it no matter how much evidence is provided to you.
Bailey
@Omnes Omnibus:
Am I? This should not be unprovable at all. If it is quantifiable to suggest that X amount of people MIGHT be effected by legislation regarding a specific event, it is certainly quantifiable for follow-ups either proving or disproving that hypothesis.
Honestly, I would settle for even one interview with someone who tried to go to the polls and was turned away because they didn’t have the right ID or because their voting machine was broken or whatever we’re assuming was the cause of the lost election rather than the obvious.
Even the facts known are not complete. The “facts known” at no point suggest how many registered / likely voters would ever be effected by this. And the “some people” that have attempted to do so have thrown hysterical blog posts at me (PoliticsUSA, FFS!) that are about as reputable on the left as Breitbart is on the right. With again, no follow up.
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
And the really weird thing, she’s so widely reviled that 2,800,000 more people voted for her than voted for Trump.
But don’t worry, it’s going to be really comforting for you to complain about her emails when Trump starts bombing Tehran. You’ll sure be right about her then.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Good to know that you consider the Brennan Center to be the equivalent of Breitbart.
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: But don’t worry, it’s going to be really comforting for you to complain about her emails when Trump starts bombing Tehran.
You’ve got it exactly backwards, M. Apparently YOU are comforted about those potential bombing runs since Hillary won the popular vote.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Good to know that you cannot read sentences in English at all.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Meh, Bailey’s not going to believe it happened until Karl Rove goes on his national book tour called How I Stole The Election complete with graphs and maps.
And even then, Bailey will still insist that Rove is just puffing up his own importance and it was really because Hillary was just that bad of a candidate.
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
Sorry, sweetie, but I worked my ass off to get Hillary elected. I campaigned for her in two different states, and she won both of them.
I did my level best to avoid this situation. What, exactly, did you do?
Raoul
Late to this particular steaming pile. Anyone know if Ellison (or the other DNC hopefuls) are onto Fournier’s game? Because he is in the heights of the pantheon of shit-stained crap peddlers. Pundits like him make me want to punch someone, and I really really try to be nonviolent.
Not a particularly great sign that Dems want anything whatsoever to do with him.
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne: Sorry about that, Mnem. You put a lot of effort into it. Too bad she didn’t campaign in the rust belt during the home stretch.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Wisconsin Republicans were saying back in April that they had used voter ID laws to pre-rig the election for the Republican.
But I’m sure that was just empty bragging, right? Total coincidence that it actually happened the way Republicans said they had set it up to happen.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Voter participation was down in probably every state. Was certainly down in my deep blue, no voter ID required state, it just happened to not matter as much. Then again, voter participation tends to drop when the two candidates with the highest unfavorables are the choices.
Trump bested Romney’s vote totals and Clinton couldn’t match Obama’s 2012 numbers, across the board. 5 million more voters opted for third party in 2016 vs. 2012. No voter ID or suppression there, just a candidate that millions could not vote for.
Mnemosyne
@Stillwater:
Too bad the Republicans pre-rigged Wisconsin this year.
But, hey, just because they said they had done it doesn’t mean they actually did it, right? It’s just another of those weird coincidences that just happen to keep showing up over and over again. Nothing to see here, comrade, just keep walking.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Dang, seems like Clinton should have showed up and campaigned in that state or something, right? I mean, it’s not like they don’t have a GOP governor and GOP legislature or anything.
Nah…it’s all good. Let’s just not pay that state any attention whatsoever. Jay-Z’s hosting a fundraiser tonight, the campaign is otherwise occupied.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Actually, it wasn’t, but my Google search bar is getting tired, so go search it yourself, you lazy fuck. Voter participation was up in CA and NV this year.
You know where voter participation was mostly down compared to 2012? In states with voter ID laws. Yet another weird, unexplainable coincidence that surely didn’t affect the results this year at all.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Yes, I’m sure that campaigning more would have totally fixed the problem of voter suppression.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
We’ll never know. We had a candidate who deliberately chose not to campaign in the states that she needed most.
Hey, maybe should could have peeled off those non-suppressed third party voters if she’d made an effort.
But since you can’t or won’t show any actual data on how many votes were actually suppressed, your entire commentary on the subject has moved into the category of “beyond useless.”
Stillwater
@Mnemosyne:
Shorter Mnem: “Trump didn’t win, Hillary lost!”
No, that’s not right: “Hillary won and Trump lost!”
Errra: “Hillary shoulda won!”
Well …. : “Hillary woulda won if the system wasn’t rigged against her!”
Ahhh, there we go. That sounds about like what you’re saying. Hillary cannot fail, she can only be failed!
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
It was down in my state by almost 2%. No voter ID laws in place or enforced. What’s the rationale there, do you think? Russians? FBI?
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
So, too lazy to Google?
I’m still waiting for you to provide a single link for any of your assertions. But that’s your style — make everyone else do the work and then complain that they didn’t do it to your taste.
@Stillwater:
Actually, what I’m saying is that the Republicans cheated. The fact that that doesn’t bother you one bit is a little worrisome.
Applejinx
@Emma:
Explain why the Democratic Party didn’t canvass rural areas in New Hampshire. I am all for acknowledging I don’t know everything, but when I go out to help MoveOn (who have a grand total of one office in New Hampshire and everybody else is working out of their cars) and the word is we’re going out to everywhere we can to try and get people to vote for Hillary (and not just vote all-Dem but leave the top slot blank, which was totally a thing and we had to tell people a bigger margin would help Bernie find a more solid place in the new government, to try and get Hillary votes), and we discover the Clinton campaign has not been CANVASSING the rural areas like Sullivan…
And when I come here and see this Ron Fournier is doing something and YOU guys are appalled, uh… I find it hard to imagine how bad this fucker is that THIS crowd hates him for being too right wing. I thought you guys liked that and hated all the Zachs (and I’ve no special sympathy for Zach as he had no answers, it’s a lot easier to spot problems and complain than it is to actually work to fix things). If this guy makes YOU guys sick, I am speechless.
Let me know if I need to abandon the Democratic Party for good ‘k? I trusted you guys far enough to vote for Clinton, didn’t really see much of an alternative. I’ll let this crowd be the arbiter of whether it’s fucked beyond repair, because if YOU guys are done I’ll know it’s really done. Failing that I figure I’ll keep propping up Dems where I can, without asking much about whether that’s a good thing.
Fournier, huh? And I thought Wasserman Schulz was a problem.
jeannedalbret
@Marc:
Long-time lurker, occasional commenter nods head in agreement witchu.
Omnes Omnibus
@Applejinx:
Excuse me?
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Too lazy to Google what? That Trump exceeded Romney’s votes and HRC didn’t match Obama from 2012? That 5 million more people voted third party in 2016 vs. 2012? Here you go.
Here are the results of my state’s voter participation-–again, no voter suppression, no voter ID laws, no pesky malfunctioning voter machines or not enough voting machines.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bailey: Hey look, moving goalposts.
Bailey
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe you dozed off or something or can’t keep up. No goalposts moved. Just demonstrating that voter participation also down in states where all of Memes concerns are just not factors at all.
Mnemosyne
Okay, one more link for lazy-ass Bailey and the other people who are Just. So. Confused. about what happened in Wisconsin.
Trump won WI by 10,000 votes. Election officials in Milwaukee — which has a large minority population, in case you were unaware — said that they predicted turnout would be lower due to the voter ID laws, and it was, by 41,000.
Now ask yourself, when it comes to getting an opinion about the recent election in Wisconsin, who’s most likely to have the most accurate information: actual election officials in Wisconsin, or some schlemiel on the internet who can’t be arsed to look up a single link to support his fact-free assertions?
Again: the Republicans cheated. The fact that there are purported Democrats who refuse to believe that those nice, upright, ethical Republicans who nominated Donald Trump could possibly have cheated to ensure his victory is truly mind-boggling to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bailey: Complete lack of good faith argumentation.
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not confused at all. The Clinton campaign was evidently VERY confused about Wisconsin though. I sure wish they would have tried to determine what was going on on the ground, you know what I mean?
Then again, you’ve still not answered how voter participation can be down all across the country, even in states where there are no photo ID requirements, where there are no voting machines and where there are no efforts of suppression.
So, all things being equal, should we nominate Clinton again? Third time’s the charm? And when we do nominate her again, do we advise her to make no changes to her strategy or messaging?
The fact that there are purported Democrats who think a challenged state can be won by not ever once showing up is truly mind-boggling to me.
Bailey
@Omnes Omnibus:
So you answered my question for me. You’re not paying attention.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
Wow, you sure showed me that voter participation was down this year. Oh, wait:
Oh, and that massive drop vs. Obama’s votes in 2012?
And if you wondered the exact number of your fellow Americans who didn’t think it mattered who won, here they are:
Thanks a lot, jackholes. President-elect Trump couldn’t have done it without your self-centeredness and stupidity.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
I can’t answer a question that isn’t actually true. Voter participation was up this year. Did you even read your own link?
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Your reaction tells me that you don’t understand that the totals are not the whole story–it is the percentage of voting participating of available voters that has fallen. We’ve added 18 million more eligible voters since 2012 and yet the 2016 participation does not reflect that.
Got it? I know math is hard.
I didn’t wonder about that at all. HRC’s unfavorables were off the charts and yet myopic Dems thought she was amazing. Despite the rise of 3rd party support in the polls, HRC never bothered to appeal to those voters. Go figure we got the result we got.
Mnemosyne
All right, enjoyable as it is to watch Bailey post links that say the opposite of what he claims, I need to go out to dinner with my spouse. Later, jackals!
Bailey
@Mnemosyne:
Good night. Maybe your spouse will give you some math lessons so that it sinks in for you.
Mnemosyne
@Bailey:
One of us seems to be misunderstanding what’s at your link. Let’s take another look:
Nope, it’s not me. This election had the second-highest turnout since 1968.
Bailey
Yup, it’s you. It’s still down, whether it’s second-highest, third highest, or ninth-highest. Down is down. And if your campaign strategy revolves around keeping the Obama coalition and then adding Republican women (or whatever that campaign push was all about) then having lower voter participation does not get you there at all.
And it certainly does not get you there if your strategy involves losing an additional 5 million voters to 3rd party candidates.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Applejinx: Hey look your stupid finally caught up with obnoxious.
And they said it couldn’t be done.
Full Metal Wingnut
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Clinton’s Third Way was perfectly defensible in the 90s, coming off the heels of 12 years of Republican rule.
Berto
Dear Democratic Party,
May I have another?
Sincerely,
Democratic voters
Omnes Omnibus
@Full Metal Wingnut: At the time, the Third Way was a move to the left. A cautious move. Like dipping a two in the water. But a move to the left nevertheless.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: FFS a toe, not a two. Dear fucking Christ.
ek hornbeck
@Taylor:
Umm….
This is the kind of language that gets you banished at respectable sites and sends police types knocking at your door.
Hugs and Kisses!
Miss Bianca
@aimai: You know what? Way late to the thread, but right on.
Raven Onthill
This sort of thing is exactly why voters don’t trust the Democratic Party. Having lost, they go back to the same things that cost them the goodwill of the people
The election was lost to sexism, racism, bad press, and bad luck. Above all to the sexism that made a smart, competent woman appear a lesser choice than a man who has made a career of broken promises, bad deals, and televised bullying. But look to the history. There’s no-one who doesn’t know someone who lost a home to mortgage fraud. There’s no-one who doesn’t know someone who lost their job and never found another. The memory of voters is usually about six months, but loss of a home, the loss of a career? These things are remembered for a life time. And when someone came along and promised to fix it, enough people voted for him to swing the election.
And, yes, there are also the deplorables, but it’s the people who suffered losses, allied with them, who swung the election. And now here we have Fournier called in to moderate this. Has the Democratic leadership learned nothing?
Phil Perspective
@mistermix: It’s all on Donna Brazile. I love how establishment Democrats are always pining for acceptance from Versailles. If this was the GOP doing it, they’d have Breitbart and NRO moderate. Yet, you never see unions or The Nation, as two examples, moderating these things for the Democrats.
Phil Perspective
@Raven Onthill: But look to the history. There’s no-one who doesn’t know someone who lost a home to mortgage fraud. There’s no-one who doesn’t know someone who lost their job and never found another. The memory of voters is usually about six months, but loss of a home, the loss of a career? These things are remembered for a life time. And when someone came along and promised to fix it, enough people voted for him to swing the election.
And one of the bankers that should be in prison will now likely be the next Treasury Secretary. Whose fault is that?
goblue72
@mistermix: yeah but Zach had the temerity to criticize Donna Brazile, who is a black woman, and since Zach is a white male, in Democratic PC kabuki land, he therefore is a racist at worst and at best needs to STFU & check his privilege. (Despite Brazile’s biggest claim to fame being Al Gore’s campaign manager)
Raven Onthill
@Phil Perspective: Who is responsible for the Affordable Care Act?
Ain’t many saints as run for President. Sinners, on the other hand, them we got.
kindness
@Bailey: The Democratic Party had a great message in 2016. Our problem was that the Democratic Party couldn’t get any media to repeat or talk about it because every moment was being (purposefully) taken up by Hillary’s server, emails, the horse race and comments about how even the left (Jill Stein, Bernie’s Hillary Haters – you know, Karl Rove’s useful idiots) hated Hillary.
The media refused to speak of policy. The media absolutely refused. Duped? Paid off? I don’t know. I just know my country should be worth more than some media company’s neilson ratings. And it wasn’t. The ratings won and we all lost.
Don’t blame Hillary or the Democratic Party that they couldn’t get their message out.
El Caganer
@Major Major Major Major: You might also find it interesting (don’t know if it would be useful to your writing or not) to check out the Crowley connection to Kenneth Anger and Jack Parsons. The Great Beast influenced a pretty diverse crowd of people.