Save this screenshot for the next time one of these guys accuses you of being a Hillary cultist pic.twitter.com/mCMCQRZsam
— Molly (@isteintraum) June 11, 2017
Gotta admit, from the reports I’m seeing, the “Peoples Summit” in Chicago is reminding me of my teenage years at early 1970s Star Trek conventions. Lots of fervent outsiders extremely hyped to have discovered — finally! — ‘our own kind’. Many hucksters, of varying quality and honesty. Formerly-low-Q-rating celebrities visibly wondering whether their new notoriety would be worth the costs. Skeptical stringers, looking for filler in default of screenworthy car crashes or fires. And a shadowy background of professional marketers considering how this novelty niche could best be… monetized.
Perhaps, as we would tell questioners later, you just had to be there to understand.
The #PeoplesSummit is happening in Chicago but not involving Chicago organizing. Strange choice to be here but exclude those who work here
— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) June 9, 2017
Dave Weigel, in the Washington Post:
… Nearly a year after effectively conceding the Democratic presidential nomination, Sanders was the star of this year’s People’s Summit, which has quickly become the country’s largest progressive political conference. At least 4,000 people trekked to Chicago for a weekend of teach-ins, panels and dance parties. In a Saturday-night speech, Sanders planned to tell activists to charge ahead because “ideas that, just a few years ago, seemed radical and unattainable, are now part of Main Street discussion.”
But as Sanders used his star power to unite activists behind the Democrats, some debated whether the Democratic Party could ever be fixed to their liking. Faced with unified Republican control of Washington, progressives were less interested in simple unity than in a purity that they believed could win…
Stephen Jaffe, a 71-year-old Sanders supporter challenging House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for the 2018 midterm elections, spent some of a Friday-night meet-and-greet debating the relevance of the party with would-be supporters.
“If the driver pulls the car into a ditch, you get a new driver,” said Jaffe.
“What if the car’s so banged up that no one wants it?” asked an organizer for a group that aimed to draft Sanders as an independent 2020 presidential candidate.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Sanders reiterated that he had become the Democrats’ outreach chair in the Senate; third-party politics in the wrong places would only split the movement, he said.
“Look, as the longest-serving independent member of Congress, I know something about that,” Sanders said. “Where my energy is right now is in fundamentally transforming the Democratic Party into a grass-roots progressive party.” And we’ll see where it goes.”
But the long hangover from the 2016 campaign has lingered. Melissa Byrne, a Sanders organizer who now serves on the Democratic National Committee’s transition committee, said she continues to spend time and energy persuading people not to abandon the party over bitterness about the DNC’s perceived slant toward Clinton…
FWIW, majority of summit's speakers are either board members of Sanders' PAC or members of his Institute's team. Fundraising, selling books.
— Old Lady Dem (@oldladydem) June 9, 2017
The main Bernie program kicks off with The Beatles's "Revolution," which is about being skeptical of people who call for revolution.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) June 11, 2017
"The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure." – Bernie Sanders (D-VT) https://t.co/qUHEbNtjPp
— Nathaniel Meyersohn (@nmeyersohn) June 11, 2017
Which part does Bernie consider a failure: the voting lists he stole, the $ and primary infrastructure he used or the job Schumer gave him? https://t.co/Cl0MhPEcB5
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) June 11, 2017
Over an hour speech & q-and-a, Bernie made one quick reference to Obama in O's town: to talk down quality of jobs added in the recovery
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 11, 2017
Van Jones unloading on 2016 Dem campaign: "A billion dollars, and they set it on fire! A billion dollars for consultants!" #PPLSummit
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) June 10, 2017
The same Van Jones who gushed about how presidential Trump was in his address to Congress. Ouch https://t.co/OgsyBNjrn8
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) June 10, 2017
True story: Bernie spent more on consultants and media than Hillary. But hell, Van's not in the fact business. He's on the sales side. https://t.co/OC1XMkApCG
— Tom Watson (@tomwatson) June 10, 2017
Heck, why should the rightwing nut jobs be the only ones enjoying a cosplay “revolution”?
Villago Delenda Est
Grifting assholes, the lot of them.
No different than the scum at “Conservative” events.
Elizabelle
Ah. So that’s why the NY Times has another Democrats in Disarray! story up. Which I’ve been avoiding; comments section looks full of feel the Bern and Burn it down types.
Tomorrow is Virginia’s gubernatorial primaries. Ralph Northam vs. Tom Perriello, for who goes up against non-scary Republican Ed Gillespie in the fall. Hoping that does not become another Hillz vs. Bern proxy fight.
Villago Delenda Est
The “Feel the Bern” types prove that the perfect is the enemy of the good.
JWR
Heh. a cosplay “revolution” indeed. As DougJ wrote earlier..
Describes the Cult Of Bernie to a tee.
BTW, has anyone heard anything about about Sessions recusing hisself from giving testimony this Tuesday? (Sorry, but I’m still running an old computer, running very old software, which makes browsing really slooow!)
Eljai
That reminds me, I got two emails this week. The first was from my local Progressive Democrats of America group announcing a panel to obsess about the “rightward drift” of the Democratic party. The second email was from my local resistance group listing issues and providing an action plan and various ways to get involved. Guess which email made me feel inspired to do something? In a week where the Republicans are hell bent on stealth destroying our healthcare system, I ain’t got time for bitching and moaning about whether some members of the Democratic party are pure enough. We got work to do!
Bobby Thomson
Fuck those guys.
Fuck Bernie.
Fuck Van Jones.
Fuck everyone who swallowed a Russian campaign to suppress the Democratic vote. But mainly, fuck Bernie for knowingly going along with it. Christ, what an asshole. At least Trump doesn’t really pretend that hard to care about anyone other than himself.
delk
dance parties?
amk
Instead of 24×7 whining about dems (and giving the rethugs the total pass), why don’t the purity nutz start their own party? After all, a fucking centrist did it in France and he has earned a massive mandate in just one year.
NR
I suppose it’s a waste of time to point out to you guys that Sanders also said this at the summit:
You guys seem to have a problem with selective perception. When Sanders criticizes Democrats, you’re all over it, but when he criticizes Republicans, you either don’t notice or don’t care.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
What do you want for Bernie, a cookie?
NobodySpecial
@NR: If we don’t hang together, we assuredly will hang separately. Why’s the Democratic outreach guy slandering the party he’s doing outreach for?
NR
@NobodySpecial: Funny how you guys criticize the “My party, right or wrong” attitude from the Republicans, but seem to expect it from Democrats or anybody who associates with them.
Sanders stands outside the party and supports Democrats when they get it right and criticizes them when they get it wrong. That’s a valuable thing to do since it gives him a strong voice with voters who also stand outside both parties–which, by the way, is a larger number of people than those who call themselves Democrats.
You seem to think that support is something that is owed to the Democratic party by anyone who considers themselves liberal or progressive. Sorry, but that support isn’t owed. It’s earned. And people who give their support honestly, rather than on a partisan basis, are what we need more of in our country.
Oh, and calling a strategy that resulted in the loss of 1,000 legislative seats nationwide a failure isn’t slander. It’s simple truth.
Shalimar
@NR: You’re wasting your breath. I have pointed out in the past that Bernie gives speeches that are 95% positive about Democrats and my fellow Juicers focus on that other 5% to bitch about. The thing is, the most obnoxious Bernie supporters only seem to hear that other 5% too and constantly talk about tearing down the Democratic party to make it pure. Which means my fellow Juicers are right: To hell with Bernie, he isn’t helping fight Trump.
A good example is you. You only show up to tell us we’re wrong about Bernie. Never in any of the Trump atrocity threads.
Adam
@Villago Delenda Est:
What’s the over/under till people Tusli Gabbard start to expand there operation like fake heath cures like there contemporaries on the right?
NR
@Shalimar: I have, in fact, criticized Trump several times here just since he took office. If you count the campaign last year, that number becomes a lot higher.
In any case, Sanders supporters are far from the only ones who have a problem with the Democratic party these days. Polling data shows that 67% of Americans think the Democratic party is out of touch with their concerns, including 60% of non-white Americans, 59% of women, 75% of independents, and even 44% of Democrats. Democrats would be a lot better served by dropping the demands for public professions of loyalty and trying to figure out how to make the party work for the people again.
Shalimar
@NR: Go play in traffic. No one gives a fuck about your public profession of loyalty. It would be plenty if you would argue for your agenda instead of constantly attacking people who could be your allies.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Looks like someone’s Google alert went off.
LesGS
@NR: You know what? You’ve been such an arse on BJ comment threads that when I (regular reader/rare commenter) see “NR” on the top of a comment, I just scroll on past. I did just that with the comment this reply is linked to, but because you included a large block of text that was a Sander’s quote, I rolled back up, read it, and liked what I read.
It’s really too bad that you are such a poor messenger for the message you seem to want to promote. Or is it your intent to bend readers of your comments into an anti-Sanders stance? If it’s the latter, you’re doing a really good job!
Frankensteinbeck
@NR:
You did! SEVERAL times. I was impressed and astonished when you pulled your rate of criticizing Republicans over criticizing Democrats up to around 10%. Your previous history was so uniformly about criticizing Democrats, after all. In fact, you made sure to do just that right now, with numbers that suggest Sanders’ smear campaign is working and he’s the giant problem we accuse him of being.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
You just don’t get it, do you? Democrats aren’t arguing over whether Trump is unfit to be President. They know he is. He spent his entire campaign showing the world just how unfit he was, and since he won he’s only kept on showing that. There’s nothing new to be said about that.
Now then, as to the demand that the institutional Democratic party tear itself down and rebuild in Bernie’s image to please those who “stand outside” (your phrase), it doesn’t work that way. You want to change things in the party, make it more progressive? First thing you got to do is get inside the tent and win the party over. It will necessarily involve making compromises with unrepentant corporatists and oldthinkers; but hey, that’s politics, man.
Frankensteinbeck
@Amir Khalid:
Bernie’s comment about progressive ideas being more mainstream is absolutely true, and he has jack to do with it. For example, he barely nudged Hillary’s already intensely liberal platform, then took credit for her positions. Obama, on the other hand, put in the work and had a big part in increasing liberal mainstream thought, while Sanders called for a primary against him.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Applejinx
Well, this certainly isn’t going to be an absolute shitshow.
Much like Hillary Clinton shat all over her own DNC workers not two weeks ago, at the Recode event that I told you would reveal her real self because they’re good at knobslobbering very rich and important people, with the words “I mean it was bankrupt, it was on the verge of insolvency, its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it”…
When I worked for Bernie in New Hampshire (very early on) I worked directly with VoteBuilder, pumping new data into it, knowing the whole time that I was working for the DNC very directly and helping THEIR system, which was only borrowed. Every piece of data which was brought up to date was making it less mediocre, and there was a hell of a lot of information in there.
Therriault was right: it’s bullshit to blame the people who were working their asses off FOR you. First of all, how the flying fuck is the DNC supposed to be EARNING money for her? It’s a tool on which you SPEND money to get results. We on the Bernie campaign had to pay to use NGP VAN. This thing is not the Clinton Foundation, it’s the DNC. It’s not ABOUT her. Maybe that’s why she thinks it’s such shit?
How about the pissed-off people who just got dissed by their ‘leader’ come and join us commie rabble in ‘Our Revolution’? Or, you can wait until Hillary Clinton blames you for her own failings, again. That’ll work.
I’m all for Democrats and the reality of an only-two-party system, but this is starting to feel like the memetastic bunker scene. I would like to know that at least the DNC is not hitting itself in the head with a hammer all day long before I put my faith in it, when it has lost so fucking much over recent years. Guys, Russian hackers and racist sexists can’t do all the damage themselves. Sheer arrogance and an insane personality cult (projection, much?) are necessary ingredients of the DemocratIC party rendering itself the new Whigs, permanently destroyed. Stop that.
Maybe we can piggyback on what the Brits are doing, call ourselves Labor. (not New Labor! fucking Blairites!)
Just stop it. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck:
True. It’s really not even Bernie’s progressive image but Obama’s, and Hillary had the best plan for keeping the Democratic party on that track. Which is why the fashionable urge to shout her down, from those who fight on for Bernie rather than for the Democratic party’s cause, is potentially destructive to the party.
Baud
Bernie’s speech doesn’t sound too bad, relatively speaking. I doubt it’ll move the needle on anything.
Baud
@Amir Khalid: Yes. Agree. Bernie can’t and/or doesn’t want to corral his most ardent supporters.
LesGS
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: It’s pretty late, even here on the west coast. Please toss your comment up again in an eastern time morning thread. What a great program!
Baud
@Applejinx: It does have to be this way until you reform yourselves. For starters, stop talking about never-running-again Hillary Clinton. Leave her to her admirers.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Does not want to. The event that turned me against him the most was when his followers tried to steal a caucus that went against them. They failed, and threw a screaming, chair-waving fit, claiming somehow they were the ones robbed. Sanders cluck-clucked against threats of violence, then told them their anger was justified. No, it wasn’t. He did his damnedest to convince idealists that a corrupt Democratic Party stole their birthright of easy answers. He still is. Apparently he did a pretty good job.
geg6
@Baud:
Not to mention, the things she criticized and that he’s so worked up over would not be the DNC’s workers fault. It would be the fault of the people who were in the party leadership and ultimately, that was…wait for it…the devil herself, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz!
Cermet
If and when Bernie gets the nomination for the democratic party, then he will be supported. Otherwise, he isn’t anyone of note now and comes from a state that has extremely unique economic system of coop farming; his message may resonate with many young voters (the biggest segment of democratic voters who don’t vote) but that mess age isn’t likely to win a national race. There is a reason all major leaders are corporate whores. Yet, these democratic whores don’t cut medical care to children nor the needy and support real safety net systems. So, pick your whores but some do have a golden heart (even if paid for by corporations … .)
Baud
@geg6: I know. But there’s no point debating the merits of an issue with zealots.
Barbara
Somebody who has been a professional independent his whole life is never going to be satisfied with a party that is a reflection of its many diverse constitents. Knowing that is the case makes Sanders a tedious and not a credible messiah for people like me.
Bruce K
I don’t know why, but I’m starting to get annoyed at all the people saying that if Bernie had been the candidate, he’d have beaten Trump. It’s about as much use as me lamenting that the Yankees might have won the 2004 World Series. Are we going to postulate that Bernie didn’t have his own vulnerabilities that the cheeto and the GOP couldn’t exploit?
That bon mot about going to war with the army you’ve got, not the one you wish you had, is actually more appropriate to the Dems right now than it was to the war that Rumsfeld was talking about back then (in that Cheney, Rummy, and that cabal had the choice of not going to war at all, while the Resistance in 2017 doesn’t have that choice)…
Barbara
@Bruce K: Cosign. And especially when the assessment is based on the outcome of an election in a foreign country.
Yoda Dog
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I donated. I’ll repost this for you later today too. Cheers, my fellow tarheel.
different-church-lady
@NR:
That’s an odd thing for the party’s potential presidential nominee to do.
msdc
No, that would be six weeks from now.
different-church-lady
@Applejinx: It’s funny to see you nail Hillary for criticizing the DNC and see NR admiring Bernie for doing the same thing in the very same thread.
Yoda Dog
@Bruce K: It’s beyond stupid. She kicked his ass by 4 million fucking votes.
Bottom line imo: PoC don’t trust or like him and they refused to vote for him. So he got crushed in the South. Then he goes on the the teevee and tells us thats unfair.
Fuck him, PoC are the backbone of the national party. Win them over or get the fuck out of the way. Don’t like it? I know a party where practically everyone looks just like Bernie.. Maybe he should go try them out. All I ask is that he takes NR with him..
Sherparick
@NR: I have been dealing purity trolls in the Democratic party for 40 years. Unlike the insane Movement Conservatives, who are highly functional in day-to-day politics, the delusional progressives can anyone elected dog catcher outside Vermont (& even there a Republican governor won election in 2016). These people have been in the Green party the last 16 years. How many elections have they won?
Bernie & his overall movement are a different problem. He got over 10 million votes last year with his critique that Hillary (& Obama) were more in touch with Wall Street on the structure of the economy then the working class. Thomas Edsall is the source of the poll numbers, & I find him problematic (he accepts a trope that Blacks & Hispanics are not part of the working class.) It is a snap shot that still shows the effects of Bernie’s campaign, but I see no evidence that the clowns making the purity noise represent those blue collar voters.
opiejeanne
@Applejinx: Hillary did not shit all over her supporters two weeks ago. That is a total misrepresentation of what she said.
FlipYrWhig
@Sherparick: What rank-and-file non-Democrats think is the problem with Democrats is that they’re “liberal elitists.” It has fuck-all to do with Wawl Shtreet and all the other Bernie Sanders bullshit. They don’t think Bernie Sanders is any less of a liberal elitist than any other Democrat. His whole shtick is “favorite professor,” which is why he’s adored by eternal college students. The whole theory that Bernie Sanders is the working-class whisperer, believed by many pundits AND one Bernie Sanders his dumbass self based on a bookish theoretical argument he fell for 50 years ago, is fucked up. The best that can be said about Bernie Sanders and the white working class is that, relative to Hillary Clinton, they found him honest. Then again, the phenomenon that has been entirely swept into the Memory Hole is that in 2008 Hillary Clinton was the preferred candidate OF THESE VERY SAME DEMOGRAPHICS, mostly because, relative to Barack Obama, they found her not to be a black nationalist outsider.
Yoda Dog
@opiejeanne: Just goes to show they have nothing in the way of legitimate criticism, they have to invent bullshit like that and throw it out there so matter-of-factly..
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: Yup, that incident gave away the game, and crystallized the unearned sanctimony and indignation of the whole obnoxious “movement.” At this point I find him repulsive, and when his dopey rictus shows up in ads for Tom Perriello, it makes me hella suspicious of Tom Perriello.
FlipYrWhig
@Yoda Dog: @opiejeanne: Bear in mind that Applejinx is really quite daft as well as being a biased liar with spectacularly bad judgment.
Applejinx
@different-church-lady: What, we’re the same person now? We need the DNC. I worked long hours supporting the DNC as head of the data team in New Hampshire, filling in data that belongs to NGP VAN. Unlike Clinton’s consultant class (and Bernie’s interns) I didn’t get paid a thing to do it. I want the DNC to quit being corporatist and turn to the people: you can’t get paid and then go against your bosses, and they get paid by some horrible ugly corporations that mean no good. ALL of the government does, the Republicans have been worse my entire lifetime, and this is not a system of civic service that’s functional. You can’t imitate that. Put the Republicanism DOWN.
@opiejeanne: …the direct quote of her, you mean? And you’re right if you assume the DNC is not her supporters. Which would be… weird, when her actions suggest she’s harnessing YOU folks and preparing to stay in control and run again, even older, even less willing to learn a damn thing. Baud, you’re wrong. YOU should please run again. Anything is better than being forced to take sides with one of the other of THESE motherfuckers yet again. I really can’t even. I’d like to see Bernie sit back and let his progressive movement go on without him, and he’s the one I LIKED. Now I gotta turn around and side with Clinton again after she demonstrably blew it?
Make them ALL sit down and shut up. I don’t want to hear from either of them. I’d rather hear from John McCain, at least there would be surprises.
SFAW
@Yoda Dog:
What about Hillary’s murder of
Vince FosterRon BrownChandra LevyJudge CraterSeth Rich???!?!?!!?! I suppose you’ll try to tell us that she did NOT kill him with her own hands, then drag him tothe grassy knoll in Dealey PlazaFort Marcy parkwherever his body was found?ETA: Be that as it may, I would dearly appreciate it if Bernie and his Bros do something more than give “good” speech. Were I not so lazy, I’d look up all of his legislative accomplishments, and suggest he build off those. And Van Jones should just fellate Shitgibbon on Primetime TV, and get it over with.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: You are a ridiculous person.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig:
Ranting tirelessly against big corporations and millionaires and billionaires has more than a little to do with that. Try it sometime and see, instead of like Pelosi going ‘we’re just capitalists, that’s just the way it is’ unquote.
You can rant against big corporations and millionaires and billionaires while BEING most likely one of the three, and it still works and it’s still a choice you can make: it doesn’t oblige you to side with ‘your class’ and against normal people. Bernie is not the only class traitor. Look up Nick Hanauer sometimes. Listen to Mark Blyth, who may well be a millionaire for all I know, who personally paid more US taxes than fucking United Airlines.
The BONUSES for Wall Street (not pay, bonuses) are now more than the income for every minimum wage job in the country added together. Blyth ran the numbers, carefully because he knew it was an explosive accusation.
Being a class traitor is no shame, at this point. NOT being a class traitor is what’s disgraceful.
Also: try harder, Whig. You are lazy and content-free.
Yoda Dog
@FlipYrWhig: A real triple threat then.. J-Lo-esque…
Yea, whadda clown. He’s been on my ‘side-eye’ list since he scolded me for being too mean, talking about trump supporters… on BJ… lol
Amir Khalid
@FlipYrWhig:
I keep confusing Tom Perriello with that guy from Rage Against The Machine.
Starfish
I knew Van Jones and Bernie Sanders were topics of discussion, but I did not know why. Thanks for putting them in the context of the event.
Chyron HR
@Yoda Dog:
But he got a rap musician to endorse him! What more do you people want?!
SFAW
@Chyron HR:
I wondered what had happened to Vanilla Ice.
Well, no, actually I hadn’t.
D58826
Before 2016 the longest-serving independent member of Congress, could have been the person Der Fuhrer shot in Time Square and no one would have noticed let alone cared.
Chyron HR
@Applejinx:
BREAKING NEWS
HILLARY IS DEAD
YOU KILLED HER, ALONG WITH THE COUNTRY
NO CLINTON WILL EVER DARKEN A BALLOT AGAIN
NOT HILLARY, NOT CHELSEA, NOT LITTLE BABY WHATS-HIS-FACE
GET THE FUCK OVER IT
liberal
@Frankensteinbeck: Hillary’s platform was indeed very liberal. The problem is she didn’t campaign on it. Her campaign was noted its low fraction of ads devoted to issues.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: That (inveighing against millyunaihs and billyunaihs) has nothing to do with the actual problems of the working class. It’s a boutique argument for bookish college Marxists, which Bernie Sanders has been for half a century.
cmorenc
@delk:
The “dance parties” were probably more like drum circles.
low-tech cyclist
@FlipYrWhig:
Bullshit. That’s where the money’s gone that could have been higher pay and more jobs for the working class, but wasn’t.
Not to mention the basic reality that political power tends to follow economic power. If too much money’s sloshing around at the top, the folks at the top are going to change the rules to make sure they get even more of the pie.
This is true even though I can’t stand Bernie and wish he’d STFU.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
There’s simply no way Tad and Crooked Jane didn’t have their hands in the Russian laundered money waterfall through Old Towne Media, where many campaign millions disappeared. Jane’s shady AF, and always has been. I guess there was no chant about releasing their tax returns as part of the dance party?
nightranger
What does the token ball juice Sandernista think of all this?
Would not be surprised if MarkyMux was there. He should post his views instead of hiding in the bushes like Spicer.
The Moar You Know
Oddly enough, this Democrat is not terribly interested in belonging to such a party.
martian
I’m going to be sorry I dipped a toe in here, but why are you Bernie peeps so cool with his lack of transparency? He lied about releasing his tax returns umpteen times, he got extensions and timed out his FEC financial disclosures, he’s late on his most recent required disclosures, he puts everything in Jane’s name so he can go around claiming to be only a multi-hundred thousandaire, it’s pretty fucking sketchy. And that’s not even going into where all that campaign money went with Olde Town or whatever the hell that pop-up media company was, or Our Revolution’s set up and Weaver. You’re all cool with Jane being in the thick of everything while she’s being investigated for the liar loan that sank Burlington College?
I guess I really don’t get a worldview where every utterance of Hillary’s is parsed for nefarious intent, but people who are openly lying about shit and clumsily obfuscating are gilded heroes of the working class. It’s enough to just talk the talk, no walking needed?
Amir Khalid
@low-tech cyclist:
True enough; but calling out the greedy rich, no matter how much sincerity and passion you put into it, will never persuade them to give up their unjustly acquired wealth. You need a more subtle approach.
Gravenstone
@nightranger: Derf! Buddy! Adam will be along to throw you back into purgatory just as soon as he’s made aware of your presence and corroborated your IP addy. You really can’t help yourself with your trite pattern of clownlike nicks for the site and front pagers, can you? It’s really pathological at this point.
WarMunchkin
oh this thread again
Camembert
@Baud:
I’m curious how Bernie would “corral” a “supporter”. That’s an interesting idea in a supposedly free country. “Corral” a “supporter”. There are definitely some baseline assumptions about how the world functions that I don’t share inherent in that sentence.
Camembert
I still have absolutely no idea how HRC supporters have time for negative emotions above and beyond white-hot hatred for Obama for hiring James Comey. Not kidding.
? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?
@Camembert: Fuck off
Camembert
@? ?? Goku (aka Junior G-Man) ? ?: So you’re down with the fact that President Obama hired a guy who cut his teeth on Whitewater, railroading Martha Stewart, and torture as our #2 LEO who then threw the election to Tr45? HRC supporters are weird.
martian
@Camembert: This is some bullshit trolling, but what the hell, I’ll bite. Upfront, I’ll say that I absolutely hated the Comey appointment. I think anyone involved with Ken Starr or BushCo should be shunned by all decent people, Dem politicians not excepted and Dem Chief Executives in particular. But every politician is a mixed bag and I am not holding my breath waiting for the Second Coming of FDR without the icky racism or JFK without the grifty grafty machine politics. I think Obama did a stellar job under nearly impossible circumstances and he made a lot of deviations from the ideal just to accomplish what he did. I count Comey in that. Do you have someone else in mind that Obama could have gotten appointed, because I’m not seeing the point of hating Obama for an appointment that was widely praised at the time however much I loathed it and mistrusted Comey.
What the supposed Last Honest Man did to Hillary during the election was not a foreseeable outcome of Obama’s choice. Not much about this insane election was foreseeable even by the main actors involved. Comey probably got played by the Russians and the Giuliani/FBI cell in NY and was led into it by his anti-Clinton biases and his vanity about his precious, superior moral rectitude. Anybody thinking anything here was a predictable outcome much less something that Obama should be hated for with a “white-hot hatred” is full of shit from jump.
SFAW
@nightranger:
You could do us all a favor and take the fucking hint when you get banned, asshole.
Just sayin’
SFAW
@Camembert:
No, you are abso-fucking-lutely RIGHT!!!
To show how upset we are about it, let’s see if ZEGS can get his Caucus to Impeach Obama!! That’ll show the Usurper.
Jesus H. Christ, where do you come up with this stuff?
SFAW
@Camembert:
Between this one, and the “You should all hate Obama because of Comey” moronitude, I’m wondering how you manage to type without passing out from hypoxia.
Miss Bianca
@martian:
This is America, bud. OF COURSE. Symbol wins over substance every damn time. Don’t waste your time actually DOING shit that helps the sainted white working class – just flap your gums about “Wall Street” and “bringing back jobs!” and don’t do squat. The girls will all want you and the boys will want to BE you.
Bitter? Nah. Well, maybe just a skosh.
cavarati
Look, if Wilmer had won the nom, he’d have won the general, almost for sure. But it’s not because “Hilary was a bad candidate.” It’s not even because BS was a good one. It’s because angry, white middle-class men decided this election and they loved BS for the same reason they flocked to Trump. He was willing to back them in their lifelong suspicion that middle class white dudes are an oppressed majority. That their lives suck because some Other stole their opportunities from them, but that another angry white dude could steal them back for them. As for the rest of us? Well, trickle-down economics might be a lie, but trickle-down equality will work just fine. Wilmer says so.
Camembert
@martian:
The dude was a damaged POS who made his bones hurting good people and helping bad people do bad things. Yes, the extent of the harm he caused was surprising, but the fact that he did real damage was utterly predictable. Comey’s appointment was: (1) indefensible, and (2) a brutal middle finger to every human who worked for and/or contributed to Obama or the Democratic Party.
I mean, don’t get me wrong. Obama is Obama is Obama. Hosing over the folks that backed him was a standing theme of the Obama Presidency. So folks had to start creating defense mechanisms for themselves for the past eight years to stay sane and involved. I just don’t see how anyone who backs HRC has the capacity for anger at anyone else after the sheer depth of Obama’s betrayals which directly and unambiguously lead to her loss.
Chet Murthy
@NR:
Just thought I should let you know that, courtesy of Cleek, I no longer even need to *skip past* your drivel. If at some future time, somebody replies to one of your comments with something positive, I might backtrack and see what you posted. But otherwise, it’s all-pie, all-the-time. Yum!
SFAW
@Chet Murthy:
Not only that, but you don’t need to run his stuff through the Russian-to-English translator!
Win/win/win! So MUCH win!!! I’m TIRED of it.
Oh, wait — that second part was the worng meme. Well, anyway, I think you know what I meant.
Scotian
@martian:
From watching up here in Nova Scotia your politics for a good 40 years now, watching how the Clinton rules that have been true on both sides, because after all the Clintons are the ultimate crime family/corporate stooges (depending on which end of the spectrum we are talking about), because golly gee, all that smoke, Bill lying under oath about a blowjob, and all those appearances and optics that were so bad they just ‘proved’ the Clintons are a force of great evil. Hillary never had anything ever charged against her in her life that I have ever seen turned up anywhere. Yet somehow she is at the same time a criminal mastermind so able she can mask all the evidence, silence all witnesses by all means without leaving any traces for police forces with modern forensics skills of all kinds, yet powerless to win the WH not once but twice? I’ve never understood the inherent contradiction in that notion no matter who it comes out of, or in what form, but that is enough to demand she be bound and gagged for ht “good of the Party”.
Sanders on the other hand as you noted, was never properly vetted by either Clinton or the media. Clinton didn’t do it to try and keep from dividing the party and its support, Sanders though, he operated under no such concern with her as we saw last April through July. The media didn’t do much better, and with far less good reason. They vetted him about as well as they ended up vetting Donald Trump after he won the nomination. I always do my own homework, and Sanders was known to me many many years before the primary season started last cycle. I knew some of his obvious flaws, and yet they were brushed aside, as he was Birdie Sanders, the Second Coming of Liberalism and fighting for the white working class of his youth. Problem is the GOP took them over after his youth, or did he miss the Nixon Southern Strategy and all that followed?
So yes, like you I find this worship/respect for Sanders despite his very opaque fact record versus the naked fact record of Clinton somehow showing she was the real enemy of all totally baffling and more than a little ugly in what I see driving it, and sexism is alas only the least of it. The misogyny was thick and full,”but her emails” for the right, and “her paid Big Wall Street banks speech transcripts” for Sanders, something he and his base knew to tap only because of the disclosure of the Clinton tax returns, something as you noted Sanders still has yet to do despite always saying he would, remind anyone of another candidate in the 2016 Presidential cycle?
*sigh*
Sanders, as was/is Donald Trump the candidate/President, is at base/heart nothing more than a cult of personality, not a real movement, and Our Revolution is how he is solidifying it, which I see as more unhealthy than not. It really is that simple at this point, and it is about his ego gratification and possibly his pocketbook (if we saw his taxes that would not be an open question, would it)..
When it is this obvious to detached observers in your closest neighbour and ally, as well as economic partner, it is puzzling to see so many that claim to be in the “reality based community” unable to accept that Sanders is a one trick pony who caught a wave and rode it for all he could milk out of it financially and politically. He is NOT an ally of the Democratic Party, and the energy his movement had is in my view diminished to the anger of the Clinton supporters who were furious at the election of Trump, who I think constitutes a far greater source of energy for the Dems to use to focus with rather than internal (not that this is a good word given Sanders ain’t a Dem) factions trying to decide who lost the last war and how only they can redeem the Party.
Sorry about the length, but this is one of those things that like martian I find utterly baffling to watch and have for over a year now.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Does Bernie have any ideas on how to break the Republican stranglehold at the state level? Right now, the GOP controls more than 60% of state houses; if we lose *any* more ground in the House and Senate, say hello to any number of horrible Constitutional amendments. That has to be the bigger priority than the White House or Congress.
It’s been 8 months now. It is past time to stop bitching about 2016 and worry about the next election. Put the grudges on hold, find the next generation of Democrats and start supporting them, even if they don’t tick off 100% of all ideological check boxes. Win back as many states as possible.
Camembert
@Scotian:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom
I do agree that if the Dems aren’t willing to commit to reversing how things have been getting slowly and steadily worse for working people of all creeds and colors, they definitely have to run exclusively on how awful Tr45 is. And they might get good places with it, I dunno.
Camembert
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Yes. He believes that we should reinstate the 50-State Strategy that Obama canceled (by appointing Tim Kaine head of the DNC). Both of the main candidates for DNC Chair, Keith Ellison and Tom Perez, agreed with this, and Perez is actively engaged in the long process of reimplementation, which should take another 9-12 months to get rolling, based on how long it took under Dean the first time.
martian
@Camembert: Looks like I basically agree with your assessment of Comey, but ours was very much the minority opinion, since Comey’s reputation for integrity impressed most of Washington (But, most especially, Comey himself. There never was a man more in love with the smell of his own farts.) Comey stood tall amongst the BushCo lickspittles and Obama needed a pick that could pull bipartisan support. I’m waiting to hear what better appointment you think Obama could have gotten approved at the time.
I so disagree with your assessment of Obama that I question whether discussion is possible. In any case, I contain multitudes. I have the capacity to be angry with LOTS of people who had a hand in this election catastrophe.
Miss Bianca
@Scotian: I, for one, appreciated the length (and breadth) of this comment.
Captain C
@amk: I think he let in non-Purity Ponies, though. That makes a difference.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Camembert:
Good. That’s encouraging.
Scotian
@Miss Bianca:
Why thank you, but fair warning, I either quip/snark or do detailed commentary, I’m not much good at the middle ground part of these things. Comes from being severe ADHD/mild autistic, a high functioning one, but it still leaves me a bit, shall we say, on the dense and wordy side much to the irritation of my detractors. And my loved ones, but they at least understand and cut me some slack when I have a software crash from time to time, as it were.
On the other hand though whenever these critics/detractors complain about it it shows clearly for all that the complaint is about form and style, not substance, and I don’t worry about critiques and criticism for style and form points outside of environments like formal competitions, of which the online world, and political commentary may feel like at times, but clearly is not.
As to the HRC/Sanders thing, I’ve spent my adult life watching the VRWC begin on the Clintons, develop into a whole partisan weapon for the GOP, and end up creating the monster that is the current GOP, so when I started hearing tired old 90s tropes suddenly coming out of the Berners, I knew there was a problem, and I tried correcting it, and of course got told I must be a secret Hillary operative. I’ve had a hard enough time with the Bernie worship in my country on our hard left (NDP/Greens), and I know it is but a pale shadow to what I witnessed here and elsewhere in that campaign. Like I’ve noted before, I’ve lurked around here and other places for years, I do not comment much, but I read vociferously and completely anything I might have any interest in.
Anyway, this is I suppose an example of what I meant, but really I do thank you for the kind words because I *DO* know who you are vis-a-vis this site commenting community, and your respect is something I consider of real worth, so thanks for it.
martian
@Scotian: I think what it might not be possible to fully understand from outside of the U.S. is the degree to which people here have been marinating in rightwing propaganda and Clinton hate for decades. A generation and a half of it basically and I think even recognizing that there is an environment full of propaganda does not fully inoculate you against the effects of living immersed in it, which is where people trip themselves up – they can’t believe those “gut” feelings could have been manipulated. It’s always been maddening, and now it’s been disastrous. Long before this election or even the 2008 one, I’ve had conversations with young progressives who displayed reflexive contempt for the Clintons almost randomly. When called on it, they couldn’t pin it to any specific actions of the Clintons, they just felt that Hillary was somehow power mad and Bill was slimy and dishonest. Like, OBVIOUSLY. How do you argue with feelings? I think Bernie’s campaign exploited that and gave people a framework and justification for all that free floating, inchoate sense of Hillary’s essential badness. I saw the same thing to a lesser degree in 2008 – and I was an Obama supporter – but the way the rightwing slime was dredged up and regurgitated anew was maddening.
Hillary was really between a rock and a hard place with how she handled Sanders. What’s really interesting to me is that, with his particular vulnerabilities, I think she would have needed to attack him from the right to do a lot of damage with those white working-class voters everybody coveted, and she refrained. She could have crushed him just on his tax plan. But from the start of the primary there was widespread moaning about how mean Hillary was going to be to poor Bernie. Anything she said was taken as evidence of her unseemly and ruthless drive to power. I think it hamstrung her campaign.
Bonnie
If Bernie had been the candidate, would this country have raised itself above the next problem–Bernie is Jewish? When was the last time we had a Jewish person run for President? None in my lifetime. Unfortunately, this country is full of all kinds of bigots and racists; and, don’t think they would not have come out of the woodwork if Bernie had been the nominee.