What if rich donors giving money to Hillary Clinton could be… Good https://t.co/YD7pehVAqQ
— slackbot (@pareene) June 21, 2017
But srsly, Alex Pareene’s got an eye for the Next Big Trend, which gives me hope:
… The American right is awash in money. A huge amount of right-wing donor money—much more than many reputable liberal activist and advocacy groups ever see—goes to grifters solely out to enrich themselves, and the movement still always has more than enough left over to fund campaigns at every level of government. The right has more money to spend on electing conservatives than it can efficiently spend. You don’t raise and spend thousands of dollars on college student government campaigns unless you don’t have a more urgent use for that money…
Here’s a fun question to ask the internet if you want to start an endless argument: What should we want Hillary Clinton to do with herself now, exactly? Regardless of whether you voted for her enthusiastically, reluctantly, or not at all, we must all acknowledge that she will continue to exist in this world for the foreseeable future, and, hence, will have do do something.
One thing rich people love to do is give the Clintons money. Rich people enjoy giving the Clintons money almost as much as they enjoy eating expensive versions of traditional street foods, and causing measles outbreaks. The liberal donor class and the not-that-liberal-but-likes-to-donate class love writing checks to Bill and Hillary Clinton, and increasingly also Chelsea too. The Clinton Foundation was the ultimate proof of that fact.
The good news is, this seems to be what Hillary Clinton has decided to do. Last month, she launched “Onward Together,” her new political nonprofit that will reportedly act not as a launching pad for a future Clinton campaign but as a group dedicated to aiding existing activist groups. The Politico reported just prior to the group’s launch: “The new organization is not expected to have a large staff, but will instead focus on sending money to other organizations at a time that Democratic donors are largely unsure about how they should be spending their cash.”
If accurate, this is exactly what we (pretty broadly defined) should want from Clinton in the Trump era.
The Clintons are a safe “brand” for wealthy donors who don’t want to get their hands dirty doing liberal politics. Donors who do want to do liberal politics are frequently attracted to big shiny races—the presidency, Virginia governor—and neglect state legislatures, House races in far-flung districts, and groups doing on-the-ground organizing throughout the country. A Clinton organization that can act as a clearinghouse for big donor money, and that distributes that money to organizations doing good work, is an eminently sensible idea. With the exception of a handful of mega-donors who determine the course of the movement, conservatives largely have experienced political operatives steer their donors’ money wherever it’s most needed (while taking a hefty cut for themselves and their friends, obviously). It has been, as we can all see, a successful model…
The nice thing is, letting rich donors give their money to the Clintons, to give away as they see fit, doesn’t have to come with any downside for anyone. It does not preclude other fundraising strategies: There is room for the individual, small donor-funded grassroots campaign as well as the giant hose of dark money aimed at every conceivably winnable race. The Democrats will clearly need both…
Hunter Gathers
Wilmer’s Army has decreed that money is bad, so no.
gene108
Any donation above $27 will corrupt the system and turn the candidate into a neoliberal-corporatist-tool-of-Goldman Sachs and no different than a Republican.
Just more Clinton corruption injected into the system.
Brachiator
Careful with the praise. This “modest proposal” sounds very much tongue in cheek.
Brachiator
@Hunter Gathers:
Ha! Hell, Sanders is on the warpath.
. What a dope. Him and his unicorn.
jeffreyw
Theresa May and the Holy Grail
MomSense
@Brachiator:
Also sounds a bit like now that we blamed Mom for our choice to live with our abusive dad, and now we want her to try to fix our mess but not in a way that makes us uncomfortable with our bad choices.
You could substitute fast talking, over promising CEO for abusive dad and long term associate CFO for the Mom.
JPL
There is no amount of money that would flip that state senate seat, unless suburban wives, saw their mom or granny get kicked out of a nursing home.
Peale
@Brachiator: it’s odd. I appears not to have been the decision of ‘democrats’, but the speaker himself.
jeffreyw
@Brachiator:
He should have worked in “BBQ’d baby parts”, although I guess “traditional street foods” covers that.
Baud
Whatever the fuck she wants. She owes us nothing.
@Brachiator:
I thought California passed something to begin the process. In any event, shouldn’t Wilmer be addressing Trump’s attempt to use his name to deflect his Russian ties? See the previous thread.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Brachiator: I would like comprehensive, universal single-payer to get a foothold in this country. But the focus on implementing it while the ACA is about to be destroyed is looking like political malpractice. Isn’t the California bill heavily dependent on federal funding staying the same?
ArchTeryx
So someone is actually talking about bringing a gun to a gunfight. Good for her! As long as we have a Lochner Supreme Court (and if the rumors are true, it’s about to take an extremely hard right turn for a generation) then this is the system we are cursed with, and we fight fire with fire or we all are going to be burned.
Villago Delenda Est
More and more I’ve come to believe that the obscenely wealthy want to take tumbrel rides. We need to talk to the French about borrowing the Place de la Concorde and give these guys the full 1793 treatment.
Baud
@ArchTeryx: This exactly.
Bruuuuce
AL (OP): I always hope good things are a million-to-one against. That way I know they’ll happen nine times out of ten, (Per Sir Pterry, of course.)
Suzanne
We have done a bang-up job of allowing ourselves to be painted into a corner as the “anti-business” and “resentful of success” party. When I went to the DNC Future Forum, at the public Q-and-A time, some local organizer from California got up and asked all of the candidates if they would sign her pledge not to accept corporate money. Keith Ellison (very wisely) pointed out that if we were going to turn down dollars from other sources, we better have a plan to get them fro somewhere else.
UGHHHH. The GOP does well with small-business owners and (more importantly) those who want to be small-business owners who would be more advantaged by Dem policies because the GOP tells them that success is good and fair and that owning a successful business is a good thing for the community. We just sound douchey.
Liberals are capitalists. If we did a better job casting our policy goals as “Things that help capitalism work more efficiently/equitably”, we would make inroads.
Mike J
@Brachiator: Perhaps he could arrange for a bank loan to pay that $400 billion.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne:
Corporations HATE the free market with a passion. They will do ANYTHING to crush potential competition.
The GOP is the party of the corporations.
The Wealth of Nations is, in part, about freeing the little guy to prosper in the face of an elite that wants nothing of the sort.
This is where we are now.
jeffreyw
@Suzanne:
What do we want?
Things that help capitalism work more efficiently/equitably!
When do we want it?
As soon as it could be plausibly expected!
Brachiator
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Yep. Even with proposed state tax increases, funding needs federal money.
RedDirtGirl
Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a wonderful time last night and was so tickled that Adam front-paged my party. Turns out one of the people that I know and invited directly also saw the post on BJ. She’s more of an Eschaton reader/commenter, but stops by here on occasion.
Baud
@Mike J: Oh, meow.
Heh.
JPL
@RedDirtGirl: I’m pleased that you had fun. I had a toast in your honor, while sitting in my abode.
debbie
@Suzanne:
The GOP talks a good game, but their policies are at odds with what they say they care about. Democrats have actually championed and enacted those same policies, but by not striking back as the GOP has redefined them, the Democrats have basically just become marginalized.
Citizen_X
@Suzanne: Just say we’re for prosperity.
I don’t care if you call it capitalist or socia1ist. (You can’t escape having both principles at work in an modern economy, anyway.) Just that we want the nation and the greatest number of its people to prosper.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes. Agreed.
The Dems are SHIT at explaining things. When we talk about unions, for example, we talk about the benefits that they bring to the membership. I’m sure that that resonates with some union members, but it doesn’t do shit for people in non-union professions. And it sure AF doesn’t do anything for people who have seen unions do something they consider stupid or retaliatory. What we should be saying is, “Unions are a vital part of the free market. Unions are intrinsic to capitalism. Unions make companies succeed. WHY DO YOU HATE CAPITALISM, GOP?!?! WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICAN BUSINESS?!?!”.
Suzanne
@debbie: The Dems talk go like they’re giving out little tokens of goodwill to all of their different constituencies, rather than knitting them together into one bigger worldview. I know that this is because the coalition doesn’t always play well together. But this is where Bernie fell down, where HRC fell down, where lots of us fall down. Talk about LGBT rights and Muslim rights and women’s rights as all part of the same thing. Talk about labor unions and health care as two aspects of the same whole. Etc etc etc. Dem speeches always sound like a laundry list. What POTUS BHO was excellent at doing was knitting this shit together, rhetorically, so that even if you weren’t necessarily on board with one part of the agenda, you believed in enough of the rest of it.
RepubAnon
@Brachiator: Yes, California shouldn’t pass single-payer while the Republicans are seeking to destroy government involvement in health care. It would be too easy for Trump and his minions to bankrupt any such effort. For example, imagine everyone with an expensive health condition being shipped off to California. States such as Texas and Alabama would be on this strategy like a rat on cheese – it’d lower their costs, and encourage Democratic voters to move out of their state.
To work, single-payer needs to be national.
kindness
Is that whole Parnee thing snark or is he just a shit eating idiot? I was never worried about ‘dark’ money going to the Clintons. I mean sure, they took money from business. A modern American party has to. And especially when one compares the Clinton cash to what is funding the right….all those billionaires buying their way…no comparison.
Baud
@Suzanne: Do you think it’s the content of the message that’s really different with Obama (and Bill Clinton before him) or the fact that they both seem to have a natural charisma that brings people in?
Bruuuuce
@Suzanne: Even more, we should be saying “unions ensure good jobs, job security, and good wages, and the benefits spill over to nonmembers.” The folks who need to hear will be more concerned with their own economy, and these things that unions ACTUALLY do are the false promises the GOP has been peddling for decades.
Baud
@kindness: Agree. Plus, to the extent that corporate money has influence over the Dems, its effect is usually to moderate hypothetically more progressive action. On the GOP side, the money finances policies that move us backwards as a country.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Suzanne: “Everyone has a right to a good job. The unions stay.”
Baud
I hate to be a wet blanket, but no one knows what type of rhetoric will work with voters. All good ideas here, but until someone can successfully test them in the field, nothing is going to change.
Suzanne
@Baud: I think it’s both. I think the Dems have allowed themselves to appear hostile to businesses. All of the handwringing from the left about HRC’s speeches….fucking BULLSHIT. All that accomplished was making the Dems look like the party that equated financial success with corruption.
People see themselves aspirationally. But we haven’t always understood those aspirations. A lot of working people do not aspire to move to cities or get more education or change careers or whatever. They aspire to live in their same communities and own the business they’re currently working for, or to at least make more money doing what they’re currently doing. And the GOP does a good job pointing out how their platform helps business owners. Those people are able to put themselves in the mental headspace of a business owner, so they support XYZ thing, even if it would be detrimental to them in their current situation.
Suzanne
O/T: The cat will not let me poop in peace.
Baud
@Suzanne: I tend to agree. Dems get in trouble when they even throw small business the smallest of sops. Your comment brought to mind this “controversy.”
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Solid piece, but Pareene’s return to the land of the sane is rather bittersweet given his 2015-6 derp OD.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Instead of running numerous ads for each Dem candidate in every race, Dems need to run a nationwide campaign wherever an election at any level is taking place. An old-school compare and contrast. As an example, start with a clip of Trump saying how he’s going to look out for the little guy, then list the actual accomplishments of Dems — unions, worker safety, pensions, public schools, etc., etc. Contrast what the GOP says it will do with what Dems have actually done. Make it painfully obvious that not voting Democrat will be voting against you and your family.
Suzanne
@Baud: Yeah, so the GOP gets to think of themselves as the Party of American Prosperity,and the Dems as the Party of Takers. That’s bullshit, and we know it. But let’s absolutely hammer how our policies make the marketplace better: how healthcare makes a stronger workforce, how the safety net promotes economic growth, how immigration stimulates demand, how environmental regulations protect industry, how minimum wage increases ultimately mean good things for businesses.
debbie
Oh, boy. Megyn’s got J.D. Vance on her show tonight.
rikyrah
@JPL:
It’s ok. Grandma and Grandpa will be living with them soon enough
Iowa Old Lady
@RepubAnon: Didn’t Vermont give up on instituting single payer? What does their senator have to say about that?
Bobby Thomson
@MomSense: and our little brother keeps whining we didn’t go to live with our homeless surfing uncle who camps out on the beach and has the best weed.
Bobby Thomson
@Iowa Old Lady: no media coverage to be had there, so nothing.
Suzanne
@debbie: Agreed. I have thought for a while that “all politics is local” is fucking OVER. All politics is national and maybe even global.
The cultural influencers (FSM I HATE THAT TERM) among the 40-and-under set are multiracial, of all sexualities, but they are all urban and global in feel. Think of a H&M ad. That is who we’re talking to.
FlipYrWhig
@Suzanne: Bill Clinton was notorious for giving long list-filled speeches. Pundits always hated it and wanted soaring rhetoric. Clinton got the last laugh.
I don’t think speeches and themes mean anything to anybody anyway. Republicans vote reflexively based on hate, whereas Democrats feel like they should only vote if they know they’re making the right decision and then get shy if they’ve been busy and feel ignorant, then stay at home instead of voting D. Really what we need is more reflexively partisan Democrats. We don’t need a clever message, we need a lust for blood. Metaphorically.
Tripod
@Iowa Old Lady:
Uh….my wife is not a crook???
JR in WV
@ArchTeryx:
I went over to LGM and saw where the tone-police tried to shut you down on the health care atrocity. I pitched in a little, though they were cold threads, at least we were there pitching hard. Obviously I’m agreeing with about the genocidal nature of the Republican’s bill.
Plus statistically many of the people they wish to impoverish / kill would usually vote Democratic, so it’s part of their Voter ID exclusion work as well.
Another Scott
@jeffreyw: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anne Laurie
@Villago Delenda Est: What, because they want to give Democrats money?
@Bruuuuce: Hah, I knew someone would get the Pratchett reference!
MaryLou
@Suzanne: @Suzanne: 100% agree. The high-school graduates who vote Republican own dry-cleaners, lawn care companies, roofing companies. They like being their own boss, feel they’ve earned every dollar they have, and their employees aspire to the same life. We Dems need to learn to respect that voter, demonstrate that we understand their daily efforts to earn a buck, and appreciate what they do for their communities. We won’t get many of them, but we will get some…
artem1s
and this…. the basis of 30 years of Clinton Derangement Syndrome has it’s roots in many, many biases. But the main thing that drove the GOP crazy about Bill and Hillary was their ability to raise money. Oodles and oodles of money from the bottom 99% to the tippy top of the .0001%. They are and have always been directly completing with real corporate shills like Karl buythevoteinOhioandFlorida Rove. ReadyforHer raised lots more $27 donations than Bernie ever hoped to get his hands on and that was before Hillary even declared. Citizen’s United was all about keeping the Clinton fundraising machine at bay. They hate Billary because they are good at raising money. Oodles and oodles of money.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Well said. I would really like to see the Democrats make the case for this. If they can.
Ruckus
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
If the CA federal funding stayed the same, we still be sending more money to DC that we get in return. It would just be from/to different accounts.
The current issue is that conservatives want liberals to die – less competition.
They also want their sugar daddies to have to pay less tax – SDs are happy and will continue to pay them their token vig.
Taken directly from the mob rulebook.
The end.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
I always thought a good outlet for her would be supporting ways of training women (esp WOC) Interested in public service and campaigning. It’s still very much a world governed by people from “elite” schools, people with rich parents (who can float them during grad school & internships), patronage, consultants (typically white males), etc. Having a program on your resume with a high-recognition name (eg the Hillary Clinton Institute) and where you know you’re getting somebody with solid training would carry a lot of weight and open a lot of doors (eg Hillary’s name opens a lot of doors in NYC govt, and NYC is considered great training for work anywhere else). A lot of the WOC I worked with in politics and government had to go the community college/ sketchy for-profit college route to get training, and the bosses always questioned “well, how do we know they’re any good?” and then would hire some white kid from the burbs who’d gone to a school they’d heard of.
SgrAstar
@Brachiator: Does Saint Bernard know that the CA budget =~ $124 billion? Does he understand that the $400b estimated cost of a single payer program for Californians (not at all fleshed out yet) is >>>> than the entire state budget? What the hell is the point of ranting about this NOW, when it’s obviously gonna take years of study and effort to put something in place?
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.: I want her to kick Andy out of the governor’s mansion, and also a pony.
Applejinx
Clearly a troll. Anyone who knows their Pratchett can see that this is only a ten thousand and fifty three to one chance, that’s already been tried and failed, and is probably what killed the election for us. It’s not a million to one chance and can’t possibly work.
Jesus. “Let’s openly be bought up by the big corporations and super-wealthy, serve them, and then not lie to the American worker! They will understand!” No, they won’t. You’re being trolled: this is designed to make you look bad. It’s working.
Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): Bot a bad idea, although personally I wouldn’t wish a stint in Albany on my worst enemy…
Bruce K
@Bruuuuce: I was going to say exactly that, but then a) I saw you’d beaten me to it by hours, and b) I remembered that only works if the world is flat (and carried on the back of four elephants standing on a turtle).