There was some discussion at the tail-end of the wee-hours thread about how the efforts to rebuild the Democratic Party are going so far. The Perez-Sanders unity roadshow is widely seen as a flop since there hasn’t been a whole lotta…unity. But was the purpose to display unity or try to get there by airing differences?
I dunno. As I mentioned in that thread, Perez has successfully run large, focused organizations, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. As for the next phase, rebuilding, Kay said something in that thread that resonated with me:
I haven’t witnessed this finely-tuned Democratic machine that effectively excludes progressive candidates and slots in centrist candidates. It is NOTHING like that. In some ways I wish it were like that because that’s a defined problem that could be fixed or changed.
I have been involved with House candidates ranging from a former minister who was anti-abortion to an out and out labor candidate- he was basically “the candidate the Steelworkers gave us”. I didn’t discern the slightest bit of difference in how these two people were “supported” by the “national Party”. I put “national Party” in quotes because I feel like it’s almost an exaggeration to give them that much influence in these races.
It doesn’t matter because as I said I’m not in Bernie’s “movement” and even if I were I hate visioning sessions, but looking at it from the outside I think it operates from a flawed assumption- that The Problem is a command and control centrist Democratic Party. I have never seen evidence of this coordinated effort to hold down progressives. I don’t think it exists. They’re organized around a problem that isn’t the problem, doesn’t exist. For some reason Bernie people LIKE this problem, this is the one they want to solve, but you don’t get to settle on the problem you want to have and then pretend it’s the central issue and solve that.
It’s easy for Perez to accommodate them on the problem they’re presenting him with because it doesn’t exist so he doesn’t have to change anything.
Kay’s description of how the party functions tracks with my experience as an extremely insignificant local-level party member. I know some of y’all are meeting-attending Democrats as well. What have you seen on the ground?
Anyhoo, we need to figure this shit out, and fast. Something valued commenter Kindness said in that thread rang true to me as well:
As a nation I propose we don’t do what Maine did twice in electing LaPage.
Yep. I’ll add Florida’s example to the mix as well since this purplish state twice elected ambulatory dildo / obvious crook Rick Scott with less than 50% of the vote total. We’ve got to be up to the job — us, not some vague, faceless “them.”
clay
Florida’s only purple-ish in federal elections. The state has been under total Republican control for… how long now? Couple decades? I really don’t understand it…
dm
To get rid of the Maine/LePage problem, do instant runoff? Which, in fact, Maine has recently decided to do.
I don’t think it faces the hurdles that lots of other voting reform ideas do because it doesn’t threaten incumbents quite so much.
(What I’d really like to see is House members elected through ranked-choice voting, which completely eliminates gerrymandering, but that’s unlikely to go anywhere, precisely because it does threaten incumbents.)
TenguPhule
@clay:
Wealthy old white retirees, conservative Cuban illegals made legal Republican voters (again, guilty of everything they claim the Democrats do), Grifters.
Florida’s voters in a nutshell. Emphasis on the nuts.
Mike in NC
@clay: Didn’t Betty draw a map of Florida for a previous election that showed some ‘blue’ areas around cities like Tampa and Miami, but the rest of the state was more like South Alabama?
Roger Moore
The reason is simple: that problem makes them the victims of a wicked conspiracy. They desperately want to avoid admitting that they’re only a small but vocal minority within the party.
Sab
Ohio also. Chris Hayes had our Gov John Kasich on the other night, and let him pretend to be a fiscal conservative in favor of balancing budgets. He and his legislature passed big tax cuts for upper income taxpayer. There is a huge deficit looming, and they are trying to plug the whole by cutting off state funding to local governments. So municipalities are coping by cutting services. No more pothole filling. No more dead animal pickup. Thank God it didn’t snow much last year here.
efgoldman
@clay:
I replied to Kay in the morning thread that her state (OH), as well as FL and TX are states where the STATE parties have essentially left the field, and the RWNJs filled the vacuum.
That’s not the DNC’s responsibility.
Brendan Sexton
If there were a real party in the dem party, they would have been organizing and getting out the vote in Wisconsin and the other midwest states that were scandalously lost this time around. I know everybody is mourning the state of labor unions, but if they are still meaningful anywhere, it is in the states HRC lost. No, it is too simple to say it’s cause those folks ‘wanted’ Trump–more like this theory was never put to the test, never challenged meaningfully using the traditional pools of voters and volunteers that were lying around waiting to be used.
And so on. my contention is that we need MORE of a central, strong, involved party, not less. And the current, largely decentralized, efforts to build from the ground up is the way to get there. best of both worlds, in my view.
Baud
Can’t really prevent splitters from splitting.
dm
I guess I get my cake in Maine and get to eat it, too. Correction: Maine adopted ranked-choice voting for most state-wide offices, including members of Congress.. The distinction is academic: “ranked-choice” is the general term for elections involving mutliple open seats, “instant-runoff” is ranked-choice applied to the special case of a single seat.
efgoldman
@Roger Moore:
They’re not within the party. They’re throwing rocks from outside, just like their lord, master and avatar. That’s why they’re so fucking irritating.
TenguPhule
@Brendan Sexton: A strong central party still needs the local parties to do their job. Which is a problem.
J R in WV
I think Betty is right about Perez and Bernie Sanders. Sanders has his eye on HIS problem, and doesn’t ever think about any OTHER problem. But, again for the 47^37 time, he did NOT win the Democratic primary. That doesn’t mean the Democratic party isn’t progressive, it means the Democratic party doesn’t believe Sanders is a progressive Democratic candidate.
And that’s Sanders’s problem, right there. Not many Democrats believe Sanders is a progressive Democrat. Not enough for him to win a primary, not enough for him to have much influence as a candidate who lost his big race for the primary win, and then didn’t do anything to help the candidate who DID win the Democratic primary, as the most progressive Democrat to ever run for President with any chance of winning.
OF course that would be Hillary Clinton, who is admired and respected by most Democratic party members. Except for those infected with Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Those subject to false Republican propaganda published continuously for the last 24 years, in other words.
The cleanest woman to ever run for national office, the most investigated, least indicted person evah!!! Has more money ever been spent to investigate a person who was never formally even accused of a crime? Which is what an indictment is, a formal accusation of a crime.
Headlines in the N Y Times, the National Examiner, the Wall Street Spew, those are not accusations, they are libels. Falsehoods knowingly published to damage an honest person’s reputation, by despicable people trying to sabotage our system of laws and government.
Roger Moore
@dm:
Ranked choice voting isn’t necessarily going to do much to eliminate gerrymandering because it’s still mostly used in single seat elections. It may push the election toward more centrist candidates, but it’s still very possible to gerrymander. What would really eliminate gerrymandering is proportional representation, either with a party vote or something like single transferable vote.
efgoldman
@J R in WV:
He’s not any kind of Democratic candidate. Never has been, never will be.
Mai.naem.mobile
Bernie needs to be primaried in Vermont. Maybe that will get his attention off destroying the Democratic party.
dm
Taking the above quote pretty broadly (e.g., substitute your choice of “women candidates”, “non-white candidates”, “working-class candidates” for “progressives, if you wish) I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, just the outcome of an old-boy-network effect. A slot opens up that needs a candidate and where do you look for one? Among your network of friends.
So a solution — one we’re seeing put to work these days — is to build up other networks that can help encourage people to realize that they can run, and to give them the support to do so.
Here is a link to Nicholas Carnes talking about this on the Scholar Strategy Network’s “No Jargon” podcast.
Elie
I’m in NW WA state and there are problems in integrating the Bernie supporters with the mainstream Democrats. The Bernie folks, for example have circulated articles of victim hood for how the DNC controls the local folks, money, etc. Its gotten to the point that some of us have had to weigh in to stop the largely unvarnished attempts to “replace” the Democratic Party. As Kay states, I have not seen the so called invasion of the national Democrats, it but its a view that has to be constantly dealt with in our meetings. BTW, not much is happening yet as we are setting up a lot of new party officers (mostly Bernie folks), since the leadership elections in January and they are many times young and inexperienced in just basic “running meetings” and “getting organized”. I am hoping we can get going soon and plan to play a role in sorting some of this out. Like Kay says, I think that some of the Bernie folks LIKE victimology as an operating frame though unfortunately it doesn’t actually help you do anything productive like framing useable messaging and selecting and supporting good candidates for local (not national) offices.
Elie
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Girl, that will just drive his folks nuts and make everything worse. They are already “victims”… that just gives them more juice. I have to say, however, that it IS tempting, if a strong enough candidate could be found who would have to be ready to be reviled for life ;-) by the Berniebros
Baud
@Mai.naem.mobile: Can’t be primaried. Not a Dem. No primary.
Betty Cracker
@clay: Great point, and I offer again the theory that nutty Florida is a microcosm of the country writ small: Populous blue coastal enclaves and a mostly cow-inhabited red interior that wields outsized influence. Solve Florida, and you solve America! But how to solve Florida? Fuckifino!
Mnemosyne
Linking to this Meteor Blades post at Daily Kos for, what, the hundredth time?
Year-round locally-based precinct organizing.
There is no shortcut or top-down solution. If you’re not happy with the Democratic Party in your county, join it and change it from the inside.
FlipYrWhig
@dm:
I’m sorry, but, who is “you”?
Major Major Major Major
I have a theory. It seems to many of these folks that there must be a central organization of anti-progressive centrist Dems out there holding lefties down because they don’t actually know very many Democrats who hold opinions different from their own. If I’m a young progressive in San Francisco, particularly a straight one*, particularly a white one*, the number of Democrats who may be more libertarian or more pro-business or more focused on whatever else (say social justice) than me–the number of people like that who I know is likely to be vanishingly small. They’re just not in my cohort. And it’s easier to conceive of a shadowy organization out there who opposes me than it is to acknowledge that there are different voices in the coalition because I’ve certainly never met them.
One of the other reasons this is easier is because there is another vocal cohort out there telling me it’s the case. These are the (often older) lefty activist types who always prefer losing to an enemy and remaining pure than winning and having to compromise. The types parodied in Life of Brian. These people have been pushing the “both parties are the same/corporate whores/neoliberal warmonger” line for decades, and at the moment have found fertile ground.
But for a lot of people I think it’s just a failure of imagination, or a failure to acknowledge that there are well-meaning people who, looking at the same facts, have reached a slightly (slightly!) different conclusion than you.
*as a homo I can say with certainty that I’m exposed to a lot more racial and class diversity than most of my straight friends, and I imagine this “we’re all in this together” solidarity leads to similar intermingling within other minority populations.
dm
You people are really tiresome with your obsession with Bernie Sanders’ imagined transgressions.
Go ahead and “primary” him (that is, try to talk the Vermont Democratic Party to run a Democrat to oppose him, or encourage another independent to run in Vermont) if you’re so desperate for another Republican Senator. I think your energies would be better spent elsewhere.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: I think Florida is more broken than most, and if there is a lot of illegal voting, it is a bunch of snowbirds voting once in their home state and once in their Florida homes. But I am not sure how cheating by rich people would be caught.
piratedan
well the model that actually appears to be working is Cheri Bustos’ Build The Bench movement. It’s local, grass roots and looks like the model can be used everywhere.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s bunnies, isn’t it? ?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Media tends to reinforce this also.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Elie: he’s nothing if he loses his seat. Tom Perez can legitimately dump him if he loses his seat. I don’t know much about Vt. politics except that it’s local and cheap. I have to believe there’s a Dem pol in Vt who could do a true grassroots campaign and whip his ass. Isn’t that what Paul Wellstone did against Rudy Boschwitz?
Baud
@Mai.naem.mobile: Better money is spent trying to elect as many Dems as possible in the Senate so his vote becomes less important.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
Since only one person said anything at all about your god Bernie, perhaps you might like to step off your high horse. Or at least respond to that one person rather than flouncing off because we’re “all” being so mean, you guys! to Bernie.
Politics ain’t beanbag. If you can’t stand even a single disparaging mention of your candidate, you’re in the wrong business.
Chyron HR
@dm:
So exactly how many congressional Democrats is Bernie’s Revolution planning to primary next year, anyway? All of them, Katie?
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: One of my friends carries in his wallet a few business cards that say “joke acknowledged” and have some mumbo jumbo on them about how it’s a receipt for recognition of a joke or joke attempt.
@Baud: True, though how much of that is because said people are very very vocal, and the media reports on loud whiny people?
jl
Kay might be right. I can see the ujpside if her interpretation is right. Perez can just do it as a PR stunt, and Sanders earnestly brings in various disaffected types to take a look at the Democratic Party.
I don’t know if it makes much difference to the average frustrated voter who is worried about bad things they see Trump and the GOP attempting to do to them. They come to watch two people talk and engage in some mild debate about relatively minor details, but the general direction and gist is that the Democrats will not try to do a bunch of bad stuff to them. I don’t see a problem with it right now.
My experience is that the vast majority of people do not know about and do not care one little bit about a lot of stuff that political junkies and party faithful obsess over. But, we need them to win elections, and we have to tolerate their quirks, one of which is that they have no interest in internecine feuds over relatively unimportant issues.
patrick II
Ana Navarro eviscerates Jesse Watters for Ivanka sex joke: People need to start paying the consequences
Every time I see Ana Navarro eviscerate some sexist, racist, or Trump apologist on TV, I wish she was a Democrat. But she is not, and she will go right back to work on Democrats when some Romney type is leading her party. I guess what I really wish is that I would see some frank, bold and eloquent democratic spokesperson tear apart some of these wingnut assholes as well as this republican does.
Major Major Major Major
@Chyron HR: If only Pelosi hadn’t
taken impeachment off the tablekilled the public optionnot reinstated glass-steagallfuck it we just don’t like her, OK?Sab
@Mai.naem.mobile: The Bernie guys in my part of Ohio switched to Hillary, worked hard for her and are mostly still active as Democrats. It’s probably different elsewhere, but around here Bernie bashing isn’t helpful.
FlipYrWhig
@Major Major Major Major:
I think this is exactly right. I always wonder if the people who think there’s a too-long-suppressed desire for social democracy out there in the world have ever talked to their neighbors. I met a newcomer to my neighborhood while shoveling snow this past winter and it took about 5 minutes before he was making some crack about lazy hippies, presuming I’d be in on the joke.
Mai.naem.mobile
@Baud: well, that ends that fantasy. Goddamnit. I have reached the conclusion that Bernie is in a Kompromat situation as well .
Mnemosyne
@piratedan:
I mostly have fellow lefties in my Facebook feed and I’m wondering if this is the methodology I keep seeing where nurses, women scientists, teachers, etc are being successfully recruited to run for office.
There are a lot of pissed-off liberal women of all colors out there. A LOT. Democrats underestimate them at the party’s peril.
Major Major Major Major
@Mai.naem.mobile: Simplest explanation, which has the benefit of being 100% supported by his life story, is that he’s just a dick.
dm
@FlipYrWhig: Well, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard (e.g., in the linked podcast), but, if there’s a local party apparatus at all (possibly just elected officials and their network), the people in it, when they see an seat open up (county clerk, state auditor, city council) will say, “hey, Joe, why don’t you run?” It might even be, “Joe, I’m going to shoot for state auditor, that means my seat in the state House will be opening up. I think you should think about running.” Along the way, there’s a “let me show you the ropes”.
“Why don’t you run?” and rope-showing can be done by others (e.g., Emily’s List), too.
No Jargon has another researcher talking about the process (including her own stint on her school board) here
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t know. I read an Observer piece the other day that was a complete sop to Bro conspiracy theory about the primary.
Shalimar
@Mai.naem.mobile: Bernie can’t be primaried. He’s not a Democrat. A viable Democratic candidate can beat him in the general, however.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This is the same game the extremist pulled in the GOP- the extremists claimed victimhood and accused the moderates as sell outs so they could marginalize them.
If you are some Berny Bro – The Evil National Democratic Conspiracy means you don’t have to listen to the locals who know the district and when they lose a vote, well it’s because the damn national Democrats sold them out, again.
LurkerNoLonger
@Betty Cracker:
The same way you solve skin tags: cut it, burn it, or freeze it.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: True, some outlets have seemed pretty happy to push the conspiracy. There are after all journalists who believe it too.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t read the Intercept but I assume they are pretty bad also.
FlipYrWhig
@dm: I think one person’s Old Boys Network is another person’s “mentoring,” though. This goes back to the concerns that a lot of people voice about the “establishment.” Is there any reason to think that the network is skewing moneyed or conservative or white or male? I tend to feel like the “establishment” of the Democratic Party at a local level pretty much means “people who show up.” The solution to that is… become a person who shows up. Most human beings hate going to meetings. Overcome that dread and you too can be a power broker in your local Democratic Party. (I have not overcome that dread.)
geg6
Kay is exactly right. At the local party level, you’re only as good as the local leadership. The only national party people I’ve ever seen around here have not been at county Dem HQ telling them how to run the show., but have been here specifically because the president or a presidential candidate is making a campaign appearance here. That’s it. And I’ve been working with local Dems in low level ways for more than forty years. It just doesn’t work that way.
SatanicPanic
@Major Major Major Major: I hang with a lot of lefties of various types, many of them college students and during the primaries they were shocked that I was like, “I prefer Hillary.” Some of them were people of color and I had to explain to them that I didn’t trust Bernie on civil rights issues. Those were weird conversations, being I am only PoC (Partly of Color). They just assumed everyone young and on the left was on the Bernie train. Nope, sorry.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
I think there’s also a big problem of conflating a difference in priorities with a difference in policy preferences. If you look at Bernie’s proposed policies, they really aren’t very far outside the Democratic mainstream. You’ll have a hard time finding many Democrats who think we shouldn’t have better healthcare, stricter banking regulations, cheaper college education, etc. Where the real differences lie is in which issues we think deserve top priority and which ones can be put off until later. If you tell a Berniac that you support stricter banking regulation but think it’s more important to focus on police killing black people, they’ll treat you as an enemy rather than an ally who has different priorities. That’s the root problem.
Kay
@dm:
Can you give me an example of where this is happening? How do you mean “a slot opens up?” Can you show me a place where there were a bunch of House hopefuls waiting for a slot but someone else was chosen?
The biggest problem is finding candidates. There’s no big excess where someone is saying “do not apply”
I am genuinely baffled where this came from. It seems like there should be a whole group of Democratic hopefuls- candidates who could tell us “well, I was passed over as a result of a network that excluded me”
This is an example of a state race but this is actually what happened a couple of months ago in this area. I was contacted by a young man I have never met before and he came to the law office. I chatted with him for maybe 20 minutes about how he wanted to run for the state legislature. I know a little about campaign finance and I have this book put out by the Sec of State someone gave me so I gave him that. It’s a cheap soft-cover “manual” that could be titled “how to run for office”. I didn’t hear anything else about him and then I went to a Dem dinner and this young woman (a Clinton organizer) gave a speech and she said she was running for state senate. I’ve never laid eyes on her before. After the dinner both of these people, the man and the woman, told me they are both running for the state senate. I suggested that one of them run for the lower chamber since a primary seems dumb because there is an lower chamber and an upper chamber, but they were both a little offended in that way people have where they’re thinking “why do I have to take the lower chamber?” so I shut up. I still think one should take the lower and one the upper but obviously they don’t want do this- they’d prefer a dumb primary :)
Is it different other places or am I somehow missing the secret undercurrents of network? That’s possible! I miss all kinds of things but I have never gotten any sense of anything other than “he showed up” or “she said this and that’s why she’s the speaker and then she said she would run”.
debbie
@Sab:
You know, my Ohio taxes have not changed in the past 3 years. This is easy to tell because my salary has also remained flat.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: Greenwald at one point said that the Democrats clearly had set up a rotating villain strategy so that they would have plausible deniability for why they would never be able to accomplish anything with their majority: they’d obviously rigged it to always be one or two votes short. He had some sort of half-clever name for it too. Conspiratorial thinking runs deep with him and, I’m sure, colors the output of his “journalistic” enterprise.
geg6
@Brendan Sexton:
I can’t speak for any other state, but when it comes to mine, PA, this is a total bullshit argument. Total bullshit. Hillary and her surrogates and media people and local campaign operatives worked their asses off here and put a lot of resources into the fight here. Whatever cost her PA, it wasn’t lack of effort and resources. So you can just stop that shit.
Taumaturgo
Reading the comments I got the impression that Bernie is being treated with similar accusatory slimes that some democrats use against middle America voters that voted for Trump. Centrist democrats were told over and over that the Clinton era was over. That this was a change election, not a look back to a continuation of Obama’s centrist policies. Middle America heard Trump and Bernie and didn’t tune them out. These folks rejected outright the same old from Clinton. These voters overlooked Trump’s crassness and obvious lack of temperament for the job. For better or worse, Bernie exposes the current rift between those who choose to take a chance with the populist and those who prefer not to rock a sinking ship.
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: I’ve seen that argument from various progressive types. Kabuki!
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yup. You never have to look at your message or your candidate or wonder what you should have done differently if a conspiracy brought you down.
Hell, a conspiracy actually brought our candidate down and the national Democrats are still analyzing everything and figuring out what they should do better.
Baud
@Taumaturgo: Middle America heard Trump because Trump brought the hate, which is what they wanted to hear.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
This.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I don’t know how true that is, at least with the people I talk to. Some folks, including to a large degree Bernie himself, take the traditional Marxist ‘all struggle is class struggle’ view. For some within this group, they really do think that cops will stop shooting black people once we solve economic inequality, so why bother focusing on the symptom when you could focus on the cause? (For a minority of these people, it’s even counterproductive, as you’re succumbing to intentional distractions by the powers that be.)
@SatanicPanic: Same here, though I’m white.
gorram
@Major Major Major Major: And, if your cohort is more White, more male, more straight, more cisgender, etc (all, particularly the first two, true of the Sanders set), then you are obviously more like to be comfortable framing your concerns and politics as normal, and any alternative as an aberration.
Hence, it’s “the people” (normal folk like me) against “the party” (shadowy interests that have different ideas how things do or should work). When you don’t actually see communities of color or feminist/LGBT spaces as part of your daily life, the people who do are much easier to forget about than vice versa.
dm
@Mai.naem.mobile: Why don’t you try Google?
Sanders calls for independent probe of Russian/Trump campaign collusion.
Sanders calls for investigation into Michael Flynn’s Russia connection
Mind you, Louise Mensch thinks there was a mole in his campaign, and there was that guy who has worked with Manafort, so there’s that.
@Mnemosyne: Physician, heal thyself. All I said was that it would be hard to “primary” Bernie without handing another Senate seat to a Republican, which is why the Vermont Democrats haven’t done it for, I think, two campaigns. This is, somehow, worship.
Bernie is just so mean to Democrats. Everything he says just twists the knife. Why won’t he go away, so we can be rocked in the loving arms of those gentle, polite Republican opponents?
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
sigh — So true
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
I never had a problem with this in person, either on the campaign trail or with my friends, but some of the people I see on Facebook are absolutely in that bubble: it simply doesn’t occur to them that anybody could in good conscience like and support her. After all, everyone knows she’s an establishment stooge.
Which is fucking surreal, because how do you think any person climbs to Hillary’s level in national politics without having a popular support base of some kind? Even Mitt Romney, who was Charles Montgomery Burns without a personality, had plenty of followers.
Major Major Major Major
@Taumaturgo: Not really seeing anybody but you focusing on the primary here, rather than working to build a better party.
eemom
I am exceptionally sick of Bernie and wish he’d go the fuck away.
Also it’s weird as shit how his fanatical followers are STILL fighting the fucking primary one disaster-drenched year later.
Just my $.02.
SatanicPanic
@Taumaturgo: Or those who don’t trust populism. I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, it’s all fun and games with stoking anger, but eventually that anger will find the one target that most white Americans can agree on- minorities. That’s something that Bernie people need to understand, or they’ll continue to get nowhere.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mai.naem.mobile:
No primary. Democrats don’t run anyone in opposition.
That needs to change.
p.a.
since this is a ‘politics’ thread, not just a Dems v Bernistos/as thread, great point by Josh Marshall:
When your opponent is sinking, throw them an anchor. When they hand you ammo, shoot to kill.
FlipYrWhig
@Taumaturgo: Yeah, the best frame for analyzing contemporary American politics is DEFINITELY that there’s been a backlash against Barack Obama’s excessive conservatism. I mean, that’s pretty much what every schmoe on the street will say was on his mind when he was voting in November: “neither one of these candidates is leftist _enough_ for me, so it only stands to reason that I vote for the guy with a gold-plated toilet.”
Mnemosyne
@dm:
No, the “worship” is when you accuse every commenter here of hating Bernie because one (1) person said something about primarying him.
dm
@FlipYrWhig: I think that’s quite right. I was just repeating an amalgam of those two scholars’ research: in the one case, we get a lot of white-collar candidates because that’s who white-collar office-holders know, and who they’ll turn to to suggest someone run (that researcher — the first one I cited — also said that working class candidates do quite well when they run). So, if we want a more diverse party then we need to encourage more diverse candidates to “show up” as you put it.
I’m sorry that Emily’s List is the only group whose name I can remember from his podcast, but there are a number of groups who are training folks in the nuts-and-bolts of candidacy now.
SatanicPanic
@Chris: They think we’re all stupid. I had no illusions about Hillary, but I thought she was a decent choice. Better than Sanders. But if Sanders had won the primary, I’d have supported Sanders. The whole thing was dumb.
Captain C
@FlipYrWhig<
This reminds me of a line in Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch to the effect that, while most self-styled revolutionaries love The People, they hate most of the actual people they meet.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Roger Moore:
Also, the difference is: why we don’t have those things?? Most Dems blame: the difficulty of the political landscape, differing priorities among people on the Left, the GOP’s obstruction etc., whereas the worst of the Wilmer/Stein voters place the blame solely (and forever) on Dems.
FlipYrWhig
@ Captain C, yeah, I’ve said a version of that myself: I care a lot about people, but persons bug the shit out of me.
randy khan
@dm:
My personal issue with Bernie is that he’s a hammer and so he thinks that everything is a nail.
I don’t mean this in a nasty way, but he really does seem to have trouble noticing that there are other issues of importance to Democrats than the ones that are important to him.
Baud
@Uncle Ebeneezer: Good point.
@FlipYrWhig: Same here (except I don’t really care about people that much).
Chyron HR
@Taumaturgo:
Yes, how dare they hurl slimy accusations like, “People voting for Trump are the ones who literally caused Trump to be elected.”
SatanicPanic
@Uncle Ebeneezer: The truth about a lot of these Stein voters (and Stein herself) is that they really don’t understand the American political system. They think that if Democrats are in charge and things aren’t happening it’s because Democrats didn’t want them to.
Mnemosyne
@Taumaturgo:
As others have said, the danger of populism is that white people in this country have a nasty history of banding together in a populist way to punish minorities.
I think that both Trump and Bernie both tapped into a populist sentiment but, for the most part, it was different sets of populists. You can’t mash the white supremacist populists and the progressive populists together into a single movement, because they have separate aims, and if your new populist movement does not include shoving minorities down, then it falls apart … if you’re lucky, that is.
As I’ve been saying since last summer, I do think that Sanders and other people on the left were correct when they said that there was a group of white working class potential voters who sat elections out because they didn’t see any candidates who spoke for them. Unfortunately, as we have now seen, the person who really spoke for and to those white nonvoters was the out and proud white supremacist candidate, Donald Trump.
Now that the genie is out of the bottle, we need to cram it back in, and insisting that populism is the answer when white supremacist populists are going around beating people up is not helpful.
clay
@J R in WV:
Or… OR… and this may be crazy but just bear with me… the Democratic primary voters weren’t looking for a socialist progressive, but rather someone who was a solid liberal who would continue to push the country in an incremental progressive direction.
The unstated assumption behind the Berniebros* argument is that there is a mass of untapped support for a radically leftist platform that would have poured forth if only Sanders had been the nominee**. But there wasn’t even enough support for such a platform among Democratic voters, so I sincerely doubt there was a huge reservoir of this in the general electorate. And they have yet to demonstrate that there is. I mean, this was an electorate that voted for*** the literal embodiment of ostentatious wealth and corruption. But they think the voters would have switched their votes to Mr. Soak-The-Rich? Seems pretty far-fetched.
*And I want to acknowledge that most Bernie supporters did indeed shift their support to Hillary, and only a small (but vocal) handful were pushing the ‘Dems conspired against us!’ line. When I say ‘Berniebro’, I only refer to the latter group.
**Which, of course, he only wasn’t because the “establishment” and “corporate” Dems did… something… to… I dunno, get votes?
***Within very narrow definitions of “voted for”.
Elie
@dm:
Come on, man… Its not “meanness” — its that he targets most of his criticism for Democrats — who as you notice, are trying to build back up. His people down here on the local level, take this stuff seriously and start looking for targets around here! Its immensely distracting from what we need to be doing — messaging local issues and getting good candidates for LOCAL races… not fighting his DNC shit!
khead
I can already see it brewing. So in honor of the NFL Draft – and because I just like to bet the NFL and other things – I will take over 300 comments if no other front pager posts.
I’d also like over 3.5 QB’s (+165) taken in the first round of the draft.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, the problem white voters had was with Obama’s conservatism… ?
That’s why my friend’s fellow white voters in Michigan told him they were voting for Trump to show Black Lives Matter who’s boss — it was really a reaction against Obama being so conservative.
Corner Stone
@khead:
Who are the four QB’s?
dm
@randy khan: I think that’s true. I have a little sympathy with the notion that economic injustice provides the soil in which racism grows. However, we’re seeing the same sort of reactionary populist movements showing up in Britain and France where even the right wing parties believe in universal health care and far stronger social support programs than we have here. Brexit and LePen didn’t happen because of “Obama’s war on coal” and a seven-dollar minimum wage. So Bernie’s “break up the banks” and “free college” (to oversimplify) can’t be the only things we need to do.
Ian
What we need is stronger state parties. Too much focus and money is directed at a national level. This post covers Kay’s argument well but another commenter noted that the Ohio state party has effectively run the white flag.
Here in CO our state party has moved leaps and bounds in the past twenty years, and it took considerable amounts of outside money for the Reps to win Gardner’s senate seat. Combine that with the 2014 environment and it shows just how vulnerable he will be in 2020.
Betty Cracker
@LurkerNoLonger: [polite golf clap] Clever, but ignores the fact that the host has essentially the same composition as the tag! :)
ruemara
@Mai.naem.mobile: The VT Dem Party should consider running an actual candidate.
khead
@Corner Stone:
I’m thinking Trubisky as the first QB taken (although I have NO idea why), then DeShaun Watson, Kizer and Mahomes.
I don’t really trust any of them as first rounders, so this is basically a bet that 2 NFL teams are stupid and/or desperate enough to overpay for Trubisky and Watson…. and another two are trying to find a future QB on the cheap. Even if it means the first round. Also, if you want to go under 3.5 it’s (-185).
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara: I think efforts would be better concentrated elsewhere.
Shana
@piratedan: And we could revive Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy which worked really well here in Virginia.
ruemara
@Taumaturgo: Your reading comprehension skills suck.
Chris
@dm:
My own longstanding exposure to the FN and the arguments people make around it is a big part of the reason why I had so little patience for the “economically anxious Trump voters!” arguments when they popped up here. The FN has been growing for forty years, through periods of good times and periods of bad times, and despite the fact that in France, there are any number of other “third parties” through which people could express their anger at “the system.”
I don’t know why the idea that people don’t vote for Holocaust deniers because of something as generic as corporate greed or political corruption is so hard for so many people.
Mike J
@Shana:
Stop questioning the purity of candidates in districts like GA-06?
dm
@Elie:
I think this is a case of selective perception. Criticisms of Democrats you remember, criticisms of Trump or Republicans you forget (or don’t even notice: “what has Bernie said about Russia?”, the other night).
And then there’s confirmation bias: Sanders says, when asked if Jon Ossoff is a progressive, “I don’t know. Some Democrats are, and some Democrats aren’t”, and a firestorm erupts about how he’s “slagging” Ossoff, and “pissing in the tent”. When really, it’s harmless — it’s not like Sanders calling Ossoff a progressive is going to help in a district where the Republicans were already running ads trying to smear Ossoff as a “Sanders-style progressive”. To underscore my point, Sanders has also said “If you are running in rural Mississippi, do you hold the same criteria as if you’re running in San Francisco? I think you’d be a fool to think that’s all the same.”
ETA: @Mike J: Thanks for the fresh example!
So yeah. Why doesn’t mean old asshole Bernie just go away, and let us play with those nice, polite Republicans?
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: that’s not very progressive of you, Comrade.
@Chris:
Plenty of American lefties blame ‘neoliberalism’ for FN, UKIP, Geert Wilders, etc.
artem1s
@Mai.naem.mobile:
I’m pretty sure that is exactly what Bernie thinks is going to happen. He is paranoid and bitter. But in this case he might be right. Especially if he keeps acting like a paranoid bitter old man. Even people who voted for him are getting tired of his BS. And the reality is a true revolution that is supposed to be the voice of young progressives, isn’t going to be led by a 70+ year old who has been in the Senate for a decade. Also, who in their right mind thinks that the way you build a young, progressive base is by going around the red states sucking up to old dead white conservative racists. It makes absolutely no sense. It makes no sense because Bernie is desperately trying to deflect from the fact that a significant number of the people who voted for him are starting to see thru his shtick. He’s not going the way of Lieberman, he’s going the way of Ralph Nadar and Dennis Kucinich. No one wanted them around long before they got the message and went away.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: I think keeping an enemy busy instead of coddling him and allowing him to be the lazy SOB he is would have made a better Bernie over the years.
? Martin
I think the party model is a failure. Not that I have a better solution, but Democrats need young voters, and young voters have gotten fucked over by every institution thus far that they don’t trust a single one of them.
Part of it is that I don’t think young people are nearly as tribal as their parents. They don’t understand this group winning over that group. They just don’t label themselves in that way from what I see so they don’t form externally definable factions. I’m not sure how Democrats get young people to buy in, other than a ‘Trump is what you’ll be stuck with if you don’t’ kind of message, which is really no way to build a party. I think Democrats need to find some different ways to organize, to involve young voters, and to sell their ideals.
mai naem mobile
@dm: what would you ask him to do? Not ask for an independent commission? BTW, I didn’t give a shut about your god Bernie until he continued on this ‘the Dems are bad bad bad!!!no different from the GOP’ shit. GorsucKS thanks you and Bernie.
Elie
@dm:
You missed most of my comment related to the distraction from our local needs. That is the biggest problem. We need locally relevant messaging around progressive policy and candidates who put that message out in winning and convincing ways. All the other stuff is a distraction, plain and simple. You took three paragraphs to confirm it — in your head its all about Bernie and the DNC.
Cacti
Accommodating Wilmer is a no win strategy. He’s a purity troll, so whatever he gets will never be good enough.
If he runs again for POTUS, somebody needs to take off the kid gloves and give him the working over that every other serious Dem candidate gets.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
So you missed the part of her comment where Elie is dealing on a local level with Sanders fans who come into Democratic Party meetings all fired up to buck The System and block any useful action like actually picking candidates for their local elections?
She’s not talking about generic Sanders fans she sees online. She’s talking about people who are walking into her meeting room and telling her that Sanders says that the party she volunteers for is corrupt but they’re there to fix that corruption for her just like Sanders told them to.
Baud
@? Martin:
They seem to me to often be engaging in age warfare, which is a form of tribalism.
ruemara
@? Martin: I think you’re defining a segment of young and old political “activists”, but I deal with young people on the reg. They identity with parties very much, if they are aware of what’s happening in their world. I know far more that have picked a side, for good or for ill, than those who don’t want any parties.
NR
@J R in WV:
Except for, you know, endorsing her and campaigning across the country for her.
But yeah, other than that he didn’t do anything.
TenguPhule
@Baud: To be fair, the old people shot first. Grandfathering clauses have contributed nothing good when it comes to Social Security, Medicare or Pensions.
Major Major Major Major
Hmm, watch Mnem play with the troll, or finish debugging this javascript…
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
Economic populism was at the core of both the fascist and communist movements. Blaming all of society’s ills on an evil “other” has a way of spinning out of control really fast.
FlipYrWhig
@dm:
But by that standard, why make a special effort to side with Heath Mello in Nebraska and have Our Revolution explicitly call him “progressive”? Wouldn’t that have the same cost? I don’t think it was an act of keen political savvy on Sanders’s part. Mello doesn’t seem any more “progressive” than Ossoff by any relevant measure. IMHO what Sanders doesn’t like about Ossoff is that he’s more spiritually affiliated with the technocratic new-economy cohort of the Democratic Party (a la Mark Warner). And that’s not his thing. But it didn’t have to degenerate into bickering about who gets to wear the mantle “progressive”… except that _Bernie Sanders enjoys doing that_, and did it in the primaries, attempting to deny that Hillary Clinton could be called a progressive too. That’s being a dick.
Baud
@TenguPhule: My point is that there seems to be plenty of tribalism. I wasn’t parsing justification or blame.
Ruckus
@eemom:
That amount is now 4 cents.
Kids pouting is expected. Adults, not so much.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I actually have work I’m supposed to be doing right now. Sigh. The trolls just happened to show up while I was eating my afternoon snack.
NR
@randy khan:
Well if we take abortion as an example, Bernie Sanders actually had the better position on that: it’s a private matter between a woman and her doctor and the government should stay out of it. Hillary Clinton supported a late-term abortion ban with an exception for the health of the mother.
dm
@Elie: Sorry, I only addressed the part I disagree with.
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
I’m afraid they understand it just fine. They just want to be on the winning side.
College Republican Clubs aren’t popular just because they’re a way to develop connections, they promise “We screw the other guys, not you” and that’s appealing when you’re young, selfish and ignorant.
Compassion and empathy take time to develop.
NR
@artem1s:
Considering that the polls don’t bear this out at all, I think this particular fantasy is all in your head.
dm
@NR: You might want to be careful with that two-edged sword. Bernie’s backing a late-term-abortion-banner (though one running for mayor) in Omaha.
piratedan
so to sum up…..
“Our” candidate finished with roughly 3 million more votes, was done in by a few “swing” states in the rust belt where they couldn’t either:
a) stand having a successful black man running the country
b) believe a known con man that he would return us to the 1950’s where white people were safely ensconced in “LeaveitBeaverLand”
c) vote for a woman because of “reasons”.
d) they’d been force fed 25 years of GOP propaganda that HRC was the Devil’s Mistress and all they knew and loved would be lost in a conflagration of more rights for women, tweaks to the current health are plan and the idea that people are people (the horror).
We haven’t even touched on the malfeasance of a certain public servant, the misguidance of the media and the intervention of a foreign state and that’s barely touching upon the inadequacies of the GOP and now we’re going to have to sit down with a bunch of folks who couldn’t be bothered to do the heavy lifting to join the fucking party tell us that our model sucks and will never work.
Well… I’ll tell you why it won’t work…
We’re fucking stupid and lazy as a country, because on the whole, the next Bachelor and Dancing With the Stars draws more consistent interest than our politics do… Plus, the people who bring us our politics are a bunch of fucking tools, many of who NEED a teleprompter to read the report, because they apparently are unable to understand the common implications of what laws and decisions and judgments actually mean. It doesn’t help that money is wired to accommodate money, somebody has to get paid and those that have, don’t always feel incredibly Christian about sharing with the state, their money, despite the fact that it means clean air, water sanitation, drivable roads and food safety and the providing of services for the common good, be it health care and keeping the rivers from flooding towns and cities….
Are Dems perfect… no, we are not, but if you want to change the system, get your ass to a meeting, take some time and get involved instead of simply sitting at a keyboard and sniping. You want better Dems, then they should join the fuck up and be those better Dems.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
I hear THAT…
See y’all later…
jl
My gut instinct so far from this thread, is that the BJ commentariate should be banned from outreach rallies.
If that cannot be done, they need to at least be patted down for weapons before they are allowed in the room.
NR
@dm: That’s why I picked that issue; because it was the focus of the latest dustup. People were screaming about how bad Sanders was on abortion, but his position on the issue was better than Hillary’s.
TenguPhule
@dm:
This is backwards.
White men burned down successful black towns, drive out successful asians from their homes and looted successful mexican towns because it was easier to steal then earning it honestly themselves.
This has been the foundation for all conservative thinking.
I got mine (probably from your ancestors) so fuck you.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
Incorrect: College Republican groups aren’t popular.
@jl: I certainly don’t act like this while politicking in meatspace.
? Martin
@Baud: That’s punching down. Young people don’t have the capital to wage age warfare. They’re the vulnerable ones looking out for themselves in a world where their elders had all the control. It’s us who are waging that warfare by failing to adequately deal with the future that they will inherit.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Too crowded?
Baud
@? Martin: It’s tribalism. Maybe it’s justified, but that’s what it is.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Pandora’s box was opened. The jackals have had a taste of blood and power and aren’t going to go back quietly. Nor peacefully.
dm
@FlipYrWhig: Dunno. I haven’t really been following that, beyond hearing that Perez has endorsed the fellow, too, because I don’t really care about what Sanders thinks about much of anything (since I don’t hate him, indifference must mean I “worship” him, it seems).
Omaha is the most liberal part of Nebraska (I think Clinton carried the county it’s in, 53%, looks like, if I’m reading the wikipedia page right.).
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: For a certain subgroup, yes they are (speaking from firsthand witnessing it 20 years ago). And they tend to vote in higher numbers then the general public on average.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: So you’re ruling out outvoting them?
I suppose it’s almost quitting time, and isn’t too early for snuff fantasies, but it’s still tiresome.
ETA: Dude, there are like twelve college republicans per school.
Cacti
@ Martin:
Trump won white millennials 48-43.
I’m fresh out of sympathy for those who get fisted by what they voted for.
Villago Delenda Est
The purity ponies, alas, learned nothing from 2000, they learned nothing from Maine, they learned nothing in 2016. They are bone stupid…not because the policies they wish to implement are bad, but because they have no fucking clue about how American politics works in reality, which is a system of incremental change, whether they like it or not. Instead, they have to be purity ponies.
Fuck them. I have no use for them at all. Susan Sarandon, with all her millions from her work and residuals, can afford to be pure. The rest of us cannot. There are other fortunate Hollywood types that GET THIS, unlike Janet.
LurkerNoLonger
@Betty Cracker: I’m afraid WebMD doesn’t have any solutions for that.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: OK, that is a good point. Sorry if I lumped all BJers into people who would argue and grouch in the meatspace.
So, I revise my comments: many BJ anonymous blog personas just might a tad wee bit troublesome at outreach shindigs.
TenguPhule
@p.a.: “Republican Candidate X wants to kill your parents, your siblings and then you. Literally. They hate you for being alive and not being rich.”
/all the time, every channel
Sab
@NR: Seriously? Is this even true?
Major Major Major Major
@LurkerNoLonger: “Florida is a cancer on this fair country! And I am the… uh… what cures cancer?”
NR
@Villago Delenda Est:
Fixed that for you.
? Martin
@TenguPhule: What percentage of young people are in College Republican Clubs? 0.1%, tops? C’mon.
No, they don’t. Young people have that in spades so long as we don’t structure the world around them like some kind of hunger games. Young people didn’t support segregation – their parents did and taught them to. And it wasn’t the olds that fought that effort or gay or trans rights, and so on. It was young people. Racism is taught. Sexism is taught. Discrimination is taught. It’s structured in very specific ways, it’s not organic. It’s cultural which means it’s handed down from old to young and which means that the older generation carry the responsibility. A lot of good things are also handed down culturally, but these fights are always waged the most fiercely by the young trying hard to reject the bad cultural lessons.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: A lot of us do it here because this is our safe space to do it. At the same time, outreach probably isn’t where my talents, such as they are, would be best used.
NR
@Sab: Yes, it’s true. Look it up on any of the issue sites out there.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I’m saying that I don’t expect outvoting them to STOP these people. After all, civil obedience is just a law and expected social norm. And they have an example of the public face of US government parading around EVERY SINGLE DAY giving all of that a big middle finger without suffering any consequences for it.
People have been saying they’re worrying about how they’re gonna explain this to their children. What they’re slow to realize is what does this example set at every level as a new “normal”. Because we can scream about how this is not normal, but for millions of Americans, its filtering in as “the way it always has been.”
I saw this happen during the Bush years and was appalled.
I’m seeing it again now and I’m completely horrified.
/so FU for your fantasy bullshit.
Sab
Sorry guys. I just fed a troll at the end of a dead thread.
TenguPhule
@? Martin:
Kids are cruel to those different from themselves. As they develop, some of them learn better.
? Martin
@Cacti: And does that distribution match the overall distribution of Trump voters? That is, did the millennials largely vote along the same contours as their community?
And I’m speaking of liberally inclined millennials here. This is about how Democrats win, and I’m saying that young liberally inclined millennials don’t see a particular benefit to how party politics works. And look at your 48%-43%. Where’s that missing 9%? They went 3rd party. I’d be willing to bet the majority of those were lost Democratic votes. That’s my point. You get those back and Clinton wins.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
You saw Republicans not peacefully hand over power when outvoted during the Bush years, and need to be put down with violent force?
Villago Delenda Est
@NR: You didn’t fix it, Wilmerbot. You fucked it up. All of you morans are fucking it up. You gave us the deserting coward, you gave Maine LePage, and you’ve given us the shitgibbon. You need to go DIAF, asshole.,
Corner Stone
@khead: There is RUMINT of Watson to the Texans. I just can’t see four of this year’s QB picks going in the 1st Round.
I don’t know where any of these QB’s actually fit, honestly.
? Martin
@TenguPhule: No, that’s taught. Everyone is different from them – but we only discriminate along certain variables, and not along other variables. And we discriminate differently along those variables as well.
efgoldman
@Mai.naem.mobile:
I don’t think a candidate without a party affiliation can be primaried. Not logically possible – think about it.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
Driving a Saab at high speeds down mountain side roads isn’t helpful for outreach? Who would have guessed?
NR
@Sab: So…. You’re not going to look it up, I take it?
TenguPhule
@Taumaturgo:
Only Sanders got less votes. A lot less.
And the Russians threw Trump a lifeline.
And we all got screwed.
dm
@TenguPhule:
Well, that kind-of is what I mean, but I see what you mean by what I said being backwards.
They wanted to steal, so they invented the ideology of race and racism to “justify” it. Part of the reason I said I had some sympathy with the idea that economic injustice provides the soil in which racism grows is because I think the argument that racism is a tool that the ruling class uses to divide the ruled, and that it’s not as “natural” as we think may have some truth to it.
As a kind-of justification for this argument, look at the history of the term “white race”.
Suddenly, in 1830, it becomes a “thing”, when before it really wasn’t. Maybe because, well, people “needed” to talk about the “white race” and what being white “justified”. Or racial, which becomes a thing in the 1880s.
Sab
@NR: I know Hillary’s position on abortion. It has been out there for 30 years: “Safe, legal and rare”. That is pretty much my position. I don’t know Bernie’s, or if he even has one. I do know that he is backing candidates that don’the share mine. You gave me no information except that “It’s out there”. No it isn’t you lying troll.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I just looked it up. You have it 100 percent backwards — she voted against a ban on late-term abortions.
Meanwhile, Bernie supports a candidate in Omaha who co-sponsored a bill to force women to get vaginal ultrasounds before they would be allowed to get an abortion.
But keep peddling your Bernie is more pro-choice than Hillary! lies. I’m sure you’ll get some idiot to believe you.
NR
@Villago Delenda Est: You have me confused with the Democratic party establishment. But hey, I’m sure the political consultants they gave your contribution money to are happy, so there’s that at least.
efgoldman
@Elie:
Allowing people who are not Democrats, don’t/won’t vote for Democrats, and don’t give a shit about Democrats, to control the party apparatus will lead to the destruction of the Democratic party in your state. That’s what the bernibots want, but it’s not good for the party or the country.
Eljai
@Sab: No, it’s not. Hillary said she would not support late abortion bans that don’t allow for the health of the mother, which is why she voted against the federal ban when she was a senator.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: Democrats who have won lately in places where Democrats often struggle: Jon Bel Edwards, Louisiana; Roy Cooper, North Carolina. Neither one a Sanders-style “populist.” Add Jim Justice, West Virginia, an outright billionaire from resource extraction and the resort business.
Democrats who are Sanders-style populists who have won lately in places where Democrats often struggle: do we have ONE of those yet? WTF is this logic? Even though it has no support and no track record and no candidates itching to try it, IN THEORY it’s aces? Can we do, like, a _single_ proof of concept before recording a whole Mythbusters on it?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
I looked it up. You lied.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Oh FFS. I’m talking about the mindset. The Bush years taught Republicans simple contempt for the rule of law. The Trump weeks are teaching the next step “Who’s going to stop us from doing whatever the hell we want?”
Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed the change in the air.
ruemara
@dm: It is mighty white to say that. Well, that’s quite enough. Peace out.
Corner Stone
NFL Draft thread / Open Thread, maybe?
NR
@Mnemosyne: Funny how the author of that article left out this quote from Hillary at the third debate:
Source
I’d say I expect an apology from you for attacking me while being wrong yourself, but that requires a level of basic honesty and decency that you don’t have, so I won’t hold my breath.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
It also says something that some people are incapable of recognizing groups like the Black Lives Matter movement as populist.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
as usual, it’s all projection with these guys.
Sab
@Eljai: Isn’t this what I said? Hillary has never been anti-abortion. She just never thought it was the default option for an unwanted pregnancy.
efgoldman
@Baud:
Nothing reinforces it like the toobz. Both for the RWNJs and the leftier-than-thous, a determined pretty small minority can look WAY bigger than it actually is. It’s like when the allies built acres of wood and canvas phony tanks in England for the German reconnaissance to find before the invasion of France.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: it’s different, I just don’t think we need to literally kill republicans, unlike you.
efgoldman
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Perez can and should dump him in any case. Schumer should also rescind the appointment as outreach manager, or whatever the hell he’s called.
dogwood
@Cacti:
Young people don’t vote in large enough numbers or reliably enough to see their concerns prioritized. The problem that plagues democrats and perhaps always will. And it’s not just young people either. Only 47% of eligible Latino voters turned out in ’16. The old conventional wisdom that you have to give people something to FOR rather than against doesn’t really apply to Republicans. They don’t have to be excited or even like their candidates in order to vote. The amount of potential political power that Latinos have is pretty stunning. They have to start voting to get anywhere. Unfortunately, the number one predictor of a person becoming a lifetime voter is the voting habits of the parents.
dm
@ruemara: I suppose you’re right. Who cares about where racism came from, we’re stuck with it now, and it’s not like a single-minded focus on economic injustice is going to fix it. Except…. if it’s true that the ideology of racism was created, it can be uncreated. It’s not the inevitable order of things. So there’s that.
Sab
@NR: Your English is really good for a Russian.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Nope. Here’s another source, this one from the primary.
Again, I’d wait for an apology, but I know you’re too dishonest to give one.
Eljai
@Sab: Sorry, I was responding to your question regarding whether NR’s comment was true (it’s not). I agree with you that Hillary is not anti-abortion.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Guess what? That’s exactly what Roe v Wade says, and why a woman’s ability to get a legal abortion depends on what trimester her pregnancy is in.
But I’m not surprised that you would decide that Hillary Clinton is personally responsible for the legal framework set up by Roe v Wade in 1973.
debbie
@Corner Stone:
Jeez, didn’t football just end?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin:
I didn’t when I was their age; most will learn how politics works, some never will.
Mnemosyne
@Eljai:
NR doesn’t understand abortion law or how Roe v Wade set up our regulations. Is anyone surprised?
VFX Lurker
@Major Major Major Major: I skip over everything TenguPhule writes now because of his vile rhetoric.
Corner Stone
@debbie: Nothing is over! Nothing!!
/Rambo
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Have I even mentioned that in this thread or is this another one of those “I believe it in my head that that’s what you really mean to say”?”
Just One More Canuck
@LurkerNoLonger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IDwpTABJG4
dm
@Sab: Allow me to free-associate a bit from the Russian troll idea.
You know that story about how the Berniebros in Maine booed the mention of Tom Perez’s name, and how Bernie didn’t come to his defense? Shame on Bernie!
You know where you find that story? Breitbart. The Gateway Pundit. Town Hall. Newsmax.
You know what happens if you chase that story to its source? You find the Washington Post mentioning “scattered boos”. You find the video here, in which, if you listen really carefully you can hear some booing among the general applause. And you see that neither Perez nor Sanders appear to be on stage at the time.
So: part of our problem is there are people trying to divide us and trying to turn cracks into fissures. They’re using the same techniques they used to turn the A-rated Clinton Foundation into a cesspool of influence peddling. We have to be careful about that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: Who is the “Democratic Party Establishment”? Democrats who hold elective office? If they have been elected, shouldn’t they have say in how the party works?
TenguPhule
@VFX Lurker: Never mind of course, that the only dead republican associations actually came from Major’s responses like a giant space flea out of nowhere.
But do go on mistaking the voices in your head with what other people are actually saying. I’m sure that will end well.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
I guess you didn’t say kill, mere nonlethal violence could be read into that too. But much like a federal judge dealing with Trump, I find it best to interpret what you say within the context of what else you’ve said.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
Holy Hell! I had no idea that anyone who comments here could be so ignorant of the essential framework of the Roe v Wade decision. And perhaps Sanders doesn’t understand it either.
Another Scott
@jl:
I think that’s right, but I think there’s more too it, too.
I don’t know about elsewhere, but the political e-mails I get inviting me to meetings, or town halls, etc., usually show up about 3 days before the event. Or they take place in the very early evening on a week day (and often start before I even leave work). I could adjust my schedule to leave work earlier on occasion, but the way traffic is it’s a challenge to go anywhere on a weekday. Too many of these things seem to have little understanding of what’s necessary to make it reasonably easy for a broad cross-section of people to attend.
I think retired people dominate so much of politics because they’re the only ones who have the time, transportation, available funds, and inclination all together to do so. Most of the rest of us get bombarded with e-mails begging for money, and maybe get form letters back when we write, but don’t really have much direct impact otherwise.
I sorta plan to become more directly active once I retire, but who knows…
I admire those of you out there in the trenches. It’s important and necessary work.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Everybody needs a hobby when they retire*.
*Not directed at you, just why retirees in general would tend to dominate.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: So noting that Trump’s base is essentially unhinged as story after story after story has been pointing out, combined with the fact that these people are battening down the hatches by believing the media is lying instead of Trump when it comes to anything going wrong and somehow you equate this into wishing them all dead?
Please explain how you got to your conclusion, because I sure as hell can’t follow your train of logic here.
dm
Speaking of building the local party, Democracy For America sent me a letter about the Detroit City Clerk (DFA grew out of the Howard Dean campaign, right?).
Here’s the bit that got me:
No wonder the Detroit City Clerk’s race gets the attention of a national organization. Yay!
efgoldman
@jl:
In fantasy world, maybe. Since what the berniebots hear is “Bernie wonderful, Democrats bad same as RWNJs” I don’t see anything positive at all.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: because you’ve not only had but defended snuff fantasies about explicit bloody civil war, here, on a near-daily basis, for months. Not going to bother looking it up. Have a nice evening.
Ian
@Baud:
Yes Baud, young people are engaging in ageism when they vote for their interests (lower college costs, healthcare, environmental protections)
Whereas the majority (not all!) of the elderly are being statesmen and sage leaders when they vote for a party that wants to slash these things (but only for those 64 and younger, most rethug proposals have the elderly being grandfathered into the retirement programs that won’t be affected for them.
Mnemosyne
@dogwood:
And they wonder why I call them dudebros … ?
efgoldman
@SatanicPanic:
Which part(s)?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
You and your assumptions of good faith must be fun at parties.
dm
@FlipYrWhig: A good example is how Hillary Clinton out-polled Russ Feingold in Wisconsin
by quite a bit.Were someone to tell me that “Bernie would have won”, that’s probably how I would start my reply.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
He lies all. The. Fucking. Time.
He’s a troll. That’s what they do.
Patricia Kayden
@Sab: Disgusting what Republicans will do to cut taxes for their wealthy buddies. They have no problems screwing over the poor and middle class. So why do the precious White Working Class keep voting for these jerks?
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I suppose a simple apology for being wrong this time was simply too much to ask from you.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule: do you usually try to get people to apologize by being a dick to them, or is that just on the internet?
efgoldman
@FlipYrWhig:
Glennie is an ass and possibly on Russia’s payroll.
It’s a good thing he has essentially no influence over actual voters.
germy
efgoldman
@Taumaturgo:
You may have missed who (1) got three million more votes in the primary and (b) got three million more votes in the general
You may also live in an alternate universe.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: I was simply trying to see if you are receptive to your own style of approaching a subject. Would you prefer something more polite instead?
Sab
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t know. I am white, but my grandkids aren’t. I am guessing it is whiteness.
gorram
@TenguPhule: Exactly. I keep seeing White people who are in the Sanders camp or inclined that way reducing down racism as a tool to “divide the working class” or something similar. Sure, it fit that purpose in certain times and places, but the origins of race as a concept of how to divide people up weren’t about creating a divided group to exploit but clarifying the target – denying their legal standing as human beings, as property holders, as capable laborers, and so on.
It wasn’t until well into the plantations and colonies and burned down villages that White supremacists started thinking up ways to set working class groups at each other using these concepts, and the best examples *still* don’t involve White people – the only I always think of is Hawaii where White-owned plantations would segregate their fields, to encourage the Japanese, the Chinese, the Filipino, and the indigenous Hawaiian groups of workers to show how their yield was better grown, better harvested, etc.
TenguPhule
@gorram: I have no dog in this brawl. At this point in time, its not like the Democrats can afford to be picky about who’s supporting them. At the same time, they can’t afford to have infighting when the real enemy is right in front of them.
So if they vote for the Democrats fine, otherwise get out of the way.
For if we don’t hang together, be assured we shall all hang separately.
Mnemosyne
@gorram:
There has always been some level of racism in all human societies, but you didn’t start getting “scientific” racism and racial caste systems in Europe until the Industrial Revolution hit.
I’m sure that a lot of people smarter than me have written whole books about it.
debbie
@germy:
I’d be happier hearing that from a Republican representative.
J R in WV
@Taumaturgo:
This is the most disjointed non-logical comment I have ever seen on Ballon-Juice. The sentences do not connect one with the other, so really, it’s 7 different unrelated paragraphs, none of which have any relationship with reality. In fact most of the “sentences” aren’t really grammatically sentences at all.
It’s so disjointed I can’t really tell what the author wanted to say, except that this disjointed spew must have come from a Berniac, so he must be hating on the Democratic National Committee, Hillary, and everyone who didn’t vote for Bernie, which is almost everyone.
Eeeewwwwww!
ETA: Taumaturgo… has anyone seen this ‘nym before? Because I don’t recall ever seeing it before. And it makes as little sense as the comment itself does. Re-reading it, many of the sentences are not sentences, just clauses adrift. strange…
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
I know, but it was hilarious to catch him in such an obvious mistake. Hillary says we should follow the framework of Roe v Wade! She’s a secret pro-lifer! ?
Sab
@dm: Someone I am confused about why you are directing this comment at me. NR says Hillary is not pro-choice. I have been following her career for all of my long adult life. NR provides no evidence for his/her claim and accuses me of trolling. I assume trolldom. You accuse me of being a Russian asset. That pretty much proves my point that NR and you are Russian trolls.
efgoldman
@artem1s:
What else would you expect a bitter old man to act like?
Sab
@dm: I never read Breitbart. Not ever. They are idiots. They are not even on my political radar, so do not waste your time suggesting that they inform or even influence my opinions.
efgoldman
@Baud:
And how many decades/centuries/aeons has that been going on?
A Ghost to Most
I see the long decided battle continues apace. What a waste of energy that could be more properly directed at our common adversary.
I am beginning to think that this misadministration is the price we pay for the possibility of rooting out the worst of the party over country crowd.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Are you really this dense? Just because you CAN regulate does not mean you HAVE to do so.
Hillary supported regulating late-term abortions and Bernie did not. It’s that simple.
NR
@Eljai:
Wow, lots of liars in here today.
There it is, in her own words.
dm
@Sab: “You accuse me of being a Russian asset” — sorry, I must have expressed myself poorly if that’s what you thought I was saying.
Your allusion to the Russian-troll business really just served as a jumping-off point to reflect on the whole phenomenon of accusing others of being Russian trolls, and to note how that dynamic is playing out.
We’re all responding to what we see and hear in various media — I used the case of the fake “Berniebros boo Perez” story as an example. The click-bait headline causes us to be outraged, but if we follow the story to the actual event, we see that it’s a non-story. That’s the same dynamic that was exploited over and over again during the 2016 campaign against Clinton. Now it’s being used to divide us. We have to be careful with what we allow to outrage us, I guess.
Baud
@efgoldman: I know. But Martin was trying to make the argument that young people viewed the world in a less tribal way.
NR
@Sab:
Please quote where I said that.
NR
@geg6: If I lie all the time, it should be easy for you to provide some examples.
Put up or shut up.
efgoldman
@NR:
People who aren’t running for anything in non-election years are often popular.
I’ll put $100 away right now that says if he runs again in 2020 he’ll finish with fewer votes, and farther behind the eventual winner, than he did last year,
J R in WV
@ruemara:
Well said, more succinct that I was. Congrats!
dance around in your bones
I thought this post was gonna be about John’s house :(
Just like I thought the Help Me Please post was gonna be another John-ccident :(
Oh well.
TenguPhule
@NR: Acknowledging an obvious truth is not support. States can and do regulate late term abortions and this is the settled law of the land. Some of those States regulate it quite badly because they’re controlled by Republicans.
From your own link, which YOU have left out.
gorram
@Mnemosyne: True, but the currently salient groups/ideas have been globalized and have an original (primary?) use which seems key to understanding them. It just seems very weird that a disproportionately White part of the left keeps wanting to approach that history from a perspective that re-writes it and creates a space for “good” “co-oppressed” White people, when the origins of it were in the elevation of all White people (if not equally) and defamation of all people of color (again, not evenly or consistently).
TenguPhule
@NR: You’re full of it, liar.
She vote against the ban, she explains why she voted, and then you make up complete bullshit.
dogwood
@Sab:
I don’t do Facebook by my local activist democratic sister does and during the primaries she said tons of Breitbart articles were being touted on Facebook from the Bernie people. Not just Breitbart articles either. The Russians ran a very effective misinformation campaign.
randy khan
@NR:
The only time she had to vote on late term abortion, she voted against a ban.
J R in WV
@NR:
So what? 99% of late term abortions are because of a non-viable fetus, which risks the health, the life, of the mother. Bernie doesn’t give a rat’s ass about reproductive rights.
Sab
@NR: Comment 119 which was vague as phucking. That’said part of my issue with you. You imply all this stuff but link to nothing. I don’t know who or what you are but I have been following Hillary for many many years. When you say something that I know is blatantly untrue I assume you are a troll. If you are persistent I assume you are a Russian troll. I have nothing to base that on but I do know from your posting here that you are a persistent liar.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV: You got rickrolled. NR lied.
Psych1
NR – as you are well aware, this is a committed Bernie-hate blog. They are completely unaware of how they contributed to the disaster of the election. they are blinded by their hate and unable to be rational.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@efgoldman: Right? I was just arguing this with a FB friend who for some strange reason calls HRC a “weak candidate” but doesn’t apply the same phrase to Grandpa Simpson who got 3 million less votes.
NR
@TenguPhule:
Except Hillary did far more than merely “acknowledge an obvious truth.”
That is a clear statement of support for late-term abortion restrictions.
NR
@J R in WV:
If this were true (which it’s not), what would that say about Hillary considering the fact that Bernie’s position on abortion is better than hers?
dm
@Mnemosyne, @gorram: :
Is the “there has always been” part true? I was reading The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, a biography of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the father of Alexandre Dumas the author. In the introduction, the author talks about how what race meant changed from the pre-Revolutionary time, when Dumas became a general in the French Republican army and race didn’t appear to have much impact on his rise, to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when his race began to be held against him. The argument there was that the ideology of racism was being invented to provide cover for the rise of the institution of slavery (though Dumas was himself sold into slavery as a child). As gorram says, “the origins of it were in the elevation of all White people (if not equally) and defamation of all people of color (again, not evenly or consistently)”.
It was inspiring to think that racism might not have always been with us, but was invented, and could be un-invented someday.
But I’m no expert. That book’s really the only thing I’ve read on the subject. And I don’t want to come off as defending ‘a space for “good” “co-oppressed” White people’.
TenguPhule
@NR:
And you lied, again. Your quote is a COMPLETE FABRICATION.
NR
@Sab: I never said nor implied that Hillary was not pro-choice. I said that Bernie’s position on abortion was better than hers. That doesn’t mean she’s not pro-choice.
TenguPhule
@NR: You are a lying liar that lies.
amk
Only half tbogg unit? Progress.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
Somebody who looks a lot like you, or maybe spoofed your name, introduced himself .to this blog with a whole bunch of posts about violent civil war and accumulating weapons
NR
@TenguPhule:
It’s a direct quote from a Democratic primary debate. It’s not fabricated. It’s real. If you’re so divorced from reality that you can’t even acknowledge that fact, that’s really sad.
NR
@Psych1: Yep. I have to say, though, that seeing them deny that Hillary Clinton supported late-term abortion restrictions when she herself said she did as plainly as possible is kind of a new low, even for this place. That kind of denail of reality is on par with Trump supporters or even Trump himself.
dm
@TenguPhule: I don’t know if I want to get into this, but NR did provide a link, so you can see for yourself it’s not a complete fabrication.
Here’s an extended quote from the article:
I wouldn’t call it an “endorsement” of restrictions, merely an acceptance that some might happen?
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
CBS had a story about how coal miners in the UMWA are already disaffected with Mango Malignancy for allowing their retirees pension and medical funds to run out of money.
While anything that makes them mad at the “president” is fine with me, they ought to look closer to home. It was their senator, Yertle McTurtle, who snuffed the bill before the election.
Sab
@Psych1: This is not a Bernie hate blog. I am not a Bernie person but I have been consistently defending Bernie persons in my area who are great Democrats, and the only people hassling me are fake Bernie bots or Russian trolls
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Go to the Wikipedia page for Roe v Wade.
Read the summary of the decision.
Realize that you look like a moron right now.
dm
@efgoldman: Well one of those polls of how popular politicians are among their constituents did put McConnell dead last in popularity. So there’s that.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
Again. It’s in Roe v Wade. Go read it, or at least the Wikipedia summary.
This shit was outlined in 1973, and NR is trying to pretend that supporting the framework laid out by the Supreme Court is somehow nefarious.
dm
@Sab: Just to be clear, you saw my apology, right? I didn’t mean to leave you with the impression that I was accusing you of anything.
Paula
@J R in WV: Agree with everything you said!
Omnes Omnibus
@dm: She endorsed Roe v. Wade. On this, I agree with with Bernie’s stated position. OTOH, in the real world there is no functional difference between the positions. The number of women who are, say, 8 1/2 months pregnant and wake up one morning thinking, “What the hell, I’ll get an abortion today,” is vanishingly small.
Paula
@Mnemosyne:
Yep.
efgoldman
@Sab:
All Russians may or may not be trolls, but not all trolls are Russians.
dm
@Mnemosyne: @Omnes Omnibus: No argument with either of you. I think NR is just trying to draw the distinction (and really, making too big a deal about it) between the Sanders “no restrictions” and Clinton’s “well, we may have to accept some restrictions as a political reality because Roe v Wade allows people to put such restrictions in place”. Which is the sort of thing that made Clinton highly qualified for office but maybe not a great campaigner.
Omnes Omnibus
@dm: NR is being NR. No more no less.
randy khan
@NR:
Once again, the one chance she had to vote on late term abortion restrictions, she voted no.
Sab
@dm: WTF
NR the unaffiliated troll:
He/she provided a link to their own unsubstantiated comment. Seriously? “I said this in a previous comment which I can now quote so it must be true”? Are you seriously THAT stupid
Paula
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep. Show up, then spend some time figuring out what’s been going on BEFORE trying to change everything. No one likes new people to show up and crap all over everything, even if the crapping is warranted. There’s often reasons for why people have “failed” — and people get discouraged and defensive, etc. Give them the benefit of the doubt first, get the lay of the land, THEN work your magic.
dm
@Sab: You do realize the extended quote is from an article in Mother Jones, an article that NR provided a link to so you can see for yourself, yes?
Mnemosyne
@dm:
The Dumas example is a little tricky, because he lived through the transitional time when your family origins became less important and your racial origins became more important. He was able to advance because he was the bastard son of a French aristocrat who supported him and helped him advance, and his social class was more important in pre-Revolutionary France than race.
After the Revolution, when suddenly the aristocracy had been abolished and they needed a new way to decide who was on top and who wasn’t, racism started to creep in. I would have to double-check, but I recently saw a reference to interracial marriage not being banned in France until after the Revolution.
So there have always been hierarchies based on various criteria, and it’s only since the Industrial Revolution that a race-specific hierarchy was created. And a lot of that was created by the American need to justify having a race-based chattel slavery system.
This is one of the reasons racism is different in Europe (and in some ways more pernicious). They never set up a whole Jim Crow system where people were excluded and discriminated against based solely on race. It was (and is) much more organic, and harder to battle because of that.
Another fascinating guy from Dumas’ period is the Chevalier de St-Georges, another bastard son of an aristocrat and his slave mistress. In fact, St-Georges was Dumas’s commanding officer in the Revolution because he created an entire Black battalion.
Sab
Sorry Betty. I know you opened a new post to keep us from chewing on this person but Jeez. What a fool.NR =fool
Brachiator
@dm: In answering the question about late term abortion, Clinton did the Nuance Dance that her supporters love. To others it seems like an excess of caution to try to hide or disguise what she really thinks.
But ultimately it is simplistic and simple minded for NR to say that Clinton supports restrictions on late term abortion, with the implication that she accepts all prohibition of late term abortion without exception.
Paula
@Mnemosyne:
Yep.
dm
@Mnemosyne: As Charles Pierce is fond of saying, “History is so cool”.
One of my favorite parts of the book was how pissed off Napolean was when the Egyptians thought the big black general was the French leader.
NR
@Mnemosyne: And if Hillary had said “I support Roe v. Wade as decided” and left it at that, you might have a point.
But she also said this:
So as always, you aren’t addressing the issue.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
I think this is what the kids call the narcissism of small differences.
And I have to laugh at anyone (not you) who thinks that Sanders would have done better than Hillary in the general with his abortion stance. I guess those people all missed the Christianists lining up to vote against baby-killer Hillary and saying that it was worth voting for Trump because he would end legal abortion.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
The issue is that you haven’t bothered to so much as read the Wikipedia article on Roe v Wade and see why every woman here thinks you’re an utter moron.
Read what she said. Then go read Wikipedia. Then hang your head in shame, if you have any.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
Next time, I’ll do my lecture about how our entire history as a country has been distorted by the South’s need to pretend Black people didn’t exist.
France-related fact: when the Nazis were driven out of France in WWII and the Allies were preparing to do a triumphant march into the liberated city of Paris, the American generals demanded that some of the Free French troops not be allowed within camera range and be replaced in the march by other troops. Why? Because they were from the French colonies in Africa and North Africa, and the Americans couldn’t let their people find out that Those People had bravely fought the Nazis across North Africa and helped liberate France.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: The French replaced the African soldiers with native French ones before the liberation of France. It was done for internal political reasons – French men had to be seen as liberating Paris.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not just that. Late term abortions for healthy mothers carring viable fetuses does not enjoy broad based enthusiastic support in this country. There’s a reason there is no significant demand for these abortions. In that third trimester you become increasingly aware that you are no longer carrying a mass of developing tissue. It’s no longer a potential living baby, it’s the real deal.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Here’s the BBC article about the documents that were found in an archive — DeGaulle wanted French soldiers, but it was the British and Americans who insisted that those French soldiers all be white. DeGaulle wanted to include the Free French troops from North Africa and Africa, but was overruled.
ETA: Slight correction on re-reading the article — North African troops were included since they appeared sufficiently “white,” but West African troops were excluded at the demand of the British and Americans.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: First time I have seen this.
Gian
@Mnemosyne:
I voted Hillary in the primary and the general.
I don’t think running against Sanders in the primary cost her the general election. I don’t think he was a better general election candidate… Hence my primary vote.
She won against Sanders and lost against Trump. Sanders campaigned for and endorsed her. His primary voters voted for her like her primary voters voted for Obama in 2008.
This circular firing squad anger over the 2016 election demoralizes me.
FFS if Hillary was unchallenged in the primary would that have stopped the Russians ?
Did Gore blame Bradley? Did Dukakis blame Jackson? Did Romney blame Gingrich, Kerry Dean?
I only check in every once in a while because this stuff makes me worry about 2018
Mnemosyne
@dogwood:
Oh, I agree with you, and I have no real problem with those abortions being regulated IF the life and health of the mother are paramount. But you do have some people who argue there should be no restrictions and the decision should be completely up to the pregnant woman acting on the advice of her doctor.
Frankly, this is one of those arguments more frequently seen on feminist websites, so it’s more than a little weird for a man to drag Sanders in as a better feminist than Hillary Clinton, FFS.
NR
@Mnemosyne: I understand Roe v. Wade perfectly well.
Nothing in it changes the fact that Hillary Clinton plainly said she supports late-term abortion restrictions while Bernie Sanders does not.
It’s really sad that you’re apparently incapable of even acknowledging that bit of reality.
And it’s also really sad that you lack the honesty and the moral character to apologize for calling me a liar when I spoke the plain truth. But as I said, it’s not unexpected from you at this point.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
They only found the documents in 2009, so it’s a pretty recent discovery. It stuck in my mind because of my interest in media and censorship.
dm
@Mnemosyne: …and the French government finally recognized those soldiers, granting them full citizenship twelve days ago. Reading the BBC article you linked reminded me of this more recent event.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Let’s roll the tape, shall we?
Define “better.” Not even all people who are pro-choice agree that abortion should be unregulated.
Also, please point to the candidate who Hillary endorsed that introduced a bill in his state legislature to force women who seek an abortion to undergo a medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound.
I can point you to the one Sanders endorsed: Mello. But, hey, what’s a little forced vaginal ultrasound between friends when Bernie said really awesome things in a debate, right?
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
Except that it’s not Hillary saying Bernie is the reason she lost. It’s Bernie and his supporters claiming despite all of the evidence that he would have won.
So the question is, did Bradley blame Gore? Did Dean blame Kerry? Did Gingrich blame Romney?
Gian
@Mnemosyne:
She picked Kaine as a running mate.
Kaine isn’t exactly a shining star of the pro choice movement.
Since Sanders lost the primary we didn’t see who his choice for the person to replace him in case of disaster would have been
Omnes Omnibus
@Gian: Do you think that HRC had trouble from the hard-core pro-choice element?
dm
@Mnemosyne: Some supporters do, does Sanders, really? Citation needed.
I’m being a stickler about this because I’m a survivor of the “Al Gore claimed he invented the internet” wars (he didn’t make that claim, and the claim he did make was accurate and I am pissed to this day).
Another reason I’m being a stickler about this is I think we’re starting to see this kind of stuff being circulated to cause deepening fissures among Democrats, so I think it’s important to chase these claims to as-close-to-primary-sources as possible.
(Speaking of citations needed, earlier I said that Perez had also endorsed Mello, which I had read somewhere, but on further research I see that he hasn’t. He and the DNC have “distanced themselves”, in NPR’s words, from the Omaha mayor’s race. But hey, I told NR he might want to be careful with that two-edged sword.)
Gian
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think the whole argument is a bad idea. She won the primary. She lost the general.
I’m being foolish in going beyond that. I don’t expect anyone voted for president p grabber because they thought he was better on women’s rights.
The whole quien es mas macho revisit of 2016 only serves to divide us, and I should know better than to try and get in the middle.
liberal
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Sadly, stupidity isn’t restricted to Republicans.
Gian
When read I just don’t think it needed moderation. But I did quote djt in his access Hollywood tape. I thought editing that would be enough…
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
Did Kaine sponsor or sign a bill requiring women to get a vaginal ultrasound before they were allowed to get an abortion?
Mello did, and Bernie endorsed him. If Kaine did not, then your comparison is false.
Mnemosyne
@dm:
I tried to Google it, but the various videos set to the tune of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” kept showing up along with idiotic articles from Jacobin, so I will withdraw the Bernie-specific part until I can find the link I was thinking of.
liberal
@dm: I don’t think Russ Feingold is a good example at all. There’s a lot more to electability than where one lies on the ideology spectrum.
I don’t think Russ was ever a great campaigner.
Mnemosyne
TBogg unit!
I knew we could do it if we all stuck together.
ETA: No, wait, is it 500 for a TBogg unit? I can never remember.
Omnes Omnibus
@liberal: Actually, Russ was a very good retail pol. And a good campaigner.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
LOL! Least self-aware comment of the week, given that people here think HRC shits rainbows.
Gian
@Mnemosyne:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/abortion-tim-kaine-hillary-clinton/493913/
The stuff on TK on abortion isn’t that hard to find. I think a VP pick is more important than a local election endorsement. Have a pleasant evening.
dm
@Mnemosyne: Should have done my own homework: “sanders claims he would have defeated trump” works pretty well.
Today, even:
So, yeah, he said “it’s likely”, but he also softened it with, “Who knows?”
I think he’s wrong. The stuff the Republicans would have manufactured about him would have been brutal. And…. if Sanders had defeated Clinton in the primary, I think the Republicans would have turned heaven and earth to get Trump to bow out before the convention, or else would have forced a Republican pol to serve as VP and regent on him. Somehow.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
What conspiracy? The Russian thing? Yeah, Trump should be impeached for it, but it had very little effect on the election.
What brought HRC down was (a) she’s a crap retail politician, (b) stupid white people voting Republican (fundie perverts in particular).
liberal
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think his margins were all that impressive.
dm
@liberal: Nah. It was pretty clearly Comey. Post hoc non ergo propter hoc notwithstanding.
Though, re-reading your message, I guess I disagree with you less than I thought.
TenguPhule
@NR: Lying liar with fake quote.
dogwood
@Mnemosyne:
Give up arguing with these trolls. Tim Kaine is pro choice as a public servant. They like to bring him up because they are disingenuous and don’t care about the issue. Bernie’s ok with abortion on demand at 9 months so he’s a true champion, but he doesn’t really care if anyone else supports choice in the first trimester. Which means it’s not a crucial issue for him. And I’m actually ok with that because you can’t be passionate about everything; you have to focus. It’s the endless insistence from a group of his supporters that he is always better than any dem on every issue.
dogwood
@liberal:
You know who’s a great retail politician? Joe Biden. If he had run the left or progressives or whatever they call themselves would have had conniption fits. But I would have given him better odds against Trump than Sanders.
dm
@Kay: Sorry, missed this in all the fuss.
I was talking how recruitment of candidates who do end up running generally happens — the linked podcast was about white-collar vs. working-class politicians, and was generally an explanation of “why are so many of them white-collar?” (this was after the academic had found reason to believe that, once they run, working-class candidates can be just as successful at winning and retaining office as white-collar candidates).
It’s not that there’s a gate-keeper barring the door, it’s just how this academic said a lot of the candidates who do run get recruited/encouraged to do so.
For most people outside those circles it’s a failure of imagination as much as anything else (“What? I could run for office? You’re joking”). So, there are other ways to recruit among other sets of people and convince them tney really could run, and could even win. This will lead to a more diverse population in office, and… the hope is that diversity will lead to better government. This is probably true for both parties.
Probably too late for you to see this in this dead thread.
NR
@TenguPhule: Apparently something that Hillary Clinton said, and is documented saying, is somehow a “fake quote.”
You guys really are just like Trump supporters.
Mnemosyne
@Gian:
Read the whole article and still didn’t see where Kaine supported mandatory vaginal ultrasounds before women would be allowed to get abortions.
I’m actually flexible enough to allow “personally pro-life, politically pro-choice” politicians into the tent. But someone who actually co-sponsored a bill mandating vaginal ultrasounds? Nope.
NR
@Mnemosyne: So let me get this straight: Bernie Sanders backs a mayoral candidate who at one point supported a restriction on abortion = OMG BERNIE SANDERS HATES WOMEN RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!
Hillary Clinton publicly states her own support for a restriction on abortion = So what? Who cares? It’s no big deal!
Glad we cleared that up.
Oh, and by the way, you’re not even right about this:
Mello’s bill did not force the women to undergo an ultrasound. It required the doctors to offer the ultrasound, but there was no “forced vaginal ultrasound” as you describe. So you are wrong on the facts as you usually are.
Starfish
Good grief. Another thread turned into the epic leftwing circular firing squad. Team “Find something better to argue about 2018!”
TenguPhule
@NR: You make up a quote that doesn’t exist in the article you cited. I fucking quote what she ACTUALLY SAID that completely refutes your lie and you pretend not to see it. Your Not-Russia, name is giving the game away, comrade.
Virginia Guy
In Virginia, in 2005, I wanted to run against a long term incumbent who hadn’t been challenged for 20 years. I was told that I was too liberal for the district and they were afraid of its effect on the governor’s raise (at the time for Tim Kaine). They tried to convince a neophyte to politics young teacher to run, be she didn’t understand how taxing the process was going to be if she actually made the run so she dropped out. So they put up nobody. That old ossified Republican went on to fire off his gun in his office in the House of Delegates building that year, but with nobody to go against him there was nobody to make hay of his senility and craziness. I feel like there is less a centrist vs. liberal issue and more of them just not giving support and money to liberal candidates over centrist candidate once the primaries are over. The money and effort always goes to the ‘centrist’ safe bets for them (even when they are shitty candidates)
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
.
Yes there were forces that worked against Hillary. Some were part of a designed set of cooperative actions and others independant and even ad hoc. There were forces that can be identified in long historical trends.
NTL, had Hillary run a better campaign and showed better skill at making adjustments on the move, she likely would have come closer to Obama’s numbers in that short list of well known key states. It sucks that she got hit with so much, but that’s politics. That’s why smart politicians run up the score and never take a number for granted. That’s why smart politicians read the mood of the electorate and (like Bill) focus on a simple, aspirational, bumper sticker message and repeat the hell of of it until the yokles mutter it in their sleep.
The conspiracy, as you call it, really hurt Hillary, but it is totally on her and her team of long-time insiders that for the second time in a row, ran a campaign that was not strong enough to withstand the blows. It should have been. I gave more $$ to her than I have for any other candidate…ever. I feel cheated.
NR
@TenguPhule:
I did cite the article that contained the quote. It’s not my fault if you can’t read.
Regardless, she said it. You can deny reality all you want, but it doesn’t change that fact.