California Highway Patrol needed nearly four hours to catch a runaway ‘unicorn‘ Los Angeles Times. Only in California…
Technology Problems Top a List of Car Complaints New York Times
Scientists pinpoint unbroken section of Nepal fault line and show why Himalayas keep growing University of Oxford (furzy)
What McDonald’s and Walmart Can Teach Drug Cartels Vice. Resilc: “UBS already wrote this one.”
Inside Stunt Performers’ Battle to Get Recognized by the Academy Awards Vice
Lagos’s blackout nightmare: the suburb that’s been in darkness for five years Guardian
Scientists Protest Cuts and Commercialization at Australian Climate Center New York Times
Is this the end of the trade in surrogacy? Bangkok Post
The Ontario Government Is Investigating Giving Everyone Free Money Motherboard
Japan’s Negative Interest Rates Are Driving up Sales of Safes Fortune (furzy). Quelle surprise!
China?
China Stares Down Economic Concerns NPR
Market Still Out on Chinese Central Bank’s Charm Offensive WSJ China Real Time
Brexit?
From farming to sport and from the environment to science, what would Brexit mean for everyday life? Guardian
G20: Brexit would be a ‘shock’ CNN
FTSE bosses and union leaders support Britain remaining in the EU – for very different reasons Business Insider
Safety first, says the PM, but the EU puts money and people at risk Telegraph
NATO Bombs Good, Russian Ones Barbaric – German Politician Sums up Merkel’s Policy on Syria YouTube. Guurst: “My kind of woman,” Sahra Wagenknecht.
Syraqistan
A Plea For Reason: An Open Letter To Prime Minister Netanyahu Professor Alon Ben-Meir (guurst)
Syria 90-Day Forecast: The Assad Regime and Allies in Northern Syria Institute for the Study of War (resilc)
Syrian Ceasefire: A Signal that Russia is winning the War? Juan Cole
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Google Unveils Neural Network with ‘Superhuman’ Ability to Determine the Location of Almost Any Image MIT Technology Review
FBI is Asking Apple to Create ‘Software Equivalent of Cancer’: Tim Cook Common Dreams (Judy B)
Hospitals vulnerable to cyber attacks on just about everything Naked Security (Glenn F)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Hillary Goes to War Counterpunch (resilc)
Drone technology a threat to Trident submarines, MPs to be told Independent (Chuck L)
America’s Next Great Boondoggle—Er, Bomber—Is on Its Way Wired (resilc)
2016
Clinton Smothers Sanders in South Carolina US News
Clinton Routs Sanders in South Carolina New York Times. Subhead: “Turnout was high among black voters.”
Killer Mike Just Slammed Hillary Clinton’s Record on Race Mother Jones
Hillary Clinton and Welfare Reform Corey Robin
Bernie Sanders vs. ISIS Facebook (RR). Video.
Bernie Sanders and the Congress of Racial Equality, Chicago 1961-63 Associated Press
Finding Donald Trump’s appeal through “The Apprentice” Washington Spectator (furzy)
Christie’s Endorsement Of Trump Totally Makes Sense FiveThirtyEight
Trump, Christie and the Revival of GOP Moderates American Conservative (resilc)
WATCH: Donald Trump blames Trump University legal woes on ‘hostile’ judge who ‘happens to be Spanish’ Raw Story. He must expect to lose the case.
Opinion: The War Vultures Circling US Presidential Front-Runners South Front
Animated map shows presidential election results through history Business Insider
Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim erupts in violence; 3 are stabbed and 13 arrested Los Angeles Times (furzy)
Gunz
Tennessee Gets a State Gun and It Is Huge New York Magazine (resilc)
22 People Were Shot in Five Drive-By Mass Shootings in America This Week Vice (furzy mouse)
A Day in the Life of the Current Economic Crisis World Policy Institute
Pfizer: tax dodger, price gouger Tax Justice Network
Class Warfare
In One Month We Will Begin Intentionally Starving Poor People Gawker
Antidote du jour (Rajesh):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
281 comments
Comments are closed.
Investors pull more than $60bn from mutual funds in January FT
As is usual in our house, googling the article title sent me to the FT pay wall every time. In the middle of the fourth page of listings was a link to Bloomberg India. Something about the budget request for the Indian Railways mentioned a very recent market retreat going on in the Indian exchanges. Let us not lose sight of the fact that there are many more exchanges and budgets than just our dear favourites in America and Europe.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but, isn’t the record for monthly fund withdrawals $86 bn?
I just tried a Googleblitz to find the figure myself. How s—-y is Google now? Over half of the items in the first four pages of search results were obvious propaganda trying to inveigle ‘investors’ into the market; none of which were marked as “sponsored.”
Anyway, since the average monthly redemption figures for 2015 looked to be in the $10 to $20 bn range, this is a big move.
We are near the point where progressives must decide whether to abandon the Democratic Party that has already abandoned us. I intend to do just that and, if enough follow suit, the Democrats will quickly find that a party comprised of neoliberals and African Americans is doomed.
Agreed. For this voter it’s Bernie or bust.
If the Vichy Ds think Bernie voters will transfer to Hillary, they are wrong.
If the Vichy Ds think Bernie voters will transfer to Hillary, they are wrong.
That’s exactly what they think. In fact, I’d say the Democratic Elites are quite confident that disaffected progressives will support Clinton. As soon as Sanders’ political demise is assured, expect the usual onslaught of GOP boogeymen, ponies, unicorns and effing retards to rain upon our heads. Progressives have eaten shit for 7 years under Obama and the Dem Elites thinks that diet is all we progressives deserve.
wbgone: +100. Obvious nail, excellent hammer. And, yes, they/we’ll vote for Hillary.
Can’t wait to see which Republican candidate the right will have to choke down*.
Although… if Trump makes it… I’m buying some homemade butter to put on my popcorn.
And maybe plant a few more row veggies for preparedness sake.
*if Hillary then Trump -I’m already getting pressure from my Bernie friends that a Hillary vote may be… well, y’all know the rest of that, yes?
I believe that the comedian Bill Maher summed it up nicely. “If you can’t have the chicken, eat the fish.” Referencing on a flight, you might not have your meal preferences- but you still need to eat. That’s the Dens bottom line.
Or to rephrase that: “If you can’t have the chicken, eat the gravel.
If you can’t have the chicken, eat the broken glass.” Thanks ever so much for the free advice, Mr. Maher. It’s worth every cent.
Wow, the stupid “progressives” always falling for the same trap. If is not Sanders I would vote Trump if I were American.
Washington was right all the time about factions and parties… stupid group thinking.
Isn’t the trap thinking you have to vote at all? I guess people are really uncomfortable not voting or voting 3rd party …. try it sometime, it won’t kill you, then try it again, the phobia can be overcome. And so I have no need to vote for either Hillary or Trump.
I would rather Trump beat Hillary but im not going to vote for him under any circumstances. I dont do the whole lesser-evil schtick.
Am preparing to vote for Stein again.
Not yet. Let’s wait until the elected delegates (and arrogant super delegates) to the Democratic convention have their say in July.
If people stuck to their convictions, a better world IS possible!
Part I — The Problem — Jill Stein interviewed by Chris Hedges
https://youtu.be/hDMx0CSkU04
Part II — The Solution — Jill Stein interviewed by Chris Hedges
https://youtu.be/N4S0cmuL7XY
This didn’t work in 2010 or 2014.
I’ll vote apocalypse. Trump.
Trump will be easier to impeach.. Whos his running mate?
Sarah
I can’t wait to vote for Trump myself and stick it to the corrupt elites who feel it’s their God-given right to loot. My biggest fear is that Trump isn’t reckless and deranged enough to crash the system after he gets into office.
I share the frustration with corruption, but, Trump is an elite. Clinton will work for elites. Both probably about equal as far as “crashing the system”.
It depends on the person.
Some elites will betray their own.
Trump is not FDR, but the latter is said to have betrayed his own social and economic class.
Also Teddy R.
If I were 100% sure about that I would not be voting for Trump. However I do feel there is some doubt about the matter.
With Hillary we know what we are getting: the personification of corruption, slick efficient, and utterly malignant corruption. With Trump he just might be as crazy and ignorant as he seems, which is a hell of an improvement in my opinion over Hillary in my opinion.
Isn’t the question, as BAR would put it, which is the more effective evil?
I’m with you.
There is no way I’m voting for Clinton just because of her sex, or the “her turn” meme, lesser evil, or all the other B/S.
Maybe “Apocalypto” is the way to go.
I have yet to meet a Bernie supporter who would vote for Hillary– most tell me that they’ll vote for Jill Stein or write Bernie in if he isn’t the nominee in November.
The turnout numbers are fairly terrifying.
Up for the GOP, down among the Dems, way down among white Dems.
How’s that demographic destiny working out for you, DNC cheerleaders?
One cannot base a political party on neoliberalism because neoliberalism is anti-humanistic. Progressivism is the heart of the Democratic Party. It is the reason for the party’s existence. The whole “demographic destiny” shtick is merely a thin veneer covering the gaping hole where the heart of the Democratic Party used to be.
it’s a deceitful, black heart now!
With HRC as the nominee I see much of the rust belt & upper midwest as possibly going for Trump. Ohio, PA, WV, Wisconsin, Michigan, maybe Illinois could all go Trump. It’s hard for a Dem to reach 270 without winning most of those states.
I agree. Clinton will pile up primary wins in states that the Democrats are certain to lose in the general election.
We might remember at Obama lost New York, California, and Texas in the 2008 primaries. He won the South and the plains states. And the superdelegates and the press.
Not to be flip, but Obama was sui generis. Of course, I could always be wrong but I see no way Clinton gets enough AA support to win the south or the plains and she is already hemorrhaging white working class support to Sanders which, I suspect, will either collapse into apathy or be transferred to Trump. I’m not saying Clinton can’t beat Trump since Trump is such a wild card but she won’t do it with the Obama coalition of blacks, progressives and young people.
I believe his statement relies on the fact that a primary caucus is somewhat different from a general election in terms of who goes out to vote.
On a Democratic turnout of 13% in most areas compared to 18-20% for Republicans in the same areas. South Carolina came out and said, meh.
Edwards would have won the general in 2008 even with open discussions of where his mistress would live. I assume the Blair House.
Unfortunately, Edwards came under enough corporate media indifference due to similar economic positions to Sanders such that his candidacy couldn’t get the much deserved traction it needed.
Look. I considered Edwards as a voting preference, but in the end he was a flawed candidate. While Edwards championed the plight of the poor, he was not lifelong believer in American inequality (like Sanders).
South Carolina is NOT the end of the discussion. Let’s see what occurs on Super Tuesday and then in California, Oregon, Washington.
With continued scrutiny Hillary will be shown to be not only a serial liar but a Machiavellian Monarch.
There is no way I could ever pull the lever for HRC. If she end up as the nominee I certainly plan to vote Trump.
If Sanders isn’t nominated, instead of voting for Trump, please consider voting for a third party candidate. Or write in “Bernie Sanders”.
Choosing between Clinton (a devoted agent of the billionaires) and Trump (a billionaire) is simply unacceptable. A third choice, separate from the billionaires, is necessary.
We might have to start preparing to survive a Trump presidency.
Noise cancellation headphones, noise cancellers. Buy them before they become scarce.
Learning about out-of-state insurers.
Jobs coming back from abroad, which will be good if he can do it, but short term, it could be chaotic, disrupting, with inflation higher.
Maybe gold will go up and the S&P will ‘normalize.’ Are the markets reacting that way?
I agree with Vatch. HRC and Trump work for same billionaire
elite
I will vote for Trump simply to fuck over HRC, any way I can, any time I can.
I would not so much as take a piss on her if she were lit on fire.
Would you vote for Hitler to fuck over HRC, you idiot.
Im not voting for Trump, but please, dont compare Trump to Hitler. Thats so juvenile.
Compare him to Mussolini if you want to be accurate.
I think he’s more like Berlusconi, myself.
I had that feeling too. So, who are his core ‘advisors?’ That will tell the tale, just as Obamas initial appointments let the neoliberal cat out of the bag. I would be satisfied to see Trump pass over both the New York and Chicago schools and pull in some economists from, say, Saint Louis.
Well his campaign manager is a Jewish neocon. See Southfront link above. Not too Hitlerian. At least as a nativist Trump could be expected to drop the responsibility to protect nonsense.
I have noticed major neocons with several candidates. However I suspect that every candidate has had neocons assigned to them. Have to be thorough you know.
Or Kansas City.
That South Front link is really exceptional.
According to it, all these guys are special. Their share the consensus belief that we are truly special, truly exceptional.
We are at the center of the world…others, they just revolve around us, the Flat State.
And should some rogue nation try to depart too far from the center, it will just fall off the map.
I would be satisfied to see Trump pass over both the New York and Chicago schools and pull in some economists from, say, Saint Louis.
Well, Trump does have a degree in Economics from Wharton
At least as I read it, the point of James’s post wasn’t a Trump-Hitler analogy as such, which would indeed have been juvenile, it was about the defects in the type of reasoning that says “I’ll vote for x SOLELY to spite y”.
I agree that Hitler hypotheticals are generally best avoided (and that the whole Mussolini-Berlusconi [& Fini, Bossi, Salvini, Casa Pound…] continuum — too much to start on right now — is more pertinent), but this really didn’t seem to be a statement about who is ‘like’ whom.
I’m enraged by this idiotic Hillary is Satan, I’ll vote for anyone else rhetoric that gets thrown around here and the concomitant bullshit that Trump isn’t that bad arguments that are used to justify voting for a many who is a crooked real estate developer, a racist, and a misogynist because he’s supposedly some kind of economic nationalist. Well, so was Hitler, so I’m saying by the logic being slung around here, Hitler would be a better choice than Clinton.
Would you vote for Hitler to fuck over HRC
isn’t he dead?
Personally I’d piss on HRC, maybe just not where she’s burning?
A third party vote for the Green Party may help you have an alternative besides the DNC next time in some states though. It’s a vote FOR better choices.
The Green Party has ballot access in 20 states without jumping through hoops to be on the ballot. Giving it some traction this go around might make it easier to have it as an alternative to corporate owned.
I concur. If Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, I’m voting Jill Stein.
I do live in a safely blue state, however.
This map shows where the Green Party already has ballot access and where they are still making an effort.
http://www.gp.org/ballotaccess
Useless gesture without proportional or instant runoff voting.
At my polling place yesterday morning there were two voters including me. It’s an overwhelmingly white neighborhood due to de facto segregation in residential areas (but there are now some black renters or home owners near me which was never true before). In SC the white people who aren’t liberals are all Republicans so Sanders handily won the feeble white turnout. Black turnout was reputedly heavy.
I think Hillary rode Obama’s coat tails as attitudes where I live have, by my own observation, changed as a result of having a black president. The South may be coming out of its racial funk even as other parts of the country go in the other direction. The removal of the flag–without that much opposition–shows this. Overt racism is bad for business in a global economy. Upstate SC is very global.
And BAR is probably right that African Americans are worried about Trump and don’t see Sanders as able to stop him. While it’s too early to say what will finally happen, Sanders may be the right message but the wrong messenger.
Do you have any impression that the black electorate in SC skews older?
Apparently mass incarceration, which went into overdrive from the 1980s onward, created a large demographic swath of ex-convicts disqualified from voting.
Which would leave an older generation of African Americans (like the congregation of Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, in the news after last year’s mass shooting) more predisposed toward Hillary to dominate the voting — if this hypothesis is valid.
How come all those pundits who attributed Hillary’s primary victories over Obama in ’08 to “racism” aren’t attributing her victory over Sanders in SC to “antisemitism”?
I don’t know anything about that although Google might. I did see an article that said black women vote at much higher rates than black men and particularly older black women.
I work with a lot of blacks from the south. They are much more attuned to the prejudices of the white south than one might think. There is anti Semitism. In addition I have heard many comment that Bernie could not be a good politician because he is not rich……while the Clintons have earned hundreds of millions from public service……and therefore are good politicians. We see it in black politicians as well. And it is simiiar to what one often hears when discussing the quality of a surgeon. They want to know what kind of car he drives or where he lives. The fancier…..the better the surgeon……..forget unnecessary surgery. And Trumps appeal is similiar. He is a billionaire so he must be smart………just to a different demographic. It reminds me of my ex wife….who used to say to me “If you are so smart why aren’t you rich.?”
Probably for the best that the two of you divorced. Im going to try and avoid marrying anyone who thinks that way, since im never going to be rich.
“If you are so smart why aren’t you rich”?
Donald (now Dierdre) McCloskey called that “The American Question” and wrote a book about it.
allan
February 28, 2016 at 8:53 am
How’s that demographic destiny working out for you, DNC cheerleaders?
Thanks for asking. It’s working out great!
We know that progressives defecting the Party will never vote for a Republican so we’re delighted to see the back of them. Good riddance.
That’s why we haven’t done any organizing or voter registration in decades nor legal challenges to electronic voting or voter ID laws. We saw in ’68 and again in ’88 what happens when you get a bunch of voters involved: they want to have a say about what the Party does. F*ck that!
We’ve been doing everything we can for decades to alienate voters and make sure they never have a say again. I think we’ve hit on a winning strategy!
I think their strategery has some flaws.
I don’t need to vote for the Republican for them to lose. I just need to vote for someone other than them or stay home See: 2010
As has been said, they don’t care if they lose. 2010 is proof.
The more they lose the more they can play powerless while they continue to consolidate their and their handlers money and power under cover of Republican demagoguery.
Unlike 2010, this go around may make them truly powerless.
If they lose the WH then they have zero bully pulpits and they are back to holding committees in the basement with lights off.
Their handlers aren’t going to hand them money when essentially they have no political clout.
Bully pulpit, pfft. If you have a partisan television network or two on basic cable, you already have all the bully pulpits you need.
The demographic they need to appeal to in order to continue to have relevance, cut the cable.
Without the enthusiasm of youth(which if I’m not mistaken is trending Sanders) they can enjoy their decline into irrelevance.
One of the things they politically are discounting is Obama won the youth demographic, Hillary is not.
Their handlers aren’t interested in their political clout in the sense you mean. Every Dem in Congress has a constituency. Handlers expect the Dem establishment to provide cover with their constituencies and, when necessary, discipline voters.
“The turnout numbers are fairly terrifying.”
Either no pundit (or DNC operative) has fired up a simple spreadsheet or it’s being brushed under the carpet by the “Hillary’s landslide” narrative.
Turnout on the GOP side is 2008 Obama-esque historic. Democratic turnout is absolutely terrifying if you’re Wasserman.
The idea that voters who skip the Dem. primaries will magically turn out in November is laughable.
Once again, DNC, you reap what you sow.
PS, expect a lot of astroturfed mainstream punditry about the Democratic “Blue Wall.”
A Trump presidency will cleave the RP in a similar way to how a Sanders presidency would cleave the DP. Either party that lets an insurgent win initiates a existential crisis within their party, that seems pretty obvious. The side that loses in that scenario has its own crisis: the usual pressure of a loss combined with the general instability and volatility making navigating that even harder.
For the huge swing mass of independent and infrequent voters who aren’t charmed by either party, voting for an insurgent, whether that’s a conservative voting for Sanders or a lefty voting for Trump, makes a lot of sense. Those independent people aren’t represented by the political class as it exists, breaking either or preferably both parties forces a broad renegotiation of the political consensus that excludes them. Breaking at least one of the parties to start is probably a prerequisite for any hope at all, things can’t continue the way they are going.
Im not convinced. Im pretty sure the Rs would tighten belts and vote for Trump like Christy has.
And now Jeff Sessions.
I think Sanders supports are trying to cause an existential crisis within the Democratic party because this centrism isn’t working out. A quote by Milton Friedman is quite apt,
You wonder how long it will take for Mericans to figure out what the term Neoliberal means and why it ain’t good for their health or wealth. Super Tuesday should be an interesting day. And I’m writing in Bernie regardless. The Dem Party is a wasteland.
You wonder how long it will take for Mericans to figure out what the term Neoliberal means and why it ain’t good for their health or wealth.
Yes, and since African Americans are so conspicuously the reason for Clinton’s success, one wonders how long before they realize that, like the Reagan Democrats, they have been manipulated into voting against their own interests. It was one thing for AAs to blind themselves to Obama’s predations, him being the first AA president, but I suspect their eyes might open quickly under President Hillary Clinton, assuming she can beat Trump, which is not at all clear. In any case, the damage will be done whether Clinton or Trump wins. Another 4 years — maybe 8 years — in the wilderness when we have no time to spare.
AA turnout was low compared to 2008. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie going off a clear economic message was a mistake, and being Jewish in South Carolina probably didn’t play well as he wouldn’t use Christian laced language that the Clinton will slip into. Of course, South Carolina was the weirdo state in the Confederacy. Just in recent years, South Carolina has produced Nikki Hailey, Jim Demint, the Southern Belle, Mark Sanders, and black tea bagger, Tim Scott.
“Christian laced language that the Clinton will slip into”
Oh c’mon, Hellery wouldn’t use religion as a tool. Or would she… Hmmmmm.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/lH.HbggAm.40YgLK7527kA–/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9MTI4MDtoPTg1MztpbD1wbGFuZQ–/http://l.yimg.com/cd/resizer/2.0/FIT_TO_WIDTH-w1280/689933ec44ea5f5656821f610b67e0f51b1d506b.jpg
Manipulation only goes so far. Voters have agency. The South Carolina voters have had plenty of time to observe and digest the REAL impacts of the Clinton and Obama presidencies. They had the opportunity to gauge their own economic situations and decide for themselves whether supporting yet another neoliberal establishment candidate was worth it.
They made their choice. When their jobs and incomes go up in smoke, they’ll only have themselves to blame. And if they complain about another “lesser-of-two-evils” election, well, they had their chance to make it not so.
And voting for Bernie will keep those jobs from going “up in smoke”? Really, you are overegging the pudding. Elections are many things including, perhaps most of all, expressions of tribal solidarity. SC blacks clearly just didn’t dig Sanders. Maybe that is HIS fault.
It’s likely we will have no meaningful social change until the sh*t finally hits the fan. That was true even for a great president like FDR. It’s the reason our economic powers that be are trying so mightily to extend and pretend. Neoliberalism has no plan B.
President Sanders is our only shot at preventing the TPP from being implemented, so, yes, there WOULD be an effect on local employment if he happens to take office.
If the SC voters prefer Hillary to Bernie, I’m sure they have their reasons. But their choices impact those of us who don’t live in SC, so we have every right to question those reasons if they really are something at the level of “tribal solidarity”.
When the mass incarcerations and the drug-war foolishness continue under Hillary or Trump, well, that’s what they voted for, but hey, they got their “tribal solidarity”, so take THAT, Sanders supporters!
Sorry but I’m only impressed by Sanders to the extent that he can get himself elected and stop that TPP. The truth is his passive/aggressive “let the voters decide about my ideas” approach isn’t working. In the later debates he did finally start to attack Clinton which was the only way he was going to win. She’s incredibly vulnerable if one really cares to make the case and not say things like “I’m sick of hearing about the emails.” Sanders has shown too much concern for his own tribal position among the leftward end of the establishment and I believe Chris Hedges when he reports that Sanders told him that Sanders “didn’t want to be a spoiler” like Nader. If you want to win you have to go all in.
Well . . . Sanders tried respecting Obama in hopes that it would win him some voters from the black racist part of the black community. It clearly won’t. So he has no reason left to pander to Obama or to pander to them. It would be an interesting experiment for him to condemn the Clintobama legacy and see how younger black voters respond.
Meanwhile, it is just as much up to voters as it is up to Sanders. Voters make the choice they choose to make.
Sanders goes about Obama and Clinton, and maybe more white Democrats will show up, instead of staying home or going over to the Trump camp.
They dont want Sanders, let them eat Trump!
“HIS” fault? How is black racist tribal-loyalist voting for Clinton “HIS” fault?
Since I am not a Leftist, I feel no urge to “Leftsplain” to the black voters of South Carolina how they were somehow “manipulated” into voting against their own interests. They are grown up mature people and they are responsible for their own choice of vote.
They make their own bed. If they end up not liking it, that is just tough. That is just too goddamned bad.
They are not low information.
They are not less-than-smart.
Maybe there is something we can learn…why they voted the way they voted.
That’s caledl learning.
That’s education.
Educating ourselves.
There are two possibilities I can think of.
One is that African-Americans just aren’t all that aware that Bernie’s the much better bet on issues like the drug war, the death penalty, mass incarceration, health care access, and the lack of real job opportunities (for all, African-Americans included). This is the low-info voter theory — the one that Bernie supporters have been advancing for several months. “Once they get to know him, they’ll vote for him.” Doesn’t seem to be working very well.
The other is that the above issues just aren’t as important to the black community as we’ve been led to believe. Because Hillary’s on the wrong side of all of the above, and she still gets enormous support from African-Americans. So it remains to be learned WHAT issues, in particular, move the needle in this community.
No, I don’t have any quick answers. I am a minority myself (Hispanic; Puerto Rican), and I find Hillary Clinton to be the most fake and plastic presidential candidate I’ve ever seen, up to and including Mitt Romney. I hate identity politics — I hate being regarded and pandered to as part of a herd, with no individual ideas of my own. But obviously, the Dem apparatus disagrees with me.
But I believe Identity politics will be the death of the Democratic Party. It didn’t work very well in 2014. And it’s going to work even less well this year. People need jobs, not empty “we’ll fight for you”s.
I have never lived in either Carolina, but down here in Mississippi, the black churches wield a h— of a lot of power in the political arena. The head ministers of the black churches, and yes, there is a de facto segregated religious structure here, will tell the parishoners who or what to vote for or against. Being a combination of Church and State, these people often run the towns and counties, or share power with the old White establishment. Generally, the black power structure aligns with the mainstream Democrat political structure. So, first, that is one leg of Hillarys program. The second leg, as mentioned above, is basic anti-Semitism. There is a lot of that in the South. As one older black man explained it to me once; “a white man will cheat the black man if he can with force, a Jew will cheat the black man with paper.” Hillarys third leg is probably Bill. People of all stripes ‘remember’ Bill as being President during the last really ‘good’ times for the ordinary person. Whether true or not, the perception is there.
Rant over.
I personally find the idea of deferring to an authority figure to make my voting decision for me extremely distasteful (and disempowering). But I’m obviously in the minority.
read the black agenda report.
To stretch a point, this is an American form of fatwa or call to jihad. Frank Herbert had what he claims is an old saying as the opening quote of a chapter in the Dune series. “When the Church and the State both try to steer the cart, it ends up in the ditch.” Or something to that effect.
People are usually socialized to respect authority. Thinking for ones’ self is dangerous to any and all “Systems of Governance.” Real individuality, not just trendy ‘Machoism,’ is hard to find.
Ambrit, the more complex the system, the more one has to rely on authority.
I can’t personally check if all vegetables in the kitchen are safe. I have to rely on food inspectors. If they grade a restaurant B+, I will be more inclined to try it than one that is graded C-.
We are no longer in buffalo roaming Kansas, where we could personally attest to the organic-ness and free-ranging-ness of the mammoth meat.
It makes one long for those hunting and gathering days.
As I said in another comment, I’m not sure how many voters are even aware Sanders is Jewish. It certainly hasn’t become an issue in the coverage. At any rate the below suggests Hillary won with old fashioned press the flesh politics while Sanders stuck to his stump speech in big venues.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-south-carolina-black-voters/470646/
“The other is that the above issues just aren’t as important to the black community as we’ve been led to believe. Because Hillary’s on the wrong side of all of the above, and she still gets enormous support from African-Americans. So it remains to be learned WHAT issues, in particular, move the needle in this community.”
Dont rule out the effect of the power of the Pulpit
Broad based Paramilitary Police State repression, which TPTB did not have the capacity for during the Great Depression, will be utilized in Plan B, and possibly some increased physical flight to the offshore tax havens.
http://www.thenation.com/article/5-tools-police-are-using-their-war-against-activists/
Do you think it’s possible that a people oppressed and persecuted for the last 400 years or so might internalize those attitudes and thus not actually believe that real, positive, and quick change is possible or even good for them?
And actually this would apply just as much to the poor white southerner who was told how good he had it because at least he wasn’t black.
again; read the black agenda report.
I do dip into the BAR from time to time. They are, to me, the sanest voices coming out of the black experience. I do remember the Panthers, and the SNCC. The problem here is that BAR and likeminded people are in a distinct minority, judging by effects. The mainline churches, at least here in the South, are the most powerful political actors, in the black, white, and latino communities. It’s not called the ‘Bully PULPIT’ for nothing.
I would worry if I heard someone advance a ‘quick change’ solution to most social problems. Big problems require big solutions, and nothing that big can be done quickly. Just ask any craftsperson about the ‘quick versus good’ dilemma.
As for the 400 year timeline, well, society is built up slowly, but each individual starts off a ‘tabula rasa.’ The society a person grows up in will determine much. As with the individualism argument above, real change is hard to find.
This WaPo piece exults in Sanders defeat and by extension the left wIng of the Dem party. Hippy punching is becoming a daily routine for identity politics Dems:
—To put it bluntly, in Iowa, Sanders’s race-neutral message centered around a kind of economic inequality where a dastardly 1 percent (no race mentioned) fares well at the expense of the 99 percent (no race mentioned), thus creating unjust and untenable conditions that are the same in all the 99 percent’s lives has some obvious appeal to liberal voters. It is also a message that allowed Clinton a narrow win in Iowa, a blowout loss in New Hampshire, a larger but not resounding victory in more diverse Nevada and a massive win in South Carolina.
You see, there are reasons why this remains most appealing to young, white, liberal voters. For them, a race- and gender-neutral policy platform is most likely to seem sufficient to improve all Americans’ lives.—
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/28/what-hillary-clintons-massive-win-among-black-voters-really-says/
I think your scenario is unlikely. HRC and her husband have done much policy-wise to directly hurt those that voted so enthusiastically yesterday for HRC. I think the exit polling showed AA’s voted for HRC at a higher rate than they voted for Obama in 2008.
What seems to be looming is the growing possibility of a split in the Democratic Party, or of turnout so depressed that Democrat’s will be eliminated from office except on the West Coast and New England. There are some observations from the past few days that make me think of these possibilities:
Tulsi Gabbard just resigned as DNC Vice Chair to endorse Sanders.
My mother (in a midwestern state) who does not follow politics is somehow aware that HRC is currently winning in the primary count because of AA support and the wealthy. She is a progressive in her voting, and supports policies to improve the civil rights and economic position of AA’s. However, the stubbornly intractable AA support for HRC in Nevada and S. Carolina is causing her to feel taken for granted by the AA community, especially because support for AA policies has often been against her (as in her community’s) direct interests.
Posters on Reddit and DailyKos supporting Sanders are increasingly saying they will either write-in Sanders or will vote for Trump. In fact, Trump supporters have begun more aggressively courting Sanders supporters on Reddit. I can only imagine the same is occurring outside the internet.
Of course, there’s more than a little irony in your mother feeling taken for granted by AAs (since for so long the situation has been the reverse). That said, I don’t hear the Clinton campaign asking for the Sanders vote (except in Clintonian bafflegab). If 2014 and 2010 are any guide, that’s going to be a problem.
With the media blackout against Sanders, are voters even aware he exists? If they watch their tv via streaming, they likely won’t even see commercials.
So you have two political candidates, one who has had a lot of media exposure and one who is from a little state up north.
Frankly, I think it’s amazing how well Sanders is doing.
Black racist moral extortionism won’t work any more pretty soon now. The era of White Guilt is ending.
Sorry it’s more the fact we realize neoliberalism has done tremendous damage to all races.
different clue, did you mean white original sin?
Which white? Whose sin?
Ptomainians, Bacterians, Slobovians, Diptherians, Elbonians and etc. were all festering in Europe when some whites or other invented slavery.
Anyway the oRIGinal original sin is the conquest of Great Turtle Island from the original owners. And when black people demand equal rights and benefits in anti-Indian settler America, they are demanding an equal share of the loot, which makes them equally morally complicit along with the rest of us non-Indians in America’s oRIGinal original sin.
You know I would like to think this country was over it’s racism, but running a open racist like Trump for President, to wide popularity, kind of argues otherwise (as do other things, of course, but that is pretty blatant).
Humans will never be ‘over’ racism, everywhere and everywhen.
” think the exit polling showed AA’s voted for HRC at a higher rate than they voted for Obama in 2008.”
talk about spinners/pundits/lazy journalists telling half-truths w/statistics. 2008 was a three-way race in SC (Obama-Edwards-Clinton).
overall SC Dem votes are down double-digits. 4 more years for Wasserman!
This excerpt is from a current Daily Kos diary, entitled, I Would Like Black People To Explain Why They Vote Hillary :
May I address a delicate issue?
The notion that Murcins, AAs, Latinos or anybody are voting against their own interests is likely based from ignorance, a bias from incomplete information that can be perceived as condescension. The deliberate ignorance that Upton Sinclair addressed had self-interest implicitly at the center of the incentives.
A less divisive perspective is that cohorts vote in their own interests, but those interests are primarily grounded in local conditions. “All politics is local.”
In the particular case in this thread, Democrats in South Carolina, regardless of race, already know they will not impact the presidential election. Their voting interests are not determined by who would be the better president. And I am without sufficient information to determine what their interests therefore are.
“And I am without sufficient information to determine what their interests therefore are.” Therefore you might be wrong…
I agree. I think the “vote against their interests” trope is destructive for several reasons.
1) Who are we to define the interests of others?
2) It’s the “We’re liberals, so we’re smarter than you” in a different guise
3) It’s our job to figure out what people perceive their interest to be, and speak to that, or change minds.
1) Who are we to define the interests of others?
2) It’s the “We’re liberals, so we’re smarter than you” in a different guise
Sorry but I disagree. The empirical facts show that AAs suffer more under neoliberalism. Therefore, choosing neoliberalism is contrary to self-interest. (Unless one defines self-interest in other ways, of course. But that is nothing but a cul de sac: it’s in my self-interest because I choose to do it.)
But it’s not a question of whether “AAs suffer more under neoliberalism.”
It’s question of whether these AA’s suffer more, and relative to the alternative. And if you think the alternative is a noose, and “Sanders can’t win,” then those are your interests. Further, people on the edge who’ve managed to cobble together a survivable system are loathe to change it, which is sensible.
And again, “empirical facts” aren’t for you to pick and define for others. They just aren’t. You have to ask for their vote in their terms, not browbeat them for being stupid.
In support of this viewpoint, polling from the SC primary indicated that some 70% of voters were looking for a candidate that would continue Obama’s policies. HRC would be the rational choice for a voter with this interest.
Perhaps what people perceive as irrationality is instead a manifestation of large numbers of voters removing themselves from the electoral process. If politicians are not being responsive to the needs of the majority, then you would see the growing number of independents and decreasing turnout in subsequent elections. Those left in the parties and voting are mostly those happy with the current situation.
People can be wrong. Even black people. And people are allowed to say so, even white people. Arguing otherwise, IMHO, is the truly paternalistic view.
I don’t “pick” empirical facts. I note them. African Americans have suffered disproportionately under Obama’s neoliberalism, just as they have under Reagan’s, Bush I and II, and Bill Clinton’s. In the absence of some evidence that would change under Hillary Clinton, then I think it sensible to conclude that blacks would continue to suffer disproportionately under her policies. Therefore, retarding the Democratic Party’s progressive transformation is contrary to the self-interest of African Americans.
And here is the key part that you seem so upset about: this remains true whether or not African Americans acknowledge it. That’s what it means to be empirically true.
As for it being Sanders’ fault or progressives’ fault that AAs overwhemingly choose to shoot themselves in the foot, well, sure, the messengers could be better but, again, isn’t that actually more patronizing than simply directly criticizing AAs for their poor political choices? And, seriously, Sanders tried and tried and tried to penetrate the AA vote but was frozen out by the Black Misleadership Class, starting at the top with Obama. Blaming Sanders seems far-fetched to me.
Or let me approach this another way. You seem to argue that AAs support Clinton as the safer choice because they think she is more likely to prevail in the general election. But the polls suggest that Sanders would do better in a general election than Clinton (and that’s assuming there is no bombshell lurking in Clinton-world). So upon what do AAs base that view? Expecting rationality is not patronizing, excusing irrationality is. IMNSHO.
The problem here is that “African Americans” don’t vote. Individual people vote and some of them may rightly think the present system works for them better than some other known or unknown alternative. Those who have been most brutalized by neo-liberalism are largely shut out of the voting system in various ways.
What would you do if you thought there was no chance to change the system yet correctly saw that you were a victim of the system. What I would do is seek, as much as I could,not to participate in the system at all.
Plunkitt: “Don’t go to college and stuff your head with rubbish; get out with your neighbors and relatives and round up a few votes you can call your own.”
The discipline that the Southern Baptist churches levered in the civil rights movement was also employed in advancing the war on drugs. A congregation acting as a voting bloc can get local concessions, but only if they maintain discipline as a bloc. Organized churches are canonically top-down in the decision process. The Black Mis-Leadership Class is the verifiable link between the scales of the incentives.
Given the feistiness of the thread, I’m defining the ‘Class’ of Black Misleadership Class as more of a cohort than a socio-economic group. Like they took a class, as in they all got put in the same room and told the same thing.
I think in my state blacks may very well consider themselves to be better off than four or eight years ago. After all that flag is gone and the terrible event that caused it sent a lot of official white love in their direction. Having lived here off and on for so long I think there’s no question things have changed.
And all the talk of SC’s high poverty rate leaves out our very low cost of living. You really can’t compare it to places like NY and Chicago.
I think that’s likely right – the R noose (esp given Trump white supremacist tweets) + Sanders can’t win fear, is a calculus that equals Clinton
Um.
The Republicans and Democrats are BOTH NEOLIBERALS.
Theyre voting for Neoliberalism either way.
Well that’s the deal isn’t it. Bottom line, I predict the majority of voters will not be “voting in their interest” this election cycle –whether they know that fact or not.
Yes!
Has anyone considered that AA and the voters of SC are living so tenuously that they prefer the status quo candidate over a candidate who proposes change?
Yes! (True for some portion, probably a large one.) However, the youth vote (again) went to Sanders. So that would argue that at some point the gravitational pull of property abruptly drops off, I would guess because of student debt.
Plus it suggests that Blacks—and other minorities—have a special duty not to be as cynical, selfish, short-sighted, lazy, fuzzy-minded, ignorant or misguided as Whites.
Everyone has the right to “be [ ] cynical, selfish, short-sighted, lazy, fuzzy-minded, ignorant or misguided.” That doesn’t make it right. And it doesn’t preclude others from pointing it out.
My point is that suffering injustices does not endow us with special powers of clarity and wisdom. Look at Israel.
I would argue, in fact, that grave injustices like racism do actual harm to the psyches of those against whom they are enacted. I don’t think lectures about moral, political and intellectual boot-strapperism are helpful, appropriate or even logical.
What do you mean, cynicism is wrong? Frankly, it’s the only way of judging people different from oneself that isn’t founded on a ton of special pleadings and reified norms and that has any usefully predictive or explanatory power.
Everyone has the right to “be [ ] cynical, selfish, short-sighted, lazy, fuzzy-minded, ignorant or misguided.” That doesn’t make it right.
How can 7.3 billion people be wrong??
Millions of people vote against their interests every four years in the U.S. Otherwise, George W. Bush would never have become President. In 2012, it was in very few people’s interest to vote for either Obama or Romney, yet millions did so.
My hope is that with such a stark choice in the 2016 Democratic primaries, a larger percentage of voters will realize that they really can vote in their own interests for a change, and that will be a vote for Sanders.
Millions of people vote against their interests every four years in the U.S. Otherwise, only the 1% and their 14% hangers on would vote, given the choices. Then again, far less than 50% of eligible voters vote, so that majority shows the most enlightenment by opting out. Not voting is voting in their interests.
Not voting is rarely in a person’s interests. People have genuine choices in the primaries, yet the turnout for primaries is usually even lower than in the general elections. And although there aren’t always third party candidates available for every office in the general election, there are usually some, and people have the option of voting for those third party candidates.
Not voting is rarely in a person’s interests — only if you believe the system is a) indispensable b) exceptionally correct c) successful (despite or because of its negative efficiency and its anti-democratic design).
On the contrary: if the system is dysfunctional, as the political system in the U.S. is, not voting is the best way to perpetuate the dysfunctional system.
But if you are referring to the simple choice between a Democrat and a Republican in the general election, then yes, I agree with you. That’s why people need to vote in their primary or caucus, and to be prepared to vote for some third party candidates in the general election. Paradoxically, the people who have the best chance to change the dysfunctional system are the people who have been elected to be part of that system.
Being smart is not necessary to vote or not vote for Hillary.
It could be one’s heart.
Or one’s stomach.
There is no IQ test in order to exercise one’s right to vote.
@Steve H, since your comment was a reply to mine, let me clarify.
1) Hellery is Neoliberal (IMO). Feel free to debate that.
2) Any workingclass hero (of any race, creed, ethnicity, etc) that votes for a Neoliberal and expects fair treatment from the NeoLib, doesn’t know the ideology of Neoliberals.
And when I say “The Dem Party is a wasteland”, I’m talking about its politicians.
Yup, yup & yup.
The last yup is en masse. Bernie, Warren & some others are wanderers in the wasteland, but I don’t think they are black swans for the general case. Same for the Republican Party.
A note: it’s the wanders who find the path out of the wasteland.
To beat Hillary, you have to reject her, Bill and all those Democrats who have been positions of power for that last 20 or 30 years.
She doesn’t have to be defeated, but just the act in attempt to do so, will probably end the party as we know it.
We may be in one of those historical turning points.
Hey Wb, respectfully since you are an NC reader, I would watch throwing color, or class full on into any party. Please remember, the majority of people don’t vote at all. And a huge majority of the ‘working class’ no matter what color, does not vote. Most african americans will not vote for Clinton. We are talking about a small segment of the population in whatever primary and whatever side when we read ‘quotes’ or polls. The turnout in primaries is more conservative in both parties, than if there is a large turnout in the general election. The mirror of your comment is that Chancey guy at Salon, (sometimes a good writer but completely devoid of class politics) had a headline that basically said, “White people have a lot to answer for, now that ‘they’ support Trump.” Doesn’t that offend you? It did me. Even if Trump wins, it will still only represent 35% at the most of the ‘white population’. Just saying…
This response is to both you and Steve H above, who echoes your unease with my “blaming” African Americans for preventing the progressive reform of the Democratic Party. I share the discomfort with my conclusion but still think it’s valid. True, with such paltry turnout, one might say that the only people to blame are non-voters. But why is turnout so low? Because there is no enthusiasm for Clinton (other than among AAs, apparently) and most people are convinced that Sanders has no chance of getting the nomination (primarily for the same reason). Now that may be a tautology but tautologies like that are what determine turnout.
As for racial accountability, yes, I “blame” the Reagan Democrats — the white working class — that was seduced into voting against their own interests by manipulation of social-issue reactivity. They made the country right wing and they initiated the self-immolation of Democratic Party progressivism which, in short order, led to the rise of Democratic neoliberalism.
Are these things more complex that that? On some levels, yes, and and others, no. The simple fact is that if (voting) AAs were not overwhelmingly supporting Clinton, then Sanders would be winning. And, IMNSHO, if Sanders were winning, Democratic turnout would rise significantly, if not dramatically.
I have previously explained my view that the Obama Effect is the key driver of AA support for Clinton. I won’t repeat all that but just note two points. First, Clinton is explicitly running for Obama’s third term, while Sanders implicitly repudiates much of Obama’s policy choices. Second, progressives have been highly critical of Obama since he became president and I think many politically active AAs resent that. Put otherwise, AAs have suffered disproportionately under Obama’s neoliberalism, yet AAs are all-in to continue those policies under Clinton. In so acting, AAs are retarding the progressive reform that the Democratic Party desperately need and the American people desperately want. African Americans have disproportionate control over the Democratic primaries and with that power comes accountability.
The exit polls show at least three things:
1) Basically, the only cohort Sanders won was Black youth. I’m guessing a combination of free college and Killer Mike. But that speaks well for the future.
2) Unlike NH, support for Clinton decreased (slightly) by income.
3) The importance of church.
Man… it sounds a lot like geopolitics, trying to map out what the various state primaries and their Party-dictated points in time are supposed to be telling us. So far, it’s that the Democratic Party wants conservatives to go first. Staggered primaries seem to be a great tool for manufacturing assent.
It means the Sanders movement has to make every desperate effort to stay in existence and coherently functional over the next couple of decades in the desert, as the young people age and begin to learn how to take charge and command, and do stuff.
What?!?! You’re whole analysis is f#@%ed by your conflation of the African American people who voted for Hillary in the primary and “African Americans” as a category.
The facts are these: 1) most Americans don’t vote (especially in the primary), and that applies to Black people as well as everyone else; 2) Whites account for 68% of the SC population, so if we’re going to go laying blame on entire groups of people according to their skin color, I think that white people are the ones who have to accept accountability, here.
Has it occurred to you that maybe the reasons why Black voters overwhelmingly supported Clinton are the same reasons white voters support her? Maybe it’s got to do with the one-sided media coverage, scare mongering by party hacks, and a sold-out political leadership class…you know, exactly the same reasons all the white people vote for Clinton, even though doing so is demonstrably against their interests. Don’t forget, neoliberalism has been a disaster for the white working class as well, as falling lifespans attest.
Accountability is a personal thing, and cannot be placed on an entire group people (unless everyone in the group was personally involved). Aggregates of people like “African Americans” or “Working-Class Whites” or “Baby Boomers” have no agency, and thus can have no accountability. What is so hard to understand about that?
And speaking of personal accountability, I think the members of the DLC have far more “disproportionate control over the Democratic primaries” than African Americans could ever dream of.
I have repeatedly criticized white Reagan Democrats for the same reasons. As for groups not having agency, I don’t buy it. People often act in groups. And the AA groupthink today is the primary reason the Democratic Party cannot escape neoliberalism.
I agree that, like everyone else, AAs are subject to neoliberal propanda. But — as I said to Lambert — it strikes me as patronizing and paternalistic to argue AAs are incapable of seeing through that propaganda.
To be absolutely clear: you want Killer Mike to be held accountable for Hillary’s win in SC?
Also, please identify yourself by race, age and class so I can be sure to hold you accountable for everything anyone else in those categories has ever done, since you believe in the agency of demographic categories.
indeed dip.
Thanks for the nice reply Wb. Just a reminder. Turnout in primaries has ALWAYS been drastically low. This is not new. There are so many reasons for this.(another argument, or fact stating thingy in of itself)..
But this statement is just not true, and I don’t understand how you could think this, outside of SC and maybe two other states.
“African Americans have disproportionate control over the Democratic primaries and with that power comes accountability.” What a hundred thousand equals 20 million? My god.
Blacks only make up 12% of the USA population. White people steer primaries and elect presidents. White people make up half the population or more of the USA, and vote even more than their numbers compared to latinos and blacks. LIke you are blaming blacks for neo liberalism now? And reagan white democrats? Can you please lay off blaming the working class and middle class for what the ruling elite does, and how it controls media, our public school system etc. Reminder again, 60% of the voting age population does NOT vote. So please stop generalizing. Over 70% of african americans hate both parties, or are too apathetic. That’s up for debate and reading often slanted polls. Voting breaks down over class lines. Has since women got the right to vote. I mean really, are you blaming the working class, black specifically in your case, for not voting, or the TINY percentage in certain primaries for the cause of this oligarchy? ….I tend to blame the rich, the politicians who are bought off by them, a corporate lying media, and economics that pit every person against every other, and a complete brainwashing from the day we are born, that individualism , even extreme rapacious viciousness is laudable, and that two party capitalism democracy is the apex of ‘progress’. You really think voting in the presidential election changes things drastically. You think that is possible? Hell no. I want Bernie to win. …..but not much will change. Lets look at systems, and specially systems of control and consent, before we lump groups of color and voters as ‘to blame’.
I am addressing the voting patterns in this Democratic primary. No more, no less.
And I’ve said more than enough already.
African-Americans typically make up the majority of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate and, according to CNN’s exit polling, Clinton won with the support of 84 percent of the state’s black community.
From a Yahoo News article. Hard to argue with the numbers.
Sanders didn’t make the case at all. And IIRC, the exit polls showed a lot of voters made up their minds a month ago.
So, unless the Sanders campaign wants to be like the Democrat Party, they need to take a look in the mirror and make some adjustments. (The terrible thing is that the intersection of class and race is a conversation the country desperately needs to have, and this election campaign has yet to provide a platform for it.)
IMO, Bernie has reached out plenty to AAs. His message does not exclude any race, creed, or ethnicity. Not sure what “adjustments” you think will help. All the AA politicians endorsed Hillary — as have all the white politicians.
If he adds a Job Guarantee to his platform, he’ll be unstoppable. Bernie’s problem is he isn’t thinking big enough. A community-directed public jobs program, based around the successful and popular Participatory Budgeting model would make him a hero with everybody who is un/under-employed and everyone who cares about those people.
The major political difficulty would be the funding, but all he has to say is “The Fed bailed out the banks and didn’t worry about the cost, they can easily afford to assist the Citizenry too.”
I’m telling you, he would be unstoppable.
He can look to Canada which is investigating it, and probably add Income Guarantee.
I am completely mystified that Sanders, who has Stephanie Kelton for his chief economist in the senate, has not talked about MMT in any of his rhetoric. “Tax Wall Street and the billionaires” makes for great populist rhetoric but if that’s all you’ve got to say it’s sounds like a one-dimensional campaign.
I’m very concerned Sanders could end up being relegated to status similar to that of Ron Paul among the libertarians.
Win or lose, he needs to speak what he believes about Obama, for history, for others who will follow…for the younger voters in the future.
The same with MMT. If you don’t say it now, when will you say it?
Perhaps the adjustment is not running as a Democrat. It’s not at all clear that he ever had a shot here. After all he’s not even a Democrat. Black voters may have a lot more party loyalty than the commenters here do. And the reverse racism stuff upthread is silly IMO. Hillary is also white. Perhaps they mean antisemitic. I doubt many ordinary voters even know Sanders is Jewish.
Not over yet…lots can happen.
As stated elsewhere, the primary season is not over yet, and all we can ask is that we give our best.
It may not be that we will prevail this time, but he is given national coverage, if not always, but at least during debates.
And we don’t get many chances to break away cleanly from the past, and Sanders needs to be upfront about the 8 years under Obama.
We believe that will help us win, if not this time, eventually.
This.
The reality is I don’t think the campaign was ready to campaign in all 50 states and as a result has had to pick and choose where it will compete.
I know even though Super Tuesday is Tuesday, I haven’t seen a single Sanders ad. I’ve seen Clinton’s twice. I’m guessing since the population of Virginia is older and because McAuliffe runs the state that he’ll be losing VA.
That isn’t horrible from a primary standpoint, but from a general election standpoint it isn’t great. Virginia is purple. It’s a swing state.
Bernie isn’t running for President of just the liberal states. He’ll need to be able to compete a little bit in states that are competitive between the 2 parties. The sad thing is by appealing to the pocketbook he could win here.
Actually very easy to argue with your number Llewelyn. Because this statement is patently false.
“Clinton won with the support of 84 percent of the state’s black community.” Look up how many blacks voted for Clinton in this primary. The African American population is near 1,300,00. Compare the numbers. Why would you say such a thing? I would expect NC readers to actually be able to look at population vs VAP stats, vs class breakdown of voter participation and etc.
What is up with this blaming black voters? Dudes, you need to know, half the country wants a real revolution. Not just you dangling Sanders in front of our face for salvation. I hope he wins, but as anecdotal, you think any of the half POC 200 people that marched past my window last night over Amilcar Perez Lopez getting shot six times in the back on my front porch are gonna say, “Hey you’re right! You progressives and Sanders are going to save us!” We are in SF, under the most laudable and progressive supervisors of any city in the country. Big fucking deal. I vote for them…..but the juggernaught continues. Take a step back from this Sanders cheerleading. Take a step back from your leader worship. And get some balls. And realize you ain’t got the majority with you….cuz you got no balls. We need real change. But like I said, hope sanders wins.
You got me laughing there tommy. I don’t recall naming Bernie “Our Lord and Savior”. Hahaha.
And please try keep the language civil. There are some classy people present.
I don’t recall naming Bernie “Our Lord and Savior”.
No kidding…how’d that work out for the last Jewish guy??
half the country wants a real revolution.
???? Link to corroborate that claim?
People didn’t die for the right to hold your nose while you vote for a corporate candidate. Write-in Bernie if it comes to that.
The Green Party is presently on the ballot in 20 states. If you are in one of the 30 they have to jump through hoops to get on the ballot in then it also makes strategic sense to vote Green in order to create a viable alternative to the Democrats at some point.
It’s still very early in the (much too long) U.S. election season. Many of use here at Naked Capitalism are political junkies, so we have been deeply aware of the numerous candidates for many months now. Millions of other Americans are just starting to pay attention. I suspect that as time passes, more African Americans will learn new things about both Sanders and Clinton, and many of them will come to the conclusion that Sanders really is better than Clinton. When that happens, either Sanders will be nominated, or the Democrats will quickly find that a party consisting only of neoliberals is doomed.
It’s like a joke I heard some stand-up tell: “I’m that guy who calls people stupid for not knowing something I just learned yesterday.”
It’s a tendency I think we all have to one extent or another. The trick is to recognize the tendency and bite your tongue before you put your foot in our mouth :-)
That might explain why people who have long suffered inequality – hundreds of years – are less than excited when asked to join the fight against raising inequality (because these visiting people from the North have suffered it for the last 40 years).
My neighbor, a retired IRS supervisor is an AA who voted for Obama twice and will vote for Hillary because “she will continue Obama’s policies”. I asked him if those included the ones that did nothing to alleviate the close to 40% “real” Black unemployment rate. He told me that was unimportant, and not germane. So his attitude is that he got his reward from life(nice 6 figure pension, full health care), thus screw the rest of his race that didn’t.
He may have a pension but unless we have comprehensive health care reform, he still may wind up falling behind.
Companies have repeatedly demonstrated that retirees are the first thing they jettison when the opportunity presents itself.
AKA The American Way.
You see this kind of attitude among affluent Latinos, too. (And affluent whites, of course.) It’s sad, but bourgies gotta bourge.
And amongst Union Trades people across all racial demographics –in Chicago at least. That’s an EXCELLENT example of the illusion of the “*** Community” (insert racial persuasion).
In the post economic melt down the general consensus I would hear in my unscientific polling was give me my 40 plus OT, screw the lower seniority guys. Push comes to shove there are very few genuine altruists, particularly amongst ppl that financially lean forward into debt based on a salary cashflow that depends on OT to support personal finances..
To be fair, many of them have hostages to fortune in the form of families to support.
In the meantime, I will keep supporting Sanders right up through the Convention. It will be valuable and instructive to see how big the Sanders movement becomes. And it is not a law of nature that Sanders is foredoomed to lose the nomination.
Progressives still in the Democratic Party are victims of the beaten wife syndrome. Or as Rahm was wont to say, f##king retards. Seriously, why are you staying with a party that openly calls you retarded? They hate you.
I wont vote for Trump, but if he beats Hillary I might actually join in a toast to his victory.
Of course, Im voting Green.
I’ve never been a “Democrat.” I understand the hatred of the Republican party but no need to play into a false dichotomy. It would be nice to see the end of the two party system.
I will be interested in seeing how the DNC spins a loss to Trump if Clinton gets the nomination. You can only blame the marks so many times.
The DNC doesn’t care whether the Democrats win the general or not.
They made no changes to the party structure after the 2014 debacle. For them, it was not a debacle. If Democrats were in charge of the government, the public would expect them to actually DO something.
The DNC is designed for the Democrats to either lose, or win narrowly enough that the Republicans can obstruct whatever timid proposals they might make (so they can claim that they “tried”).
Does any other Western country feature an “opposition” party as useless and ineffectual as our Democratic Party?
The Democratic Party is a corporation, though. If it splits and becomes non-viable, there is no grift left for them to engage in; Looks like the fifty-plus-one strategy has its’ drawbacks.
Things are expected of them even in a minority status, and that is how they regained their majorities during the Bush Administration. That they reneged on their promises is why they lost their majorities during the Obama Administration.
As I say, I am just interested in seeing what kind of mileage they get out of blaming everyone but themselves for their losses this time. I don’t think they will be able to go back to that well again.
The usual Democratic post-loss script is “we are too liberal”. Which is BS, of course, but they always need an excuse to move even further to the right.
Given that Trump is to the LEFT on Hillary on just about all non-identity-politics issues, this narrative’s going to be much harder to spin in November. But it’s all they have, so expect it once again.
And yes… Trump’s going to destroy Hillary in the general. In a time of severe economic distress, the status-quo candidate has no chance – and that’s BEFORE Hillary’s extreme personal negatives (not to mention the email scandal) come into play.
Both Hillary and Trump could be facing scandals tied to league battles and, maybe, indictments or coverups that smell to high heaven. Let’s see how the medias spins this as business as usual. The process of delegitimization continues.
VP candidates are going to be more crucial than ever.
One potential voluntary or involuntary resignation away…
Agreed. A little spooky even.
Trump will probably say something distasteful or maybe just something blunt, something that a typical New Yorker would say, or is it? – about Hillary being his wedding.
Does any other Western country feature an “opposition” party, that clings to that status whether in control of the legislative branch or not?
The democratic party insists on being the ‘losers’ even when they control the reigns of power.
They are not going to admit to the error of judgement in running HRC when Trump wins the presidency, they’ll blame it on the difficulty of running against the deep sexism prevalent in America.
A Hillary loss will be blamed as well on a stab in the back by Sanders supporters and the left in general, proving once again that the party must move even further to the right and take steps to keep insurgent candidates out of the presidential primaries all together.
Well the the thing is many Western countries have multiparty parliamentary systems, which means that real radicals can get in there from time to time. With a two party system, it’s much harder.
It will be the same as always; they will say they lost because the progressives didn’t show up. Only this time they could be right, and that would be good.
It would mean that progressives would actually get revenge, and be SEEN to be getting revenge. And that would make progressives more respected.
It’s always important to remember and repeat that D and R’s should be considered nothing but illegitimate losers across the national board. The number of people who did not vote for either ongoing fixed, criminal, anti democracy “party” is always the overwhelming majority.
Last night I noticed less than 400k total (perhaps not final number but close enough for the point needing to be made) Dem votes in a State of over 4.6 million. No or none of the above always wins yet is always ignored.
Dude, it’s the caucuses. Only the party faithful show up. A general is a completely different event….that the Teflon Don will win.
In a general it’s always the overwhelming plurality if not outright majority who refuses to participate in the same rigged game I mentioned above.
Lambert recently shared this old but excellent example.
Tulsi Gabbard resigned from the DNC and endorsed Bernie.
Liz? Are you there?
So she did!
Her name sounds familiar – wasn’t there a LRB article about her a couple of months ago?
Thank you memory for not letting me down! As it turns out, she was mentioned here:
Military to Military
There are probably a handful of Democrats that I like and I could see myself potentially supporting.
I think that Tulsi Gabbard may have just made my short list.
Her foreign policy statement sounds downright sane.
Did Tulsi Gabbard just break the fourth wall of politics by dismissing R2P propaganda as canned folderol? Anyone that strips the dignity away from this quadrennial Civil War reenactment is fine by me.
Sanders-Gabbard ’16!
That’s fascinating!!! For those who don’t know, she’s a recently-elected Dem rep from Hawaii. She has military background, and her dad is actually a long-time Republican, which made many HI voters nervous. Behind her pleasant exterior, she’s quite ambitious, so it’s interesting that she apparently thinks that Bernie is her future.
As NC readers may recall, Brian Schatz is a current HI Dem senator, who won his seat by standing up to the “old guard” HI Dem establishment, personified by Sen Daniel Inouye. Emily’s List shamefully entered the Dem primary fight when Schatz was up to support a supremely worse female candidate, Hanabusa.
Great information. Thank you.
This could get interesting in that her statement didn’t really address the economic arguments, it’s pure foreign policy and national security interest. The Clinton messaging is that Bernie is weak in these areas so the endorsement of a high profile DNC veteran and military officer may find some traction. Here’s hoping that aspect of her endorsement gets wider coverage.
Good. It would have been even better ( as in more educational) if she had endorsed Sanders and stayed IN the DNC and DARED them to THROW her out.
Tulsi Gabbard’s decision is another example of positive change in the works. I especially respond to her background in the military. The narrative pervasive in the US supporting militarism for its own sake can only be effectively challenged by those who served. The national conversation we need to have concerning our foreign military misadventures is best lead by people concerned with the wellbeing of the nation and its people but not clouded with visions of glory and conquest.
It seems the most sane and promising voices are drowned out in a sea of mediocrity in our current system.
If you want to be extremely unpopular at parties you can do what I did this weekend and, while the hillarites are ranting about fascist trump tell them that what they don’t understand is that hillary is worse than trump. A real conversation stopper. Then when they regain their chattering composure ask them to reference one obama policy that is helpful to the bulk of the democratic party’s considered demographic. ACA is always first, MItt Romney’s plan shuts that down, medicaid expansion is next (because caring, HA!) clawbacks kills that one, then ask how zero interests rates helped non homeowners, or how giving ka-jillions to goldman et.al.helped the average working stiff and watch them devolve into apoplexy. Really fun if you prefer to hang out alone…(yes, yes I do…anything to avoid the ear splitting shrillness)
Consider asking them how many Sanders voters they think they can write off. They’ll immediately personalize it, but say something like “No, it’s a question of strategy, of realpolitik.” Then repeat the question.
the nephew said all his friends are for sanders, doesn’t know anyone who isn’t…Victory is mine!
Yeah, it’s strange how so many lifelong Democrats are more interested in the Republican primary than in the Democratic one…
Democratic identity revolves around being smug and applauding word salad. Sanders challenges this as his campaign revolves around the simple message the Democratic strategy is not good enough. Obama’s only good behavior has come after immense pressure not mocking Republican voters. Plenty of people don’t want to be reminded the Democrats are in a mess because the followed Obama as blindly as Republicans who the mock follow their leaders.
It’s much easier to laugh at Trump and angry people.
“It’s much easier to laugh at Trump and angry people.”—Yes. I work with what could be a main part of the Trump demographic. They generally don’t like Obama but truly despise Hillary. They are not well read on political policies but they don’t trust the establishment D.C. bunch.
I will likely vote Green. Interesting to see if it is Hillary or Trump which motivates voter turnout for their “cause”.
Meh. I personally don’t understand the crossover from Sanders to Trump.
The argument that he’s to the left of Hillary doesn’t really stand up when you look at his record.
He’s, in theory, against the TPP. However, here’s a guy who had labor violations in this country and has exploited workers overseas. I’m not convinced at all that he “cares” about labor or that he’s, in practice, to the left of her.
As a socialist, I think its easier to fight the right wing when the economy tanks when the president is also right wing.
So therefore, I would prefer Trump to beat Hillary. Obama has made left wing organization VERY hard and difficult. I don’t want a repeat of Obama, I want another Bush.
Though, I wont actually vote for Trump, I will just vote Stein, again, like I did in 2012.
He like Hillary is a narcissist. He cares about himself.
I think things get a lot clearer when you postulate potential 2016 narratives. In 2012 the narrative revolved around the question of whether or not the 1% needed to pay more in taxes. The question was repeatedly discussed in multiple debates and messaged heavily by surrogates galore. In 2016, I’ll posit the question will be whether or not the country is overdue for a pay raise. Including the unemployed/undermployed and yes probably the unemployable.
If you expect, as I honestly do, the election to be basically about that question, it’s not at all difficult to imagine The Donald managing to raise significant doubt about Madame Secretary’s credibility re: facilitating a general rise in incomes. Doubts about her credibility are just too easy to mine from her and her husband’s respective history and even public statements. Moreover I don’t think ranting about fascist trump pro or con actually affects how people feel about that basic question.
If you look at her speech yesterday after SC it’s at best unhelpful. “We don’t have to make America great again” isn’t going to resonate very well out of the mouth of a candidate who is essentially running for Obama’s 3rd term and freely acknowledges as much. There is just too much shrinkage and decline of opportunities and income widely apparent to all the people the Democratic candidate needs to win.
Now having said all that I honestly expect (okay hope) that a message like “We don’t have to make America great again” is the kind of slow pitch over the plate that Senator Sanders has been watching for. If he can’t turn that speech into a genuine surge of support among the remaining undecided electorate, he isn’t the skilled politician I have always believed he is. And he probably deserves to lose the nomination, unfortunately.
If Sanders wins, the election will be a proxy for the progressive agenda, If Hillary wins, the progressive agenda is dead for eight years.
That’s kind of what puzzles me a bit. Isn’t it simpler to talk about a widely needed overdue pay raise than the fuzzier progressive agenda? Why wouldn’t that simplified version get wider traction?
Here in Wisconsin the Democratic party relied on the terribleness of the Republican candidate, rather than picking a decent Democratic candidate, to get out the vote in the recall elections. Walker’s still here. I don’t know when this lesson will be assimilated.
Thats the thing. The Democrats dont actually care about winning. They would rather lose with a corporate democrat than win with a populist one. So theyre not going to change their corporateness.
Yes, and if Bernie wins the nomination, expect the party machinery to sabotage Sanders in the general.
They will be all “Bloomberg 2016!” if Bernie wins the primary.
Yep. Yet somehow the activists will not get that the party machinery has no problem leveraging a THIRD PARTY to thwart their interests.
When the Democratic machine does it they’re pragmatic, however when an activist considers voting third party, they are pie in the sky idealists.
Two sets of rules
Yeah, just like Ned Lamont.
Oh my god. That’s awful.
I am with you and admire your truth telling!!! I,too, find it very easy to get “liberals” (with PHD’s in science) to move away from conversation with me when talking Obama or Hillary. And I voted for him once!
Glenn Greenwald asks an important question, given the furious contempt by so many victims of the political establishment and Wall Street crony capitalism, “With Donald Trump looming, should Democrats take a huge electability gamble by nominating Hillary Clinton?”
He references Michael Brendan Dougherty: http://theweek.com/articles/599577/how-obscure-adviser-pat-buchanan-predicted-wild-trump-campaign-1996
Dougherty writes that the Samuel Francis 1996 essay, “From Household to Nation,” reads like a political manifesto from which the Trump campaign springs.
“Sooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives.” – Samuel Francis
Dougherty asks, “What if, instead of vainly talking about restoring the place of religion in society — something that appeals only to a narrow slice of Middle America — you simply promised to restore the Middle American core — the economic and cultural losers of globalization — to their rightful place in America? What if you said you would restore them as the chief clients of the American state under your watch, being mindful of their interests when regulating the economy or negotiating trade deals?”
Democrats shouldn’t be so cocksure that Hillary can beat Trump:
http://static.currentaffairs.org/2016/02/unless-the-democrats-nominate-sanders-a-trump-nomination-means-a-trump-presidency
Thank you Tulsi Gabbard!!!
Senator Warren, be another such profile in courage!!!
Thanks, great read at Current Affairs.
Scenario of Sanders as kryptonite for Trump, vs Trump flaying Clinton, is spot on.
Everyone should read this to see why Sanders is the more ‘electable’ candidate.
Good article – thanks for that. Clinton doesn’t have a chance against Trump – too many skeletons. What’s she doing running anyway – she’s being investigated by the FBI and has a sordid past that Trump will lay into. As many others have said and the polls even show :
Trump vs. Clinton = President Trump. Trump vs. Sanders = President Sanders.
FWIW, just saw my first Bernie TV spot here in So Cal last night. Clear, simple, straightforward, specific.
Our primary isn’t until June 6th so it looks like Bernie’s doing what he said he would…stay in for the long haul.
When it comes to the general election electoral college count and the AA vote, I think we’re missing the real race. I don’t see African Americans changing the overall outcomes in the southern states. But I do see the possibility of Appalachian Americans changing the outcome in PA and WV. They are Trump’s demographic. And They are angry.
Don’t forget the impact of the same demographic in eastern Kentucky and southeastern Ohio.
Folks in the hollers may still be poor. But at least they’ve been promoted from hillbillies to “Appalachian Americans.” (I’m entitled to say this, as a former Ozark-American.)
Hillary can try, against Trump, ‘Is there something undesirable about American women, vis-a-vis European women, in your spousal choices?’
Then Trump could try, against Hillary, ‘Is their something undesirable about you that causes your husband to chase other women?’ Don’t think Hillary wants to go there. Instead of successfully playing the victim she’d be confronted with her own past statements.
The poor folks in the mountains have really good BS detectors. I’m liberal and I get along here just fine because I’m true to who I am and fight vehemently for what I believe. The reality is while we disagree on policy solutions, we often get along because there is respect for being authentic(it also helps that they see I’ve worked hard over the years to raise my kids, pay my bills and be a good community member.)
PA, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, Nevada (without organization; Reid just held on six years ago against a complete loon), Ohio, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Hampshire can easily flip from blue to red without an energized electorate. If Trump can eat into white working classes on trade and not being a hawk, he can flip these states.
Madame Secretary’s speech yesterday messaging “We don’t have to make America great again” will probably put both states plus OH and maybe MI into play. Shockingly tone deaf. Even for her.
From what I understand he’s all but got WV sewn up.
As expected, the coverage in the English-language press of the Iranian elections is paltry. I guess that seeing how people turned out, voted against the status quo, and upset some religious fanatics doesn’t support the U.S./U.K. line about Iran being the axis of evil and the warmongers of the Middle East. So I’m pasting in a link to La Stampa (which is reliable and notoriously skeptical):
http://www.lastampa.it/2016/02/28/esteri/voto-in-iran-i-riformisti-in-testa-in-tutto-il-paese-hrSsgxd4dbfuBTmAxfapAI/pagina.html
DJG,
Thank you for trying.
BBC online has been following the elections in Iran, and posting on the results as they come in.
This just in from the Sheriff of Wall Street™. Eric Schneiderman’s weekly spamblast:
You didn’t think he was talking about fraud committed by insurance companies, did you?
Re : Yesterday’s primary results. I have to say that I feel sorry for people who’ve been down so long that more of the same (Clinton) looks like up. And you see it in the leading authors who attack Bernie but end up quietly voting for him. How do you break through that??
I’m supporting Bernie financially and in local efforts till the end (which I hope does not come). The only 2 candidates that aren’t owned by Wall St are Sanders and Trump. People are sick of Wall St owned politicians – you can see it in the growing support for Bernie and Trump. Sanders would like be FDR and many say Trump would be like Teddy Roosevelt in trust busting. I don’t know but we’ll find out. Clinton will not get my vote unless she apologizes for the things her husband did, like getting rid of Glass-Stegall. That won’t happen.
We need Elizabeth Warren to come out and support Sanders. She already stated she loves everything he’s proposing, how far away from that is actually endorsing him?
I wonder how much a Warren endorsement would change things. Aren’t most Warren fans already in Bernie’s camp? Would her endorsement offset the “time for a woman president” argument? I think not.
I think Warren on the ticket as VP would be double insurance: Assassination insurance for Bernie, and revolution insurance for us in case Bernie died of natural causes.
Totally agree about her as VP. Warren is wildly popular with Democrats and her endorsement could sway the uncommitted and even some committed to HRC. I think it could make a yuuge difference.
As a northeastern socialist Jew Senator with a thick-ass Brooklyn accent, he’ll need somebody other than another northeastern Senator who’s a former Ivy League professor to win in a general…Just saying.
How about Senator Webb? ( If Senator Webb could stand being a Vice President to anybody).
Uh no. He’s MIC and pro Big Brother.
See: FISA vote.
Webb would be a non starter for me should he be on the ballot with Bernie.
Perhaps. Warren’s financial backing comes from upper class women. I don’t think she is as relevant to the working class as the Internet makes her seem. It would be a big hit for Hillary for her to endorse Bernie.
I apologize if my comment seems unfair, but how else do you explain what happened yesterday?
My explanation: 1> SC isn’t representative of general election, it’s not even a likely Democratic state. The last Democrat to win there was Carter in 76 (probably because he was a southern Dem when they were more likely to be generally conservative). 2> Turnout was abysmal, especially compared to the GOP primary last week.
When I hear Trump talk I have to laugh – he’s going to upend and decimate the current Republican party and I certainly look forward to that. Sanders too. Whoever wins it’s going to be quite a show.
“he’s going to upend and decimate the current Republican party and I certainly look forward to that.”
Im not sure what you mean. Im pretty sure most of Cruz’s and Rubio’s voters and donors will tighten their belts and vote/donate for the Donald.
Hey guys, remember when Romney lost to Obama because all the Republicans stayed home, and that if he had as many republicans vote for him as voted for McPain 4 years earlier, he would have beaten Obama in 2012? Thats exactly whats going to happen to Hillary. Lots of dems and leftists are just going to stay home.
To be fair, im not convinced Trump is worse than Hillary.
I’m the Left and I’ll be voting Green. The lesser of 2 evils just doesn’t get it.
Stolen from Jesse Amerikan Café.
Some great comments.
I don’t think this is true. Romney got more total votes and a larger percentage of the electorate than McCain. Obama got 5 million fewer votes on the other hand.
My bad youre right. I was using erroneous information from four years ago. Turns out Romney got like less than a million more than McCain. I was wrong, thank you.
I think many here asking if the Dems simply assume that progressives will flock to Hillary and she will win are missing a key piece – they don’t care. I mean, sure, they’d rather win the presidency than lose, but I think Dem party elites have shown over the last 8 years that if it’s a choice between losing to a Republican or let even sort of, kind of leftists have any control over the party, they’d rather lose to the Republican, even Trump. They lose to Trump, they all keep their jobs and then try to fund raise off of him (and I think they really can’t imagine losing to him, so there’s also their continued disconnect from reality; I don’t know if they win or lose but I think they could lose). They lose to Bernie and many of the elites in the party are out of a job. They care more about their employment future than yours.
So true
I honestly wonder about that. IIRC it was Mark Halperin commenting the other day that The Donald has yet to buy a single ad in any Super Tuesday state. If Trump manages to win big without the involvement of the fundraising/media consulting/image management industry that is a big piece of the pie that could disappear.
That will not stop the Dems from fundraising off Trump. Expect email blasting “Oooh, Ooh scary Trump! Send money to the Democratic Party to fight this boogieman *right now* or we’re all DOOOOOOOOOMED!!!” Or words to that effect. Probably weekly.
Basically exactly right. actual email text follows.
No. No I won’t. I don’t care about electing Democrats anymore unless they are Sandernistas, Webbicrats or bitter holdovers who voted against NAFTA beFORE it got passed.
Id sooner donate to Il Duce Benito Mussolini than Hillary…
great observation……it is about keeping the money flow
With Donald Trump Looming, Should Dems Take a Huge Electability Gamble by Nominating Hillary Clinton? Intercept
The article is long on ideology-based theory and short plain electoral math. Glenn has the right charts but isn’t explaining the numbers; but the numbers aren’t hard to figure out.
this that
Clinton’s big weakness is voter crossover, losing votes you’d expect to get “on the natural” by
superficialconventional wisdom. It comes in two flavors, turnout suppression and crossover voting, yielding a two-dimensional matrix, with a loyal/disloyal axis and a turnout/suppress axis, producing:loyal+turnout
loyal+suppress
disloyal+turnout
disloyal+suppress
Naturally one wants to have more loyal+turnout and disloyal+suppress, and avoid disloyal+turnout and loyal+suppress.
Starting 2015 with significant approval and support, Clinton has nowhere to go but down, even without the erosion that the Sanders campaign unavoidably brings. And FOX News and similar outlets have been training Clinton hatred for two decades; some Reps may abhor Trump, but will they abhor him enough to vote for Clinton? Does Trump+disgust translate into Clinton+appeal? And on the flip side, how well could Clinton+distrust translate into Trump+curiosity?
She has little middle ground to work with, mostly because she is so well known to voters; call it brand recognition. And I think the difference between a leftward message and a change message is also confusing to her campaign; stay-the-course (Obama II) has diminishing appeal outside of her existing base, in either direction.
So we see difficulty extending (or even retaining) loyalty, at the same time as difficulty converting doubt in the opponent to support for herself, while fighting the basic appeal of a (nominal) free-agent candidate like Trump. The final poll trends are still a long way off, but the factors mentioned here will be critical in a close race (as previous presidential contests in this century have been).
For Sanders, there would also be some difficulty extending loyalty into Dem “centrists”, but with much less risk of conversion to a Trump vote. On the other hand Bernie offers a clear change message to draw voters from Trump’s version. This leaves Sanders essentially more “electable” than Clinton, given the unusual scenario of this election cycle.
If Hillary wins the presidency is there any doubt that a republican house of reps. will begin impeachment hearings “on day one” and if the Senate remains in republican hands, that a trial will remove HRC from office. It will go down in history as the first husband and wife to ever be impeached on any executive level.This is what I tell my liberal friends that support HRC because Bernie “can’t get anything done” if elected. Makes her vice pick pretty important.
I am voting or writing in Bernie in the primary and will vote for Jill Stein in the general assuming Sanders loses. I see Trump as a quasi fascist populist and HRC as possibly starting World War III against Putin. I am not really digging the political structure of the good ol USofA.
Re. Bernie getting walloped in SC, as I e-mailed to my sister, a big Bernie supporter, on Thursday:
Only corrigendum post-SC is that the Dem establishment may in fact not have to steal the nomination for Hillary after all. But rest assured that a vote for her is neither “progressive” nor “for the lesser evil”.
Where’s the concern for the pissed off 20 year old ‘pony’, dressed up like a unicorn?
They’ll do that one too many times, and eventually, she’ll realize she can use the horn as a spear.
“Boos said she doesn’t frequently hold photo shoots with Juliet, but she does them because “the little girls just love it,” she said. She typically dresses up Juliet with a plush satin horn attached to a pink halter. There’s usually a wreath or garland around her neck, but it went missing during the chase.
“Never to be seen again, I’m sure,” Boos said with a laugh.”
Sure, asshole.
Where have these people been? We were getting blackout in 1962, two years after independence. and well before Oil was discovered in the Niger Delta.
What happened? the Nigerian rulers stole the oil proceeds and have invested none in Nigeria.
So setting an example of corruption among a ruling class, rapidly copied by other ruling classes in every country in the world. Such corruption is not viewed as appalling, and to be vigorously supressed, but as an example to be copied by other ruling classes worldwide.
From where did you believe the recent wave of snatch and grab gain momentum?
The election process for President is an elaborate ritual every leap year to choose the chief magistrate, to whit, the president. Think of the log cabins that were rolled through neighborhoods in the 19th century, and the new deal and you are talking about a big deal. A right wing, possibly left in some issues executive from the Repubs combined with congressional majority would set the stage for legislation happening.
48 hours until the next president…if billary does not manage a knockout punch hail mary miracle she folds again in june as she did in oh 8…if el donaldo does not deliver a knockout punch he will start melting away and there will be a brokered convention…
You would think david duke would call his handlers, the fahn jewels and ask those cubans first if he should before he…he…
hey wait a second…you dont think a florida cuban would ask his racist puppy dog to come back from germany to cause a ruckus to help blondie(rubio means blonde) ?? I wonder what felix row a tan is thinking about right now…
check out bradblog dot com
There may have been some vote padding. Most polls were more like 20 to 30% not 50, and the s Carolina machines are unverifiable and easily hacked.
That said, there is a different calculus for different demographics, as Lambert pointed out, and if you want to win their votes you have to speak to those issues. I find the “acela” or upper middle class (mostly whites) have a similar calculus strangely enough. Both start with “Sanders is unelectable, or, can’t win in Nov”