Yves here. NC regulars are unlikely to be surprised at Gaius’ conclusion, but it’s useful to have ifactsndependent confirmation and additional facts.
By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. Originally published at at Down With Tyranny. GP article here.
Something to keep your eye on in the lead-up to post-East Coast voting, and something that could well affect the voting after that. Will Clinton move toward Sanders’ positions, as an appeal for his supporters, or will she, as I’ve said elsewhere, insist the mountain (of his voters) come to Mohammad?
Seems the latter.
First, Clinton operative Peter Daou, in the headline above, makes the position clear:
“If Bernie Wants Real Progress He’ll Align His Message With Hers”
No link, but the google will find the piece for you if want to read it.
Second, note this from Josh Abramson, in a Huff Post piece called “5 Things We’ve Learned About Hillary Clinton Since She Won the New York Primary“. I’ll let you read the other four things he says we’ve learned (do read; it’s a nice piece). But here’s the fifth point (my occasional emphasis):
5. There will be no attempt whatsoever to bring Sanders supporters back into the Democratic fold.
Sanders supporters knew Clinton was angry at them for voting for Bernie — they could tell by her comment saying that she “feels sorry for” young voters too misinformed to vote for her; or by Bill Clinton saying that Sanders voters are so unsophisticated that they just want to “shoot every third banker on Wall Street”; or by David Plouffe (a Clinton ally) saying that every person who donates money to Sanders is being taken in by an obvious “fraud”; or by the unnamed Clinton staffer so certain she or he was speaking in a tone and manner consistent with the view of the Clinton campaign that she or he told Politico that the Clinton campaign “kicked Bernie’s ass” in New York and that Sanders can “go fuck himself.”
And so on.
But who knew that, with almost twenty primaries and caucuses left, and more than 1,400 delegates left to be awarded, Clinton would start vetting potential Vice Presidential picks in full view of an electorate she says she’s still working hard to win over? And who knew that not only would Sanders not be considered for a unity ticket, but — apparently — her top picks for VP, Cory Booker and Julian Castro, are reliable Clintonites with no ties whatsoever to the Sanders campaign or the movement he heads? And who knew Elizabeth Warren would almost certainly be frozen out of the VP conversation due to her decision to stay neutral in the primary race rather than endorse Clinton?
Well, everyone.
Everyone who knows the Clintons, that is.
So, if you’re either a Sanders supporter, sympathetic to the Sanders campaign, or a Hillary voter desperately hoping she’ll do something to bring into the Democratic fold the 40 percent of Sanders voters who say they won’t vote for Hillary in the fall — all but ensuring a Trump presidency — here’s some news for you: the signals are now being sent that Sanders and his people will, by calculated design, get absolutely nothing.
Hillary lost in 2008 and received the second-most powerful position in the world [note the assertion of a trade for SoS].
Sanders will be ignored and shunned.
What lies behind this “strategy” for the fall election — if we can call it that — is the same hubris that permitted Secretary Clinton never to reveal her Wall Street transcripts, to condescend to millennials at every turn, to refuse to apologize for bad judgment in the whole email-server affair, to refuse to apologize for her 1994 crime bill vote, to try to get away with (during the Michigan debate) the lie that Sanders had opposed the auto bailout, and so on.
In other words, America is already seeing the Hillary Clinton they’ll get during the fall election campaign — and also, should Clinton somehow manage to squeak by Donald Trump in November, the sort of Nixonian White House we can expect in consequence.
And it isn’t pretty.
Is Abramson right? He could well be. Everything through the second large paragraph is true. Will his conclusion prove true as well?
To test it, I’d look for this — Sanders and Clinton will have the discussion they’ve started to have. Sanders is saying, in effect “I can’t snap my fingers and make my supporters vote for you. You have to convince them yourself.” As evidenced by her response to Maddow in their recent town hall, this goes up Clinton’s back. Her response, in effect, “I’m winning because of my own positions.”
My suggestion, watch as this plays out. It’s a clear dividing line. Clinton seems to want Sanders to “throw some words her way” (my phrase, but it reflects the way candidates like Clinton seem to campaign, by figuring out in an advertising sense which words to throw out); wants Sanders to bless her with a kind of public holy water that (she thinks) will magically erase the voters’ memory of his reservations on policy. And she thinks his supporters will accept it if he does that and consider her new-blessed and suddenly known-good.
I think she’s wrong, that this is an issues campaign, not a cosmetic or personalities one, and to win Sanders supporters, she has to at least appear to bend his way. Will she do that? Will she at least “throw some words” at his supporters? It’s really a test of wills and dominance at this point. Will she see it that way and harden her will against him? Or soften and surrender just a little? The election could turn on that decision.
Finally, did you notice the word “hubris” in the Abramson piece above? So did I And I’ve been using the word a lot myself as well. This isn’t just about wills and dominance, or calculation and policy — it’s about Zeus and his lightning bolts getting revenge, or more mundanely, spiking the ball in the end zone in your defender’s face. Hubris, and a decision to make.
American Crossroads
The path is littered with them these days. This is one more American crossroad, this time for her. What will Clinton do? Will she swallow her hubris and pride and at the very least pretend? Or will she carry on with talk like, “Rachel, can’t you see I’m winning?! Now let him come to me.”
If she can’t, in pride or the flush of victory, make herself move in substance to the mountain of Sanders voters, can she win in the general election? Place your bets. The answer is just months away.
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I’ve heard from a reliable source that Karl Rove is getting behind Hillary. And that would mean his considerable resources and expertise with vote-rigging. I guess she thinks she can tell all those Bernie supporters to eff off.
I suspect that this is that Rove is pitching Hillary, since Cruz is going down and I doubt he’d work for Manafort/Stone as a de factor subcontractor even if they’d have him. And I don’t see what he brings to the party. Rove is a has been.
The WSJ (the reporting side, which is pretty good, not the lunatic op ed section) had several articles after the last Prez campaign that made clear that Rove had taken a lot of money, fee wise and ad budget wise, and had failed to produce. The stories, which I am too lazy to track down, were really damning. He is apparently at sea in the world of new media and fragmented audiences. His old narrowcasting was very specifically targeted mailings (ZIP code based, there is a lot of traditional marketing segmentation on that) but mail is now effective with a relatively small group of voters.
Don’t marginalize Rove. He must still have his connections and of course, his personna.
‘Mail is now effective with a relatively small group of voters.’
It reaches Hillary’s scrum of African-American grandmothers. :-)
Works the same way as with my late grandma, who used to receive endless letters from Senator Jesse Helms, and felt obliged to help the poor man save America.
Hillary’s reached me, how she got my address I don’t know unless stole it from Bernie’s list. I put on it “return to sender” and DH added “corporate whore” across the back before mailing it.
Interesting timing. Just yesterday I received, via the old, analog mail, a Presidential Campaign Steering Survey from Pelosi, et al.
Full disclosure; I am neither African – American, a grandmother, nor, to my knowledge, scrum. I’m not a Democrat (I registered as one ahead of the primary to cast a vote for Sanders, justifying my nose – holding because he’s an Independent). In any case, I had a devilishly good time giving honest answers to all the pertinent questions the survey failed to ask. After completing the survey, I had to fold it like origami to place it in the envelope, which was too small for the questionnaire, but appropriately sized for a donation (hilarious, but NO!). I sealed the return envelope with a nice “Get Well” sticker, though.
The Clinton campaign has no interest in Sanders’ policies, nor in moving left to win over his supporters, which Clinton desperately needs, if nominated. Her campaign displays nothing but disdain for the left and, honestly, the feeling is mutual. Neither side must move in substance, the differences are irreconcilable. So be it, time to divorce. If Clinton gets the nomination, the best outcome is that Libs mess up the Republican field and defecting Lefties upend Clinton. It’s a guess as to how that would shake out, but the substance of the candidates won’t be the determining factor.
i guess some percentage of sanders supporters would believe her if she said she had changed her positions. i hope she doesn’t.
Maybe 0.01% of them, lol.
i have no idea what the actual polling data says, but it’s probably more than that, sadly. some people just don’t realize how bad clinton is.
Maybe but the Sanders hard core and GoP cross-over Berners are pretty well-informed re: Clintons.
(Policy positions through to long lists of suspicious dead associates circulate regularly despite the new stazi robotroll forces on social media.)
Independents more generally are likely less informed.
Don’t worry. As she tells young voters, she’ll represent you whether you like her or not.
she never has. she’ll represent bankers and warmongers whether i like her or not. that’s mostly why i don’t like her.
Does that ever sound like a threat.
sanders identifies as a peacenik, yet supports drone killings, boots on the ground in syria and the f-35 program.
publius identifies as a reporter, yet fails to recognize bogus elections (coin tosses, results released before totals were tallied, hundreds of thousands of falsified voter affiliations)
can we please have a real discussion instead of pretending that we’re watching democracy in action?
If there was anything positive to take away from eight years of Obama, it was the wealth of evidence he provided that one should judge people by what they do, rather than what they say. Clinton: owned by Wall St, and with Obama tore apart Libya and Syria with their superpower pretenses. Bernie: at least he has taken actions I consider positive on domestic policy, but no one now thinks he will be nominated. If I don’t vote for Jill, I will for Trump.
What would a real discussion sound like to you?
To me, a real discussion is saying the fix is in — then dressing it up with meaningless opinion.
my humble suggestions for a real discussion:
1) examine the evidence which strongly suggests that the solution (restoring electoral representation) will not be found in a voting booth. (clinton’s rampant cheating as mentioned above/diebold/hanging chads)
2) confirm that 80% of us agree on 80% of the issues. (we want our kids to have clean water, healthy food, proper education, and genuine opportunity. the outrage over social issues like gay marriage, abortion or immigration is largely manufactured and then amplified by the msm to get people angry enough to head to their polling stations and vote against the other guy.)
3) apply fiorina’s plan to all the major agencies rather than just the v.a. fire the top 400 administrators at the s.e.c./f.d.a./e.p.a./h.u.d./v.a./n.r.c./d.o.d./d.o.j./etc. (this is not meant in any way to endorse fiorina, she’s just hit upon the method required to remove the cancer.)
Is that what Fiorina did at Hewlett-Compackard? Considering that she destroyed half of Hewlett-Compackard’s basic value, why would any method of hers be considered good for anything anywhere else?
About F-35, I had more thought that Sanders was saying the F-35 is too entrenched to ever cancel, therefor we should resign ourselves to it. A President Trump might feel brave enough to try getting Congress to cancel the F-35 if he believes it should be cancelled. I don’t know what he believes about F-35.
shortly after 9/11 epa scientist cate jenkins measured life-threatening levels of toxins at the site.
a day or two later, epa administrator christie todd whitman said ‘the air is safe to breathe’.
the fda is doing everything in its power to suppress labeling of gmo food.
the sec has successfully avoided prosecuting fraud of epic and historic proportions.
in your view, are these functional organizations? you don’t like fiorina’s remedy, what do you suggest instead?
I don’t think Sander’s has self identified as a peacenik. Just thinks many wars, not all, cause more problems than they solve.
You are absolutely right. Compared to Bernie, Donald Trump is an angel of peace. What does it say about Democrats that they’ve gone so to the right that even their “leftist” “socialist” candidate is far to the right on foreign policy than the Republican nominee?
Trump:
.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-gop-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/trump-iraq-syria-220608
He has explitly said that he wants friendly relations with China and Russia. He has also said that he has no problem with letting Russia take out ISIS. As far as making sense goes, no other candidate comes close.
Nothing says leftwing foreign policy like hunt down innocent women and children for being related to terrorists. How on earth is Trump an angel of peace. The delusion is strong with this one.
Neocon is not left wing. Wash your mouth out. Obama has governed center right on everything save some social issues. He’s only thrown the occasional bone to the left to maintain a brand distinction from the business wing of the Republican party. As the New York Times recounted last week, Hillary is a full bore hawk and even outflanked Obama via bureaucratic infighting (as in got a bunch of current and ex military leaders of the bloodhthirsty persuasion to box him in when his preference was to be more moderate).
The bigger problem is no one in either party appears to believe in civilian control of the military. That is the cost of having presidents who never served in the armed forces. If they had, they’d know they were pretty screwed up and would not be intimidated by generals and admirals.
PLUS, there is no civilian “pressure” to end war, as there was during Vietnam, when most soldiers were draftees. We will have endless discretionary war till all Americans are once again affected by it directly by having sons and daughters DRAFTED to fight.
He does not support placing troops in Syria but he is not a peacenik and has not campaigned as a peace candidate.
Yes the fix is in and I have not seen articles posted no NK that suggest what the exit polls indicate. I have not gone through each day of news though so please correct me if I’m wrong.
he dances around a bit, but in this interview he says he ‘supports’ boots on the ground in syria.
msnbc transcript
Are you intentionally misreading this? No one considers training and equipment to be “boots on the ground”.
if the answer is ‘no’, then sanders should clearly state so. what i hear is standard beltway waffling. ie: vote against the war this one time, but then vote to fund it five times in a row.
syria has not attacked the u.s. sending u.s. troops into syria is indisputably illegal and will likely to lead to ww3.
ps: isn’t it time to admit that ‘elite american troops’ ‘training’ ‘moderate’ ‘radicals’ to fight ‘despotic dictators’ bears no resemblance to reality? how would you rate our ten+ years spent ‘training’ iraqi ‘moderates’? successful? or did we just hand over vast stores of munitions to isis and provide them with billion$ in oil revenue via turkey/erdogan?
sanders argues, as do most neocons, that we can somehow identify and train ‘moderates’ when most of our people can’t even speak the language. is this ignorance? insanity? the most glorious ineptitude ever witnessed by mankind?
My understanding is that the American special forces in Syria are in Syrian Kurdistan training and assisting Kurdish militias which are fighting ISIS. Am I wrong about that?
For the moment , fighting ISIS is not the same thing as fighting the Syrian Arab Republc. If the Kurds win their fight with ISIS in their own little Kurdish region, then these Kurds always “could” join the alphabet-jihadi fight against the Syrian Arab Republc. I hope the Kurds don’t do that. I hope they satisfy themselves with an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan federally associated with the Syrian Arab Republic. This would allow the SAR and the R + 6 to focus forces against the various alphabet jihadis.
The way to achieve peace in Syria is to achieve the comprehensive extermination of every trace of any ability to mount any armed opposition against the legitimate government of Syria.
Jihadists are cancer cells. They clump together to form cancers. The only proper approach to jihadis is total and overwhelming chemotherapy. Exterminate them all in detail, down to the very last jihadi. And in practice, that means letting the R + 6 get on with the chemotherapy treatments, and not obstructing or harrassing the R + 6 in any way.
No doubt we can all pull up anecdotal evidence to one side or the other. My experience has been both in reallife and social media that there isn’t a single Clinton supporter who is willing to speak with anyone who supports Sanders without pointing out they’re the equivalents of Quislings who are allowing Trump to get the presidency, thus allowing the glorious, free, open, truthful and peaceful US of Obama to slide into the demonic realms. As arguments go, it isn’t exactly convincing, given Clinton’s positions and comments on a wide variety of issues, and as for tone, it isn’t especially conciliatory, much less inviting, when your speaking companion calls you a moron, traitor, and fool.
Frankly, I’m hoping it all continues. I see this as the best chance yet for genuine progressives–you know, the people who used to be the the center and left of the Democratic Party–to realize that they’re now regarded as vermin whose votes don’t even count and whose opinions are totally despised. Clinton’s courting the Republicans who don’t want Trump, and counting on the lockstep Dems to fill out the rest. Best result? The real left finally leaves the Dem Party for good; Clinton loses; and the party heads begin to question whether the radical shift towards powerful lobbies in Bill Clinton’s administration was really a good idea in the long term, after all. More likely? Third parties gain, Trump wins, Clinton and the Dems blame Sanders and continue kidney-punching everything from the unions and the left to their latest enemies, the millennials, as well as bad messaging. Nothing is learned, and they sink like the Whigs in the 1850s.
1. Clinton’s courting the Republicans who don’t want Trump, and counting on the lockstep Dems to fill out the rest.
Punch the Hippies, the establishment wins (again). See Koch’s comments.
2. Trump wins, Clinton and the Dems:
Punch the Hippies. The Kochs are pragmatic, they can make a deal with Trump.
Nothing is learned, in either event. The Hippies lose, as always.
Does Bernie lead the Hippies out of the D party to a third party? If so then who is Bernie’s heir apparent? Zephyr Teachout?
Even if not Teachout, I hope someone much younger and scrappier than Sanders picks up the mantle. Younger, because then they’ll be a thorn in the New Dem side for many years to come, and scrappier, because Sanders’ polite, gentlemanly campaign style meant someone who was under active investigation by the FBI likely will win the nomination.
What about Nina Turner from ohio?
We should all pray for things to be this simple.
However, in the background: seas are rising, global warming continues to alter water sources, agriculture, fisheries, etc. Meanwhile, the EU is under severe economic stress, as are China and Russia. And that’s just for starters, without mentioning the fact that each day tax havens continue to suck the life out of what could otherwise be functioning economies in socially equitable cultures.
However, ignoring the background problems that are biological and exponential, Clinton offers incrementalist, legalistic, half-measures.
It’s amazing to watch the DNC commit suicide, I’ll say that much for this election season.
All those nice, fat paychecks at the beck and call of vindictive, incrementalist machinations. Sad.
We’re 5th Generation Republicans, who’s Whig ancestors helped suggest and make the new third party (Republican) a success (and still hold the record for the most brothers serving simultaneously in congress). That said we left are old party in 1996 when it was taken over by so completely by “propertarians” that put contract law and property rights so extremely far ahead of human rights (reminding us of when some considered owning humans as property, perfectly fine with them, as long as no one could “own” them).
They were able to start a new party in those relatively simpler times, but we have not done well in dividing efforts through, I think something like 92 different parties throughout our history. Few but the top 2 get much traction, then they use it to concentrate and corrupt it down to where too few imply the consent of too many.
A suggestion: A Universal Open Primary Ballot
List every qualified candidate that has enough signatures to meet the threshold of percentage of previous voters in the previous off year or 4 year election, list the party they want to run under and how many signatures the gathered by an early enough deadline, on a voter information pamphlet distributed before the actual voting (as we do in California). Leave no one out, list all but let the parties decide if they want to accept any or all of those votes from the UOPB in addition to their party only ballots (and some who accept non-party preference voters).
The parties can keep their own ballots (as I’m sure Republicans and Democrats would, to restrict who can be heard in their selection process. I’d add the UOPB as an alternate choice for each individual voter like those of us who would be more likely to choose different people from other parties for some offices. We think you could select a mix of the best candidates to keep the separation of powers more realistic, and the parties could better see where the wants of the people are, and adjust their candidate lists and platforms accordingly.
We’d expect to see those that best reflect the will of the people to grow stronger, and the others to form new, and better alliances, perhaps new, more effective parties, too.
Great comment.
Thank you.
I myself think a better long-term outcome would be for the New Deal Reactionaries to reconquer the Democratic Party from within over the next few decades . . . if we can . . . and purge, burn and exterminate every trace of Clintonite Obamacrat filth from the leadership. And let their Clintonite Obamacrat garbage and trash followers go where-ever the Leadership Filth decide to go.
Or maybe we could move to a 3 Party system. Democratic Fascist on the Right, Democratic Socialist on the Left, and Depublicrat in the Vital Center, where the Clintonites and the Obamacrats and Pelosi and Alan From and Reid and all those wonderful people can be one big happy family there in the Vital Center.
The whole game is in how you define victory.* Re, OFA:
I’d define a 50-state Sanders-platform policy-focused permanent organization as victory. Maybe people smarter than I am have considered and dismissed this possibility. But. That’s where “the list” could live, and it could be a dues-paying organization. Now, maybe Sanders, at 74, wants to go back to the institutional fug of the Senate. On the other hand, maybe Sanders, at 74, gives zero f*cks and would like to create an institution that might really outlive him. (Notice that the platform focus would, or at least ought, to make the ideological sectarian battles the left is so prone to go away. It would be like the Nicene Creed.) And over time and with persistence, the non-comprador to the 80% would begin to dissolve the identity politics pushed by the 20%. Concrete material benefits are the universal solvent.
Like I said, I hope smarter people than me have thoughts like this in their minds.
* Here I’m reminded of a wonderful book called Military Misfortunes, and Sadat’s subtle strategic objectives in the Yom Kippur war; among other things victory consisted in “inflicting heavy losses” on the Israelis in a war that lasted over a week. (There’s probably a parallel to the hubris of the Isreali elites in the Clinton campaign, too.)
Where else can one go on a Saturday morning to read a reference to the Nicene Creed and compradors in the same paragraph?
+
I tend to consider the Sanders’ campaign as the next evolutionary step in the “neo progressive” political trend that started with Occupy Wall Street: one that recognized the decoupling of civil rights from class issues and chose to focus on the latter without fear of being labeled socialist ( the former has been successfully captured by the duopolic “moderates”). Unlike its predecessor, the Sander’s movement has a funding mechanism, broader appeal, and an organizational strategy that I think will enable long-term sustainability. I personally am considering how to distribute my next round of donation dollars. Give all 30 to Bernie or do a 3-way split between him, Teachout, and Grayson. I give Grayson points for asking his email subscribers whether to commit his delegate vote to Sanders or Clinton and then chose Sanders in spite of the fact that he is running for Senate in Clinton-friendly Florida.
We expect to follow his lead if he is denied the nomination. So far all money we can donate is going to Bernie’s campaign. Future donations will be redirected to the strongest like minded down ticket Democrats (and/or others), we imagine as Bernie would.
Already done. It’s a 535 strategy. Send money. Truly, it’s new535, newcongress or something. I didn’t save the link. Strategy to hand pick 400 or so never rans/community activists and support them at one time. It’s the official start of the Sanders supporters tapping into the energy and funds.
There are several such groups forming, some explicitly trans-election.
This one targets Congress:
http://brandnewcongress.org
It’s another plug by ActBlue that has generated over 1 billion in donations. And you want me to believe you need money for travel? You talk a good game but I don’t see any clothing on you.
I just signed up with them not totally committed. But interested.
It is Bernie’s Medicare for All that sucked me in. And I want to see it through.
I skipped the donation page. Couldn’t give money to the group without more inormation and history. But I don’t mind being on their list to see what they come up with.
Yes, that’s the one I saw, that’s Sanders people. No platform and looks like a D recruiting outfit to me. I’d prefer an independent party and an actual platform (12 point platform/reforms works for me). I am aware of people using their credit cards to fund Sanders, there is no way the money train can continue. Might have good intentions but when the first push is for money, I smell grift.
I would not like to be tracked by ActBlue or to donate through ActBlue.
Isn’t there another option? I hope one is found.
There is still the old fashioned method of sending a check directly to the campaign. That way ActBlue does’t collect approximately two percent processing fee and, even better, will not contact you asking for a donation to the party.
50 state organization would be a good start. I suggest you think more broadly outside the electoral box. An issue based electoral organization could be an important component of a movement based in the street/community and job site struggles. All parts would inform, influence, and shape each other. The politics/issues would flow upward from the struggles manifested elsewhere. One obvious problem: elite domination at all levels of of the movement. The structure would have to ensure democratic involvement very broadly defined.
In order to maintain perspective and to build true grassroots power we will need to have “one foot in and one foot out” of the electoral political realm. The “out” is organizing for power on the job, in the marketplace, in our neighborhoods and municipalities. The dynamic between the inside and out can build the framework for change of both: pushing out political corruption, and dispelling the idea that electoral politics trumps (no pun meant) all.
A 10 state strategy…a 3rd party only has to wedge in about 15% to be able to play the democrats against the republicans to have winning legislation that can lead to prosperous futures…gridlock can be played…if people are playing to win…50 states from day one will lead to too many chickens and not enough roosters….
The best result (assuming Sanders does not get the nomination) is for Sanders voters to go anywhere but Clinton, and for Clinton to lose as a result. Those too worried about who might win in this case are trying to accomplish too many goals. The Clinton/DLC cadre has ruined the Democratic Party (or at least turned the US into a one-party state), leaving anything to their left without national political representation. THEY MUST BE REMOVED before any other progress can occur.
Now, will this single loss accomplish this? Perhaps not, and in this case, this turning of the Left’s back on the party will have to be repeated until it does. Regardless of what is happening on the other side of the aisle while this is happening. Because the fact is, in a two-party system such as the US is, not having a party is political death. The Left has to get the Democratic Party back, and the only way to do that is to make that party useless to those who now control it.
+ 1. As disgusting as it may feel, look at what the tea baggers have done. Over time, they organized and put their people on local councils and school boards and elections boards by running against the establishment GOPers to kick them out. Then they took that strategy to state government by threatening and successfully removing any GOPer who didn’t accept their platform. And then to congressional and Senate races, where they’ve scared the daylights out of every establishment GOPer.
If we can accept that the working through the Democratic Party is the only reasonable solution — and that creating a new third party is unreasonable — then this (with a 50-state platform) is what must be done. It can be done because the Dem establishment has ignored state and local bodies for a couple decades now. You’d need a stable of progressives lined up to primary every Dem establishment candidate, from senator down to dog catcher.
Time to dust off the 12 point platform.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. In a very different context, following the 2010 mid-term elections, Ian Welsh said “The left must be seen to repudiate Obama, and they must be seen to take him down.” Here Sanders supporters must be seen to repudiate Clinton and must be seen to take her down. That the GOP fears its base while the Democratic party despises its base is, I think, in no small part because the GOP base will walk away from the party (or is perceived as being willing to do that) while the Democratic base will not.
That does not—and I say emphatically, not—mean people who do that “want” Trump, even if actions like those play a part in having Trump elected. (I’ll leave aside the idea that Trump might not be what he appears or is being made out to be.) It means that they are not voting with respect to that.
Having a major party that fields candidates whom those on the left might actually want to vote for—not to mention who support policies that vast majorities of people in the US want—is, over the long run, better than constantly playing defense in every election and keeping out the putatively “greater [though perhaps less effective] evil” (if that scenario is not entirelly kayfabe). We’ve seen, rather dramatically, how that strategy has played out over more than 30 years.
Sanders’ campaign has demonstrated that the Democratic party is past being “reformed.” It has tried it’s best to ignore when it cannot silence those who call it to account, e.g. Sanders, Warren, Kucinich, and others.
A party on the left is a partial remedy for our now chronic inability to govern ourselves. It does not have to be large, but it does need enough people elected to Congress to break the damnable logjam we’ve gotten ourselves into. Trying to work within the Democratic party will cripple the left.
There are a number of black swans circling, and a long time until July. The Clinton campaign has inspired some fierce loyalty among the deluded and the intimidated, but that sort of cultish devotion can turn quickly. The convention could sure be interesting, as it is virtually certain to be contested. If I were Comey, my window for releasing any indictment would land after Hillary had lost the primary, or failing that, perhaps after the elections were complete. Waiting until after the nomination, if Clinton were the nominee would be more difficult, and if she beats Drumpf or Ryan or whoever, then he has to wait 4-8 years.
What’s Comey’s price (or reward) to bury the Clinton affair?
Named head of the Clinton Foundation after it’s put into a blind trust following her election. Nah, j/k. I don’t think she’d go that far . . . . . . . . .
How about a nice job at Goldman Sachs?
‘Named head of the Clinton Foundation after it’s put into a blind trust following her election.’
This is big … really big. For sure, the Clintons would have to put their personal assets in a blind trust if they weasel their way back into the White House.
But the giant money-laundering operation called the Clinton Foundation is not a personal asset. Bill could carry on globetrotting, raising money for its purported “charitable” activities.
We can depend on the MSM not to pose hard questions like this. But feed it to Trump, and he’ll say anything.
Comey is a dead duck if Clinton is elected and might get a quiet retirement offshore. On the other hand he has nothing to lose by doing his job and the merest move to further the investigation by formally questioning her will ultimately terminate Clinton’s run.
The immense problem facing the Dem party and congress followers is that the FBI has form in having the goods on presidents. They know how to wield the power.
From tidbits gathered online I was under the impression that interviews with Hillary were on the table for the past couple of months. You’re right. News of anything like that seems to have disappeared.
On the plus side, it may also indicate that there are ongoing interviews of the lower level folks while they work their way up the food chain. Whether it’s yay or nay on a Hillary prosecution, I suspect the FBI will want to have everything nailed down, or at least pretend to be thorough for public consumption purposes.
The immense problem facing the Dem party and congress followers is that the FBI has form in having the goods on presidents. They know how to wield the power.
Funny thing, so do Bill and Hillary. And after the careers they have had and the money they have amassed they have a lot of it. Half of Washington owes them a favour.
The idea that the question of whether Clinton will be indicted will be decided by apolitical public servants on the merits of the case if supremely naive. Given Hillary Clinton’s stature that decision is inherently political, and would be even if corruption wasn’t endemic in contemporary Washington.
The real question for Clinton’s would be prosecutors is whether they really want to throw down and go ten rounds in a no holds barred, winner takes all cage match against the Clinton Machine. In Washington when people confront such questions they don’t ask “what abstract principles of pure justice pertain to the case and how can they applied to realize the optimal public good?” Rather they ask “what are the potential risks and benefits of declaring war on the Clinton Machine, versus quietly burying the case and collecting a no doubt substantial reward after Hillary wins the presidency?”
I’m still wondering if Obama will throw her under the bus. After all, all it would take for her server to be legal is for Obama to say “I authorized it”. That hasn’t happened.
The server was not secured and they transferred secure information to non-secure servers. Transfers of secure data to non-secure computers is a crime. Nothing Obama says can change that fact. The server COULD HAVE BEEN authorized to handled non-secure data but no one would have ever allowed her to run a off site server for secure data.
This will sink her campaign.
When?
It’s hard to imagine that a President Hillary won’t be permanently in the crosshairs of the wacko-fringe-that-is-more-than-a-fringe of the congressional Republicans. To the extent one may find that comforting, you can count on the Tea Partiers (or whatever they’ll be called) to keep up a steady drumbeat demanding action on the tapes, with much of the MSM dancing to their tunes.
Skip Intro – thanks so much for that link to the Lauritis analysis of delegate math — not only for the quality of analysis, but for writing with such a great sense of humor. Always delightful to encounter a writer who does not suffer fools ;-)
Ditto. That is a great article, plus there’s a follow-up “Part 2” article here responding to the main issues people raised following the first article.
If you put yourself in the shoes of a Clinton strategist, and if you assume a straight Clinton-Trump fight, there are two obvious strategies to follow:
1. A populist ‘big tent’ campaign, focusing on economics, to try to undermine Trumps appeal to the working classes and bring in the majority of Sanders supporters, and hope that enough ‘moderate’ Republican supporters stay home to ensure a comfortable victory.
2. a ‘centrist moderate’ (i.e. right wing) campaign, which would go all out to attract votes from moderate Republicans in northern and western States, along with a scare campaign to ensure that any Dems even slightly to the left of mainstream will feel they have no choice but to hold their nose and vote for Hilary.
In many ways, no. 2 is the more ‘honest’ campaign as we all know Clinton’s real views are well to the right of most Dem supporters. It also makes a certain amount of sense for the number crunchers. And, as Gaius argues, it will viscerally feel more attractive to the Clintons and their hangers on.
I think a more important question though is which campaign Trumps strategists would prefer to be facing. I think we’ve already seen the answer in the manner Trump has gone all out to attack Clinton and her ‘women should vote for me’ line. I think Trump would much prefer Clinton to take option 2. This allows him to do what he loves – attack his opponents apparent strength. He will go all out to portray her as a puppet of the elites, a flip flopping old style womens libber, and so on. He will bring up Bills indiscretions every single time she tries to appeal to Republican women, and repeatedly attack her supposed foreign policy expertise (and boy will he have a lot of ammunition). He will particularly focus on her health. It will be nasty, but he will do enormous damage.
I’ve thought for a long time that Clinton and the Democrat Establishment as a whole affirmatively want moderate Republican votes and don’t care whether they get Sanders votes or not. Hence, I choose Door #2.
As for Trump, it depends on how well Clinton plays the victim card, and whether moderate Republican women respond to it. It seems to me that Trump has already begun that assault with “enabler.”
I do wonder if it is wise for Clinton to even attempt to play any sort of ‘victim card’. Yes, there is a vote out there, especially among women, who feel empathy for her various trials in the past, but Trump will keep banging on the ‘you are only where you are because of your husband’ line, along with focusing on her privileged upbringing – I suspect she will lose as many votes as she wins if she even attempts it. I can only bring up anecdote, but I’ve a few female ‘moderate Republicans’ in my extended family, and they really, really, hate Hilary in a way they don’t hate other Dems. They see her as a fraud.
Here’s an idea, you don’t get to play the victim card when you chose to play dirty.
Unfortunately, doing both seems to be her main skill.
A sickening spectacle.
Trump has already landed a shot below her “wronged woman” waterline. The S.S.Clinton can’t risk too many more of those.
She is running for President. Which means that she should act like a great leader, not a victim.
I agree.
The success of this victim jujitsu = our pathology as a society.
Honestly if she plays the victim card she is going to seem weak. I mean if she can’t stand up to Trump..how will she stand up to North Korea..or Putin…or Isil?
I think it’s key for Trump to focus on 1) corruption and 2) incompetence more than any gender identity stuff (which we all know is what Dems do best)
These are two things that turn someone from “inevitable” into “toxic”. If Trump spends more time hammering her on the Foundation for things like pay-to-play weapons deals and on her destructive term as Sec. of State, then I think he drives her negatives sky high, the Sanders’ supporters won’t be able to hold their noses and the moderate Republicans will sit this one out.
It’s perfect for Trump because it’s exactly how he demolished Jebbie. He already knows what to do.
Yes, it’ll be similar to Jebbie, but I think a key to Trumps thinking is that he loves to go for his opponents supposed ‘strengths’. He won’t back down over being seen as a sexist, he will instead go full on and attack her standing by Bill. He knows that people aren’t looking for a nice guy as president, they are looking for a winner. He will do everything he can to make her look weak.
Bernie is squeaky clean on trade. Hillary is filthy dirty on trade. Longstanding bipartisan trade policy disasters is the primary driver behind Trump’s popularity as well as Bernie’s.
If The Donald is dead serious about attacking the GOP establishment “free trade” orthodoxy (also the New Dem orthodoxy) he will pull no punches going after Hillary’s touting of the “Gold Standard” TPP while the text was top secret. Trump however does not have the discipline to stay clear of identity politics (neither does Hillary) and stick to real economics.
The polls, the polls. It’s been weeks since a poll had an impactful number of Ds not willing to vote for the D. She has democrats, it’s a turnout issue. Latest poll 75% for Clinton, 11% 3rd party, 11% Trump… another had her with 80% support. Just as with Obama, there is a block that won’t be shifted. Her problem is with independents.
Bernie is still working on the turnout issue for Hillary.
Many polls are primarily propaganda.
Humans are herd animals; they like to ‘go with a winner’ and if a poll can show someone in ‘the lead’ that translates to (often weak) support.
I was at two caucuses in my state this year (precinct, legislative). I talked with my fellow citizens and a few of us who still have land lines got called on those, but as far as I’m aware, one is not supposed to be ‘solicited’ on a cell phone. That has **completely screwed** many poll results, as many Millenials have only a cell phone, and no land line.
This year, the better indicators are probably size of turnouts for speeches, energy-enthusiasm, and small donor contributions.
Polls are sometimes done primarily to ‘steer the herd’.
Don’t be fooled.
The two I listed are exit polls of Ds…. and the trend of Ds is clear, the Ds are gradually supporting the D party no matter the candidate.
Yes, the rallies and small donations are indicative of what would carry over into the general and for Sanders that is even better support among indies.
Except if they are exit polls from primaries, that is ALREADY a pre-filtered group more predisposed to vote for Clinton. Any exit poll — especially from a machine state — reflects the people who were able to register, STAY registered, get to the correct polling place, etc. Since there is plenty of evidence that the DNC and Democratic establishment in the states have used multiple means to keep potential Bernie voters from being able to vote, the exit polls won’t reflect those voters accurately as a percentage of the Democratic electorate — including long term Democratic voters. And generally, especially in primary states, especially when Clinton wins that state, Democratic turnout has been down — sometimes way down.
Even if she is getting 100% of those polled in these exit polls, if that represents a much smaller number of voters than in prior elections — which is smaller both due to lack of enthusiasm for the only candidate many people heard about (so not showing up) plus people wanting a different candidate being prevented from voting, she will lose in November.
That presumes that the Democrats don’t have the ability to steal the General at will. I’ve been assuming they can effectively steal machine Democratic states, like Illinois and New York, but not swing states like Ohio and Florida. If Gore and Kerry lost because the Clintons prevented the party from stealing for those candidates because they would get in Hillary’s way, then she will win in November. But then polling of voters and their relative levels of awareness of the corruption is essentially meaningless.
In other words, these polls were “telephone” polls? Of the sort which predicted Alf Landon’s victory over Roosevelt in 1936?
re: Option 1. Trying to convince voters that Trump is the elitist whereas she is an everyday, hardworking, blue collar girl, just like them won’t work. People know about the Clinton Foundation net worth and how it was “earned”. (Giving speeches is hard work. /s)
I am not sure Clinton will get women. I work with women and work with everyday people, people are very excited about Trump, whereas they hate the Clintons. I am also shocked by the number of people that watch Fox news and they aren’t elderly. The Kochs may prefer Clinton but the average tea-partery they cultivated with Americans for Prosperity never will.
I desperately want Sanders to win, but I think there’s a silver lining to Clinton winning: the global economy will probably crash again within a year or three (obviously hard to pin down exactly, but that seems to be the opinion of economists like Weisbrot/Baker) and if Sanders happens to eek out a victory, it goes without saying that the blame will fall upon him, provided that it doesn’t happen before he is elected and takes office.
The 2008 crash brought us Occupy and that would probably have become even stronger as a movement (at the time) had it already had a structured organization behind it with at least a semi-solid platform of alternatives that people were familiar with so as to know what to ask for when the reporters put a camera and mic in their face condescendingly asking what the alternatives are. Well, Occupy and other leftist movements have made serious headway since then in terms of globally organized movements with actual platforms, and if Sanders manages to structure his following after a potential loss, then not only will they be able to pressure Clinton to address these matters (and it’s important that they do this publicly and force her to publicly say something Clintonian in response i.e. something about how that won’t work in reality), but when the economy does shatter (there also seems to be a consensus that the impending economic collapse will be worse than the last one), then these movements will be ready to offer a serious and viable alternative. Ready to pounce, if you will.
“if Sanders manages to structure his following ”
I like that phrasing.
It is already happening. There was a meeting today of approx forty people at our county Bernie campaign headquarters to look at strategies and starting to organize for taking this new found base past the election and Bernie. Most will stay within Democratic party and start to run for party committee positions and some local offices. As one election law attorney said today ” I am seventy one and Bernie is seventy four so we aren’t going to be carrying this”. It will be about bringing younger people in and look/plan ahead ten years. Strategic thinking instead of knee jerk tactical thought.
Not a word was said about not carrying a Sanders candidacy into the convention. It’s not over.
Taking over the committee positions will be easy. I won my position with out even running. People who knew me at the polls wrote me in. I won with 15 or 20 votes. I did not last long. I also did not live in the state at the time so I was kicked out after the found out that I was still in the process of moving back to the area.
If Sanders people want to take over a state party they can accomplish it in less that 4 years. Most democratic parties are very old and are essentially a network for lawyers. If the rank and file come in they can sweep the old guard out quickly. This is true in the Pa especially and was true of NJ, Delaware and NY but that was a about 12 years ago so my info is of course dated.
I regret not fighting for the seat now. I could have been of some use to the Sanders campaign in Pa. He was blown out in my area.
40 million bucks a month!!! Even half that amount could sustain a very strong “post-Bernie” organization. Waiting for what comes next.
1. If the economy crashes when HRC is on watch, and the response is, as it will be, underwhelming, the main winners will be Repubs. It is then possible 2020 could be a total R blowout at all levels – pres, congress, states – which would put them in good stead for the next decade, New Occupy TM or not.
2. I think HRC thinks she has already given the Sanders’ people as much as they are going to get, with her policy moves in his direction during the primary. As every serious person knows, when you win the primary, you then “pivot” to the general, which for a Dem means saying “just kidding” about all that populist stuff you said during the primaries. If Sanders thinks he is going to continue to pull HRC toward his policy positions, that is just more evidence to support the notion that he doesn’t understand how the game is played (which is basically what Barney Frank says every time he is on MSNBC).
3. I’m with Lambert in that this election is about real policy differences, not personalities. But that doesn’t mean that HRC won’t be the beneficiary of a huge number of LOTE votes. Most people believe there really are only 2 parties.
I don’t think Bernie is seriously trying to pull Hillary towards his positions. He is trying to encourage voters to base their position on issues rather than personalities, and convince them that they have power if they do. One of the consequences of that is being willing to vote for another candidate if they (credibly) adopt your positions, which is why he has to make the offer. But I’m sure he is under no illusions as to how it will be received.
Homeland Security and Fusion Centers all across the country crushed Occupy. It never mattered how organized, or structured, they were, or not. And it won’t matter the next time our mayors, militarized police forces, H.S. and the FBI conspire to crush a movement, either.
Just as a general point to Left in Wisconson and Carla: cynicism is a very dangerous condition. It means that you truly do believe that the power is in their hands and not yours, and that no matter what you try to do, they will inevitably just crush your attempts. That may be true on an individual basis, but not when 7+ million supporters (or however many Bernie has) form a structured movement to counteract those forces.
One of the reasons that the 1% and the right in general are better at getting things done is that they simply know that organization is the key to doing so (hence ALEC and all of the chambers of commerce, etc). Yes, they (the states on behalf of business interests) may try to stop the left, but they simply can’t just crush organized movements using brute force anymore (at least not in the US) because of smartphone cameras, among other things.
Get informed, get involved, get organized. They sure are.
+1
But they did use brute force to crush occupy. Just because hardly anyone was shot does not mean it wasn’t violent.
True, batons and other forms of excessive force were used, and I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end that violence, but everyone walked away alive and no one received any serious injuries as far as I can tell. Also, the police brutality was followed-up and investigated precisely because of video footage.
And as far as your use of the term crush is concerned – Occupy is now exponentially larger than it was then and has sparked numerous other movements worldwide.
I got a laugh out of this one….
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jane-sanders-it-would-be-nice-if-fbi-moved-along-hillary-clinton-email-probe/
Yes, Jane, it certainly would! Nicely stated.
beware the Greens – you can still vote for a female president and not sell your soul!
There are plenty of people in the democratic party who will vote for Hillary just because they pull the big lever, they vote straight dem. Period. End of Story. Include me in that group. Bernie Sanders would get my vote in a general election if he or Donald Rickles for that matter, occupied the dem nominee for pres position. A long time ago, I dispensed with the moral sanctimony over this or that one person. The party as an institution which supports by retaining or expanding upon the public policies that I hold as critical to maintaining the social order is the party I support. At some point in time, it became clear that a faction of what I’ll call Yuppie-Dems took over the leadership and have dominated far too much of the dem party. But they do not completely own it and in my opinion, could see their power end with the last Clinton finally achieving the personal goal of taking the White House. This of course would be the petty personal politics of family dynasty and party bragging rights. The Bush family would have loved to be the only family with 3 winners of the Oval Office horse race. And Hillary, if she manages a 2nd term, would out best the Bush family. But that is as far as I am willing to commit my analytic time to anything other than PUBLIC policy and power, and not personal bests.
As far as the Clintons not giving the Sanders faction anything at all, that translates into letting individual people to have important decision making positions within the administration, the real sharing of power. It would also include Hillary standing with and fighting for those decisions. And if the critics of Hillary are saying that Bernies faction has to come to her and harmonize with her message, I am not seeing the distinction between the 2 of them that makes a difference.
After the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and biological warfare, the need for the transition from fossil fuels to solar power is critically important. And Hillary’s website has a 9 page pdf covering that issue that his been posted for months. So, while Bernie has been sending an important message about the 1% rigging the economy to favor themselves and kissing off the working families of America, he is not really proposing policies that I find important that Hillary does not completely agree with. Namely, the impact of climate change brought about by burning coal, oil, natgas.
Other issues provide no real difference. Even expanding Social Security is an area which she is moving towards Bernie, if not by lifting the income cap threshold, a tax loophole in reality, but by stating clearly that it must be better, expanded upon not eliminated or augmented by special savings accounts from the FICA payroll taxes, which will displace the defined benefit of a monthly pension amount upon retirement. Now, I could go on, covering other issues, including future foreign policy, where Bernie and Hillary are again much more similar than not, but that would miss my main point. Which is, there are a lot of people, such Liz Warren, who should be offered a spot in the cabinet, Stephanie Kelton heading up the Council of Economic Advisers, but won’t be, because the Clintons will reward their friends and punish their enemies.
But that doesn’t mean policies will be radically different from Bernie, just the personnel. What Bernie has been doing is not authentically trying to get elected president, but authentically trying to get his polices taken seriously on the national stage that only a presidential campaign can offer. And, it has exceeded all expectations, and ignited the idealism of the very youngest voters to come out in numbers and participate in the electoral politics of America. Bernie may have campaigned as if he seriously thought he could get elected, and you have to act that way to get the public to support you. I know people who have contributed $100s of dollars, knowing full well that Hillary was the probable winner, but want to put their money where their political heart is, and finally support someone giving a national airing to real policies that will make a real difference. And as his campaign exploded and challenged the presumptive characterization of Hillary as the dem nominee, he imposed a campaign blitz of TV ads and news appearances that set forth a radical message not heard from the mouths of the serious candidates for the White House in ages. That would be since McGovern. And Hillary had to adapt to that message in ways that would not be possible without Bernie’s hammering away on policy demands for making Social Security stronger, better, paying more, Medicare for all, $15/hr min-wage and attacking the tax dodging 1% to start paying their share.
Hillary may not appoint anyone but the usual suspects, but they will have to move on most of these policies because Bernie and her are already in agreement on most policy issues. Hillary can strike back against a person, but not a policy. She can’t start proposing “Drill, Baby, Drill” instead of solar power and not look like anything less than a oil industry bimbo. She may snub Warren, Sanders and people who are aligned with them, and keep them from important roles in her administration, but she can’t back away from raising the minimum wage, which is already going up in CA and NY, 2 states that are pillars of the electoral college votes she needs to get into the White House. If she wants a 2nd term, and carry the dependable Blue states, she needs to dependably produce Blue state policies on a national level, or she might find a primary adversary, a few of them, much more serious about bringing her down and the Yuppie faction with her inside the dem party. There are too many dissatisfied dems, especially the younger ones, who will not wait a lifetime for change to come when they can bring it with 8 years of Hillary making some real progress or begin it right after Hillary’s one and only term and 4 years wasting everybody’s time with republican lite and Yuppie Triumphalism.
What Bernie has been doing is not authentically trying to get elected president, but authentically trying to get his polices taken seriously on the national stage that only a presidential campaign can offer.
Hmmmmmmm who should I believe, you or Bernie Sanders?
I think I go with Bernie.
By the way, good luck pulling your girl across the finish line in November since your candidate decided independants and youth weren’t really important this cycle. I will say this I am totally going to enjoy watching Trump say everything Bernie wouldn’t say because he was too much of a statesman when it comes to throwing the sink at Secretary Clinton. She deserves it and more.
Well, if Bernie wins, I’ll be voting for him. If not, Hillary. Who ever wins the Dem nomination gets my vote. Obviously you are some sort of partisan hack.
so people who care about the actual policies are partisan hacks. got it.
What if Trump runs as a Democrats? Hmmmmm.
Not a problem, he will magically transform into an agent of change to my liking if he jumps on the Democrat Party after Hillary and Bernie both lose a contested floor fight, letting him swoop in as a white knight.
Either you’re a Clinton troll, or one of the few million self servingly-deluded fossils we must outlive before you and your ilk can be swept into the dustbin of history.
Paul is established here and generally says sensible things….but people can have their quirks, and for the life of me, I can’t understand this one.
He enjoys pulling the big lever .. he says it right there in his comment, what more do you need to know ?
He may not be serious about everything he said . . .
Please stop the name calling. Many of us here won’t vote for Hillary Clinton and not because we are partisan hacks.
You said in your longer post above
Not so: (BS / HC)
1. minimum wage: $15/ $12
2. Abortion: Yes/ Certain exceptions
3. TPP : No / yes x 45 then no
4. SS: Increase (payroll tax )/ “protect it” (whatever that means)
5. Reinstate Glass/Steagell ; yes / no
6. Bread up banks: yes / no
7. Free college: yes/ no
8. Fracking; no/ yes
9. Single payer health care: yes / wants private insurance
10. Death penalty; Opposes/ supports
Enuf
I could go on. won’t
Yeah, I think you are right. There is real content to the issue of which faction within the Dems wins. The HRC faction sees no corruption of institutions. I do. If you won’t do something radical about Wall Street you will be surprised about how little change you will achieve. And regardless of what pdf you have on global warming, taking big bucks from oil companies tells me that that is just her negotiating position. If the carbon lobby pays get enough she will accommodate them.
I think single payer is a big poker tell for me. Policy-wise, it’s obviously the best option. If you don’t think that, it’s cos you have other factors affecting you view. Like insurance company profits.
But most of all, I think any politician who was involved in government decisions over the 2008 financial crisis, the ME wars, the opiate crisis, and the collapse of the middle class is disqualified. If you vote for business as usual, you are voting for the end of the Republic.
This is why Sanders wants to influence the party’s official platform, because I think the way it’s supposed to work is that the nominee runs on that platform. Sadly, it appears Debbie has engineered things so that I think the platform, in the end, is going to straight-up rubber-stamp Clinton’s positions. I mean, what’s the point of a coronation if the Queen can’t dictate the terms, right?
I guess what really ticks me off is that Clinton’s never going to do what’s best for the country, she’s always going to do what’s best for her; that kind of hubris does not deserve our votes.
Wow. It is just amazing that the above comment so thoroughly illustrates how communications/messaging have degraded so badly that the openly partisan think they can actually call someone who thinks/acts/votes independently a partisan hack and get away with it.
As Lambert would say- How Rovian!
Agreed. Tough guy talk. Little substance as anyone who has followed CWaltz know.. The Democratic party is moribund and it rubs off on those who cling to it. It is entirely subservient to elite corporate and financial interests except for minor and often local horn toot issues. The rest is theater and one proof of that is that as the soul of the party expires, more and more brute force is being used to keep the audience in tow. MSM capture, organized multi state police crack down on activist movements, use of arcane laws to deal with whistleblowers, police militarization, police brutality and police immunity from the law to generate fear, more and more openly fraudulent voting experiences, and so on. There is your Democratic party and to imagine it will lift a finger to do anything other than further the aims of the global elite (which may occasionally appear to take up a global warming cause or two) is quite simply to ask for more.
Didn’t have enough time to edit this sentence,
Little substance as anyone who has followed CWaltz know-> Little substance as anyone who has read Cwaltz comments here can determine for themselves. Cwaltz is anything but a partisan hack, but then the insult wasn’t really to attack Cwaltz, it was to cheaply use him to burnish Tixion’s “tough guy” credentials and surreptitiously get in a slug at the same time.Let the hippie punching commence!
+1
I noticed the ‘moral sanctimony’ followed by ‘social order’ (what a good little authoritarian!) the ‘Yuppie-Dems’, ‘petty politics’, ‘my analytical time’ vs personal bests.
I was totally confused by Clinton shunning Sanders will somehow equal real sharing of power. No difference? and oil as an example by Clinton who sold fracking as SoS? Clinton won’t include people she needs in her administration but they will govern the same? Oy. Those just hurt.
Sanders ideas are not radical. 70% or more of the public agrees with many of his policies. The plutocrats do not agree.
This is the D base simply marking a box…. is it willful or lack of information that blocks individuals from admitting a difference between anti-democracy plutocrats and domestic social democrats.
I’m pretty sure the definition of partisan hack is voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, just because they are the Democratic nominee(instead of because they’re a good candidate-which SHE IS NOT.)
Nice try though.
Fear not, Hillary will represent you too.
i really don’t believe she can be effective on climate change while supporting the trade deals, i don’t care how many pages on her website are devoted to the subject.
more broadly, the policies the democratic party has embraced are destructive to the public order.
Blah blah blah, if Hillary says she wants to bomb Iran Iraq to the stone age, I believe that. If Hillary says I want 500,000,000 solar panels in the next the 8 years, she’s a lying sack of shit. Because you are fair and balanced and know a lie when you see one, something you disagree with, and the truth when you see it, something you agree with. Blah blah blah, you’re dime store analogies are a dime a dozen. The Democratic Party has policies that have shut down 200 coal fired power plants. That is an improvement of the public order. That’s if you like to breathe. You do favor breathing, or you don’t care if people breathe or not, as long as trade deals are to your liking?
“we came, we saw, he died”. one could just go by what she does, in evaluating how credible various statments are. the democratic party has also supported offshore drilling, waffled on keystone for several years, hasn’t prosecuted the insiders for financial fraud, or the war criminals for, well, war crimes. both clintons and obama are no better than republicans on many issues. since i care about issues, and don’t want to vote for dinos anymore, i’ll vote for stein.
your whole argument depends on the premise that there are not highly significant differences between the policies supported by sanders, and the democrat establishment. that is not the case, 9 page pdf’s notwithstanding.
“The Democratic Party has policies that have shut down 200 coal fired power plants” Really? The fact that those plants were old and falling apart in combination with the low cost of generation by natural gas had nothing to do with that, I suppose?
This is just like listening to Democrats insist that people vote for them to protect LGBT rights, when the fact is that those rights have been advanced and protected due to direct action and court decisions.
Statements such as yours might be given some weight on other sites, but I think you are wasting your time here.
+1
Aside from the vast differences between Hillary’s platform and Bernie’s, the difference between bombing Iran and half a million solar panels is that the first has the backing of Wall Street and the MIC, while the latter has the support of… no large industry with massive amounts of power.
Hillary says a lot of things (and even posts pdfs to her website!). But what she actually fights for and achieves is always and only what the most powerful interests in our country and world want. And on top of that she’s incredibly corrupt (weapons deals for Clinton Foundation donations, and skirting campaign finance laws using 32 state parties to create a massive slush fund being only the two latest egregiously corrupt maneuvers), and quite incompetent (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, her ridiculously insecure email server). If all that’s not apparent to you by now you’re willfully deceiving yourself.
When Hillary was up for re-election as Senator in NY, and the Patriot Act was up for renewal, I wrote her specifically about her vote regarding the Patriot Act. She wrote back telling me she was not happy with it and would not vote for it as it was written at that time.
That was my biggest concern then (not including jobs and Upstate NY – equivalent to oil and water then and now), so I voted for her. Then she voted for the Patriot Act as it was written at that time.
A small, maybe insignificant, example but what good reason would I have to ever believe what she says again regarding anything? My experience shows me that she says what people want to hear and then continues her support of the neo-liberal economists and neo-conservative war mongers.
As a side note, Paul, regarding your statement above, how do the 43% registered Independents in this country fit into your definition of partisan hack?
The independents are the hacks of rugged individualism. Like the first American citizens who did not even conceive of political parties, or factions as they liked to say, soon found themselves gathering into groups with like minded individuals. Of course, they gathered together in their factions over petty personality clashes. Jefferson vs Hamilton is a prime example of the rise of the American political twin party system, based wholly upon personal hatred and animus and jealousy of these 2 men and their competition for power, who would get the blessing of Pres G. Washington and who would eventually assume the august mantle of Pres of The US for himself.
Independents are certainly entitled to do as they please. By not associating with the parties they hold to be not worth their time for whatever reasons, they can stand all by themselves, as individuals and come into vote as they see fit in elections, but always with the smug condescension that they are above it all, and will not be corrupted or co-opted. They don’t want to join. Fine.
Bernie is running for the presidency to be the nominee of the democratic party. If Bernie is doing so much good, and has so much political substance, then why is he running in such a corrupt vehicle as the democratic party?
Independents are not any better than the card carrying members of whatever political party is out there. I am sure there are plenty of Independent hedge fund managers, stock brokers, lawyers, doctors, media execs and on and on that stand above it all, while profiting from the current economic arrangement. And of course, if the discussion is about the democratic party and will Hillary bring Bernie’s voters into the fold, there just has to be some attack on the party without addressing the subject at hand.
Changing the subject because you don’t know anything worth discussing about the democratic party, other than it is corrupt and what it may or may not do at this critical juncture of Bernie vs Hillary makes you a garden variety hack, an independent one, but still a hack. You have no insight into the party, but just your personal individuality. And if there is a meaningful discussion about the value of the democratic party, it would undermine the certainty that party affiliation is a complete waste of time. Why bother discussing what a moribund organization will or won’t do? As an Independent, anything that political parties are good for means you probably will not have much influence, so political parties have to remain permanently relegated to irrelevant status by claiming they are corrupt, evil, ineffective, captured or whatever else can be seen as a short falling.
By not caring for anything good that may come out of organized politics, but just maintaining your personal stance, makes you a hack. Not you personally, but the 43% of independents out there.
whenever it suits them, I notice that party hacks bash the Independents.
“If Bernie is doing so much good, and has so much political substance, then why is he running in such a corrupt vehicle as the democratic party?”
I believe it may have something to do with actually getting on the ballot.
+100!
a much more succinct response than what I was typing up
Obviously neither of you understand the obstacles created by both parties to keep a third party from gaining power. It requires an enormous amount of money and manpower to get on the ballot in 50 states. Also, there is no primary for an Independent party either, which is why some states allow for crossovers and Independents to vote. The resulting chaos would be crazy.
Actually I believe we are agreeing with you. Sanders is running as a Dem precisely for the reasons you state. As an independent he would have had to fight for ballot access and publicity. I’m well aware of how much time and effort both major parties will expend to keep 3rd parties off the ballot.
In Maine when Tom Allen ran for Senate a few years ago the Dems fought harder to keep a lefty 3rd party candidate (who would have been lucky to crack 5% in the general) off the ballot than they did fighting against Allen’s republican opponent. Allen had his ass handed to him anyway.
we aren’t talking about a personal stance. we are talking about collective action to either change or bring down the corrupt democratic party, as well as the corrupt republican party. collective action doesn’t have to mean supporting war, massive inequality, trade treaties which make mitigating climate change vastly more difficult, torture, and drone assassinations.
we can collectively act to make our lives better, and those of our children.
“If Bernie is doing so much good, and has so much political substance, then why is he running in such a corrupt vehicle as the democratic party?”
I’m not a political or electoral expert but I believe it may have something to do with actually getting on the ballot.
sorry for the redundant replies – 1st time around seemed to go into a black hole
Interesting reply. Of course, I have some quibbles :) First, though, thanks for leaving me out of your definition of hack.
Second, definitions are always important in a discussion (particularly political discussions) and I’ve always accepted this definition of political hack:
A political hack is a negative term ascribed to a person who is part of the political party apparatus, but whose intentions are more aligned with victory than personal conviction. (or another common slang definition – an untalented professional)
Based on this definition, I don’t see how any registered Independent could be any sort of hack, let alone a political hack.
I am registered Independent, and not because of smug condescension. I registered to vote as an Independent when I was 18, 47 years ago. I was naive, to say the least. When it came to National Politics, although I did understand to a small degree the birth of our two-party system, rather than possibly registering with a Party that I knew little about, not to mention I had one parent registered as a Dem and one registered as a Repub, I chose to go Independent until I learned more, quite the opposite of smug condescension. I suspect I’m not alone.
As for insights into either Party, why would a registered Independent have less insight into either the Dem or Repub Party than any of his neighbors registered in one or the other? Anyone involved in National US Politics, if he or she is paying attention, has insight into both parties to some degree. And deep insight is relatively rare among the majority of either Party. I think we all agree a lot of it is just rooting for the Team, and an awful lot of that rooting is based on what the Parties say they represent and not necessarily on what they actually represent, and do. The National Democratic Party is a prime example of that when it comes to Unions and the working class, as is the National Republican Party when it comes to supporting Small Businesses.
A clear example of this is both Parties’ strong support for NAFTA and other Trade Agreements designed to, among other things, flatten wages as much as possible across the Trade Partners’ domains, hurting both wage workers and small businesses at the expense of large Corps that have the wherewithal to take advantage of these agreements.
As for not caring for anything good that may come out of organized politics, I don’t believe that is true of most Independents, at least not the ones I know. The ones I know care a great deal and support many specific individual politicians in both parties, depending, of course, on the issues they feel are most important to them and their community.
But understanding that a lot of bad things come out of organized Political Parties is also possible, particularly possible by the vast majority of those registered in either the Dem and Repub Parties that have little to no influence on those National Parties, mainly due to the fact that they don’t have the monetary power to influence them. We have all seen many studies that have shown this to be true and we all can cite lots of examples like the one above, so I won’t bore anyone with more of that.
I don’t see why my, or many others, remaining Independent is an example of smug condescension. Donating time and/or money and/or votes to Democrats or Republicans I believe in has happened. I just have a hard time supporting the overall platforms of either, not based on what they say the platforms are, but based on their past votes (and by votes I mean actions) towards general policies I do not agree with. And no matter which Party I would potentially register with, my feelings would probably remain the same… unless I decided to become a political hack, of course.
Were there not substantial policy differences between Hamilton & Jefferson?
Complains about party hacks.
Then complains about Independents.
Uh… What? Have you read your own comments after posting them?
Every argument he puts forward is half-baked and illogical. He also conveniently ignores all the pointed responses to his initial post. He’s trolling.
Nah. They completely own it.
That read like someone who did not live through the last Clinton Administration, or Obama’s for that matter. They really don’t care about the “sanctimonious purist” vote once it is in the bag. It is all propaganda, all the time with them.
They will ultimately do what they want to do and find someone to blame when it turns out to be as unpopular as predicted. Whether it is a vast right wing conspiracy or the “professional left” there is never any lack of people to blame, and they are never responsible for the results of their own actions.
Why not? That’s exactly what Obama did. He mocked McCain-Palin’s all of the above energy policy and then explicitly adopted it when elected, with barely a wimper of complaint from anyone. And all of the above really meant drill-baby-drill, with fracking replacing coal. Why? Because that is what the confluence of Wall Street and Big Oil money wanted. I have no doubt Clinton will do just the same. In fact, one might posit that Obama was just warming the seat for the Clintons and conditioning the Democratic Party into believing it is better off without the Left. Which, as Lambert has repeatedly and presciently predicted, and GP’s current article illustrates, appears to be precisely how Clinton intends to run. And, with Trump as her opponent, this strategy probably makes political sense for Clinton. But make no mistake: there is no longer a place for Progressives in the Democratic Party. Do what you will in response to that fact but a fact it is. Obama demonstrated it. And the Clintons intend to prove it.
Obama was liked and coming off of 43. Also, he was an obvious empty suit despite the hyperbole tossed around. Admitting this is difficult. Clinton’s real problem is the primary universe is a fraction of the necessary Democratic total to win in November. Hillary 2008 for all her campaign faults would be clobbering Hillary 2016. If Sanders and Clinton weren’t that apart, the rally around the flag and token candidacy of Hillary would have ended the election ages ago.
The bulk of voters are likely tired and not willing to just embrace a random Senator who is never on the 630 news, still the number one media outlet, and annoyed by broken promises about Healthcare and the economy. The Republicans nominated a robber baron in 2012, and Obama and his supporters made all kinds of promises about how he would be different in a economy term. People with budget concerns aren’t answering polls and have cut land lines.
Hillary isn’t holding mass rallies because she can’t. She’s expected to be the next President. People will turn out to see the President or next President. The Democrats have been running on fear for some time. They might conclude Sanders supporters are the problem, but the real problem is why isn’t Hillary doing better or producing crowds to rival Sanders or even Trump.
On the one hand, HRC is suffering from idealist voter disillusionment with Obama. So 2016 was always going to be a harder campaign for her than 2008 once Sanders found his footing. On the other, it seems that only new young voters (and us NC readers) are still idealistic enough to hold her to a higher standard that she is capable of meeting, and thus will not vote for her in Nov, so I still think she walks to victory in the fall.
If she wins it will be stumbling barely across the finish line. Once she gets there she might not like what she finds either. The GOP Congress is going to perform a 4 year rectal exam on all things Clinton. Issues like the Foundation, the email server, the money trail aren’t going away.
Heck, the electorate may even think the carnival barker that the GOP is offering up is a more honest broker despite the differences between what he says and what he’s done.
+1
My response to you, Paul Tioxin, is Andrew Levine’s
“What is the Democratic Party Good For? Absolutely Nothing.”
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/2726
Dear Carla,
If the Democratic Party is good for nothing, what is Bernie doing running as a dem for the nomination of the party’s presidential candidate. Why isn’t he running in the Green Party or some other non duopoly party? This specific topic is SUPPOSED to be about her and Bernie’s campaign. It is supposed to be a discussion about how much Hillary is attracting Bernie’s supporters. So unless you think Yves is a simpleton to waste her time and anybody else that wants to see social reconstruction through the electoral process and all comments should simply start with “I HATE HILLARY AND SO SHOULD YOU, OR ELSE YOU SHOULD SHUT UP AND NOT RESPOND TO POSTS ABOUT HILLARY’S FACTION WORKING WITH BERNIE’S FACTION”.
That is not a discussion. The topic is not how deathly toxic is the democratic party, the topic is:
“Will Clinton Attempt to Bring Sanders Supporters into the Democratic Fold?”.
If you are driven out of your minds by me actually writing about Hillary as if I am taking this as reasonable discussion, and not just another mindless exercise in denouncing someone I don’t like or you don’t like. Too Bad. I know that there are readers who come here to get some perspective. I mostly write for them. It is quite clear to me now, that the only common ground on NC is how the banking collapse has hurt us all deeply. Most of the ridiculous responses to my post about the possibilities of a Hillary/Bernie rapproachement seem to indicate an utter contempt for my point of view, it is not the person, it’s the policy. And getting some of the Bernie policies into the dem platform, getting some more national attention at the televised dem convention, will go a long way to normalize the type of policies characterized as Democratic Socialism. And that Bernie and Hillary already share much common ground in many policies.
But of course, the goon squad that showed up for me was only looking for those special words: I HATE HILLARY. Lacking that meant dispensing with any discussion about what or even how Bernie’s campaign can continue past the convention. So it is all not in vain, and the legions of young citizens do not collapse into despair, cynicism if they do not get any thing at all or get even just a little bit of what Bernie campaigned on, which stirred them to action.
I hold out some hope that there will an inclusion of some of the policies Bernie campaigned on that will be included in the dem platform, that will be proposed by Hillary if she gets into the WH, and that will be passed into law and signed by her. Of course, this is all a discussion under the heading of Clinton bringing Sanders supporters into the Democratic fold. That is the point of this one discussion.
You can despise me all you want, I am not good for nothing. The dems where I live accomplish plenty. We do it anyway dealing with people like you who can always find fault, because as bad as I am, I am as good as you are. The national democratic party is heading for a reckoning if they don’t include what Bernie has stood for in their platform and in their actions in DC. And maybe that is who your good for nothing comments are directed, but remember, it is a big country, we all don’t live and breathe inside the Beltway of DC.
Well that’s a good answer!
But don’t you think the classic HRC bait and switch needs to be punished or they will keep doing it? Are you sure there is more harm in voting Trump than in voting business as usual? Cos I’m not sure at all!
If the Democratic Party is good for nothing, what is Bernie doing running as a dem for the nomination of the party’s presidential candidate.
What a straw man argument to Carla’s point about the Democratic party! Bernie ran as a Democrat because there was NO CHOICE. A run as a Green Party candidate or other such would have been a non run. And Sanders has been perfectly clear the party IS dying; it changes top to bottom, inside and out or it is indeed good for nothing. What is there about “revolution” you don’t get?
And what’s this business of using Yves as an implicit club for your POV and your assumed right to be a bully?
I take offense at you falsely claiming I support your point of view.
Hillary will never, never, never adopt Sanders’ positions save at most as a bait and switch, and even then she’d be loath to because it would offend her funders. I don’t know what you are smoking. She is a high end grifter. The fact that she’s taken huge amounts of money from foreign donors via the Clinton Foundation while Secretary State on its face should be criminal.
She is loyal to her big money backers. She identifies with them. She doesn’t care at all about the peasants. Any gestures she makes are that only. The fact that women are suckers enough to think she’s on their side is remarkable. The only women she is serious about helping are her fellow elite travelers who want to break through the glass ceiling. For ordinary women, her position is that abortions should be “cheap, safe and rare.” Even now with the right trying to restrict abortions, they are not rare, and her saying they should be rare is really damning. Similarly, she didn’t support gay marriage until 2013, when she really couldn’t not support it. And this is on social identity issues, where it’s safer for her to pander to her base than on economic issues.
Your really need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Yves
Why do you even bother posting the writing about Clinton bringing Bernie’s voters in the democratic fold? Did you want to have a discussion about this or not? Did you think anyone who happened across the article would not try to look at it as a legit question? If you are predisposed to think her and her campaign as never giving the time of day to Bernie and the “peasants” he represents, what was I supposed to talk about? If you take offense at the mildest of analysis, that the policies of Bernie, but not Bernie himself or his supporters from the Progressive caucus or Warren, may be included in the platform and acted upon in a first term and if not, she will face a real primary challenge just what am I suppose to think?
That is a reasonable presentation of the probable candidate for the dems and probable elected president and not some screaming political pep rally for Hillary and denouncing of Bernie. You are solely cited for your editorial choice in presenting Gaius’s discussion, which I only assume you see some merit in having. I don’t assume to hide behind your skirts as cover. I don’t think I can be any clearer.
My biggest domestic and global issue is support for solar power transitioning away from fossil fuels. She and Bernie are 100% on board with that. It is simply a fact that is one of their policy common ground issues. The democrats don’t care at all about oil or coal or gas being promoted any further. What ever small attention they pay to it is summed up by the fact that virtually all of the money from the oil energy industry goes to republicans, except for a few hundred thousands dollars recently to Hillary, over 97% of all dollars goes to the republicans. They hate solar.
It is these areas of common ground I base my discussion on, since the topic was published by you to begin with. I’m not sorry I answered the question, I’m just sorry that it seems so hard to listen to a few facts that may lead to hopeful outcomes, simply because I have to actually talk about Hillary and her policies when the question is posed about her and Bernie coming together in some unified front at the dem political convention.
—————————————————————–
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=e01
The first chart on this site shows the top 20 energy firms contributions of almost $30mil with less than $400k going to Hillary, the sole dem on the receipt list for 2015-2016. She gets less than 2% of the political donations. There is very little compelling evidence to show that she or the dems in general will do a whole lot for oil or gas. Coal seems to be near death. Obama has been coming out against off shore drilling, federal land drilling for oil or gas and new coal mining leases. On the way out the door, he can throw road blocks on the fossil fuel industry and promote the solar and wind industry. Bernie and Hillary are going to continue in that manner and the money donated solely to the republicans will ensure it. That is a reasonable conclusion to make. I hope I’m right for the sake of mitigating the emerging climate disaster starting to brew right now.
We are not all binary thinkers. NC’s biggest appeal to me is that the commentariate are definitely not binary thinkers. The “my party, right or wrong” line seems binary to me.
Exactly: for the party insiders, the motivation is power and a paycheck; for the rank and file it is base tribalism.
You’ve now broken two house rules: an as homimem attack on a fellow commentor (cwaltz) and not reading a post yet commenting on it.
Clinton is NOT trying to bring Sanders voters in in any serious way. She thinks she deserves their votes as a matter of right if/when she knocks Sanders out.
Gaius makes it very clear that Clinton is only going to make empty overtures to Sanders voters. But he does so deductively and you couldn’t be bothered to read at all/that far.
Dear Paul Tioxin,
Just to clarify: I don’t despise individual Democrats. I despise the Democratic Party.
And while I certainly do not despise you, I do find it difficult to respect the position you stated: “I’ll pull the lever for the Democrat candidate no matter who he/she is or what he/she stands for.”
I wonder if you even read the Andrew Levine article I cited.
Of course he didn’t. Million dollar troll, perhaps?
Well, Im pretty sure hes been here commenting for years and I don’t remember him doing anything like this before.
I don’t think hes a troll in the sense that hes doing this on purpose.
“I’ll pull the lever for the Democrat candidate no matter who he/she is or what he/she stands for.”
So, if the Democrat actually has the same or worse policies than the Republican, you will vote Democrat because… Because what? Because youre one of those ‘party hacks’ you claim to hate so much? I don’t get it.
My father, drunk or sober…
I’m voting for gridlock.
“:…she can’t back away from raising the minimum wage…”
Really!?!?! Do you remember all the talk about the Employee Free Choice Act that the Dems promised they would promote if only they got Congress back? They dropped that like a hot rock right after the elections were over. Closing Gitmo? Didn’t happen, didn’t even try.
The Dems can and do back away from any number of nice sounding campaign promises and the rubes never seem to catch on. They do it not because of the nasty mean old Republicans but because they want to. In fact sHillary’s minions even came out publicly months ago in one of the MSM papers saying she would have to pretend to go left during the primary to fend off Bernie but she didn’t really mean it. Can’t put my finger on it but I believe the article was linked to here.
Don’t forget that she came out against the Keystone pipeline because it’s a distraction not because of any actual issue.
I think that “distraction” is a more appropriate term than she intended.
Please show me where Clinton has said she wants to expand Social Security. As in links with exact statements.
I don’t buy that at all.
She has been signaling that she wants to “protect” Social Security. That means not make it pay as you go (which it actually effectively is despite the trust fund), which means either tax increases or benefit cuts.
Yellen, Clinton appointee to the CEA, has long been pushing for “chained CPI,” which would cut SS by having it lag inflation (as in change inflation measurements so that the inflation increases are lower than now). Bill wanted to privatize Social Security, and it was the Monica Lewinsky scandal that derailed that.
Hillary is a neoliberal economically and a neocon. She’s going to spend even more on war. That means less for domestic social programs. She’s made remarks consistent with means testing Social Security, which turns it from a universal safety net to a welfare program. And Bill also showed what has happened to welfare programs over time. They get cut since why do the poor deserve anything?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwnKRchSjL4
Here she says how to get more money into the the trust fund. Not just protect it. Expansion and extension. Not privatization or cat food actuarial tweeking.
I just spent 4.5 minutes of listening to the equivalent of fingers on a chalkboard so others don’t have to.
Did you watch the whole video? Clinton claims to want to raise the cap to increase funding and gives a nice little stump speech. Then the moderator mentions that Sanders wants to raise the cap and that Clinton was opposed to doing so in 2008 and asks point blank if she’s in favor of raising it above $120K now at which point Clinton starts in with the equivocation. Again. You can see her become much more nervous when confronted with the fact that her position has suddenly changed with the advent of Sanders campaign. Sanders has been consistent in his positions for decades while Clinton continues to have her finger in the wind.
Got anything from before Sanders started scaring the pantsuit off her? Otherwise I’m going to assume she’s lying. Again.
Okay
It’s all a big lie. I’m from the CIA and you are doomed.
Sincerely,
Paul F Tioxon
What?
People call out the video for something it has in it, and you make… Some kind of conspiracy theory joke? Are you serious?
“Bernie and [Clinton] are already in agreement on most policy issues”
I disagree. In Clinton’s first 100 days, it’s very easy to imagine TPP, a Grand Bargain, and a war. Not so with Sanders.
And the fear of this keeps me awake at night.
Thinking about your gridlock comment elsewhere, Is Trump actively the answer? I don’t see that stuff happening as swiftly under him. I could be totally wrong…..
In point #3 from Seth Abramson’s piece, you get a great view of Clinton’s shadow.
3. It turns out that neither Hillary nor her staff ever had any respect for Sanders, his supporters, or the causes he (and they) have championed.
How do we know? Well, a campaign’s press secretary is — by definition and responsibility — its mouthpiece. So when Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s mouthpiece, said publicly after the New York primary that Bernie Sanders and his campaign had been destructive to the Democratic Party and the nation, you know that’s exactly what Clinton thinks, too.
Had Clinton fired Palmieri or publicly admonished her, one might think differently.
Instead, silence — which, in politics, is assent.
This is almost an echo verbatim of Lloyd Blankfein.
“It has the potential to personalize it, it has the potential to be a dangerous moment. Not just for Wall Street not just for the people who are particularly targeted but for anybody who is a little bit out of line,” Blankfein said. “It’s a liability to say I’m going to compromise I’m going to get one millimeter off the extreme position I have and if you do you have to back track and swear to people that you’ll never compromise. It’s just incredible. It’s a moment in history.”
Blankfein avoided saying whether he supported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though both Clintons have long ties to Blankfein and to Goldman Sachs, which has been a heavy donor to Bill Clinton’s charity work.
She won’t release the speeches.
—–>She’s with Them.—–>
Edited: Originally had wrong name in reply
Might as well say “Lord Blankfein,” since in the view of many millions, his slightly invisible House of lords pulls the puppet strings on the new money house of Commons and its nominees such as HRC, and people are increasingly explicit in their sense of opposition to the feudal monarchy thrust upon them.
The peasants remind each other how HRC blamed homeowners (in addition to banksters) for the mortgage fraud GFC.
What would be incredibly funny is if the Judge presiding over the contested NY primary threw out the results on Monday on the grounds that the primary was unconstitutional.
Obama should have lost re-election based on his economy and treatment of the Dem base, but I think blacks saved him. Who can blame them for turning out in record numbers to vote for one their own?
But Hillary won’t have blacks to save her if things go the same as they did for Obama come re-electioin. Blacks will vote for her in good margin as they are now, but likely won’t turnout for her like they did for Obama.
And that could throw an election to Republicans.
Actually it was Romney being a billionaire plus being caught out with his derisive remarks about the 47% who don’t pay taxes (when they all do, sales taxes, RE taxes even if they rent, embedded in their rent, gas taxes). Oh, and putting his dog on top of his car for a long trip (cross country?) lost him more voters than you would think. It was the Republicans’ election to lose and they managed to do that.
All Sander’s supporters should burn down the house. In a swing state or a state looking close? Vote the hairpiece. In a state that won’t contest one way or the other? Pick a third party of choice, or write in the Bern.
Don’t give this woman your vote, she doesn’t deserve it. If Bernie ends up playing the sheepdog I am going to be quite disappointed.
I am amazed, as Shakespeare says, at posters on here who seriously advocate voting for Trump, or for a “third party.”
I have little or no ability (or desire) to refute the contentions made about Hillary. Bernie wants to change things; Hillary wants to be President.
But Trump! To treat him as a possible alternative! And then to discuss his “policy positions” in a serious way! He doesn’t have policy positions, he has twitches, like the wall (which he’s stuck with) and he has itches (like that for Megyn Kelly, which, to his rage, he cannot scratch). He doesn’t have enough brains to have an idée fixe, so his mouthings change with his audience (except for the wall, which he’s already mentioned so many times that he’s stuck with it).
The arguments that Hillary’s defeat “will change the Democratic Party” or “end the corrupt Democratic Party” or “teach them a lesson” seem to me to ignore the fact that we are running out of time. South Florida and Virginia Beach are going under water. And when they both do go under water, will this change Republican positions? No, indeed. Donald Duck will say, after much hard thought, “I think probably it’s a bad thing.” Ted Cruz will say it is God’s punishment for letting people use the wrong bathroom.
Yes, we have many other pressing problems. I picked one as an example that won’t go away unless something serious is done to oppose it, and we do not have four or eight years to twiddle our thumbs and say, “Oh, dear.”
I am the hack that Paul Tioxin wrote about (and I think he has his tongue firmly in his cheek). I will continue to send Bernie and Zephyr money, and also to Paul Canova (who is Debbie Wasserman Schulz’ primary opponent, if you didn’t already know). But on election day, I will color in all the Democratic circles on our brand new NYC computer-read ballot. I don’t presume I can change anybody else’s mind. If you really think we’d be better off with a lunatic Donald Duck as Prez than with Hillary, go ahead. No offense intended. It’s a democracy (so far). But if you stay home and don’t vote, not only will you get Donald Duck, you may, down the ballot, get more Trey Gowdys and even a Sharron Angle. You’re not forgetting them, are you?
Confusion to our enemies.
I can’t fathom why anyone would pull the lever for the clearly greater of evils. I can only hope you live in a state so blue that it doesn’t matter.
This life long Dem is headed out the door (from the DNC, not NC).
I have no interest in associating for people who,
whatever platitudes they temporarily spout to get your vote,
are secretly thinking `f*cking ret*arded sanctimonious purist’.
My strategy for the Fall will be looking to see which `centrist’ Dems are doing worst in the polls
and then contributing to their GOP opponents. Fewer and better Democrats.
right behind you. people are talking about a coordinated effort when 10s of thousands of us leave the party the same day. dunno… just tossing it out there.
that sounds like something the media might actually cover, if only to castigate us as uninformed millenials.
lol. i have millennial children.
The Dept of Elections actually have the data. They have detail on how long individuals have been registered, as what and which elections people have voted in.
I am planning to change my registration the day after the Indiana primary May 3. Find out how your state handles this and then do it. Send a message to the DNC!
I did the same thing here in AZ, Molly. I switched back to indie status after our stolen primary.
Don’t change party until after the convention in July, just to be on the safe side. If you do that, and it turns out Bernie needs delegate bodies, you won’t be able to offer to be one of them.
What about all of us who did this years ago? But when we did it, there were no 10s of thousands to keep us company. All I can say to the multitudes is Welcome to Ex-Dem-land !!!
Yes. Now I know why the Dem party is always courting the next wave of the “youth vote” – and freaking out (see B. Clinton’s millenial comments) when that goes wrong.
Shorter DNC: “We went to fancy colleges and our working class voters are easy to fool with cheap political tricks because they’re dumb, dumb, dumbity dumb.”
Please don’t bail out! You are playing right into the hands of the establishment Dems. Aren’t we seeing how difficult it is for anyone (Bernie, in this case) to run against the establishment Democratic candidate? What’s one reason why this is the case? Closed primaries. Only registered Dems can vote in the primaries. If you leave, then it’s even easier for the establishment candidate to win delegates and ultimately, the nomination.
Fight back by staying in the Democratic Party! All of Bernie’s supporters should register as Democrats. Not to elect Hillary, but to take back the Democratic Party. Like it or not, we are stuck with this two-party system for the time-being. The establishment Dems will be happy to stick with their neo-liberal, neo-con agenda without a “yuge” wave of registered Democrats throwing them out of power.
The independent ranks are getting larger and larger. As it is, the Democratic Party has been crowing THIS cycle that only Democratic loyalists should have a say in the candidacy or that only Democratic loyalists should have been allowed to run.
That’s fine. However, they don’t get to whine in 2016 when none of those independent voters don’t vote for their candidate and they lose. Live by the party, die by the party. The party is going to deserve it’s march to being irrelevant. They should listen to the Independent candidate that’s trying to help them- it’s change or die time for the Democratick Party.
cwaltz @ 5:12 pm
“The party is going to deserve it’s march to being irrelevant.”
Yup. An animal generally has the intuition and fortitude to gnaw off its own appendage to free itself, should it become ensared. The Party has its Achilles heel stuck in a bear trap. It’s gonna die there.
ensnared. i needs me an editor in the wurst way.
I left the Dems years ago. Reregistered this year to vote for Bernie. Now I’ll rereg. as an independent/unaffilitated. Yes, the primary/caucuses are important. The DNC/RNC doesn’t own that game, although they think they do. Registering and reregistering as needs be lets independents vote where they think best without being captured by ether machine. Some states have a looong lead time on registration to try and block this. See NY for example. But it can be done. Without too much hassle, as it turns out, if you know the cutoff dates.
Of course, if the machinery decides to purge your registration, or mysteriously switch your party affiliation at the primary, or shut down voting stations for “financial reasons”, the machine won’t change those tricks change because people remaining loyally registered to the party.
Oh, the long game. The item that’s gets tossed out right after Supreme Court. If you would only try a little harder, donate a little more, ask a little nicer, the next great candidate is just around the corner.
Fool me for 25 years, shame on you, fool me for 35, shame on me.
Um, when you have the Presidency, the House AND 59 or 60 votes in the Senate and still can only manage to pass a health care bill that is not the same plan put forth by Republicans over twenty years previously BUT updated by lobbyists from the Insurance, Big Pharma, and the private medical industry to provide even less service for higher costs you have already proved that the long game and electing more Democrats is a boondoggle. And lets talk about that Supreme Court canard…
But why let facts get in the way of conning the public.
+1000. I cannot believe how many Democrats sincerely believe that Obama and the Democrat Congress were Powerless in 2009 against the stubborn Republicans.
In reality, the Dems could have passed anything Obama wanted. I still want to know what happened between Obama and Kucinich on that plane. It takes nerve to stand against a president from your own party.
And our president didn’t want health care for everyone. That’s obvious.
You might find the following of interest:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2016/04/28/falsehood-voters-are-kept-from-political-involvement-by-the-rules/
For those who don’t want to click off site, my attempt at a precis:
Many people misunderstand what primaries are all about. Getting involved in party politics means showing up repeatedly, not just once to vote. If you show up repeatedly, you can influence not only the candidates who are offered in the general election, but also the state party platform and, perhaps eventually, the national platform as well. It’s a lot of work, but real change is certainly possible… it just doesn’t happen at the ballot box.
Greg Laden? Oh good grief. People have been members of the D branch of the money party for decades, gotten effed over repeatedly and the party is fully right, not just center right.
An example is the statement on this page that ‘everyone knows’ boots on the ground aren’t boots on the ground, because lines have to be moved to demonstrate that the Ds aren’t very much the warmongers Rs are.
I’m right in line behind you.
I’m put in mind of bank switchers: I’d banked at the same place over 20 years. I always assumed, death, bank fees, and taxes were just an inexorable part of life. Then 2008 happened, and I started reading about banking, finance, and was shocked and appalled to realize what trivial social or economic value TBTF banks actually created, to say nothing of how much they spent lobbying.
But I still kept all my accounts in a TBTF bank for several years.
I was frustrated, but not enough to take action.
And then, one day, yet another small, seemingly tiny aggravation occurred in one of my accounts.
I walked in and closed every single account.
But I would not have predicted that I would actually take that action.
And I think that a similar kind of ‘switching’ or ‘departing’ is happening today with respect to political parties and voting.
People can take just so much.
They don’t tend to torch a place, as much as they just want to find a simpler, affordable alternative that fulfills 90% of what they need and seems to have integrity. People are looking for reasonable alternatives, whether for banking or political outlets.
The people at the DNC, and in the Clinton campaign, who think that those of us who:
— saw years of savings go up in smoke,
— have watched as superstorms increase intensity and destructiveness, while Hillary took money from Big Oil
— have been taxed to underwrite TBTF ownership of houses in Sprawlville that should *never* have been built in the first place,
— have watched as people at the tippy-top got wealthier by the year,
— have waited politely for Hillary to release the Goldman-Sachs transcripts, to no avail
— have realized that our taxes subsidize Wal-Mart and other employers’ refusal to pay decent wages to their employees
— have asked, “Where in hell did all those arms that ended up in Syria originate?!” (answer: Libya)
— have paid higher premiums post-‘Obamacare’ because we’re still underwriting health insurance behemoths,
— have watched The Fed pay out helicopter money that has pumped up the stock market but cost savers dearly
This of us who gave Obama the benefit of the doubt in 2012 (rather than Mr Hedgefund), are not going to march off the cliff and vote Hillary. Not this time.
We’ve had enough bait and switch, thanks all the same.
Anyone at the DNC and the Clinton campaign who thinks that those of us watching what has played out deserve contempt are simply delusional, and I know the type — and I’m sick to death of their parasitic insolence. I’m sure there are plenty of political science majors and law degrees in the bunch: been there, done that. (There, but for the grace of God, go I.)
I have the sense that many people are, like myself, kind of surprised to find ourselves ‘over the Dems’ or ‘over the GOP’. It’s like some vast, quiet national divorce; we’re done fighting, let’s just move on.
It’s a strange parting of ways, and in my own case, both with banking and with Hillary, I didn’t actually see it coming.
Thank God for Bernie and credit unions and those super-smart other Bernie supporters that I’ve met this spring.
They’re funny, and they’re energetic, and they are raging against bullshit.
They give me hope.
Yup. For some reason, the general wake up (perhaps incomplete) is occurring. In the US & Europe, in every identifiable area, whether war, finance, migration, geopolitics, or corruption, people are getting disgusted with the elites’ blatant incompetence. You don’t even have to pick a specific issue.
Hillary is doomed. The FBI can now legally hack any computer and they have Hillary’s email server + they have her IT manager with indemnity agreed, + they have Guccifer the hacker in custody plus they have likely restored those 30,000 deleted emails. Now whether the FBI proceeds or not they have Hillary Clinton (Madam President?) in their hands.
I am sure Hillary Clinton’s party and Congressional colleagues comprehend the enormity of that situation!
A reckless lack of judgement by Hillary has entirely compromised her standing as a feasible US President. Get with sanity, feel the Bern.
Agreed. Hillary supporters have their heads stuck deep in the sand on the email server. She committed a litany of serious crimes there focused around breaking confidentiality laws. Not to mention all the Clinton Foundation emails she deleted that they most likely have access to now either from her server itself or from Guccifer that will show large Foundation donations from both sides of the arms deals she fixed as Secy of State. Sooner or later she’s going down for this garbage. It appears Clinton hubris finally went too far.
I suspect the FBI feels it can get more out of this episode by letting HIllary win the Presidency than by doing what the law requires and indicting her now. Pretty much all our institutions have been deeply compromised and the FBI, even ignoring it’s colorful if rather slimy history in that direction, is no exception. Think of the absolute control the FBI would have over the Presidency!
I would love to be wrong. It would be a true deus ex machina for Sanders who would go on to win Trump in a heart beat, which is why I don’t think I’m wrong – how many times has that happened in our history?
Nah, that is a flawed plan. Between control of the AG’s office and the ability to pardon people after they take the fall for her, the President would be able to make that go away in a hot minute. And while it would add fodder to the Congressional investigations, that still doesn’t give the FBI control.
Nope, the question is ‘who do they want to be President’ and how best do they achieve that? Trump, they start the indictments in October. Sanders, we start seeing movement in the next two weeks. Biden, the indictments start happening in the two weeks before the Convention. (And yes, I do believe the leadership would throw the first ballot and move to Biden on the second.)
But I don’t see the blackmail thing really working for them.
Good points! We’ll see.
The laws regarding diplomatic security all center on “unauthorized use”. If the President authorized the use of the server the whole investigation is moot.
Flames are causing the smoke.
If there is a case, they will cross all the t’s and dot the eyes and and lower case j’s. Taking down a President is a huge deal especially Hillary. If they trip up, Hillary will come after them.
Hillary isn’t a random, disaffected Muslim 20 year old being entrapped. Normal thugs don’t take on a Hillary type without a certain sense of safety. The thugs in the FBI are too busy arresting “terrorists.”
I’m always amazed at the Hillary amnesiac followers ignoring the Clintons investigation years. Independent counsel Star investigations (1994) headlined the Clintons’ Whitewater (investigations started in 1992- prior to the presidency) and Bill’s what is “is?” perjured blue stained dress for 5 years. Were taxpayer dollars wasted? Sure. But that’s not the point. The point is the media will headline the email-server scandal immediately with all the repubs soundbite target missiles aimed at the Clinton shock and awe scandals.
Frankly, a Clinton II presidency would follow their same hubris pattern beginning with the email-server scandal. The republican majority congress with the Koch brothers backing guarantees a repeat with Hillary as the focus and of course, Bill has his bag of tricks to add to the anticipated investigations
While this is going on Hillary will be working with Repug Congress in promoting GMO, fracking. She’ll show leadership by flag waving looting social security and sending Americans into danger to do what Netanyahoo demands.
What has been termed as A reckless lack of judgement by the upper echelon lands lower level people with Security Clearances jobless, much smaller bank accounts, and possible short jail terms. Democrats included.
As someone who is familiar with what it takes to get and hold a clearance, including multiple, required yearly, hour-long seminars on the subject, I can confidently say that this has left a very bad taste in the mouth of clearance holders, including registered Democrat clearance holders.
Perhaps for the ones who understand the importance of security clearances even if its over protective. Hillary did quite well in Maryland and Virginia. Of course, those are pork ridden states. Any sane government would begin redistributing federal spending, moving whole departments. Those over priced bed room communities are at risk along with the mortgages.
If the government undertakes sane spending practices and understands Keynesian multipliers, no one would willing live in Nova outside of old Towne Alexandria. Realistically, why can’t cabinet department X be in City Y given modern communications? The Washington metro area is a transportation nightmare.
A person expecting to sell to pay off a mortgage and move to a lower cost of living city in Virginia or Maryland or where ever home is does that care about security clearances. Other than government spending, Northern Virginia is a swamp with a few nice places such as Mount Vernon.
Upon election Hillary will increase the FBI budget 3000% and order them to take the lead on terrorism, especially the terrorism of domestic non-conformist thinking. Case Closed! Successful!
An FBI whistleblower could make a difference. The power of the individual should never be underestimated.
Trump is the Lesser Evil. At least you know what you’re getting with him. As some guy interviewed by the Wall Street Journal a week or so ago put it, “Trump speaks before he thinks while Clinton takes a moment to think up new lies before she opens her mouth.” With Hillary you’re getting a war criminal, a compulsive liar, a hypocrite,, a Zionist war monger, a capitalist tool. With Trump you’re getting a racist and misogynist but at least he’s no war criminal (yet). Damn them both but especially damn Clinton.
About Trump’s racism… I think the problem with Trump isn’t that he’s racist, it’s that he’s obnoxious/rude about it. Dems are perfectly happy to pass policies that they are aware will be racially applied to the detriment of poc. The Clinton’s policies are the perfect example, and to make matters worse, it is repeatedly pointed out to them how racist their policies are and they double down.
Yes, Trump fired his US workers and brought in visa workers. The Clinton’s crime bill, militarized police, private prisons, corrupt financial policies and trade deals have destroyed more lives than Trump could ever dream of.
I am a 35 year old woman who remembers voting for Bill – Dad took little preteen me into the voting booth with him to teach me to take pride in our democracy. Our family were extremely loyal Democrats: Mom has a picture of her with Carter in a place of pride on her mantel; they taught me the Dems were the party of the people who fought against the Republicans, who represented the power of unrestrained wealth and capital.
Years of neoliberal policies later, I consider all of it to have been a lie cruelly perpetrated on my parents. As a favor to my aging mother I voted for Obama in 2008 even though I told her his open admiration for Reagan meant his promises were likely to be empty air. I left the party for what I thought was for good after I was proven right.
I came back to the Dems this year, only to vote for Bernie. I’m leaving again if he’s not the nominee, and I’ll never, ever be back for any reason. I look within myself and find my hatred for and anger at the Clintons and all they represent to be so fierce it’s honestly a little frightening. I wonder how many of me there are out there?
There are a lot of us. The Clintons destroyed our party. Sure they had help, but they made it happen and made it stick. We will not forget as we slowly and painfully build something new out of the ashes and spend the first half of the 21st century, at least, rebuilding what we once had. People forget how many fought and died to make the New Deal and the union movement happen, only to watch their sacrifices die at the hands of a smiling con artist and his Republican wife from Arkansas. None of it was necessary. None of it was inevitable. We were sold out.
Reposting this because of its importance and relevance to this discussion: http://coreyrobin.com/2016/04/27/when-neoliberalism-was-young-a-lookback-on-clintonism-before-clinton/
I hope so. I’d even consider voting for Trump out of spite at this point (well, that and a gridlocked government is a government that’s not moving even further towards the cliff) and the thing is I am personally doing very, very well in the Clinton economy. We can’t afford to buy a house (because we live in Boston) but my spouse and I are debt free and making what years ago I would have considered crazy amounts of money. Of course everything is more expensive now, but still.
The point of saying this is not to brag – but that if yuppie little me is this upset, the working class must be about 5 minutes from violent revolt.
I had a crazy conversation the other day with a bunch of legal aid lawyers – the heroin epidemic is so bad in towns outside of Boston (Fall River, etc. – all the old industrial towns) that fully 50% of my age group from those places are now dead. I said “oh god, it’s the CIA’s crack epidemic all over again! We don’t want to give them jobs or welfare so we’re just going to flood them with cheap heroin and hope they die off.” There was a long silence. I thought they thought I was a crazy conspiracy theorist so I said “That was a joke.” Another long silence. Oh shit.
Its not a joke, as we know. The current heroin epidemic is the result of an expansion in prescribing of pain meds over at least the past 10 years, largely due to the lobbying and urging of Big Pharma. Especially Purdue, the makers of Oxycontin. People got hooked by prescription and with the black market price of a single 80mg oxy at $50-80 many switched over to the much cheaper heroin.
But was heroin always this cheap and plentiful? That’s not coming from the pharma companies. …I wonder if this is somehow tied into our Imperial adventures in Afghanistan.
Of course it is. Production had exploded with the northern alliance now protected by the us, and the US military is a very efficient route into the country like all militaries always are.
When the Russians were fighting in Afghanistan, the soldiers smuggled the heroin in via the zinc coffins they transported the dead back home in.
But the oxy is very useful to establish a market.
Afghanistan. It really is that simple I’m sorry to say.
Now you understand the fight between Corbynites, and Blairites. I voted Blair in his first election win. Now I would have him hung.
I’m old enough to have actually voted for Clinton. I can honestly say that I have only mistakenly voted for both Clintons and Obama once each. In 2008, I did think the contrast between McCain/Palin and Obama was enough to justify throwing the dice. by 2012 I realized that the only thing that could be said as a difference for Obama was he was likely more effectively evil than Romney. I do have to say that I was probably wrong on that, largely because John Kerry has been such an improvement at State from the last three Secretaries. Even though we are about to fuck up the Iran deal, that still was something better.
As this is a closed primary state I won’t be changing my voter registration, but I will never be a sure bet voter for the Democrats ever again. I no longer believe in the LOTE is automatically the Democrat. No I will not vote for Clinton or to return the neoliberal Senator. I can only hope this is the beginning of a real revolution where people don’t stay home, but can no longer be considered ‘reliable’ by the Democratic Party leadership. It is long past time to demolish their idea that ‘where else are they going to go’ has any basis in reality.
I voted for Obama to vote against Palin. McCain was old and what, a 3 or 4X cancer survivor? Not sure he would hold up under the stress of office. Needless to say, I am not happy with that vote, but I rationalize that it was in New York and didn’t affect the outcome.
I did the same, and voted for Obama again in 2012 in order to vote against Romney. In retrospect, it was a mistake to bother the second time ’round. The distinction between the 2 men was small. The only advantage to having Obama in office again was that his presence in the Oval Office assured gridlock. The Republican Congress would not act in concert with him — not even to pass acts they favored.
Looking back on the ‘do nothing’ Congress of the past 4-6 years makes me question the intensity of their surprise in the face of their base’s turn to Trump. They have known for years that their voters are bored by “conservative” legislation, and motivated by thwarting the Others (all those young, brown and black people who live side-by-side with professionals in the coastal cities). They’ve acted in awareness of this fact for years………. yet they’ve been stumped by Trump.
Very well stated…and quite similar to my own evolution since my first vote for Clinton in ’92. For me it’s a more visceral realization. Either (1) they punch me in the face, steal my purse and toss me in the river (2) take me out to dinner and roofie my drink. I’m tired of waking up the next morning wondering what the hell happened last night. At least with beau #1 I know what to expect. Sorry I was watching “Nights of Cabiria” last night.
A moving comment!
I’m certainly one of you. My eyes were pretty damned hard to open, but Obama was up to the task.
+100 Although never really a devotee of party politics I was pretty sure that the Democrats were the best– until this election season. The craven manner in which the Dem Party has pushed Hilary on us all and the disrespect shown Sanders is reprehensible. Even apart from Clinton’s negative record as SS she is s truly awful candidate. I doubt she has a chance in h*** against Trump.
Shorter Hillary: be a good sheepdog and wag your tail. I suspect one reason Sanders has hardened his line as the campaign progressed is that he came to realize there’s no staying on the good side of these people when it comes to disputing their power. HRC is a true heir to Nixon’s paranoid style of American politics and like Obama she will be Nixon without the liberalism or without Nixon’s undoubted intelligence (for all the evil). Which is to say there may indeed have been a vast rightwing conspiracy but whining about it is not the response of a good politician. With Hillary as president it will be payback time all around. She’ll show Sanders who’s boss and Putin too.
There is bad blood between both of them now and that is definitely part of it. Hillary is nothing if not arrogant and giving in to anything even remotely Bernie like is simply not a dish she wants served up in any manner.
Second, gaining Sander’s voters would be a tough uphill battle because most of us know how fake she really is and her strategists likely believe she has a clearer shot without even attempting it.
That said, it would be a mistake to underestimate Hillary’s disipline. If anything changes with that dynamic going forward, she will react accordingly (it should go without saying that any sudden embrace of Sander’s ideas, no matter how diluted, will be Hillary in her purest form of lying).
The unspoken judgement being made (to Clinton and to “insiders”) is that disgruntled independents don’t vote, so they don’t matter. And going by turnout trends, this is true; “independents” turn out in presidential general elections at around 40% compared to 60%+ for Dems (and even higher for Reps). In non-presidential elections, indy turnout has been much lower.
So to become a political force, job one for Sanders people is to vote every chance they get. This will put them on the map statistically, and campaigns and “policy makers” will literally “see” them, and take them seriously in strategy considerations. Without a consistent presence at the polls, a movement’s policy ideas are all but irrelevant (and are even discredited).
Job two is to hoist, support and elect Federal, State and Municipal level candidates to promotes one’s legislative and administrative goals.
Demonstrations and social media presence are all fine and well, (and letter campaigns actually work, on a one-off basis), but until one can prove that one can elect one’s candidates, one is essential invisible in the political sense.
I hope it goes without saying that this is how the Tea Party reshaped State legislatures and Congress. So there is no question that the strategy can work. Again; in this game, the actual quality of political/policy goals is secondary (or even irrelevant) to the performance at the polls.
As far as the Presidential votes go, one can vote Green or leave the category blank. But casting a ballot, and voting in down-ticket races, is absolutely necessary.
My personal experience with the Greens as an organization is mixed, and voting Green makes the Green party a player in a way that I don’t think they have earned (yet), so I’ll be considering the leave-it-blank option.
The turnout in the 2014 midterms was a bloodbath. In some states, they hadn’t had turnout numbers that low since the early 1800s (no typo). Turnout in the Dem primaries for 2016 is ~25% below 2008 levels. Given that the 2012 and 2014 elections were the worst for the Democrats up and down the line in their history, save 1996, I would not bet on Dems turning out at prior levels, particularly given that Hillary has disapproval ratings of 55% now and only rise with more exposure.
Brand New Congress…I just sent them a small donation and my 3rd one to Bernie…don’t leave the Democrat party, go kick the f*cking door down, chase the grifters out and make it democratic again. Lazy liberalism allowed the Clintons to take over and follow their worst impulses just by not minding the store.
Brand New Congress…ex Bernie staffers taking up Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy…no election uncontested from the left.
Actually Brand New Congress intends to use both sides of the aisle and independants as well(so absolutely no reason to stay with the Democrats.) I’m not sure how that will pan out for them but I do admire them for at least trying to change the landscape instead of just rolling over because the DNC wants them to.
Having been lectured by professional/managerial hillary supporters, I’m somewhat amused by tioxin’s take, a lot of words, kind of touchy feely stuff, but only one policy, a 9 page pdf on solar. Now let’s get real here for a second. In the event that hillary imposes a solar plan on the nation it will go like this. The gov’t will buy the solar panels, they’ll build the factories to make the panels with gov’t money, then they will hand the working operation to the private sector who along with goldman sachs will profit massively. This is getting in front of a riot. People are putting panels on their roofs and threatening the uninterrupted gusher of cash to utilities, a popular source of money for banksters. I know utility executives who consider this a giant problem. Is the gov going to hire solar installers to put rooftop solar on peoples houses or make a solar field with a meter on it. Hillary is about the money, and so is the professional class that supports her. And that’s the only thing they’ve got. A two paragraph preachy condescending comment with one lame ass justification for voting for more of the same. Clinton supporters fail to see how what are now legacy democrat policies have harmed the people they so condescendingly insist must continue to support their classist policies (o care, bank bailouts, QE to infinity and beyond, privatisation schemes, protectionist trade deals, lets call them what they are free ain’t it, surveillance state, I could go on and on and on…..)but all you’ve got is solar panels, bernies not for solar panels? If you truly care about the democrat party you should ditch hillary, she’a republican and if you agree with her policies, whatever they are, (I still see zero content from her campaign) then you’re a republican too and should switch parties along with all the rest of us and leave the democrat party in the hovel they built for themselves.
Unfortunately some states are actively preventing energy independence, mandating that if one installs solar panels one must feed the energy into the grid–for little or no fee. (In some cases, one must then pay to buy it back.) The powerful energy companies penalize people who want renewable energy, because renewables and self-sufficiency hurts their profits.
Energy grids are a problem with renewables due to their inefficiencies. Small-scale local networks and energy self-sufficiency where possible would be better.
I’m not sure if/how this can be addressed at a national level rather than at state level, but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Hillary Clinton is now a known international war criminal, like her dear Henry Kissinger. She supervised the destruction of the bombing of all of Libya’s water infrastructure. This is a war crime, to bomb civilian infrastructure…not to mention there was no war. They not only bombed the pipelines, the irrigation systems, but also the factories that make the pipes, leaving the Libyans to starve to death, and now NATO and the US are blockading Libya to keep people from escaping.
BHO has said Libya was his worst mistake. Hillary says it is a work in progress. Yes, murdering those people is in progress. Aside from that the Repugs are going to swift boat her…see the movie trailer ClintonCash for a taste of what’s coming. Trump is quite a piece of work, but he has none of the substantive crimes in his background that Clinton does. It’s going to be quite a show.
Obama said not adequately planning for the aftermath was his worst mistake and preceded to blame Europe.
Yeah, cuz saying “I was an idiot for believing the jerk I had to install as Secretary of State had a clue about the best action. Logically if you want to be President you don’t want a bloody disaster hanging around your neck and so you avoid falling into the trap of satisfying the ridiculous need to swing an imaginary dick to appeal to people who are never going to vote for you. My bad, I should never have given her that much credit.” just wasn’t an option he could take.
Clinton to take hard line with Sanders, say allies [The Hill]
Where `part of the conversation’ is Clintonista for `talk to the hand’.
Definitely a formula for success.
What will Bernie do? How committed to a political revolution is he? If this is any indication, we may be disappointed again: From Howie Klein at Down With Tyranny:
Can The Corrupt Democratic Establishment Buy Off Bernie’s Movement?
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2016/04/can-corrupt-democratic-establishment.html
“This has been made painfully more complicated because Schumer has explicitly threatened Bernie with loss of the Budget Committee chairmanship if he interferes with Schumer’s corrupt conservative candidates in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. The Schumercrat in Ohio has already beaten the progressive and Tuesday will either find Schumer without a candidate or having to accept that Pennsylvanians don’t take orders from a sleazy and despised New York ward healer. Florida’s primary, pitting Bernie endorser Alan Grayson against Wall Street’s (and therefore Schumer’s) top choice of the cycle, Patrick Murphy, isn’t until the very end of August. It will be interesting to see if Bernie even pays lip service to assisting the grotesque candidates who espouse the essence– the way Murphy does– of everything he has built his movement to oppose.”
As we know now, Bernie did not “interfere” with those races and Schumer corporocrats won.
If people are disappointed, it’s because they are ignoring Sanders words and actions. He’s always been a D in everything but name. His revolution has always been through the D party. He is very clear he is not running third party or independent.
I do think Sanders is necessary to a third party or org. I have never believed he would participate. His supporters are trying to get a new group going and while I believe you need expertise, they strike me as establishment. If it is establishment groups, I always watch for the grift.
Since surveys often tell us more about the person or group asking the question than the person asked, I got this a couple of days ago and wanted to share a bit:
Official 2016 Democratic Party Survey [excerpt questions]
Section II: Policy Priorities
2) Please rate the following … in order of importance. (1 = most important)
__Make it possible for more American workers to earn sick days and family leave
__End gender discrimination in pay and ensure women receive equal pay
__Close tax loopholes and simplify the tax code so that corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair shares
[That’s it! 3 choices!]
Section IV: Democratic Party Priorities
1) Please rate the following Democratic Party goals in order of importance. (1= most important)
__Protecting progress achieved by President Obama
__Pushing President Obama’s new initiatives through GOP opposition
__Keeping a Democrat in the White House
__Winning back control of Congress
__Electing more Democrats to state and local governments
__All of the above are equally important
[Paradox: so if “all of the above” is #1, just how does one go about numbering the rest, exactly?]
Granted this is a ‘lead-by-the-nose’ questionnaire to raise money for the DNC, most of the questions are yes/no/not sure or check ‘all that apply’ questions, but note these options all assume that DNC has been on the right track all along, nothing could possibly be wrong. While I would suspect the GOP also uses the same tactics, I don’t have their “Give us your money” for comparison.
Well, it’s my opinion that the survey is meaningless; I don’t think they really want to know what’s important to us, they just want our money so they can go about doing whatever it is they’ve decided needs doing. So…I’ve taken to making confetti out of the survey, the letter and the original envelope it came in, and mailing all of it back to them in the handy-dandy postage-paid envelope provided.
I don’t want that trash in my house, and even my recycling bin is too good for this stuff.
I work too hard for my money to waste it on an organization that doesn’t give a flying fig what I think.
wow, that tirade is awesome. frighteningly educational about how some people think. to see such an attack on those whom i think are in the majority here is… what can i say? Clinton is evil personified in today’s world. at least to people like me. the Greater Evil is Clinton,while Trump is.? i have no clue. so i would have to choose the lesser of evils if i were to vote. and i hate Republicans and the Quisling/Vichy Democrats who enabled the transformation of American society into a Lord of the Flies world. frightening to be able to see such “fear” and disgust inside of me. lashing out is so easy.
Partisan Hack. i probably need to get a T shirt that says that along with the DFH label. being “right” usually requires age to incur the educational/learning about how stupid or ignorant i was before, learning from my mistakes, if i am lucky. like voting for Obama or Clinton. proof of my naiveté, lol. as the Who said in one of their songs, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” well, at least i’ll do my best not to get fooled again. in America with their Manufacturing Consent paradigm, that is a difficult talk.
The Green party doesn’t exist down here, Louisiana, and doesn’t stand a chance in hell of ever being “allowed” to for that matter. so i read all this pro Green stuff as extremely regional and wonder what country these people live in. not the same one i do, unfortunately. The South is a country in and of itself.
Wow. wanting “leaders” to lead and not to screw me over is being a partisan hack. i never knew!!!
learned something new today. thanks!
Well, no (and Louisiana is included):
Well we would ask the same question of you. But then, you already answered it.
You have my sympathies.
I sympathize with many, as it’s difficult to wake up, only to learn you are trully eff’d.
As it has ever been in the 21st century.
I teach building trade classes to a group of young adults. 90% of them are adamant Sanders supporters and will so vote in the California primary. One supports Hillary. The rest like Trump and will vote for him in the primary.
If Clinton is anointed? Most of the Sanders supporters say that they will vote for Trump in the general election. These are pragmatic working class kids who know that their future has been shafted and they are angry.They are in no mood to perpetuate the fraud that has befallen them and their parents.
A simple question to ask Hillary supporters is: What has the Democratic Party done for Working Class people in the last thirty years? Well, there’s raising the minimum wage and the Family Leave Act and then….?? Nafta and the de-industrialization of America, led by the Center Democrats and Republicans has more than negated those alleged gains.
Adapting a classic film script to present day circumstances, I present a dialog between a young person who supports Bernie and an older person who knows the score:
Quinlan (young person): Come on, read my future for me.
Tanya (older person): You haven’t got any.
Quinlan (young person): Hmm? What do you mean?
Tanya (older person): Your future’s all used up.
For those old enough to remember:
If you liked Richard Nixon, you’ll just love HRC!
No you won’t.
He got us out of Vietnam, she would have doubled down.
He proposed universal health care( not good enough for the dems.
He said “we’re all Keynesianism now”, she’s not.
He would never cut SS.
I’ve said for about four years that it was pretty devastating to have a Democratic President make me nostalgic for Richard Nixon. I’m now terrified to find out who I would find a relief by two years into the Clinton 2 administration.
The best scenario that I can imagine will be that Obama (fearing a tarnish on his legacy for quashing a high-profile FBI investigation) will treat Hillary as a “made-man” like General Petraeus by instructing Justice to administer a slap on the wrist with a misdemeanor charge and fine.
Hillary can then claim that it was simply a process error and that she has atoned through her bravery and humility by accepting responsibility for her totally innocent mistake. After all, Petraeus was retained as a white house consultant after his ‘speeding ticket’ for mishandling classified information.
I will vote for HRC when she can show us the letter F in the word “weigh”.
This is the kind of thing that makes me want to vote for Trump (if Bernie doesn’t get the nom) even though I recently stated that I would never vote for him because of racism. EFF HRC!
It doesn’t matter what Clintoris attempts to do. She’s never getting my vote. I’m old enough to have voted for Reagan in his first term, and I will tell you that the Clintons are the best thing that ever happened to the neo-cons/neo-libs. Either the party knuckles under to Bernie, or they become irrelevant.
I can see the Rs become irrelevant and the Ds claim the big money constituency, which has been the goal of each since Wild Bill Clinton induced both parties to race to the right.
So I’d like to ask who took down my comment from the early morning hours of April 30, 2016, and why? Since when do humourous jabs at Trump get scrubbed AFTER appearing on-line as posted?
You are out of line. No one scrubbed your comment. You put it on the wrong post. I don’t take well to false accusations. And since you made me waste my time, I’m not telling you where you did put it.
Check this out: The Push to Make Sanders the Green Party’s Candidate
(Nobody asked me but yeah – NO!) And if negotiations break down, how about the Skunk Party?
This is not a negotiation, this is a fantasy of some Greens and some Sanders supporters. Please don’t misrepresent where things stand.
From the link:
“negotiation” may be overstating the case but I do like the idea of this “fantasy”. I’m thinking of voting Green one way or the other anyhow.
Perhaps the real question is whether a third party would solve anything, at least in the long run. TPTB probably have enough money and influence to buy 3 (or 10) parties if any alternatives to the duopoly succeed. Maybe the best we can hope for is a breath of fresh air every once in a while. I remember a line from the PBS series on the Roosevelts (in this case, Teddy): “We bought him but he wouldn’t stay bought.”
A third party would solve a great deal. It requires not just a platform, but getting knowledge of the candidates. Sanders got the knowledge, support, money, moved up in votes and delegates and is walking away. He never had any intention of running third party. If he was serious about the issues he discussed he would, but his supporters are more serious about the need for drastic changes than he is and it’s painful to watch them try to get him over the finish line while he, for the most part, refuses to support other candidates nor attack the Ds and Clinton’s specific corruption.
With the vote rigged from start to finish, Clinton doesn’t need Sanders’ endorsement. This is simply the kind of ritual abasement Bush put Colin Powell through: torch your cred for me. Demonstrate your fealty by making a fool of yourself. Pretend to fear that poor little bottled-up spider Saddam Hussein.
Same here. Hillary is forcing Sanders to bend the knee and discredit himself in front of his supporters as a tool. Sanders is being punished for opposing the CIA’s choice.
Ask yourself if Grayson would do that.
Sanders is at the WHCD. Obama joked about Sanders fresh new face and his $27 donations. I’ve always loved the WHCD… where the plutocrats get together for a little self indulgence and mock their crimes. I wonder if Sanders got a photo op of him and Jane going for a stroll into the dinner, it has been found to be such a down home example of how they are such humble people.
Please respond the multiple frantic requests for donations before the end of the day. They have a deadline to meet. ka-ching.
You are getting more and more shrill and desperate in your efforts to demonize Sanders, and all it does is prove how weak your arguments are
So the fact that Sanders goes to the White House Correspondents’ dinner is, according to you, proof that Sanders is sucking up to plutocrats? If he wanted to sell out, trust me, he knows the price is higher than a rubber chicken dinner and speeches he’d probably rather not have to hear. And you have the temerity to mock Sanders’ success at raising money from small donors, when your heroine Jill Sanders has no popular following, and for good reason. She’s not remotely qualified, never held an elected office, never wrote legislation, and never even managed anything as complicated as a dog pound.
If anyone here is a chump, buddy, it’s you, not Sanders backers.
You are purposely misreading commenters. It is not shrill and desperate to point out that Sanders is a moderate Dem. He is/was the best chance to get some desperately needed shift on critical issues. It is not shrill and desperate to be disgusted when the plutocrats and their courtiers get together to mock their crimes. It’s rubbing it in the public’s face. It’s sickening.
What the he@@? ‘I’ am not mocking Sanders donations. The plutocrats are mocking Sanders donations! And yes, it sickens me that a candidate is participating in such a revolting spectacle. Clinton is rightly criticized when she is at an event with the 99% and then goes off to a fundraiser, but Sanders can’t be criticized for being with union members and then going to THAT garbage fest? Voters are always going to hold candidates feet to the fire in theory but never in actuality and it’s disallowed to criticize a friggin’ campaign? Are you kidding me?
My heroine Jill Stein? ha!ha!ha! Geez, I find her to be opportunistic and thin skinned. She was actually mocking Sanders supporters and now is trying to have open arms. The greens platform is fluff. I’m in CA, my vote doesn’t matter but I still try to come up with a presidential strategy. The green party is non-existent/irrelevant fluff but I MAY mark a box for Stein. Still, you can’t get over when I wrote to link to her twitter, IT WAS A JOKE!
I need to get some errands done because our Labor Temple is having it’s caucus today and I met a couple of people that are Sanders only and want an independent org outside of the Ds to carry on with I want to vote for. Gee, look at that…. individuals can be critical of a candidate and keep carrying on.
Again, I donate to Sanders, have registered voters for him, run around in gear, have it on my belongings, bring up voting frequently, will participate as support in canvassing. I will debate the candidate I support. I will discuss the policies, positions, campaign, who they choose to surround themselves with, and their chances to win that I agree with and will likewise criticize the same.
Chump my @ss.
Truth be told Henry David, you have sounded a bit sanctimonious in your condemnation of Bernie’s tactics. I feel your pain but it’s his campaign to run and only he (and perhaps Jane) knows who he is inside and what he hopes to achieve in this election cycle. One thing is certain as it pertains to his ardent supporters and everyone else who is paying any attention at all to what he is saying. The system is truly rigged in favor of the wealthy and powerful and has been for a long time. This isn’t news to me or you but it really is to millions of desperate citizens, both young and old. Let’s see how this all plays out but in the meantime, let’s keep supporting each other in wanting something better for all citizens. As I’ve said in other comment threads, I would be satisfied if both legacy political parties would self-destruct. Then we could start to rebuild locally and form new national alliances from there.
Political moderate here, with occasional strong leftist leanings. Clinton had better be careful. There is a lot of anger, frustration, and angst among the majority of working and non-working Americans. Expectations were high after Obama’s inauguration, but one-by-one, most Americans – even those that voted for Obama – have had to enter the world of extreme confirmation bias to keep supporting him – even in spite of the fact that the GOP has been an anchor around Obama’s neck
I read somewhere (can’t find the cite), several months ago, that 80% of *new* jobs in this so-called recovery paid between roughly $7.50-$13.00 per hour. If the minimum wage had simply kept pace with income growth in the US, it would be just over $21.00, today.
http://inequality.org/minimum-wage/
And we’re arguing about a measly $15.00 an hour? It’s a travesty.
I really worry that if the GOP gives Trump the nod that he could win, in spite of all the polling that currently shows him losing badly to either Democrat. There is something about Trump that stimulates the darker side of what Freud labeled the”Id”.
If Clinton insists on defending the status quo, my instincts tell me that she is going to slide vs. Trump. I don’t know if that slide would be steep enough to give Trump a win. but I get an eerie feeling when I think about it.
I was sure that America would never elect an “actor” (Ronald Reagan; I was sure that California would never elect Schwarzenegger;I was absolutely sure that an ex-drunk faux-cowboy (Bush) would never even get close to the White House, no less get elected to a second term.
When I look back on those events, I realize that in every case I had the same feeling that I do now, about Clinton. She doesn’t connect. Reagan connected; Schwarzenegger connected; Bush connected (the “good old boy” routine). What those experiences taught me, and what my own conformation bias made was loathe to let me admit, was that I could “Feel” that connection from Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Bush – I almost liked them – even though I was extremely opposed to what they stood for and voted against them in POTUS elections.
When I talk with old friends and their progeny – all middle class folk, many of them moderate, who lean slightly left, I get that same eerie feeling I had when Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Bush were running.
Bernie Sanders stands for something that is unique in American politics, today. Bernie has his finger on the pulse. His policy details are somewhat wanting, but he hasn’t had the luxury of years and years to refine them in a way that leads to one white paper after another. Nevertheless, Sanders is someone I “feel” I could trust to carry out – at the very least – the *gist* of his promises; and, courageous enough to call out the GOP and members of his own (newly found) party if they tried to frustrate his agenda.
Polls show Sanders winning by larger margins than Clinton, against all three remaining GOP candidates (with Clinton losing to Kasich).
Looking at those polls, and reflecting on some of what I wrote, above, Clinton NEEDS to find a way to either move publicly and strongly toward several of Sanders’ positions AND select either Sanders or a Sanders-like surrogate as VP (who can *connect*; who exudes *trustworthiness*) to bring Sanders’ supporters to her side. If she doesn’t do this, even though it looks like a lock for Clinton against Trump at this point in time, I am very worried that Clinton could falter.
Ignoring what is certainly the most inspired *down-to-earth* campaign in memory, and what that campaign means to those who were given hope, may be a tragic mistake that Clinton lives to regret. Either way, I hope that doesn’t happen. Reagan, Schwarzenegger, and Bush were, in a way, the “Trumps” of their day – sure losers to the cognoscenti and insider crowd. It could happen again.
Thoughtful, thank you. It’s all Versailles. It’s clear Sanders is the reluctant candidate who really would rather not run but feels he has a moral and social obligation to be of public service. He’s not after profit which a lot of people really seem to have a hard time grasping (see: Kevin Drum)
Yes, you “feel the Bern”, as do I and millions of others. Bernie Sanders really does want the average citizen to have a fair shake. Policy details will follow the logical course of things once we achieve a consensus to pursue the common good for all citizens. That is what the revolution is all about, imho.
Phil: I’ve seen lots of articles about the disintegration of the GOP being an example of “hoist with their own petard” saying in essence that the crazy direction they’ve traveled for years has Trump as the ultimate result. Relatively little however has been said about just how thin the ice the Democrat party has walked out on to is. Nations and political parties are shared illusions. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, just that they require shared belief among the constituents in order to function. When the dissonance between what they proclaim themselves to be and what they are grows too great they tend to disintegrate rapidly and messily. The Democrats have already stuffed it to a large number of people who let themselves believe that Obama would bring the nation back on course to the rule of law and saner policies both domestic and foreign. With the Sanders campaign the party has shown itself to be incredibly hostile to the possibility of actually implementing the policies that it has said for years that it supports. Policies that are popular with large segments of the population. There’s only so much disillusionment people can take. I think nominating Clinton would cross a threshold for that which the party, and the nations’ political credibility may not recover from. Even if the Democrat party tried to be nice about it they would still lose support with voters who favor Sanders ideas – and they’re certainly not doing that. Their actions remind me of what I once read that Newt Gingrich said to his team after he won an election: “F***k you, guys, I don’t need you anymore.”
Being Canadian I don’t have a vote in this election and I don’t envy you the choices you need to make. Not being a U.S. citizen though I think that unless Sanders manages to get nominated (he’s certainly not perfect but he’s the only one running who isn’t an actual monster) I would prefer Trump to win. At least there’s a chance his administration would be dysfunctional enough to minimize the harm done to the rest of the world and there is a slight chance some of his heretical notions (breaking up NATO, making friends with Russia, dumping the pending trade agreement disasters) might actually happen.
This is a very strange election…
I just can’t bring myself to vote for Clinton knowing what I know about her to date. It’s just a non-starter. She’s just not going to change who she is and how she operates.
Sanders hasn’t changed in 40 years. Rock solid, you know how he rolls.
Trump is a bit of a magician. Says one thing, does another. Pretends to be mysoginist, but hires his daughter and former wife, who both ran significant and successful chunks of his business. He pretends he’s some sort of ordinary working class guy who just made it big. Um, no. Started off with a nice nest egg to invest with. Plays big successful developer, but declares bankruptcy to get out of paying anyone, and yet, everyone just lines up for another round.
I try to judge on people’s actions instead of their words. (Obama lost me the moment he embraced indefinite detention) Trump is much harder to get a grasp of. If Sanders isn’t on the Novemebr ballot and Trump is, I can’t completely rule out voting for him, at least not yet.
Apparently if Trump had put his inheritance in an index fund, his current net worth would be about double.
(sorry no link.)
The question is whether Trump would do as much damage as it’s clear that HRC would do. I suspect not.
Some articles have pointed out Trump’s current misogynist racist persona is to some extent role-playing for the sake of getting votes, and that his actions pre-candidacy were significantly more moderate.
HRC could be counted on to pass TPP and to get into war in one or more places (Iran? Russia? More?) Would Trump do that kind of damage?
Does anyone here think that if Bernie called Trump, sat down with Trump, and told Trump exactly what he wanted in addition to being VP, (State and Labor?) that Trump would not jump at the opportunity?. Please
laugh at me all you wish:-)
I would add that I don’t think Trump really gives a fig about being President. He just wants to WIN, (that’ll
show em) be popular, and delegate his “Make America First” philosophy out to non- f**k-ups.
So Betteridge was right.