Yves here. The beginning of this Real News Network segment focuses on the floor fight in the Nevada convention and campaign tactics, but it then turns to the various factions that back each candidate and how the Clinton camp, on a very fundamental level, does not understand Sanders voters (in addition to the fact that it doesn’t think it needs to).
There are a lot of typos in the Real News Network rush transcript, almost entirely missing apostrophes. I’ve cleaned it up a bit but am sure I also missed quite a few.
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay.
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton won the Kentucky primary. Bernie Sanders won Oregon. It doesn’t really fundamentally change the pledged delegate votes. Clinton is still significantly ahead, but still, as Sanders maintains, without the superdelegate vote it would be a fight at the convention. The issue of the fight between Clinton and Sanders got even more bitter on Saturday in Nevada at the Nevada convention. According to the Sanders camp the convention was essentially hijacked by Clinton forces. A battle broke out. We’re going to talk about that in just a few seconds. Bernie Sanders responded to this battle, which included the chairman of the convention calling for a voice vote on rules, and apparently some people who were there thought the nos had it. Others thought the yeses had it. It certainly was close enough there should have been a head count. Instead she ruled in favor of the Clinton forces, banged her gavel, and that was the end of it.
Bernie Sanders responded with a press statement and in a speech, and here’s a segment of what he said in his speech.
Now coming to us from Farmington, Connecticut is Bill Curry. Bill is a columnist for Salon.com and was a councilor to President Clinton. And joining us from New York, New York is Jonathan Tasini. He’s the author of The Essential Bernie Sanders, CNN political commentator, and a longtime progressive and labor activist. Thank you both for joining us.
JONATHAN TASINI: My pleasure.
JAY: So, Jonathan, kick us off. What do we know so far about what happened in Nevada and how this is playing out?
TASINI: First, good to be back with you guys, and also it’s good to reconnect with Bill Curry who I know, you know, have known for many years. Haven’t seen him in a while. But great progressive activist in Connecticut.
So let me do a quick background so people understand where we were at on Saturday. As people know, Nevada has a caucus system. And Hillary Clinton on the day of the caucus won the vote. But caucuses in many primaries have several stages. The next stage, and this is important to what happened Saturday, the next stage happened at the county level. And essentially, Bernie Sanders activists out-organized the Clinton people and got more votes at the county level, particularly in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, and therefore came to the state convention which happened this past Saturday with what they thought were more votes, and therefore the potential to actually get more delegates at the end of the whole process. Now, this is important because this is exactly what happened in 2008. Hillary Clinton, on the day of the election, won the day. But Barack Obama, because he out-organized the Clinton forces back in 2008, actually came out with more delegates from Nevada.
So on Saturday Sanders people showed up to the convention, the state convention, expecting to be able to vote. And essentially what happened was the chair of the state convention, who was a Hillary Clinton supporter, did a few things. First of all, as you pointed out in your introduction, she called for a voice vote on the convention rules. And to people there it was quite clear that the nos were actually louder, but she refused to actually then have an actual either hand vote or roll call vote.
JAY: The nos being the Sanders supporters.
TASINI: Correct. But perhaps the more important thing is that the credentials committee of the convention ruled that 64 Sanders people were not eligible to be seated, essentially. And that was enough of a margin, not to get into the weeds too far, that was enough of a margin to give the Hillary Clinton forces an edge.
Now, I have to point out that all this fight was over essentially a couple of delegates. So you have to wonder why the Clinton forces were so intent on essentially crushing, this is my view, and the Sanders view, crushing the attempt by the Sanders people to participate and essentially have more, more votes there. And so my view is that they were either trying to put down the hammer on the Sanders campaign, or they are a little bit concerned about the momentum of the Sanders campaign going into June, into the final primaries, and they didn’t want the narrative out of Nevada to be that in fact Bernie came out of that convention with more delegates.
And what ensued–and then I’ll wrap up and see if you have questions–what ensued was a lot of yelling and screaming, waving of signs, people protesting. There was no violence at the convention. I looked at those videos. There was no violence at the convention.
JAY: The reason you’re saying that is because the Democratic Party leadership, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has accused the Sanders supporters of threatening violence.
TASINI: That’s correct. And not only that, the media narrative has been that the convention itself was violent. Now, I want to say right away that I do agree with Bernie and the criticism of people who then went online–. The state party chair’s phone number was posted, and she got a lot of threatening and vile and disgusting threats by people, including death threats. And that to me is just completely unacceptable.
But in terms of the actual convention, it was–. Look, I’ve been and Bill’s probably been in these conventions. I’ve been in a lot of union halls. It appeared no more raucous and contestable than many, many places I’ve been. People were yelling, people were screaming, people are upset. But at heart what this signifies is a deep distrust among the Sanders campaign about how the Democratic National Committee operates. And I think this goes back, frankly, a number of months under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The attempt to limit the number of debates when the debates were happening. And underlying this is a deep distrust about how the party operates and whether it’s been treating the Sanders campaign fairly.
JAY: Right. Now, let me just add a couple of things. First of all, on the question of violence, Bernie Sanders actually has said that a few months ago shots were fired into his campaign office in Nevada, and–
TASINI: That’s correct.
JAY: –the apartment complex where some of the staff workers were living was broken into and ransacked. He says that in a press release that was issued last night. Now, there’s no evidence that any of this is linked to the Clinton campaign. But there’s suggestion that it might be, because it does show up in his statement, which I wouldn’t say one way or the other on what actually happened. It is a reflection of how bitter this fight’s getting that he kind of suggested it might be the Clinton campaign. Before I ask Bill a question, let me just add one more thing. We have been trying very hard to get supporters of the Clinton campaign to participate in interviews on the Real News. We’ve had one or two. But it’s not easy. They don’t seem to be ready to come on here. We will continue to try, and we will, in fact, try to get them on what we’re talking about now, what happened in Nevada and so on. So it’s not for lack of trying that you’re not hearing a pro-Clinton voice in this interview. If I can I’ll try to represent their position a little bit.
But Bill, this fight between the Sanders campaign and the Democratic Party leadership, particularly Deborah Wasserman Schultz, in fact, on CNN earlier today, in fact, he specifically targeted her, saying the DNC as a whole is not the problem, but Wasserman Schultz has been very much clearly a Clinton ally and been using her position in the DNC to manipulate things in favor of Clinton. She’s not supposed to. She’s supposed to be neutral during this campaign. Talk a bit about this fight with Schultz, and what it means in terms of a bigger division in the Democratic Party.
BILL CURRY: Let me just say first of all, one, by the way, it’s great to be talking with Jonathan again. It has been a while. He’s been doing great work in this campaign.
The second thing I want to say, though, to this point, is it’s been hard for the Sanders campaign throughout this to handle the question of the personal. And one of the things that both the Clinton and Trump campaigns have wanted to do at every turn in their different ways is to personalize the campaign. To, when Hillary talks about being the victim of a smear campaign, the way she went after Sanders so strongly in that very first debate and throughout that. She does it through surrogates. She does it through syntax. She’s the person who raised the question of qualifications, et cetera.
And as–and on both sides when you take the debate, when you take that bait, rather, when Marco Rubio took the bait of becoming personal in the way that Trump was personal, it cost him greatly in Florida. When Bernie very briefly took the bait of becoming personal in the way that Hillary is personal, she with subtle accusations did go to character and competency, that being the drumbeat, really, of her campaign, he paid a price, I think. And the problem is that at the same time Bernie was very reluctant. This has been one of the most courteous and civil challenges that I can remember in all the time that I’ve been in politics.
And you have to sort of distinguish between the different ways of being personal. A revolution is about personnel. It is about changing people. It is about chasing people out of jobs and replacing them with more enlightened leaders. Bernie was willing to call for the resignation of the governor of Michigan over Flint. I think he would have been well-served to call for the resignation of Rahm Emanuel for his enabling of the racist and corrupt police force, and for his actual increasing the amount of pay-to-play politics in Chicago.
And from the beginning, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been dishonest and double-dealing in how she’s handled this. So I wish that earlier in the campaign, rather than going after them in that same tone or character, that they’d simply made the point it’s time for these people to go. We need a new generation of leaders. And the second thing here, however, is that it isn’t just her. On the one hand it is, it is valid to say that a congresswoman who has really violated the rules of the Democratic National Committee in her conduct of her job relative to this campaign, and who in the Congress itself is a virtual lobbyist for the payday loan industry, it’s valid to call for her resignation. It’s valid to call her out for all the things she’s done.
It’s also valid to say that the entire Democratic National Committee is little better than a closely-held political action committee. That all 456 of the DNC superdelegates who are elected by no one and accountable to no one, who even their DNC posts no one in the country can primary for. It’s one of the very few offices that is absolutely impervious to outside accountability, to new blood, to democratic process. The whole thing has to go. And they’ve been, fooled with him from the beginning. He’s been a victim of the process from when she first cut the number of debates from 26 in 2008 to 6 this year, and scheduled them all on weekends and during popular sporting events if she could. There’s been a point when, from the very first point of this campaign, from the very beginning she’s rigged the system as well as she could for Clinton. She ought to go. I think her going ought to be a precondition of support for the ticket.
But at the same time, it’s not just–you don’t want to just get into name calling. You don’t want to just be re-litigating these factual questions that neither side can prove. The problem here is the entire system. She’s the perfect emblem of it, and she’s done many things wrong and she should go, and then the whole system should go. And last, I’ll just say one thing. The DNC members themselves who are all voting as delegates, when Wasserman Schultz did things like end Obama’s ban on federal contractors giving to the Democratic Party. When she set up this whole money laundering scheme, really, by which Clinton takes these large donations and works the state parties back into her own PAC. When she did all of these things there was never even a meeting of the DNC. There was never notice to the public or a recorded vote or a vote of any kind. There were no minutes. She’s making these huge decisions on behalf of the entire political party in what ought to be the greatest democracy of the world in close consultation with a couple of Hillary people, maybe the candidate herself, a couple of White House people. No one’s even been able to participate in this.
And so from top to bottom, including in Nevada, in other caucus states where the party has not played, you know, fairly with the Sanders–. But from top to bottom, this party has not functioned as a political party ought to.
JAY: Right. Jonathan–.
CURRY: We shouldn’t ever lose track of the systemic nature of it. [Crosstalk]
JAY: Jonathan, if you look at both political parties, both the Republican and the Democrats, they’re essentially united fronts. You have one section of the billionaires allied with other stratum and classes in the society. So in the Republicans you have sort of the right-wing section of the billionaire and ultra-right, you know, even people like Sheldon Adelson types and the Koch brothers and so on, allied with sections of the working class that they’re able to influence other sections of stratum, of classes. And the same thing in the Democratic Party. You have a section of billionaires on Wall Street and other places, a lot of hedge fund guys, and allied with different sections of the society. But the big alliance in the Democratic Party is these billionaires representing a section of the elites. And the big trade unions, with some exceptions.
That alliance between New York hedge fund guys and major unions is all supporting Hillary Clinton, here. So when we’re talking about the sort of systemic problem that Bill just talks about, that alliance has a lot to do with it. Bernie, in this clip that we played in the beginning, he’s essentially saying the Democratic Party has to decide, the people have to decide who support the Democratic Party, what section, who do you want to lead this united front, if you will. You can’t allow the party still to be dominated by the billionaires. And Hillary being, he says, the representative of that establishment, or those elites.
But this is a fundamental division. This is not just some division about ideology. This is a fundamental division about interest, is it not?
TASINI: Yeah. Paul, you and I, we’re telepathic here, because I was–it’s great we’ve moved the conversation, that you’ve articulated [inaud.] about collecting the hedge funds with unions. Unions, it’s a little more complicated, which we can talk about another time. As I viewed it the hedge fund people, the consultants, the lobbyists, all the people that basically suck off of all that money that pours through the system, that’s essentially legalized corruption.
And what I think you really hit on is that yes we can go into the DNC and personalities and so on, but fundamentally the reason this conflict is happening is that the party elites never have understood what this political revolution is about. They’ve not been, I’ve traveled to dozens and dozens of citizen towns. I’ve been in big rallies, I’ve been in rooms with people who are part of this political revolution, some of them for the very first time being involved in politics. Others had taken a hiatus because they’re fed up with the system but have come back. And really the reason the party elite doesn’t get this idea is when they call for party unity, that’s secondary to a lot of the people who are out there talking about a political revolution, which is what you essentially underscored. What the people who are engaged in this movement are about is completely blowing up the system, or at least demanding the changes that Bernie’s articulated. Single-payer healthcare. Getting rid of these bad trade agreements. You go down the list and many of these are fundamentally in contrast, in contradiction, to the policy not just of the DNC but, frankly, of the president of the United States.
And so that conflict is expressing itself out there in terms of actual people going out to vote. They’re voting for a very different thing, in some ways very different from, as you point out, other contests, where at the end of the day in ’92 or ’88 the candidates were pretty much the same. They might have differed about some things, but party unity was simple because it was really about uniting factions about the same, that were part of that same system. Here it’s much different.
JAY: So, Bill, personally I think it makes sense, I can see why Sanders targets Wasserman Schultz, because sometimes individuals, you know, become the representation of a whole stratum and, and class, and ideology within the party. And by fighting and exposing Wasserman Schultz it opens a way for people to see who really controls the Democratic Party machine. But this more fundamental division that Sanders is calling for the Democratic Party to make a choice, well, when he says if the Democratic Party doesn’t take on Wall Street and so on, well, we know they’re not. If you’re talking about the leadership of the Democratic Party, we know who controls the Democratic Party, and in the final analysis it actually is hedge fund money that has a very dominant role in every respect.
So that being said, if the leadership is not going to go there, and then he doesn’t have the votes to sort of change what the Democratic Party is at the convention, and there’s going to be a war there if Nevada’s any foreshadowing of it, then where the heck does all this go?
CURRY: To go back to what I was saying a moment ago, one of the iron rules here, I think, for the Sanders campaign ought to be never take the bait. And the Clinton campaign aided and abetted, consciously or not, by most media, has done three things constantly. One, attempt to personalize this, to cast the debate in terms of whether Sanders is competent and effective. Whether his ideas are realistic. Often whether he is sufficiently sensitive to the issues of minorities or of women. And every time he takes that bait it makes a mistake. The second thing that the Clinton campaign does and the media does is cast this all in terms of horse race politics. First it was all about polls. Then he caught up in the polls. Then it became all about delegates. And instead of trying to explain constantly about how there is a way forward for him in that system, I think he would have been better off not taking that bait and insisting–.
And the third–let me just get the third thing. And the third thing is that Clinton’s main theme has been be true to your school. It’s a, you know, Beach Boys numbers could be played at every campaign stop. And it’s always you’re being disloyal to Obama. You have an obligation to bring the party together. You’re being disloyal to Bill Clinton. And there came a point where I think, rather than constantly trying to prove his bona fides in this regard, turning to her and saying, you’re right, there are fundamental differences here that I have with this whole system. I appreciate them, I’m grateful. But when they didn’t vote, when the President didn’t vote to raise the minimum wage in 2009 when he had the votes, when we didn’t bailout the homeowners along with the banks, when we didn’t do the public option, when we insisted on these global trade agreements that have done so much damage, when we continue with the pay to play politics, these are fundamental differences.
And to say out loud where he is right now, yes, he’s doing three things. He’s trying to win an election still, he’s trying to win a nomination, but everybody knows it’s a real long shot. Number two, he’s going to campaign for Hillary Clinton. He’s going to endorse her. But number three, and to his followers and to himself in the beginning for everything he said, he’s building a movement so that on 8:00 on election night he’s ready to take whoever wins and hold them accountable. And this is about building what we’ve lost in this country. Another great, independent, progressive movement, like the women’s and environmental and consumer and labor movements that were responsible for every great social change.
And that’s not the same as getting everybody in the chorus for another, you know, for another round of happy days are here again, or be true to your school. This is a truce that he’s, really, the most he can offer her on behalf of his followers, and on behalf of a deeply disgruntled middle class that the elite, the Democrats and Republicans both represent on all the issues I just mentioned, on which they agree, on which there is, in fact, bipartisan consensus at the top. He’s offering a truce in order to stop a fascist from being elected. He’s offering a truce in order to have a little bit of influence on the rules for things like Nevada and [debates] a little bit of influence in the platform. But mostly he realizes his chance of talking these people into waking up and seeing the light is pretty, it isn’t much greater than his chance right now of securing the nomination, and that what he really wants to do is build the movement.
And he has a very tricky road here, because he has to begin movement building now. And to be building that movement at the same time that you’re campaigning for Clinton will be hard enough, and his message to her ought to be if you want me to do that, make it a little bit easier. And again, what happened in Nevada is just like what’s happening with all those committees on a national level. Platform, credentials, and rules. It’s what’s been happening throughout the campaign. There is a, there’s a, there’s a party here that needs reform. And he needs to make clear, I think–. He does a good job. I don’t want to understate it for a moment. What he’s done here is a miracle.
But I think, I think it’s okay to make it clear to say, listen, we have great differences that we will continue to litigate, and I am building a movement to support a new progressive agenda for the United States. And we’re not always sure you’re on board. We’re going to try to bring you on board. We’re going to help you in this race. But we have different–but we have different goals, here. And the more we see that you share our goals, the easier it’s going to be for us to sell you not just to the left, because this isn’t just about left and right, far from it. But we could help you sell this to the broad middle class that the elites of both parties have alienated so deeply. But you’ve got to do something better than what you did in Nevada. And you’ve got to do something better than what you’re doing for this convention right now in order to make that happen. This is on you.
JAY: Jonathan.
CURRY: It’s the leader. It’s not the defeated candidate, it’s the leader. In every election it’s the person who wins the nomination who has to bring the party together.
JAY: Right. Jonathan, I would actually, picking up what Bill said, even take it another step. Not only shouldn’t he have differentiated himself more profoundly with the Obama administration on the issues that Bill just outlined, but when he was cornered on at least a couple of debates where he was specifically asked, is Hillary Clinton a progressive? Is President Obama a progressive? I mean, in my opinion the evidence is they’re not. Not in any normal terms of the way we use that word. Hillary wanted–. I mean, Hillary’s fundamental campaign is that she and Bernie have the same objectives. She’s just getting there incrementally, which is more possible, and he’s got great big ideas that are unachievable, but they’re both trying to get to the same place. That’s, I think, her campaign in a nutshell.
And I think the evidence is that she does not have the same objectives, both in terms of policy and record. That she represents a different section of the society, as I said. You know, for, you know, Bernie says she represents the establishment, and she has more or less said that. Well, you can’t be that and a progressive at the same time, and have any meaning to that word, progressive. And even now, does he not have to actually say that in a way that yes, there may be a truce. And I think the way Bill uses the word truce is a good idea. But not to create an illusion that somehow Hillary’s going to become something she isn’t. He’s not going to change what her basic alliances are, and such. What do you think of that?
TASINI: Well, I think we have to keep in mind a few things. First of all, I think Bernie has been pretty clear that there’s very, very substantive differences between Hillary Clinton [and] himself. And I’ve been to, I don’t know, a hundred rallies of his, and he’s been very clear. That’s different from necessarily saying that in the context of a media, you know, show and debate that those things come out very clearly. And it’s just the nature of the stupidity of, and I don’t even–they’re not really debates, they’re kind of entertainment shows. Those things have not been clear.
But to the people, and I think this is why there is conflict and why people don’t necessarily wrap their arms around unity, because Bernie’s been very clear in that every [rally] to the tens of thousands of people he’s spoken to that there are fundamental differences. And I do, you know, I think [crosstalk] put in context–.
JAY: Let me just jump in for a sec. Jonathan, just a sec. I just want to make sure what I’m saying–it’s not just fundamental differences of opinion. There’s fundamental difference of economic political interest here. She represents, essentially, the section of the billionaires that he keeps critiquing.
TANISI: Yes, he, and I think he–. Look, he says that his whole attack on super PACs, which he says almost every time, that she’s funded by Wall Street, is an attack on, you know, even though it was a very narrow one about her being paid by Goldman Sachs, there was a bigger point to be made there. I think he’s done that very, very well.
And I do want to say that in his, not that Bernie needs a defense, we have to keep in mind, and this is what is always startling, and I have to say, I am more optimistic about changing this country than I’ve been for the last 25-30 years. And part of that is to recognize that this all happened in one year. That he came close and may still do it, even though it’s narrow, to taking down the most powerful political Wall Street-funded, corporate-funded machine that we’ve ever seen in our lifetimes. They’ve been running for this, for the White House, for 15 years. And we’ve come close, this movement, to basically destroying that. Had we had another year, we would have won the nomination.
So I look at this, I know we’re focused a little bit on the convention, on the primaries, but I’ve been thinking already and the conversations I’ve had with people have been way beyond this. And one of the reasons I want the primaries to continue is that very time you have a primary you elect delegates who will then go home to be their leaders in their communities. And so if you think about it, let’s say Bernie doesn’t get the nomination. He’ll probably have at least 1,500-1,700 delegates who will then go back to every state in the country and be in a sense, some way, the nerve endings for the political revolution, which is going to continue.
JAY: Right. Bill, I mean, we’re in a moment now with all this talk of party unity. They want, now they’re saying to Bernie, okay, now you riled everyone up, you got all these young people, now we want you to play nice. And he’s not. What I was saying about having not, said she wasn’t a progressive, is not to suggest that he’s somehow falling into line, here. Quite the contrary. What happened in Nevada and the way he responded to Nevada, and the language he’s using, he’s actually ratcheting up the fight with the Clinton camp. And by calling out the Democratic Party, you know, you either have to take on Wall Street or you’re going to lose all these young people. There’s a veiled threat there. I don’t–he’s clearly not playing nice going into the convention, which bodes well for the future of such a movement.
CURRY: I want to first just underscore something that Jonathan said with which I wholeheartedly agree. One, that the Sanders campaign is a miracle. You have the Tea Party that started to take on the Republican party in 2009-2010, and in five years they took control of the House of Representatives, dominated the Senate. And Trump really is, in many ways, their airhorn more than anyone’s.
And on our side, the left hasn’t been as focused in what it’s done. But Bernie Sanders, who suddenly came along one year go, and in a single year almost won everything, came this close. No one thought that the calendar of the revolution and the election calendar were going to necessarily sync up when this started. And it turns out they didn’t quite. But whoa, did they come close. And the second thing is that all the stuff about Bernie being not sufficiently detailed and varied in the things he has to say, Jonathan’s right. If you go to the rallies or you go to the rally [inaud.] as I have, it’s all there. And the fact that most, that so many people don’t think it’s there, is much more of a commentary on the Amusing Ourselves to Death media than it is on his campaign or what he’s been doing.
He’s been–and the same with all the big proposals, healthcare, for instance. His numbers have actually added up. You know, the, again, the big media, the Times, the cable networks, how they handle that, it’s Hillary’s numbers that don’t add up. It’s the Obamacare numbers that don’t add up. Single-payer numbers add up in every country, and they do here, and you save a fortune on it and it really is that simple. And going forward, I don’t think–again, though, I’ll just say this is about tone. And I think some of the leaders I’ve admired most in my life in the last century, Nelson Mandela, [inaud.], Gandhi, all of those people had plenty of wonderful things to say about all of their opponents. They never deviated from it, in fact, from a positive tone. And their opponents were their jailers. And I think that there’s–and no one was ever for a moment confused as to what they believed, what they wanted in the particular, and how hard they were willing to stand and how long they’d stand and how hard they’d fight to get it.
And so I think that, you know, what a Trump does, what a Hillary does, in their very different ways, they’ve both brought this campaign down. This isn’t a question of whether Bernie’s going to be bitter or fight them bitterly, or pursue this campaign bitterly. His difference with them is a difference of principle. It’s also a difference of theory. He has a–. In any other country they’d be in different political parties. In any other, certainly in any other Western democracy, and I think most Asian democracies as well in the last half-century, they wouldn’t even be together. These differences over trade, over pay to play politics, over single-payer, over public education, over ground troops, military interventionism, these are the biggest issues society ever faces.
And the differences are stark and real. And in America, as in every country, the biggest question is the corruption of the democracy. There’s a pandemic of corruption throughout the world. We didn’t clean ours up, we merely institutionalized it. Bernie knows it, she doesn’t. And that moment when [inaud.] said, well, what’s the issue, what bill did she sell out on? I wish, again, [inaud.] a magnificent job. It doesn’t mean he’s second guessing. But you turn and you say, in effect, it’s not about whether you sold out a bill, it’s not whether you or I are the most honest person. It’s about whether this whole system, of which you’ve been one of the biggest beneficiaries, and even a principal architect, it’s whether this whole system is corrupt. I know that it is. You don’t.
And that’s why he shouldn’t be the nominee. This is about cleaning it up. And you go through all these things–. Again, in his rallies, [crosstalk].
JAY: I think you’re being very generous, here. I know you’re talking about being–.
CURRY: –clarifying the differences, I think, is as helpful as anything he could do. It’s not time to get bitter, but it’s not time to give up your principles, either.
JAY: I think you’re being extremely generous to Hillary Clinton and others in those political environment that they don’t know how corrupt it is. They are up to their eyeballs in knowing. If they just think that’s the way of the world, and you’re naive if you think anything else is possible, and that she knows how to manipulate this rigged, corrupt system, you can’t be in it as long as she is and understand how Wall Street and the military-industrial complex and the shenanigans she’s been–shenanigans is far too weak a word in terms of what she’s been involved with in terms of U.S. foreign policy, from Libya to Syria and so on. I mean, war crimes are being committed. She’s very aware of it.
CURRY: I don’t think she thinks it’s [a crime].
JAY: She just thinks that’s the way the world is. And if you–.
CURRY: Yeah, that’s what they all think. What do they think about pay to play politics? They think it’s inevitable. And if it’s inevitable it can’t be corrupt. [Crosstalk]
JAY: And there’s–. And listen, it’s the beginning of another conversation. But I, I think she, there’s a sense where she’s right within the current parameters of this system. But we don’t have time for that today. But we’re going to pick up this conversation, I hope, like maybe once a week we’ll keep this up. May’be we’ll get another voice involved. And keep talking about things at this level.
But I thank you both very much for joining us. I want to do a very quick note. When I was talking about hedge funds and the unions I should point out there are some major unions that have not supported Hillary Clinton, even though most have. The nurses, the postal workers, the Communication Workers of America, and I believe there’s a couple more big ones. There’s certainly a lot of locals across the country that have not followed their national leaderships and have individually endorsed Sanders. So there’s a real struggle going on within the unions as well about the attitude to whether or not the Democratic Party should be more or less dominated by hedge fund types.
At any rate, I hope both our guests are going to come back regularly. So thank you, Bill. Thank you, Jonathan. And please join us for a continuing conversation about, well, I guess American democracy, the future of the country, and as it’s going to show up in these elections. Thanks for joining us on the Real News Network.
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Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is the poster child for Gerald Celente’s observation that “politics is show business for ugly people.” I hope she gets defeated in the primary so her career will be over and done with.
Who care’s what she looks like.
It’s her actions that are “ugly”.
People who have some spare cash can help by supporting Tim Canova, Wasserman Shultz’s opponent in the primary:
https://timcanova.com/
And people who live in southern Florida can volunteer to help in the campaign.
And W-S is equally clueless and deeply embedded in corruption.
But to demean her as ‘ugly’ is beyond the pale. Please clean it up.
Here’s my takeaway after being at large, chaotic caucuses in high school gyms this spring — the acoustics are horrible and the party Dems appear to have no training or background in running large meetings. Everybody is winging it.
IOW, the DNC can apparently spend zillions on national ad campaigns and ‘marketing’ (including polling), but they don’t spend money training citizens to hold public meetings in an orderly fashion that would help them better advocate for policies that would improve their lives. IOW, the DNC has become corrupted by money, disassociated from citizens, and thinks that politics is marketing.
Good riddance.
This election is very much about millions of us fed up with corruption.
Hillary, unfortunately, does not seem to grasp this; nor does W-S.
“the acoustics are horrible”
Kudos for bringing this up, an important and often overlooked quality of buildings/spaces used for public gatherings. Reducing the reverberant energy in a room significantly improves the ease of communication, especially when numerous communication vectors are simultaneously present.
I think the two things kinda go together. People who constantly do ugly things will eventually look ugly—-unless they are complete sociopaths. To her credit, I don’t think she’s sociopathic—deep down she is aware that her entire life is a sham so she lets the ugliness exude through her grotesque facial contortions.
Yep. I’ve always despised Hillary, but I used to think she was rather attractive. Over time her character has been bleeding through her face and now she looks more and more like Dick Cheney. No, it isn’t just age — lots of women lose their youthful beauty but retain character and grace. Look at Elizabeth Warren, who is only two years younger than Clinton.
What DWS is doing is purely and simply aligning herself with the candidate who affords her the greatest opportunity to partake in the high-level, highly remunerative, grifting that will follow on the plum position in a Clinton administration that will be her reward for all this “hard work” she has been doing on Clinton’s behalf.
It is my sincere hope that Ms. Wasserman Schultz soon makes the acquaintance of one Ms. Karma, and does so in the most public and humiliating way possible; she deserves no less than that, I think.
Agree with you on all points. Absolutely, DWS is a grifter and has aligned herself with Clinton bc DWS sees Clinton as the brass ring. No doubt. Certainly has less than zero to do with any of those outdated, antiquated and quaint notions such as representing what the hoi poloi wants or truly serving the needs of the country. It’s all and only about much DWS can grift for her on personal financial gain and power.
THAT’s how this game is played, and any Clinton supporters who think that Clinton or DWS gives a flying fig about them, as voters, are strictly delusional.
DWS and the Clintstones are all DLC operatives, and the DLC has owned and operated the Democratic Party for 30 years. Obama was the last step: Even if the designated DLC candidate (HRC) wasn’t nominated, the nominee would still be a DLC puppet. The DLC disbanded only because it had succeeded.
Karma is one thing I do not believe in.
Thanks for this transcript. Great post.
Some great analysis out to about Minute 25, when they go off on the “hold them accountable” and “movement building” pink ponies. Watch it up until then.
The movement is building itself. I’ve been watching it since, hmm, the impeachment of Bill Clinton led to moveon.org?
It’s freaking *enormous* now. And it’s getting radicalized more and more every year.
The way it works is that smaller groups — a few hundred — organize over a specific issue, get bigger, take on other issues and then end up aligning with The Movement when they discover that all their issues are being stymied by antidemocratic practices.
Why do you think “movement building” is a “pink pony”?
“Vote for them, then hold their feet to the fire!”
Only problem is, voting is the fire. Anything else you might do in between is either an indication of how you’re going to vote, or hollow posturing that they have no reason do do anything but ignore.
If Sanders makes a deal where Wasserman goes, and Hillary is elected, why on earth would Sanders or anyone else think anything in the democratic party would change at all? Wasserman can be replaced, and the interests she and Hillary represents will be far stronger within the party than ever during a Clinton presidency.
I doubt if Sanders believes it one bit. The most important point made in the clip was for Sanders supporters to continue to act as organized gloves-off vocal critics during any Hillary administration.
On a pragmatic level, the best way to change the dem party is for Hillary to lose to Trump.
I know as sure as I know my own name that if Clinton loses to Trump, it will be Sanders and the hippie socialists/anarchists who get the blame, and the media will happily, loudly and unendingly broadcast that message. The establishment will double down on ridding the party of the rabblerousers, will all but close its doors to them, will punish, at all levels, those who supported and advocated for political revolution.
It will be ugly at a level we haven’t seen before.
It will mean forming a new party – efforts at which will be derided and demeaned; it will be a fight to have our voices heard. It will mean a level of organization that will require all hands on deck. It will be orders of magnitude harder than going to rallies. And it’s going to take more than two years (mid-terms) to prepare and be viable – and to be ready, with candidates up and down the ballot in time for the 2020 campaign season? What’s the level above “herculean?”
Or – and this is really revolutionary – it will mean turning the tables on the current iteration of the Democratic party, overrunning it with political revolutionaries, making inroads into committees at the local and state levels. Sort of a political home invasion, but with no physical violence. Force them to deal with us on a granular level – face-to-face.
We have a choice – we’ve always had a choice; the question is, do we have the guts to make it, and do what it takes to make it happen.
I agree they’ll blame it on the hippies. But I also think that framing might not have the legs it’s had in the past given the mass popularity of Sanders. It’s been stated for years that the way for the left to hurt dems is at the ballot box–that’s the only thing they understand and that’s the only way to fight back against the “they have nowhere else to go” dismissal. Vote 3rd party, vote Trump, or stay home are all places to go. Make the dems fear their base, just like the repubs.
More than in past elections I suspect if Hillary–the great, credentialed, experienced Hillary–loses to Trump there actually might be some genuine head-scratching within the dem party.
Absolutely zero will happen if she wins other than the fact that the dems will crow that they won despite the hippies, a much more easily dismissal imho than if she loses.
The dem party is rotten to its core, so any hope of change on my part, or anyone else’s, is most likely a pipe dream.
Clinton people have overseen 1994, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, and 2014. Bill managed 43% in 1992 and was the beneficiary of Newt’s shutdown as the 1996 season started. Hillary is non existent with the under 38 crowd much like she was non existent with the under 30 crowd.
In all those losses, Democratic elites blamed the voters, but as a whole the Democratic elite are just getting older and not growing the party anywhere. They can blame, but much like elite endorsements, no one cares about a decrepit establishment.
The Supreme Court and crazy Mitch McConnell didn’t work in 2014. They won’t work in 2016.
Oh you betcha. If Clinton looses to Trump, the hippies will be punched, denounced, punched, blamed, yelled at, screamed at, told to grow up and all the rest of it. Oh boy. If Clinton looses to Trump, I think it will be a big bad no good awful fugly disaster in terms of making any “improvements” or “turning the D party around.” Oh no. That’ll be used as the Prime Directive for why the D Party has to become ever more conservative and Oligarch-friendly.
Guar- Run – Teed.
And good luck forming a new party. Not saying it’s impossible, but I just don’t see the intestinal fortitude for it. Hope I’m wrong!
Yeah but if Clinton wins, no difference. We’ll hear for 4 years how useless and unnecessary the left is, how the left should get in line behind the corporate interests and shut up.
Far better to deny something to a person who wants it as a demonstration of power.
Indeed, upon a $hillary loss they will blame the hippies, they will blame Sanders as a monster Communist with two heads, but no matter who they blame and what hand wringing and hair tearing and oceans of abject self pity and whining and wailing and screeching noises they make, and they will make a lot, they also will get the message.
I frankly would like Bernie to renege on his promise to support the benighted one at the convention and do a Teddy Roosevelt and immediately form his own party. Yes, very likely that would result in a Trump presidency. I believe this nation would better survive four years of mismanagement than the loss of democracy we face now. If he does not do so, I will vote for Dr. Stein. Off topic, but I think a Sanders-Merkley ticket would be hard to beat.
Bernie would win.
What does he have to lose?
The Democrats will punish him and he will lose his prized chairmanships of committees that he so desperately wants to keep.
If he doesn’t grab the ring and run indie, he will ultimately lose.
And Bernie knows all this. How long has he been in politics? He knew how to count delegates before he ran, and so probably knew he had no chance at all to win. Maybe he ran because he really thought he could start a “revolution,” but you don’t just quit a revolution and cave in, do you? Do you say, oh, well, I’ll settle for a better platform (that will not be executed, undoubtedly) and call it a day? Don’t get me wrong, I think he has wonderful domestic ideas and I agree with most of them. I’m glad the public is getting made aware of the corrupt two-party system, finally. He was an Independent, so I assume that he supports third parties. That’s the only way to get a voice heard, it seems, even though the MSM does its best to silence any voices other than their 24/7 focus on Clinton and Trump. I guess we’ll have to see how it plays out.
I agree. The DNC has acted in bad faith since day one.
If I were Bernie, I would not consider myself bound in any way by any promise made to Team D.
The best support that Sanders can give both the Democrat Party and the Clinton campaign is to support down-ticket Democrats who will drag the party more to the left. This is especially true since the Clinton campaign the vacuumed up monies destined for the states.
That’s how:
1) Sanders keeps his word, which is important, and
2) Sticks it hard to the Dem establishment, also important.
We’ll see what Sanders does
I agree they’ll blame the hippies. … except…. if Hillary is so darn competent and inevitable and pragmatic and experienced and yada yada yada, then how could she lose because of a bunch of *&^#! hippies? She can handle international crises but she and the DNC can’t handle Bernie’s voters?
Blaming the “hippies” will only highlight just how weak a candidate she really is, and how the corrupt DNC blocked a much stronger candidate from winning the nom. Everyone will know that.
From the inimitable Pat Oliphant – a cartoon from the 2008 campaign:
http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2008/03/05
True but don’t expect the Clinonistas to see it that way. And don’t expect the PTB or the media to frame it that way.
Remember Rahm Emanuel asking the hippies if we’re f*cking r**arded? And Gibbs telling us to get drug tested?
That’s nothing to what you’d see if Clinton loses. Guar-Run-Teed.
if they blame the hippies for losing the election, then this time they are giving some credit to the power of the left (blaming nader didn’t really do that) . we need to be like the tea party has been on the right, torpedo some campaigns. that’s the only thing these people listen to. that’s how you damage them. and gradually disrupt the political and donor networks while we’re at it.
Blaming Nader was meant to distract from the Clintonistas and their own incompetence. How does Donna Brazille still get work after losing to a coke addled moron? She and other Democrats who should be unemployable in a good economy given their track record blamed the weakest element they could. Partisans who expect to win were happy to repeat the argument.
Hey! I’m an aged Hippie. Graduated at the top of my class, currently a licensed professional, former state official. Smoking pot, and wearing bell-bottoms doesn’t make you dumb. (There’s a photo on the Internets of Bill & Hillary trying to emulate that hippie apparel.)
What is this about , “the hippies will be punched if …” XYZ happens?
The hippies will be punched. Period.
I think we Bernie “hippies”are being punched already. So what? What’s new? The true progressives have been beaten down for the last 30 years. The time is now. The key is the young people. I been having this ongoing argument with my 25 yr old son who wants so badly to have Bernie be the nominee, but he is terrified of Trump. He is fully awake and knows of the threat of fascism we face. He is also aware of Hills and the dem party’s “legal”corruption, and her truly misguided foreign policy. He is trying to convince me that I must vote for HRC because Supreme Court. I just don’t think I can bring myself to do it. He is so adamant and we end up yelling at each other. He will vote Hills if Illinois is in play. I will vote 3rd party. Maybe Trump?!!! After watching this refreshing piece I am getting a sense of urgency, this movement must continue. I’m just not sure the younginz(who IMO will face tougher times in the future if the status quo is to be continued) are aware of just how hard this fight will be. Sacrifices will have to be made(Supreme Court?).
Why are we continuing to use their narrative? I am not a hippy. I am an educated, informed Bernie supporter
Great point. I’m not sure why this narrative is continuing. I for one am going to stop using the hippie narrative. Thanks for that.
They’re gonna blame the Bernie Beatniks!!!!
Well, the Bernie Beatniks would have eaten the dogfood if the Inner Party Democrats would have given us better dogfood.
That threat lost all currency the moment Obama floated the idea of nominating a Republican governor for Justice! Garland is no better. Will Hill really nominate further to the left than Obama? No. No, she will not. Your son is too late. The Supreme Court was lost a decade ago. It’s been conservative ever since and fully on board for corporatocracy.
AND when the Party decided to hold the GOP “children” in from recess until they take a vote on Garland. All this after Garland was nominated, double-disingenuously, to “prove” the “point” that they’re so obstructionist they wouldn’t even confirm a right-winger if Obama nominated him.
Managerial psychosis: treatable?
Ask your son who confirmed the right wingers currently on the court.
“I know as sure as I know my own name that if Clinton loses to Trump, it will be Sanders and the hippie socialists/anarchists who get the blame, and the media will happily, loudly and unendingly broadcast that message. The establishment will double down on ridding the party of the rabblerousers, will all but close its doors to them, will punish, at all levels, those who supported and advocated for political revolution.”
They are already doing that now anyways and will continue to do it even if Hillary wins.
Choice “2” might well be worth taking and making. It would take just as long to conquer and purge the Democratic Party as it would take to create a third party. But the Democratic Party still has lots of weapons caches and ammunition dumps; forts, fortresses and bases, etc. Of course the Clintonite Obamacrats would try to destroy all these to keep them from falling into the hands of the Sanderist would-be conquering disinfectors of the Party. But the Clintonite Obamacrats may not be able to destroy all the assets of the Party. The Party may still have intact storehouses of “instruments of power” and “positions of power” that the Sanderists can take intact and use on the Clintonites and Obamacrats to purge and burn every last trace of Clintobamacrat filth and pus and cancer cells out of the conquered Party.
Thank you for this post, Yves.
I cringe when I hear people say things like “the best way . . . is for Hillary to lose to Trump.” We cannot afford Donald Trump. I am as appalled at Hillary Clinton as anybody, and I give money to Bernie and Tim Canova. But if the Duck, that Hare-Brained Jabberwocky, gets into the White House, and has enough momentum to bring a new Congress with him, the destruction may never be undone. All these guys are opposed to global warming, even as South Florida goes under the water.
I have not studied Trump’s list of proposed nominations to the Supreme Court, but it is apparently designed to appeal to Republican Senators, good Lord.
So if Trump gets in: there go women’s rights, abortion rights, voting rights, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, the EPA, income equality (that is, the adjustment thereof), the IRS, gun control of any sort, reasonable treatment for aliens, reasonable treatment for Muslims and any restraint on military policy; in short, there goes civilization. (This list is not complete. I suppose his plan to give nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Japan comes under “restraint on military policy.”)
Some people I know say “Trump’s policies,” etc. “don’t seem so bad, and he will surround himself with advisors,” etc. He doesn’t have any policies. He has twitches. He doesn’t have any advisors. He doesn’t want them. He used to pretend to be his own publicist. He does seem to have a hoodlum. His campaign director roughed up a female Breitbart reporter, Breitbart, for Xt’s sake!. He wants to control everything, and he doesn’t have the wit to run a blackjack table, but he does want to be President, and he, despite his swollen ego, is willing to whore himself out to the worst elements of the Republican party to get their support.
I don’t like Hillary. I like Bernie. But if Hillary wins the nomination, I either have to support her or jump off a tall building. Or I could just sit here and wait for Manhattan to go under water.
And I apologize for leaving out LGBTQ rights, which would of course be stomped out of existence under a Trump/Republican administration. I froth at the mouth and grow incoherent when I think about it.
That is quite a list…womens rights gone on what basis, did you see the vid the other day of hillary’s syian “moderate rebel” ordering his female victim to disrobe before he murdered her? Feel free to expound…abortion rights, yeah sure, and where exactly is hillary on this point? Voting rights? have you noticed the concerted disenfranchisment of the sanders supporters by the DNC? Social Security is on the block with hillary, you can count on it, almost certainly medicare as well. Obamacare? Please take it away. The EPA under succesive democrat admins is a shell of it’s former self. Income inequality is fine with hillary and her supporters.They call it meritocracy, I call it “I got mine-ism”. The IRS is the bill collector for student loans and “obamacare”. Gun control? Well I have to say I’m not surprised our murderous elite don’t want us to have any guns. Have you noticed the militarization of our police dept’s under obama? Reasonable treatment of aliens, you mean give out more H1-B visas right? You mean prosecute employers who hire illegals and cheat them on pay, right? Muslims are currently besieged by both parties, fear of the “other”. Americans are big chickens (o my god they might throw a chair because we cheated! o my god! Drone them now!) And I’ll just stop here for a second to laugh my ass off regarding “restrained military policy” BWA HA HA HA!….stomping out gay rights, good luck with that, they’re out and they’re proud and no pushovers, that clocks not turning back. Nice emotionally charged rending of garments, but short on substance. I say don’t worry so much, gridlock is your friend. Whatever for mot of the rest of your comment but this I can’t let go either “willing to whore himself out to the worst elements of the Republican party to get their support.” Have you noticed hillary running for republicans? Did you notice obama nommed a republican to the supremes? Take off the rose colored glasses and leave your sim world behind because there’s no there there. Also, and lastly, the innoculating “I’m for bernie, but…” is nauseating. If you’re for bernie, you clearly can’t be for the reagan republican trickle down incremental big biz {prison/military/health”care”complex} globalist named Hillary Clinton. Get in line (for the abattoir)
+1zillion
What a bunch of BS Deloss Brown has smeared about. Thank you, tegnost, for cleaning up that Correct the Record schmutz.
Yep. + a zillion. Poor Ms. Deloss must be feeling a little scorched right now. And justifiably so.
You’ve fallen for the fear mongering of the DNC and Hillybots!
Actually, what if Trump wins regardless? It’s a very real possibility. Clinton is widely despised among independents, even those who are liberal or truly leftist.
Given the good likelihood she’ll fail anyway, why neuter yourself on her behalf?
CTR? You really want to keep Obamacare? You think Social Security or Medicare are safe under the Clintons? You think Hillary believes in a restrained military policy? Stop, you’re killing me with laughter. Better talking points, please.
The neoliberals have us right where they want us, paralyzed with fear!!
Hold it, the idea that the only reason you won’t cast your vote for Donald Trump is because of “neoliberal fear” is as specious as saying the only reason you would vote for Donald Trump is because you are a “racist.”
I can easily come up with a recitation of idiot and contractor things that Donald Trump has said and nasty things that he has done. There are excellent reasons not to vote for him. Trump running as a Republican and not a Democrat or an independent might be one indication of his general sympathies, and although it is “Democrats are EVIL” all the time around here, some might note that the Republicans gave us Nixon, Kissinger, Reagan, Dubya, and Cheney, and are on the best day of the year no better than the Democrats. But I guess like Hillary you think anyone who won’t vote the way you want them to must be stupid or ignorant; people couldn’t possibly not vote for Trump because he’s an awful candidate for president.
I only have an opinion, not a vote, but one way to look at this is that one candidate has participated directly in top-level decisions involving criminal abuse of Executive power leading directly to illegal use of extreme military force, culminating in the massive war crimes engendered during the destruction of 2 countries, the ongoing dismemberment of a 3rd and continued occupation of a 4th – while the other one hasn’t.
Clinton will take that ball and run with it, of that there is no doubt. She and her perma-team will ooze into every power position of import as if they were all born in revolving doors. With Clinton, you can be sure you will get nothing important done that needed doing, and far, far too much happening in the way of war abroad, ‘security’ at home, a complete cave-in to the next round of Wall Street extortion via threat of a ‘crash’, a reversal on trade deals to pro-TPP etc., and plenty more. With the other fellow, who is pretty much a one-man show vis a vis both Parties, I rather expect the permanent government, which includes fossilized leadership on both sides, will provide him only with options they approve – all he can do is veto.
Any move by Trump to take some drastic action beyond what Clinton would countenance will be greeted with enormous trepidation. Plus: Clinton thinks putting Bill in charge of the economy where ‘folks’ have been left behind resonates somewhere other than in their shared head – it doesn’t.
Bernie has shone a powerful light on the state of the republic. If Clinton wins, and brings a Democratic Congress with her, she could not possibly eliminate SS or Medicare–no Democratic Congress would allow it. (Well–DWS might, which is why I send $ to Tim Canova).
And if “Trump wins, regardless,” I listed what will happen with, I think, accuracy. I repeat: we cannot afford a Trump Presidency.
I’m not advocating for Hillary except as the lesser of two evils. But that she is by miles.
“Have you no principles!?” No, none. “Have you no better talking points!?” No, none. I merely have a horror of death and the destruction of the republic.
What Bernie has revealed is how corrupt the Democratic Party is. Corruption that the Clintons had a huge role in shaping. So at the end of the day – all you really have are feelings. You “feel” like Hillary will not gut SS, you “feel” that she will “repair” Obamacare, or not wage war across half the Middle East, or sign the TPP.
The evidence shows that if Hillery wins the Whitehouse, she will be in a position to deepen the corruption in the party, likely pending it more towards her personal agenda.
This means fewer Democrats in Congress, not more. And the few who do manage two win will be just as loyal to the establishment as she is. However, I highly doubt she will bring in any Democrats at all. Let alone this ridiculous fantasy that the House will swing back to Democratic control.
A Dem congress might help prevent outright gutting of such things maybe (though it can’t stop Fast Track for instance), so vote for that if it makes sense. But NOONE needs to worry about that until November, as it’s the primaries now and we better vote the best people we can find in the primaries and only worry about party later in the general if you must.
The thing is Hillary does nothing to get us there, she has no coattails. And disgust with useless Dem Presidents (like Obama for instance) often makes congress ever more Republican. While it’s possible disgust with Trump could lead to the reverse but impossible to know for sure. A recession is also coming in the next 3 years almost certainly and whoever holds power is likely to be blamed.
Pardon me, but we only have Fast Track BECAUSE of a Democrats. Sure Chuck Schumer voted no, but that was only after negotiating a couple of key points in the bill so that other Democrats WOULD vote for it. IF the Democrats had held strong and actually supported the will of their constituents we would not have Fast Track. You also might want to look at the names behind the gutting of SNAP benefits, etc.
The useless Dem Presidents didn’t get nothing done or in cases like the ACA dig get big pieces of dung done because there were no Democrats in office. Frankly, Obama has been very lucky in having an obstructionist Congress. His ratings are much higher than Congress’ ratings. If he had had another term with majorities in both Houses, I’m pretty sure he would not have seen another term. But no, the big bad Republicans didn’t let him do what he needed to do. People do forget (and forgive) that he has only faced a fully Republican majority Congress for a couple of years.
Or shorter: useless Democratic Presidents are just the end result of having useless Democrats at all levels including Congress. And if you don’t think they want more useless look at who the DCCC and the DSCC support to be in Congress and who they diss or the areas they ignore.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. The rest of the Democrat congresscritters, with a few exceptions, are exactly like Wasserman Schultz. Why do you think the superdelegates have refused to switch from Hillary to Bernie, even though Bernie has had landslide victories? You really think those same people are going to vote for the interest of normal citizens against the Clintons? Have you forgotten that it was Obama who tried to push through a “Grand Bargain”, and that it was the Repubs who stopped him?
It is Hillary who is the greater evil this time around (which is not saying that Trump is a saint). The elitist Democrat party is a scourge. Its members only vote the right way when a Repub is in office, and, sometimes, not even then. It all depends on how many dollars they think they can raise for themselves from the Dem sheep and the oligarchs on any particular vote.
(sigh) Today I sent money to Tim Canova, Zephyr Teachout, and the DSCC. I also send money to Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from the DNC in protest and endorsed Bernie. I hope you did, too.
No, I haven’t forgotten the “grand bargain.” And I haven’t forgotten the public option, for which I lobbied in person at the offices of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
“Which is not saying that Trump is a saint” defies comment.
I suppose if Hillary gets the nomination, the most principled among you can write in Bernie, or Ralph Nader, or yourselves. I have no principles. I’m a Democrat.
Alexander Pope once presented a puppy to the Prince of Wales. It had a tag on its collar, on which was engraved:
“I have no principles. I’m a Democrat” is precisely why you, Deloss Brown, do indeed associate yourself as a Democrat today.
You see, unlike you Deloss Brown, there are many Democrats who do have principles so don’t support a shifty shifting ideology.
This is why they ‘Feel the Bern’ and will do their utmost to guide everyone together, towards the right way…..ie. left.
I actually take your argument seriously and I may end up voting for Hillary Clinton in the general. However, this early in the game is too early for anti-Trump hysteria. Have you forgotten how old all 3 contenders are? Each one of them may croak before we need to face the Death of the Republic ™.
At present, you are part of a loudly insistent, coordinated effort to shut down the Sanders wing. Keep it up, and 5 months hence, when your argument may have critical merits, you will be ignored by voters who grew tired of being jerked around 4 months earlier.
I don’t see how sending Bernie money is going to shut him down. I think I’ll continue to send him money, and risk the consequences.
I share that horror, and there’s an easy solution, vote for bernie. Clinton could just give up too, for the better of the country. I think all the people you’re talking about in the democratic congress to be brought along with her are the superdelegates who have pledged fealty to her highness so not much chance of any progress there, and the all powerful republicans could continue to conveniently block any radical changes to the left and so furthering hillary’s more effective evil.
It was Democrat Obama who tried to destroy Social Security. It was Democrat Obama who created the Catfood Commission and who staffed it with Clintonite Democrats as part of his drive to lay the propaganda basis for destroying Social Security.
A Democratic President Clinton will want to be the Great Historic Democrat who does a “Nixon goes to China” against Social Security, just as it was the last Democratic President . . . Obama . . . who wanted to be the Great Historic Democrat to pull a Nixon-goes-to-China against Social Security.
Maybe the Clinton’s will do to Social and Medicare what they did to welfare (AFDC). Maybe they should run on that platform, it might be honest. Then it will be new poll shows Trump beating Hillary 60-40 … (Trump of course can not be trusted either)
clinton is going to work on income/wealth inequality? obama just nominated a republican to the sup ct. i think reasonable treatment of aliens and muslims would include not starting any for profit wars in the countries they come from.
Ironically, it’s been 25 years of rightwing propaganda that has convinced many Democrats and some independents that Hillary must in her heart of hearts be for single payer and an advocate for women and minorities because the whole Mighty Wurlitzer has been spewing forth the message that Hillary is a left winger and a dangerous radical forever. Limbaugh et al. have done her a tremendous service by convincing millions that she’s on “their” side on these issues because the Right has vilified her for so long. Ask people you know who are going to vote for Trump why, and I’d guess a fair number will say “because Hillary’s a liberal.” In both cases, the people have been duped.
Having the right enemies isn’t enough to make them deserve support. They dislike us more than they dislike Republicans.
You don’t think Hillary will exacerbate global warming, with her “responsible fracking” nonsense? How many countries does she have to help destroy before she becomes a threat to civlization? Iraq, Libya, Honduras–what’s next?
Iraq? It was Hillary Clinton who destroyed Iraq?
Now you are in the realm of propaganda fantasy. You can hate people all you want, but that’s just a lie to justify your hatred.
Excuse me, but I do recall that Hillary voted for the Iraq war. That seems pretty ‘helpful’ to me.
She didn’t just vote for it. She was one of its ardent supporters.
Are you sure you know how she felt about Iraq?
The Clinton’s long relationship with Iraq
I am no Trump fan and will not vote for him but you’ll get all this with Hillary if you are honest about it.
Social Security and Medicare she’s grand bargain hungry (and he’s appointing friends of Pete Peterson), oh it’s all so lovely. Voting rights? Tell that to 100k disenfranchised Brooklyn residents. Global warming. Trump doesn’t believe in global warming and probably will as well but we know HILLARY CLINTON TAKES FOSSIL FUEL MONEY. What part of that making her unable to be of almost any use on climate change don’t you understand? She is being paid by fossil fuel, what else do you need to know? Or were you not aware of this fact – well google it then. Even the fossil fuel Kochs are [global] warming up to her, they know on which side her bread is buttered.
Bernie is the only real alternative we have. Everything else is the disaster you portray.
I understand things okay, but thank you for your kind concern.
I voted for Bernie and I sent him money last on May 4, but of course today I sent money to Canova, Teachout, Flores, and the DSCC. I have never sent a nickel to Hillary.
Pray tell me, what are we to do if Bernie isn’t a possible alternative (= not on the ballot)? Your arguments, by a simple reductio ad absurdum, would have gotten us Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney and the Flim-Flam Man (PK), and the ad absurdum part is within easy reach. Would you really rather have had Palin than Obama? Please don’t say yes.
Yes, Hillary takes fossil fuel money. But if she’s the snake she’s portrayed as in many of these posts, she will have no trouble betraying her oil-money backers, if the wind blows that way. Bernie is the wind, but Hillary had a big head-start on him.
Are you willing to hand over the government to the Duck, the Turtle, and the Flim-Flam Man? Because unless we elect a Democrat at the top of the ticket, who will drag along the bottom of the ticket with him/her, you will get the D., the T., and the F.-F. Man. They don’t belong in elected office. I think they belong in a lunatic asylum.
A lot of the posters on here–excepting you, of course, jrs–seem to be Trump supporters, maybe by default, maybe by ignorance. How daring. How unusual. I don’t have that kind of courage or adventurous spirit. I hate and fear the idea of a Trump Presidency so much, that I would, if necessary, vote for Hillary Clinton. (Gasps of horror.) And as I said, I’m a Democrat. As Alexander Pope said on the dog’s collar:
“Yes, Hillary takes fossil fuel money. But if she’s the snake she’s portrayed as in many of these posts, she will have no trouble betraying her oil-money backers, if the wind blows that way. Bernie is the wind, but Hillary had a big head-start on him. ”
I think she stays bought. Those she betrays are the peons she merely makes promises to not the big money who buys her.
For all we know Trump might also turn out to be great on climate change, now not only his own words lead one to believe otherwise, but the eventual backing of the Republican establishment leads one to think otherwise. But in Hillary’s case the money she takes plus some of her own words say she won’t be good either. 6 of one and half dozen of the other …
If it comes down to Hillary and Trump there will simply be no good choices with almost any chance of winning period.
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
I wrote you a nice reply, jrs, but the moderator put it into the memory hole. Perhaps it was because I noted that there seemed to be, considering the nature of this blog, a surprising number of people on here who wouldn’t mind seeing Trump elected.
You are apparently misunderstanding a lot of the discourse here. The general rationale for a leftist (of course, not ALL readers of this blog are leftists) to back Trump is two-fold: primarily, it’s that electing him weakens the corrupt establishment of both parties, and is the only hope of recovering the Democratic Party as a force for regular people. Also, the only way the Democratic establishment will push back against ANY neoliberal policy is if a Republican is President, because it robs them of the cover they need to to fake being too powerless to do what their voters want.
It is also the case that as of right now, Trump is actually running to Clinton’s left in numerous ways.
But plenty of commenters here don’t agree with that strategy. Many are instead planning to vote Green, or leave the presidential line blank.
While you attempt to belittle those to your left as being ignorant, I would suggest to you that there are much better information sources than USA Today, and that you are swallowing a lot of propaganda from the Clinton campaign, designed to frighten you into opening your wallet for her, promoting her, and voting for her.
That’s not to say Trump’s an awesome dude and will make a fine president. I dread a Trump presidency. I just dread a Clinton presidency even more.
Yes, I plan to vote Green. You’ve got to start somewhere, sometime. I will vote honesty for the best person. If you want honest officials, you have to vote honestly rather than “strategically.”
I’m not so sure. Gridlock, as opposed to TPP, a grand bargain, and a new war, is our friend.
A Trump administration under full-on legislative assault by Dems in control of the Senate — such an assault would happen, right? — doesn’t seem so bad to me as Democrats controlling all both executive and legislative branches.
Lambert, I think you could use this if you haven’t seen it already. I dunno how else to post it or get in touch so I’m leaving it here. The little details kinda say it all…
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/956597-ben-garrison
I looked at some of Mr. Garrison’s cartoons. I also looked at the disclaimer or whatever posted on the page with each cartoon. The disclaimer or whatever says this:
“Origin Entry
Ben Garrison
Ben Garrison is a libertarian political cartoon artist known for creating illustrations about United States political corruption and various conspiracy theories, who has been the subject of a troll campaign by users of 4chan’s /pol/ (politics) board who have attempted to frame him as a Nazi sympathizer.”
Here is one of the cartoons.
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/962915-ben-garrison
Here is another.
http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/957461-ben-garrison
What is it that I am supposed to understand the little details as kinda saying . . . ?
It wasn’t until after I had looked at it a few times (magnified) that I noticed the “MSM” on the bullhorn, and the “Elite Bankers” on the banner… that is what I meant by the little details.
I think thew cartoon is quite true regardless of ones own politices or Mr Garrison’s own leanings.
My only difference with it is that I would argue that “bankers” is a bit too narrow, in this day and age there are many more players besides just the bankers.
Clearly you don’t understand manufactured narratives. If you’re willing to believe that the show the oligarchs put on for you has any relation to the lived experiences and interests of those doing the work for the blathering bourgeoisie, see you on the ground floor.
“On a pragmatic level, the best way to change the dem party is for Hillary to lose to Trump.”
Doubt it. Plenty of people said the same thing during the Clinton/Bush years. Instead of changing, they doubled down on the fail. Exact same playbook as the far Right. Likely for the same reasons.
Your doubts are well warranted here. The hour is late. If Hillary loses the general election, the establishment will do its best to try and deflect blame and continue to fail to learn from there mistakes. However, the strength of the establishment leadership will be crippled.
If Hillary wins the general however, she will have unprecedented power over the Democratic Party – and ALL HOPE for reform, no mater how narrow or fleeting, vanishes.
However, I consider this whole debate to be largely academic. I see no conservable way for Hillary to win – not even against Trump. The problem is that the Democratic Party has been so hollowed out and is do fragile that there is really no way for it to compete with the Republican organization. The Democratic Party has been remade into a machine exclusively for one office – the President, sacrificing in large measure the federal congress and whole stale abandonment of the majority of states in the union. Down ticket elections have but one purpose – to raise money and pull for the president or presidential candidate.
If anything, Clinton has actually accelerated the decay. Lower ranking Democrats already have to spend most of their time and effort raising money for the party. They will also have to abide by an increasingly overt demand of loyalty to establishment rule which ultimately sets the parties agenda. Those that don’t will be ignored, isolated, and eventually primaried out of existence, regardless of how popular they are during the election.
The lesser of two evils is not just regarding Clinton, it’s a cancer that has already spread down the ticket all the way to local positions.
If you think voting for Clinton is the safer bet against Trump – then you do not understand the true stakes of the game.
If Clinton loses to Trump and the MSM and the EstabliDem Clintonites wish to say it was because of all the Sanderists not voting for Clinton, they can say in reply . . . ” the dogs would have eaten the dogfood if they had been given dogfood that was good enough to eat.”
Typos be damned, this has been one of best colloquies on the importance of the Sanders campaign and the unmasking of the deep corruption in our political system I have read so far this political season. Thank you, Yves, for publishing this.
Yesterday we learned that Clinton has reneged on her promise to debate Sanders in California. No surprise there. She has also, thus far, refused to meet with the editorial board of the SF Chronicle. While I have little hope this will make a difference in their eventual endorsement, I’m more than willing to be pleasantly surprised as I do believe there are some people there who would recognize the truth in what Tasini and Curry have to say.
I couldn’t agree more with the idea that Sanders must continue his critique of the system and to refrain from making this personal. Having listened to his recent speeches, I’m afraid he spends too much time on Trump and should make the corruption of the DNC and the political system in general the primary focus of his talk. That he should tie this directly to the issues that resonate with progressives – income inequality, affordable healthcare, the environment, the militarization of our police, an end to perpetual war.
I have no doubt that the cynics and so-called “pragmatists” within the Democratic party fully expect Sanders movement to lose momentum after the election. Will it really matter if Sanders does make removal of WS a condition of his support if they replace her with another Clinton ally? If after the floor is swept and the lights go out we return to this dismal status quo?
The most risible criticisms of Sanders is that he is running as a Democrat only as a matter of convenience. Of course he is! A lot of us remain in the party only as a matter of convenience. In California, I can still vote in the Democratic primary if I declare as unaffiliated, but not as a Green. But you can’t even do that in most other states. You want to have a voice in this system? Make sure you register accordingly. Be “pragmatic”. What a lousy system.
Is there hope for reform of the dominant parties, as Tasini and Curry suggest? How can that happen so long as Citizen United and PACs and corporate money continue to corrupt our political process and third parties are marginalized into nothingness? It concerns me that neither Tasini nor Curry see much hope for an alternative to the two-party system.
I hope, if nothing else, at least we come out of this thing with a clearer idea of how to fix this thing. Maybe Bernie could focus more on that and less on Trump?
Who know what The Chronicle will do, but the SF Examiner just endorsed Bernie:
San Francisco Examiner Editorial Board endorses Bernie Sanders for President
Thanks for the heads up, Katie. A fine endorsement. It should be noted that the SF Chron is owned by the Hearst Corp (a Clinton Foundation donor). While we await their endorsement, here’s the editorial cartoon they have in today’s print edition from “anti-establishment” cartoonist Nick Anderson:
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/anderson/article/Outrage-7681625.php
The San Francisco Examiner’s circulation dept must be
pretty busy right now. They say leave a message. I did.
This movement has gotten bigger every single year. I personally date the origination to the anti-NAFTA movement, but it became much more clear around the time of the Dean and Clark campaigns. The ex-Dean and ex-Clark supporters basically all ended up in the same movement.
Obama defrauded us (FISA Amendments Act was the first and most obvious example but it was followed by dozens more), which radicalized a fairly large fraction.
Opposition to Hillary within the movement is largely due to her being a complete tool, in the worst sense of the word. Not evil, just a tool.
Peter Bernhardt @ 9:07 am
“The most risible criticisms of Sanders is that he is running as a Democrat only as a matter of convenience. Of course he is! A lot of us remain in the party only as a matter of convenience.”
Risible, indeed! The Democrat and Republican parties formed a private firm [CPD] in 1987 to entrench a duopoly, which metamorphosed into a monopoly. Today, the majority of voters do not identify with ‘either’ party, yet are expected to fund elections and sit on the sidelines, like good little girls and boys, while maniacs take the levers of control. The alternative to disenfranchisement is to register with a party one has no Earthly connection to, in order to try and influence candidate selection early in the process, only to have party insiders decry the onslaught of ghoulish, disloyal insurgents. These people clearly have no awareness whatsoever of their own ridiculousness.
Sanders should speak less of Trump. Trump is an effect, not a cause and plying people with fear makes Bernie look like a Democrat.
And, being manipulated in this way is decidedly inconvenient.
Convenience is OK, for we live under Realpolitik.
The difficulty lies in making it work.
It’s like suggesting, to struggle against wealthy inequality, one has no choice but to become rich, by becoming one of them…by joining them….by being a Trump…
So, Sanders became a Democrat.
I went through and fixed apostrophes and other errors.
I don’t live in Ca. I live way back here in Michigan. So I don’t know how the SF Chronicle feels about Nancy Pelosi. But I can infer that if the SF Chronicle habitually supports Nancy Pelosi, then the SF Chronicle will support Clinton and oppose Sanders. That’s just my political intuition, though, and not any deeply reasoned analysis.
A really excellent, in-depth analysis by people who have been following the campaign on the ground.
Over the past few decades, the elites of both parties have grown apart from their respective bases, employing multiple and often, conflicting fringe ideologies (R’s) and the law of party loyalty/lesser evilism (D’s) to compel/cajole voters into electing people who no longer represent their own interests, but those of their party’s elite (top 10%, maybe).
Doing this gets harder with each election cycle. We’re now seeing the direct results in both the Trump and Sanders campaigns: Trump, an outsider, has appealed to the fringe groups + R’s disaffected by and disenfranchised from the system. Sanders, similarly, has appealed to progressives (aka European-style social democrats) + D’s disaffected by and disenfranchised by the system.
What I see is a sort of supra-political financial elite ruling both parties, the members of which have far more in common with one another than with their traditional bases. Logically, they should get together and form their own party. But since they’d never get elected, they can’t.
Dbk, you’re obviously correct. The result is going to be the collapse of the current party system, either democratically or through violence, depending on how much the financial elite suppresses democracy. There are several different ways it can play out, but there is no way they can actually *stay* in power.
Perhaps we will get a three party system. We will have the Democratic Populist Party on the Right, the Democratic Socialist Party on the Left, and the Depublicratic Party in the Vital Center. The Depublicratic Party will be the home of the Clintonites, the Obamacrats, the Pelosians, the Steny HoYos, etc.
‘There are several different ways it can play out, but there is no way they can actually *stay* in power’
I think ‘they’ are a lot more dangerous than they’ve ever been, and it would be a serious mistake to believe the good guys will inevitably win – history has not worked that way. I am inclined to think that between this election and the next, the fundamental legitimacy of US democracy as rendered by current processes is going to be severely tested, and could even conceivably fail. If current electoral processes cannot produce a tolerable, let alone a good outcome, opponents of the status quo are going to have to really start to think about how to oppose with enough power to compel the end of an illegitimate Government, or order of things, without recourse to violence while retaining freedom from violence. No small order, but necessity is the mother of invention after all.
Well it’s helpful to have yet another source state so clearly that there was NO violence at the NV caucus, and that, basically, the Hillary camp broke the rules.
There’s been so much hand-wringing and shame-blaming of the Sanders’ supporters for “yelling.” As this transcript indicates, the so-called “yelling” was typical of this type of meeting/event/caucus.
Really the hurted fee-fees of Clinton supporters over every little ginned up awfulness of Sanders’ supporters is tedious in the extreme. Apparently there were nasty things said/sent to the NV State Chair of the convention. That’s wrong, and I disagree with anything like that. But the rest of it? Well the media has been quite good at pumping the narrative that there was violence at the caucus, and the violence happened by the hands of Sanders’ supporters.
Typical. Nice how D voters are every bit as willing as R voters to grasp and cling onto whatever meme the M$M gives them… as long as it’s what they want to hear. This coming from so-called “progressives” who claim that they know the media is biased and not to be trusted.
I said from the beginning, as soon as I heard the allegations of violence at the NV caucus, I figured it was bogus. And hey presto! It was bogus.
Lesson to be learned by far too many who are unwilling to let go of the narratives that they foolishly believe serve “their side.”
I followed along on Twitter all the way to the end. I do understand that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” in the abstract, but when you’ve got two factions at odds, and the faction with every motive to produce evidence of violence never does, that’s quite telling. The whole story never gelled until Jon Ralston emitted his anonymously sourced and clip-free story, at which point it went national and polluted everything.
At this point, absent clips, I wouldn’t even believe a “witness” who came forward; it’s too late.
It is probably a pre-figuring of the kind of psy-ops campaign the EstabliDem Clintonites plan to run against the Sanderists at the Philadelphia Convention. Part of what the Clintonite Establishment plans to achieve is to fill the Philadelphia Police with enough fear and hatred that the Police will stage a Chicago-style Police Riot against the Sanderists at the convention and wherever Sanderists gather in Philadelphia.
I don’t know why the Clintonites would want that. But that is what they are trying to engineer into taking place for the benefit of MSM TV.
Does Clinton think she would rise from the ashes as a New Nixon for a New Law and a New Order? Does she consider the risk that she might be Hubert Horatio’d?
All the more reason Bernie and the movement he helped initiate should take this to the convention floor and beyond.
A quote from the speech he made in Carson, CA on the night of the KY and OR primaries lays out the basic framework of the movement:
Those are the only alternatives I see.
Keep supporting the status quo and ensure the Democratic Party’s demise or embrace the future of a people-powered, people-oriented party and the positive change that Bernie’s campaign represents.
Snopes refutes the chair throwing claim, which defines the reporting ethics of some of the MSM, NYT included. They have compiled much of the reporting and posted it here:
http://http://www.snopes.com/did-sanders-supporters-throw-chairs-at-nevada-democratic-convention/
The first thing I thought of when I heard “chairs thrown at stage” (plural) was the picture of the cops security ring in front of the stage. I looked for video of someone being arrested, with dozens of people filming and shouting “let him go” as someone was wrestled to the ground. Not finding that, I looked for grainy security stills, since there are cameras everywhere in casinos, and they are all monitored. Harry Reid would have had copies sent to all the news outfits by courier if he’d had them.
Not one reporter asked about this, and the Sanders staffer who took the video of the raised chair followed by the group hug got nowhere with the NYT when she complained about them using her video to buttress the statements by Dem leadership who weren’t even there. They had no interest in quoting her.
If you look at Ralston’s twitter feed you’ll see him going back to taunt Sanders supporters long after he knew the chair(s) weren’t thrown. On TV he began the neat segue from the chairs don’t matter to it’s the way they behaved and the potential for violence.
It’s John Lewis and Delores Huerta all over again.
This whole thing is making me nuts. I’ve got to get away from the computer before I start posting in any thread on any blog with the word “chair” in it.
I don’t believe I’m the only one who has figured this out, and I wonder if Sanders staffers are being deliberately ignored or if they lie low to preserve their ability to continue to work in politics. If so, I don’t blame them, this looks like a lost battle and we’d all be better off if there were more decent people in Democratic politics. At least they’ll be experienced.
Thanks for this summary.
Good data though; a defining moment. You can cross anybody who propagates the airborne seating meme of your list. Since that’s most of the press, that’s wonderfully clarifying.
Remember when “progressives” were “the reality-based community”? Good times.
Nevada WAS NOT about Sanders. It was a power grab by the Nevada Democratic Party. Here’s a link to an article about the suit filed before the convention. Robert Kern is the attorney.
http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/89944
Right before the convention the NDP had a meeting. They granted all current members of 2 governing committees LIFETIME appointments. Nobody would be running for office every 2 years any more. They also changed the filing deadline for empty seats, and according to another interview with the same attorney, buried the notice of change on an obscure page not linked to the official rules for the convention. The bit about only voice votes at the convention was to make sure the chair was the only one who could rule about adoption of these “temporary rules”, and to prevent amendments modifying them.
Watergate wasn’t a burglary, and Nevada wasn’t about Sanders. It was to prevent progressive control of the Nevada State Party.
In other articles Sanders staffers said they had enough signatures and votes to win most seats on the boards and would be promoting progressive candidates for office.
The “chair throwing”, Boxers attempt to incite a riot, moving the barricades between the stage and the floor from 4 feet to 20 feet, ignoring motions from the floor because they “couldn’t hear you”, and threatening a woman with ejection for countering that by speaking with her own bullhorn were all distractions.
Harry Reid did not want a “bunch of kids” interfering with his plans for Nevada. Ralston and the newspaper reporter were helping him out by lying about what went on.
There’s other info if you search with the attorney’s name. Also an amatuer video interview with him, but I didn’t want to post a bunch of links.
Many thanks for this, MaryC. It’s actions such as these that make it crystal clear that there’s just no going back. These DNC and DLC sum’bitches are corrupt to the bone. I’ve been pondering this all morning….We, the eyes-open disaffected, should float some ideas on the best way to be sure our anti-Hillary votes register as such with the dominant shill media. I don’t think voting Green carries the message strongly enough. Perhaps defaced ballots?
The only action that would really “register” . . . would be getting Trump elected with near unanimous vote totals in areas which voted for Sanders in the primaries. Clinton and the Clintonite Party would have to be burned all the way down to the ground before anything would “register” even the slightest little bit.
The downside of that would be a President Trump with a Nixon vs. McGovern size mandate. So there are risks either way.
I wonder if the case can be appealed?
And I wouldn’t mind more links, especially the video.
Speculating freely: It would seem that retaining control of Nevada’s casino regulatory apparatus through control of the Democrat Party is very important to Harry Reid.
One can only wonder why.
(This would make Ralston’s work a fine example of stacking functions, distracting from this, as well as giving the Clinton campaign a reacharound. And we might also remember that Robbie Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, won Nevada for Clinton in 2008. So Mook’s wired in, somehow.)
Interesting to think about it within a permaculture frame…yes, quite.
I’m beginning to think the main purpose here was to generate a Dean’s scream kind of story that they could use to discourage Sanders voters in upcoming primaries. This isn’t accidentally Amplified by the mainstream media, remember also all of the commenters (I think it was Huffington Post) saying “I used to support Bernie Sanders but after this I can’t”,, probably paid for by Correct The Record. IMHO This was a targeted smear campaign planned from the very beginning to Incite a shareable narrative to deploy as a political attack. The question is, will it work?
Other stacked functions from Nevada:
1) Philly: Much tighter rules on “disruption” to be deployed;
2) Purge: Neera Tanden* and Joan Walsh combine forces to get blogger Matt Bruening fired from the Demos “think tank”. If you want a classic example of the language liberals use when they’re shoving in the shiv, see the Demos announcement.
I’d say it’s open season on the left in the Democrat Party.**
NOTE * This is a challenging incident, since while Breunig did call Tanden a scumbag, she is, in fact, a scumbag (and as head of the Center for American Progress, probably in line for a big fat rice bowl in a Clinton administration).
NOTE ** Sadly, and very stupidly, Bruenig seeks merely to change the identity politics frame of the election from Walsh’s coalition of white men vs. the will of black, brown, and people voters (thereby erasing many Sanders supporters) to a frame of young vs. old (and as we know, generations don’t have agency). So from an analytical perspective, a pox on both their houses.
Scumbag was shorthand for Scumbag Steve, a meme about a selfish moocher.
The young vs. old bit was Matt & Carl Beijer trying to get Walsh off the BernieBro thing by breaking the electorate out by age and race. Carl has been collecting data on Sanders name recognition and favorability among blacks since January, charting that Sanders support goes up with name familiarity and internet use. They have repeatedly sent their research to Walsh and her employers, asking her to stop.
Matt and Carl are 100% class in the class vs. identity conflict, which is where they get in trouble with Walsh and her upper class feminism that chews out poor whites.
Walsh is whining about her tough day on twitter and posting bits about Sanders making fun of his volunteers.
Bruenig’s friends donated to a go fund me account, it’s got $25,000 in it now, and that’s driving the trolls crazy. I’m glad he’s getting a lot of support.
Without any cause but his defense of Matt the trolls are going after Carl Beijer now, tagging his employer in on ancient tweets of his, suggesting he should be fired.
I saw one of the attack tweets aimed at Beijer. I assumed that guy was just a freelance douchebag, but now it occurs to me he must work for Brock. It’s basically the “BernieBro” version of the Red Scare, isn’t it?
They’re certainly making it easier and easier to protest vote for Trump.
Oh, and Matt Bruenig really doesn’t, as a general rule, do a young vs. old frame. The those terrible rich women planning to starve poor women got to him, and he lost his temper. His wife is due any day now. That’s not an excuse, but Joan Walsh’s Twitter feed is an actual cesspool. He was uncivil while being factually accurate. In a perfect world, he’d get hired by President Sanders in the fall.
Yes, I’ve linked to Beijer here, and I think he’s great. That said, I went by what Bruenig wrote in that tweet, where the language was quite definite, but perhaps “pox on both their houses” was too strong.
I think the gofundme account was great, but the real moral of the story is that we need an independent (and fundable) independent media. But how…
The other interesting emerging line is the idea that Bruenig brought it on himself, and should have “taken his family into account” (the coming baby). The threat is scarcely veiled!
Of course, I’m in favor of smashing rice bowls myself, so from the “live and let live” standpoint I don’t have a leg to stand on. Then again, there doesn’t seem to be an excess of “live and let live” around, does there?
We certainly need an independent media. We also need less oligarchic corruption, and no marital political dynasty to concentrate its force. With no Hillary in the position she’s in through both her marital dynasty and the gigantic amount of concentrated money and power at the top, Joan Walsh would not currently be employed to do her fact-free hit jobs, and Demos would not have felt it had to fire Bruenig to placate the presumed next White House Chief of Staff (Tanden). In a less brutal world, he could have been gently urged to take paternity leave a little early, or even, you know, Tanden might have been told that Twitter is part of the public arena and hurling an insult is not as bad as many of the alternatives.
And people are apparently doxxing Bruenig to prove he’s secretly wealthy or something. Because it can’t be allowed to stand that a man who writes on public policy and defends funds and policy to support the non-elite might receive economic support from readers and citizens after being brought to heel by his superiors, I guess.
I don’t think so.
The rule change in Nevada was clearly something that was pre-meditated as evidenced by the strong police presence in the room and some “paperwork issues” which complicated the seating of the delegates.
What they did not count on was how well organized the Sander’s people were. They had learned about the corruption being plaid out in other states and were ready with live-streaming video to record the events. They were even on the look out for possible violence. There is video of a man picking up a chair – probably the origin of the accusation. But other members quickly intervened, took the chair from him and returned it to the floor, and worked to pacify the man who acted. History was likely changed by this act.
As the video exposing the cou spread, the Dems began facing the reality of “bad optics” and moved to spin the situation back into control.
Still, something dose puzzle me here. Why the move at all? Clinton had already won Nevada decisively. Also keep in mind they likely believe she has already won, so it can’t be about delegates.
MaryC’s theory that they were afraid more progressive Sanders-inspired elements might gain control of NV Dems would explain a great deal. Not all the rice boles are in Washington.
“how well organized the Sander’s people were”
This is why 2008 is a bad analogy for 2016; the self-organizing capacity of Sanders voters.
Very important point. I do not believe Sanders understands that it was not his own campaign operatives that were responsible for organization. This matches my own experience with the campaign which wasted most of its $$ on Tad Devine’s most useless air game while voters organized the ground game themselves
I disagree on the air war, at least given an insurgent candidacy in a short (starting from scratch) time frame.
Name recognition is key, and the air war does that. The speeches sadly are not enough.
Adding… There seems to be a Clinton meme running around to the effect that the left shouldn’t avail itself of modern campaign tools and operatives. Seems odd.
If the reality-based meme that the Nevada events were a deliberately planned engineered-for-TV-moment can be spread far, wide and fast enough; it may not work. The more people who are inoculated against the Reidite-Clintonite brain-virus, the fewer people will be successfully infected by it.
‘The apartment complex where some of the staff workers were living was broken into and ransacked. Now, there’s no evidence that any of this is linked to the Clinton campaign.’
Nor was there any evidence (initially) that the Watergate burglary was linked to the Nixon campaign.
We are entitled to make Occam’s Razor assumptions, though.
Who are Hillary’s plumbers? Bet you could find them in the deleted “yoga routine” emails.
Hillary is so smart, so well-prepared!!!
Good post, but it wobbles in its focus. The corruption of democracy is certainly important, but that corruption becomes manifest not for reasons of principle, but because there is an associated skewing and constriction of public policy that occurs. In turn, those limitations reflect the ascendancy of particular groups and classes. Ok, fine. But the post tends to get lost in talking about HRC as “not being open to Sanders supporters” and the like, when what we are really seeing is a shift in the national political climate that threatens to turn the neoliberal tide, and HRC is the last best hope of the neoliberals. In my view, and I think this keeps showing up in the posts Yves and Lambert have been linking to recently and many of the comments, neoliberals are really worried about Trump, who has made it clear that under him free capital movements are over. In that respect he is anti-neoliberal, by no means thoroughly so, but I think the Rubins et al of the world see him as potentially completely disruptive of a reliable political base platform, the Rs, for neoliberalism, and also destructive of an ideological consensus they have established over decades. In any case, I wish the article had oriented itself more to this surrounding context instead of making politics at times sound like a club people can be freely included or excluded from, with exclusion being an act of impoliteness, almost, instead of an attempt to hold on to hegemony.
Just checked: the term “neoliberal” does not appear in the article. Oi.
Responsibility for war crimes in Libya and her continued advocacy of no-fly-zones to defend el qaeda types against the civilized element in Syria should disqualify Hillary from any consideration by persons of good will no matter what can be claimed about Trump. It also looks like Hillary’s neocon links could lead to nuclear war as their end result. This is a greater evil no matter what you can say about Trump.
The decades of neoliberal corruption personified by the Clintons including their corrupt foundation and nine figure concealed bribes received for “giving speeches” to corporate meetings should render them unacceptable to anybody. If you examine Trump’s positions, they are less odious in foreign policy, correct on trade, and less dangerous even on Social Security. I think Sanders ought to run as an independent or green if the Harpy gets the nomination, or, at the least, endorse Jill Stein. The committee positions are meaningless in a corrupt senate of pimps and placemen. Viewing his wife Jane in various appearances indicates she perhaps already is thinking along those lines. After all, she asked when the FBI was finally going to act on the Clinton email scandals.
Midday driveby, but I just Gita link from the Sanders campaign that is remarkable and relevant to this post:
https://berniesanders.com/revolution/
And the NYT has some excellent graphics today about public opinion re: Hillary and Trump. If they were stocks, I’d be selling.
That page hung my desktop with all those g-d animations. I hope that’s not allegory for his machine being broken.
From the tech side of things, I’m hugely impressed that he can attract the kind of talent to create this sort of information-infographics.
I hope that you’ll be able to see the page — it’s refreshing, focuses completely on who is giving him money, and without whinging on at any length, makes an elegant, succinct case that Bernie has raised $212,000,000 in average donations of $27, and the top career donor categories are: student, teacher, engineer. Also, only 5% of Bernie donors have maxed out, whereas 47% of Hillary’s have maxed out.
Which would make the DNC do a double-take if it were engaging with reality.
I could see it easily on mobile (Safari) and desktop (most recent Safari).
I hope that you see it, because it is a beautiful piece of work IMVHO.
One has to consider the authoritarian mindset when approaching the two groups. John Dean had two books on the subject, but if we accept his premise about conservatism being the refuge of the authoritarian leader and follower, the GOP voter would naturally line up behind the leader of the party as long as they stayed true on certain subjects. Trump’s personal unfavorable numbers will be less relevant than the anti-GOP numbers because the GOP voters will get in line behind dear leader. Mittens and other former leaders might throw hissy fits, but they won’t matter. GOP voters lined up for McCain and Romney, and they really hated those two.
The issue is how does trade hurt Hillary in the Midwest type states, and do the Democrats bother to register minority voters. Democratic activism is a largely extinct outside of the Sanders campaign. David Brock isn’t going to hit up run down apartment complexes to register voters. The other issue is how burned are Hispanics by Obama’s immigration policies and how angry black voters who didn’t vote in the primary actually are. They didn’t vote in 2010 or 2014, and data suggests Bill did very poorly with black voters in 1996. A group is captured until they are not.
A really excellent discussion. The point came up (and it has come up here) why has Bernie not said flat out that Obama is not a progressive. If he does, then there will be hell to pay. The MSM are already trying to cast him as insensitive to racial and gender issues.
For the long haul, it has to be said. At some point, the hangover will come, as IIRC Glen Ford said.
No need to explicitly say it. A pro-TPP/TTIP “progressive” is an obvious oxymoron of the living, breathing variety.
Attorney interview video:
https://www.facebook.com/AdryennAshley/videos/10153761945237695/
Details on the filing deadline change:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/elections/applicants-state-democratic-board-accuse-party-officials-not-sharing-deadline
“The first set of election rules drafted by the state party was emailed to party members beginning April 9 and listed the application filing deadline as April 29. That deadline was “quietly changed” a week later and moved up to April 25, according to the lawsuit.
“They posted the new rules to an obscure part of their website, without indicating there had been a change, or what the deadline now was,” Kern wrote. “The only way to find this posting was through a link in an email that was sent out to delegates over a week prior to the creation of the new deadline.”
Anyone who used the link before that email was sent found either the old rules or nothing at all, the lawsuit alleges. No one had any reason to know to check back for a change in the filing deadline.”
Details on lawsuit ruling with NDP response:
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/may/13/judge-dismisses-case-filed-by-sanders-supporters-a/
Video compilation:
http://heavy.com/news/2016/05/nevada-democratic-convention-raw-video-videos-full-replay-sanders-delegates-election-fraud-jason-llanes-periscope-youtube/
Videos & tweet collection:
http://heavy.com/news/2016/05/nevada-democratic-convention-what-happened-roberta-lange-delegates-election-fraud-videos-recount-denied/
Rare quoted Sanders delegate:
http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/may/14/at-democratic-convention-in-las-vegas-rules-divide/
Any talented researcher could come up with more. I googled the attorney’s name and followed links from article to article. Twitter was also a good source, one of the above links had some tweets. I hesitate to post the names here w/o permission, one was discussing looking for a job in politics.
All I want is these people crucified.
A guy can always dream………….
It doesn’t seem that long ago that The Media actually employed men and women known as “Investigative Journalists.” Yes, yes, some newspaper, television, and/or, radio station owners even displayed a modicum of civic duty, and were willing to accept less than gargantuan profits so that something approaching real news was available to the public. Of course, that was before a TV pitchman, Ronald Reagan, informed us that America’s problem was, “the government is the problem.” Among the first to seize the wisdom in this epiphany, The Wharton School’s MBA Program immediately added, “Greed is Good” to its curriculum. Acting upon this new found wisdom countless thousands of vacuous MBA greed-heads were excreted onto the public, each one steeped in the certain knowledge that, while a corporation has many functions, should any one not be convertible into a “profit center,” well, it’s just gotta go; And, so we witnessed what later could only have come from the writers of The Onion. Walter Cronkite, “The Most Trusted Man In America,” was replaced by the likes of Steve Doocy, the evolutionary embarrassment.