What do you think about about Bernie Sanders’ political revolution?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
82 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
We need it. As Warren so often says, the system is broken. It’s not just in need of a tune-up.
I’m a fan of Clinton’s, and I’m a fan of Obama’s, and I believe that both can be trusted to make incremental, marginal improvements to a broken machine. I think we have extremely Serious commenters here, in fact, who believe that not only is nothing else possible, but that it’s disqualifying to even suggest that perhaps this isn’t the best of all possible systems, governed, at the moment, by the best of all possible administrations. They will prove that you shouldn’t fight what appear to be losing battles using exhausted snark and the unanswerable fact that nobody has ever, by definition, won a losing battle. So why fight them, you hippie dreamer?
I don’t know how we actually start fixing problems, instead of patching leaks, without something that looks like a ‘political revolution.’ I’m fairly convinced that we’re not ready for one, though. We haven’t hit bottom, yet.
… I believe that both can be trusted to make incremental, marginal improvements to a broken machine.
Incremental and marginal are no longer enough. At best, far too slow and far too small. Plus, Clinton is invested in much of what brought us to this state of affairs. IOW, she’s part of the problem. Again and again she and her husband sacrificed the good of the people (and individuals) for their own aspirations to be the head of the USG.
I feel your pain, but Sherrod Brown just endorsed Clinton, and John Lewis just announced African-Americans for Hillary, and I’ll donate to Sanders again, but we’re getting too slow and too small.
Yes, commented below or maybe in another thread about Brown’s endorsement.
A part of me wants to say, fuck it — if Democrats want more warmongering and neoliberal economic public policies (with the added twist of a legacy POTUS that is really contrary to democratic principles), then they’ll get what they deserve. Feels as if my voice and that of like-minded souls is as puny today as it was in late 2002 and early 2003. All I could do then was go on record and point out the stupidity, cruelty, and destruction of a country and the US economy to satisfy an irrational blood-lust by invading Iraq.
Being “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” sort of person, I’ve been bashing my head against walls my whole life. What frosts me more than people refusing to see facts and be sensible in real time is that there’s no cost to them for being totally wrong. They then continue for the most part to listen to the same jackasses that contributed to the fixes we find ourselves in. Democratic politicians seem not even to understand why the US banking system didn’t have booms and busts for almost half a century. (Warren is a total exception to that characterization of DEM pols.)
Two huge endorsements for H, and not entirely surprising. Brown is hardly a revolutionary and he’s repping Ohio, where he might want to run again. And Lewis kind of owed Hillary from the last time, 2008, when he initially endorsed her, then unendorsed her for Obama once he became the frontrunner.
I would expect he’s spent his quota of unendorsements for this lifetime, and so will be riding the Hillary train all the way to the end of the tracks.
I think Bernie and others are too right about Clinton. She waits for the polls to come out before deciding where to go, excepting wars. She seems to enjoy them and the financial industry.
It is time for something like a revolution in democratic policies. Bernie may not win, but maybe, just maybe he can start a fight that will last. Plus, I am really tired of wondering if the President will enter some other grand bargain. Enough.
I am all for it. I just hope that Sanders campaign can wake up the sleeping majority of voters in the USA and get them off their couches to VOTE!
VIVA LA BERN REVOLUTION!!
Bernie is no secret to most of us with fully functioning undamaged brains.
We have been listening for years. Here’s some of the story.
“For Sanders, conditions are perfect.
While perpetually overshadowed by its far more popular conservative counterpart, progressive talk nonetheless reaches at least 20 million devoted listeners on radio and the Internet, according to Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers Magazine, an industry publication.
Political talk radio listeners of all stripes tend to be more politically engaged and ideologically extreme than average voters, and thus more likely to vote in primaries. And the nature of the medium, which costs little to produce and is free to consume, lends itself to anti-establishment voices like Sanders.
“The default environment of radio is populist, is grassroots, is close to the ground,” Harrison said. Lately, commercial radio has gone through its most corporate phase in history, but it’s trending back towards “independent and populist talk,” Harrison added.
Like other left-wing audiences, talk radio listeners are looking for an alternative to Clinton. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is also very popular here. “My audience is pretty much in the `anybody but Hillary’ camp,” said Iowa-based Ed Fallon, who has fielded many pro-Sanders calls.
But unlike some other corners of the progressive movement, Sanders has put down deep roots in talk radio. “My audience has known Bernie for a long time. He’s been very accessible on radio for years,” said New York-based syndicated host Sam Seder.
And as listeners have become increasingly convinced that Warren is not running for president, they’ve coalesced around Sanders.
“It has been 99% a love affair between Bernie Sanders and my audience,” said Boston-based radio host Jeff Santos, whose show can be heard in the presidential state of New Hampshire. “Since he’s announced, it’s been unanimous and incredibly impressive.”
Sanders’ most important relationship in liberal talk started in a living room in Montpelier, Vermont, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Thom Hartmann had just started broadcasting his show from there and booked Sanders, then the state’s congressman.
The lawmaker was such a hit with listeners that it was quickly decided he should have a regular guest slot. Dubbed “Brunch with Bernie,” Sanders essentially took over an hour of Hartmann’s show every Friday, expounding on the week’s news and taking calls.
“They’re over the moon for Bernie Sanders, they’re over the moon for Elizabeth Warren, but when you tell them they’re a narrow slice of America, they get really mad.”
Hartmann now hosts the top-rated progressive talk radio show in the country, and Sanders still does an hour of “Brunch with Bernie” every week, more than a decade later.
Some on Sanders’ staff have questioned this use of the senator’s time, but Sanders enjoys it too much stop, an aide said.
When the senator announced his presidential bid, Hartmann quickly offered his endorsement and his listeners were eager to enlist. “I haven’t had a dissenting or skeptical or cynical voice about Bernie’s candidacy since he announced,” Hartman said from his studio, now in Washington, D.C., near the Capitol.”
I have been listening to this wizened American statesman weekly for 12 years or so. He is the best chance that Americans have of leveling the playing field for REPUBLICANS, democrats, independents and the folks who can’t be bothered to vote in our countries history.
Go Bernie!
Hat tip to Alex Seitz-Ward (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-bernie-sanders-won-the-talk-radio-primary)
It looks like I’m a gonna need to poke around the FAQ’s to make my formatting work here at the Booman Trib. Sorry Folks
Don’t feel bad. It has been said many times here, the comment “Preview” button is your friend. 😉
Yes, because your comment is interesting but somewhat difficult to read.
As Mike points out “preview” is your friend.
Consider adding para breaks, too. Like every 2-3 sentences. Makes for far easier reading. Otherwise, it’s just a massive sea of words that I want to skip thru quickly or skip over entirely.
I am 100% behind it.
But if it’s going to happen it means not just Bernie in the White House – we need real progressive candidates running all over the country, people who like Bernie believe we are all in this together, and who aren’t afraid to speak their mind and vote their conscience.
He needs not just a consensus of the voters but legislators who can help turn his vision to action once he is elected.
If it happens, it’d be less of a political revolution and more of a exploitation of natural demographic trends.
Nixon and FDR led political revolutions. Bernie Sanders, were he to win, would simply be building upon the Obama Coalition. Not to downplay this outcome because a 74-year old Jew tagged with the socialist label winning the nomination and perhaps even Presidency would complete upend most of our assumptions about United States politics. But Judis and Texeira predicted a candidate like Bernie being able to cement the Democratic Party’s majority back during the small days of Obama’s victory.
Of course, there’s the definite question of whether Bernie Sanders would be able to actually, you know, win the nomination. Frankly, I wonder whether Bernie Sanders can win the nomination under his own power, especially since the demographics he’s currently weakest with (blacks, older voters, richer whites) have the highest turnout within the Democratic Party. It’s still HRC’s to lose and she had an amazingly good October.
Speaking of hippie dreamers, what about this article?
http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/10/al-gore-optimist-000295
Gore is at his core a good and decent man. That often leads to a psychological matrix of good-decent-optimistic. What’s unfortunate is that he didn’t have the vision to see that he was in the wrong place at the right time when he began his careers. Short-cuts undermine the blossoming of the real person and what he/she can become on his/her own.
Good interview, and excellent points he makes about the difference between his going to congress in the 70s, with time to devote to studying and promoting the issues, and today, with little time for that as pols dial for dollars and get compromised.
Just wish Al would note the glaring problem of overpopulation of this planet and how that contributes to the global warming problem. If we don’t tackle that one systematically, we’re just tinkering at the margins.
iirc, the issue of population was included in “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Politically, this is a tricky issue to handle. A significant portion, probably a solid majority, of the US population views China’s “one-child policy” with horror. With no recognition that the horror was the Chinese birthrate and the situation demanded a radical “solution.”
When it comes to population, most peoples in the world continue to view it through the lizard part of their brains — everybody has the right to produce as many children as they want or end up with. Completely failing to recognize that every advance made in life extension means that the once adaptive and natural human reproductive strategy changes the equation.
Liberals take the position that with more education and access to birth control, women choose to have smaller families. That’s true but culture changes more slowly than education changes the individuals within the culture. Added to that is the injunction to breed by institutions and smaller groups to expand their power base.
Demographers project that world population will peak and remain somewhat constant at 10 billion by mid-century. Can the earth support such a large human population? Probably. It may even be quite capable of handling twice that many. But not at the speed that it has and will continue to grow.
Last I heard an extensive public conversation on overpopulation, it was the late 60s, Stanford Prof Ehrlich and his Population Bomb book. He got a bit burned, iirc, bec of a lousy rather narrow bet with some population bomb-denier (can’t recall the exact bet) and bec Ehrlich somewhat overestimated the pace of population increase, he lost the bet. Dinged his rep a bit, at least in the eyes of the MSM. Heck, the guy was at one point a semi-regular on The Johnny Carson.
But that’s 40-45 yrs ago. The environmentalists of today rarely bring up the subject (one exception for the enviro author who wrote the book not long ago One). Too hot for them apparently, as it obviously is for pols. So once again no one in a position of responsibility is going to touch it at least until the topic gets brought up from below or by enough bold independents — preferably people like Al Gore, the recovering ex politician.
And no, I dread to think of what horrors we’d experience in a world of 10b let alone twice that against a backdrop of increasing global warming/climate change pressures along with increasing human-caused war problems that exacerbate the forced immigration problem.
Malthus got it “wrong” too. In part because the human lifespan is relatively short and seeing out a hundred or so years from now when we’ll be gone and no longer care is very difficult. In part because the propositions are framed as too apocalyptic and humans only like that in fantasyland and some people seem to take a perverse pleasure in suffering that would comes after they’re gone. While extremely careful (too careful IMO), it didn’t stop many from accusing Ehrlich of being racist. After all, it was western and mostly white people that were consuming the bulk of the world’s natural resources. White folks took offense from that because they felt entitled to their decent standard of living. POC could correctly claim that they were consuming so little that it wasn’t their problem. Also didn’t allow enough space for tech changes that could result in more from less and the slow speed of environmental degradation.
Why has immigration to European countries and the US become so problematical of late? Partly due to economic dislocations and war. Another part due to continued high population growth rates in what we call third world countries over the past forty odd years. Sparsely populated lands are generally more environmentally fragile and/or less able to accommodate a much larger population without importing significant capital and tech. Plus people are more likely to want electricity for TVs and game consoles than to use it for pumping water.
Americans heard all those dire warnings and yet can look at their own lives and say that their standard of living is better today than it was in 1970. At least when measured by ownership of stuff and consumption of entertainment. They can’t see that their lives are less financial secure and predictable; that individuals have assumed more personal risk for goods/services that we had been assigning government to take care of. Kid can’t afford public college fees? Boo-hoo — that’s what your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents voted for to get that second car in the garage, the big screen TV, etc.
Ehrlich as the messenger was a bit late to the global negative trends. It was easier enough to see that (from US and UN numbers), world population increased by half a billion in the 1950-1960 decade and 0.7 billion in the next decade which was alarming, but only 0.8 billion were added in the next and each subsequent decade. (Would have been larger if not for China’s policy.) We as humans can’t see the high environmental cost to absorb in decade after decade the number of additional people that were absorbed in the 19th century. And that was probably too fast considering all the devastating wars that followed in various places in subsequent decades.
I love me some Bern, but I’m pretty sure he’s ’92 Jerry Brown. Clearly the better choice, clearly not the choice of a majority.
If Bernie can continue his upward climb, he’ll make it. But he’ll start hitting some serious head winds soon (Clinton), and unless he can get a couple of key endorsements like BHO did (Kennedys, e.g.), he’ll be easily dismissed as a kook — based on Larry David’s popular impression, the drive to kookdom has already begun.
In a lot of ways, Sanders is making the same case as Obama: I’m your last best hope to avert disaster. Sadly, I think the main lesson from Obama’s presidency is that it is already far too late for a savior…
No Kennedys would endorse him unless and until he starts showing broader-based support among non-whites in the party.
Better tho, far better, on the issues than Jerry Brown ’92, Mr Flat Tax.
I love Bernie, and I think he has zero chance of winning. But that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t stay in the race for as long as possible, or that his supporters shouldn’t fight for his policies. He has already helped us by forcing Hillary to the left. We have to continue that push. The “Revolution” when it comes, will not be due to one man, but to the people deciding that it’s time for change. I don’t think the majority is ready yet, but Bernie and his supporters are helping us on the way.
No, he’s forced her to LIE agbout going Left. Once she has the nomination she will be back fellating Wall Street.
Would prefer that he use the word reformation. Such an effort could end up being not much different from that of a revolution, but it begins with demands that the old order can, if it so chooses, accept. Revolution is more sudden and rarely not chaotic (often violent) and too unsettling for those that aren’t discontent with the old order even it they’re not doing that well under it.
Too late. He’s already on record using Revolution. And with the closed fist. Closed fists do not suggest Reformation.
I also wouldn’t rec Bernie use any terminology that could easily be confused with religion. Bernie least of all.
No, let him continue to invoke the needed Revolution. Don’t run from it, as Dems did from the L-word, as Bernie didn’t from the S-word.
He’s supposed to be the bold truth teller in this race, not the trimmer and shape shifter. Let Bernie be Bernie and let’s see what happens.
Our 200 year old experiment with democracy is in real trouble. Capitalism is an economic engine that has created unheard of levels of wealth, unfortunately only for those on the top. Democracy is in trouble because Capitalism is not compatible with democracy requiring a corrupt authoritarian system of government to operate best. Democracy gets in the way because the interests of the people are not the interests of the corporations often in direct competition and conflict. In order for corporations to win this conflict of ideas, the voice of the people must be kept smaller than the voice of the corporations by keeping voter participation to a minimum hence all the effort to suppress voting by the Republicans and to suppress debates and wide discussion by the Democrats.
The most severe problem is not with Republicans but with Democrats. The severe problem with Democrats has always been corruption. The Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people but the Democratic Establishment has sold out to corporate interests at the expense of the people. That makes them no different than Republicans so people get disgusted and don’t bother to vote. All the Democrats have to say for themselves is vote for me because while we’re not as crazy as the Republicans we do actually support the same corporate interests but with some social issue crumbs to pretend we’re the party of the people.You should enjoy your crumbs while being losers in our latest Gilded Age.
Bernie’s political revolution is to return the Democrats to being the real party of the people, to give Capitalism a conscience. Everything is not about the shareholders talking it all. Once Democrats embrace this point of view the people will vote and we will win. This is going to be a long hard fight especially inside the corrupt Democratic Establishment but this is a fight Bernie intends to lead, to lead this fight from inside the White House as President.
Unfortunately progressive Democrats are attracted to bright shiny objects. For far too many years Hillary has been on the wrong side of every major issue. Bernie points this out. Because of Bernie’s surging popularity she has changed her positions. Can you believe her? Should you believe her mouth or her feet? Do you really think she’s the one to lead the Democrats back to being a true party of the people to win future elections with the wide margins we will need to really changes things in order to improve our lives?
Bernie beats Trump by a wider margin than Hillary.
Anybody who looks at the rhetoric and actions by the Repblican and Democratic Parties this century and decides that the most severe problem is not with Republicans but with Democrats is looking through a badly cracked windshield.
Anyone who thinks that voters who are Democratic Party and Dem Party leaning need to be told that they have been stupid and that they need to be told to stop being stupid is reacting from their own personal frustration, and is demanding that the 2016 Democratic Potus nominee run a massive loser of a campaign.
As a Bernie supporter, I am glad that Bernie is not telling the voters that they are stupid. I am also glad that he is reserving his explicit attacks on Repulican politicians and the policies they have passed into law or by Judicial actions. That is appropriate, because it represents the truth far more accurately AND it will be more effective in getting people out to the caucuses and polls.
Sorry, the problem is with Democrats. Republicans want to do a lot of nasty things but at least at the national level they need a corrupt Democratic Establishment to get those things done. This is not a left versus right battle but an up versus down battle. It is the corporatist’s interests versus the people’s interest. It took a triangulating Clinton in the White House to among other things repeal Glass-Steagall , refuse to regulate derivatives, pass NAFTA and other trade agreements for the benefit of the corporations at the expense of the people. It’s the Democratic Establishment, this time Debbie Wasserman Shultz trying to tilt the election to Hillary. It’s legendary how the DNC has tried to undermine progressive candidates. Democrats are supposed to be the party of the people, looking out for the interests of the people but when they sell out to the corporatists they betray the people. I call that corrupt. When Democrats do this they are perceived by voters as being no better than Republicans. This is a severe problem with Democrats, not Republicans.
The reason Bernie states that Republicans control most of the state houses and both houses of congress is low voter turnout. Low voter turnout is a problem for Democrats, one they created by being just like Republicans when it comes to the important issues of making sure inequality gets worse in favor of the corporations.
I remember a favorite Sociology professor telling us hippies in the early 70’s on the subject of revolution that the real revolution was in our own bedrooms. He was talking about Women’s Rights and liberation. This revolution is about fixing the problems Democrats face from inside the Democratic Party. Bernie wants the Democratic Party to become once again the party of the people. A lot of corporatists Democrats will have to go or at least get on the right side of these people interests issues. When Democrats make this change Republicans will lose because voter participation will finally reach historic levels.
¨It’s legendary how the DNC has tried to undermine progressive candidates.¨
It´s legendary, all right. It´s a legend.
Democratic Party voters select their preferred candidates, noth the DNC and other National and State Parties. There was much whining by Anybody But Hillary folks about the fingers the DNC placed on the scales for Clinton during the 2008 primary campaign. The Obama campaign staff didn´t waste their time on that complaining other than to work the refs, and they effectively went about persuading Dem Party voters.
Happily, the Sanders campaign is attempting a similar path. Attacking Wasserman Schultz will not win Bernie the nomination, and he needs to persuade a bunch of voters who currently support Hillary to vote for him. Calling Hillary a Republican and calling her supporters stupid will not get the job done.
Highlighting how Bernie is one of the few existing politicians who doesn’t have to run from his prior record.
I believe revolutions always fail. They always slip back into what they overthrew.
But I think reform works. I think all that slow, incremental bullshit that people on the left tend to hate (“Where’s my single payer?”) tends to actually produce the most lasting change.
I also think reform movements come in waves, and then the waves recede, but never as far back as they were before the reform wave broke. It is slow and it is painful but it’s what history shows us.
I don’t really think Bernie Sanders is trying for a revolution. I think he’s appealing to romantic ideas we have about revolutions. I think he’s trying to expand the space within which reform can happen.
So, if you’re signing up for a revolution, you will be sadly disappointed.
Incremental is fine if it’s not too slow and it charts an obvious course forward. Conceptually, that’s what Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid did.
Many were originally left out of SS for practical reasons (public employees were generally already provided for, charities and many state-based welfare programs were already assisting widows and their children, and for the ugly, but practical reason that FDR needed the votes of southern racists). Some of the expansions came quickly but most were much slower than they should have been.
The obvious next step for Medicare/Medicaid was expansion of the programs to more people. Medicaid did make some significant steps on that. Primarily for low income women to cover the birth of children and health care for a couple of years. S-Chip is conceptually and expansion as well. But the most significant changes in the programs had to do with expanding coverage or payment to private health care providers, suppliers, and insurers. And we just can’t figure out why health care costs (on a per capita basis) far exceeded aggregate inflation rates when so few new beneficiaries were added to the coverage pool.
The Medicaid expansion in the ACA is much broader than the one you describe here. It covers the broad population of low income adults, including single adults. This Obamacare expansion also does away with the asset test previously allowed for Medicaid eligibility.
It is a good thing that Medicaid benificiaries can seek care from private doctors, clinics, rehabilitation centers and other providers. If they were forced to seek care entirely within the public system, the delays in care would be even more horrendous than they are now. There simply isn´t enough capacity in the system of public providers to immediately provide timely care to over 10 million new beneficiaries.
Most States have expanded their Medicaid payer ststem through their own public insurance, however. The few States which have sought and been granted a waiver allowing them to use private insurance companies to administer the expansion will need to show to HHS that they are providing equal or superior care to this expanded Medicaid population for a cheaper or equal cost. To do so, there is no way these private insurers will make the operating margins they can make off their wealthier premium payers.
We need it badly. It offers the hope, maybe the only hope of confronting many of the problems we face. And it must be bigger and outlive one man. Thats vital. Energizing and empowering people to act is the only solution I see for a political process structurally and functionally unsuited to modernity.
Will this faul? Likely. Is it still worth trying? Very much.
The same way I feel about Kraft’s cheese.
They both belong in quotes.
I’m probably a touch to his left on a few things, and a touch to his right on others. I don’t think he’s got any real chance at the nomination, and if he got it I’m pretty sure he’d lose the general in a blow-out. If, by some miracle he managed to win both the nomination and the general I don’t think he’s doing most of things he’d need to get anywhere in terms of building a constituency in congress and other down ticket races. Given that and the compromises it would force him to make to accomplish anything at all, I think that many of his followers would feel even more abandoned and betrayed than the folks who thought Obama was going to govern as a radical leftist. Basically, I see him as a political Don Quixote.
Bully for you. Any rational thinking Democrat had to know that the choice in 2008 was between a pro-war “DLC” type candidate and a not so pro-war and at best possibly New Deal-lite. Bottom line was that he wouldn’t be worse than Clinton and could possibly be much better. When the worst is a known quantity and the alternative won’t be worse than that and may be better, why wouldn’t anyone opt for possibly better?
There are always possible, and many plausible, scenarios under which almost any Democratic or Republican candidate could win a general election. Primary voters should incorporate the plausible into their calculations of who they choose. Not that the public response to major negative events is strictly predictable, but that’s where the skill of a politician comes into play. Had 9/11 occurred a year earlier, who would have been elected POTUS in 2000?
I have no idea what you’re trying to convey with this response. Are you sure you attached it to the right post?
…to your weak electibility argument.
It doesn’t read like one. Also, not making an argument. Stating an opinion. There is a distinct difference. An argument is intended to convince. I have no particular interest in convincing. I see no need for it in this case.
To clarify, I would be delighted to be wrong on all counts since I tend to be generally in agreement with Bernie. However, despite following the election closely and reading tens of thousands of words of arguments for Bernie I haven’t yet seen anything I find remotely convincing in terms of him having a path to win the primary, the election, or having a chance of enacting his program if he were elected.
It’s similar to the way I feel about religion. I would find it comforting to believe in a kind and benevolent god, but I see no evidence for one. At the same time, I understand that religion is very important to many people and I tend not to argue against it despite being a hard atheist. I will however, occasionally offer my opinion that there is no god, if someone I respect asks in good faith.
I respect Martin and his political opinions deeply and believe that his question to the readership in this blog post was sincere, so I responded with my opinion on Bernie and his revolution in that light. I have no need or desire to convince anyone on the subject, in part, because I would like to be wrong.
Allow me to apologize for my first sentence. “Bollocks to your crystal ball” would have been closer to what incensed me about your comment — specifically, I don’t think he’s got any real chance at the nomination, and if he got it I’m pretty sure he’d lose the general in a blow-out.
Eight years ago we heard practically the same “predication” wrt Obama. Does that mean that the early Obama supporters can take credit for being right and the naysayers should own their flub? Partially. The knowns at that time within the DEM primary contest were that Obama had more charisma than the other candidates (although that wasn’t a high bar) and wasn’t saddled or handicapped with very serious and wrong past decisions. That charisma advantage was boosted by better skills on the stump compared to Clinton. In the debates he mostly held his own against Clinton, and more often bested her than she bested him.
The other knowns that figured into the evaluation for the DEM nominee in the general election were first that GWB had at that point trashed the GOP brand. So, a DEM had the advantage going into the GE. Second, the GOP primary voters were divided among several candidates and all of them were weak. The early leader, Guiliani, was fading. Huck was a joke. etc. So again, advantage DEM.
Then we moved into imaginary, projective scenarios. Would a woman DEM fare better than an AA man or vice-versa in the GE? Correctly or not, I rated that a wash or irrelevant. While my personal preference for the DEM party to move away from “DLC” type public policies was the major determinate in my choice to support Obama (only because there was no doubt as to where Clinton stood and Obama might offer something better), that wasn’t an objective criteria for GE projections. What was objective is that the public had soured on the Bush restoration presidency (recall that by 2000 GHWB was viewed favorably) and it was possible that the general electorate might have doubts about a second presidential restoration. With a near 50/50 electorate since 1992, losing a point here or a point there could lead to defeat. While I didn’t think such an effect for Clinton would cause her to lose, it did suggest that Obama was slightly better positioned for the GE.
Another known at that time for those that consumed business news and information was that banks and Wall St. brokers had been treading in dangerous, high risk, territory for a number of years and by 2007 serious cracks were evident. Unknown were when the cracks would break wide open and how significant the damage would be. What Democrats should have been looking for was a candidate that couldn’t be tagged as part of the problem with the foreseeable financial downturn regardless if it occurred before or after the election. As a person and as publicly known, Obama was far better positioned on this than Clinton.
Unpredictable luck:
McCain chose an idiot for VP. (He would have made a different and possibly strong choice if Clinton had been the nominee.)
September 2008 financial meltdown. McCain was less a part of the problem than some of their other potential nominees would have been. But he demonstrated that he wasn’t a part of the solution either. And he had an idiot sidekick.
2016 election cycle. The GOP wannabes are a fairly pathetic lot. Advantage DEMs. OTOH, a third presidential term for either party has a high hurdle. Advantage GOP. (Expect GOP voters will realize soon enough that Dr. Ben would far out-best Dukakis for worst nominee ever.) The US economy isn’t in as deeply troubled waters today as it was in 2007, but there are warning signs that all is not well. How exhausted or sick and tired are Americans of the Bush/Obama foreign military adventures? Those and many other factors for DEM and GOP primary voters to consider and weigh in making their choice.
Fair enough. As I noted, I’d love to be wrong, though I’m not seeing anything that leads me to think that I am. I like what Bernie has to say, but what I get from him is left liberal white intellectual making left liberal white intellectual arguments on economics.
As a liberal left white intellectual-author married to an academic-I find them very convincing. As a thrice elected local politician in a blue dot in a purple state, I have found that those arguments mostly don’t work with other demographics and I have mostly stepped away from them in favor of coalition politics and getting things done within the constraints of the political culture beyond the intellectual bubble. I’m a county board supervisor and I was a precinct captain for Move On in 2004 desperately trying to get the student vote out. Basically, I have spent a lot of time on retail politics over the last 7 years.
I’m not seeing Bernie doing anything that suggests to me that he’s figured out how to tailor his message to people who aren’t basically in my demographic or proto-my demographic–see also: students. He doesn’t seem to have a real ground game outside Iowa and New Hampshire or to be doing anything to court the people who could give him a ground game.
Failing that, I see no real chance for him to win the nomination, and I have very sincere doubts about his ability to win a general election. Now, it’s possible that Hilary, if she loses the nomination, will give him the very serious ground game she’s been building, but thst’s not a foregone conclusion. And, I really don’t see how he enacts his agenda given the congress he will almost certainly be stuck with. I don’t find his assertion that he will be able to use public opinion to push the Republicans any more convincing than I found Obama’s arguments that he could persuade them.
Three separate issues:
The nomination. This is the toughest one for Sanders because the Clintons have been working all the refs and lining up all the big money on this for years. All the way back to 1992 if we’re completely honest. Two elements got away from them in 2008.
Operationally and financially Sanders is in as good or better condition than Obama was at this stage of the election cycle. Even by 6/30 he had some assets in place outside of his home office, IA, and NH.
Iowa is a tough nut to crack for candidates not favored by the party establishment. Absent reports from those on the ground and knowledgeable about the turf, it’s difficult for outsiders to assess the operations of campaigns there. Before the 2008 caucus it did appear that Clinton had the Iowa big guns on her team, Edwards appeared to have carried forward his 2004 assets. That should have meant a win for Clinton. Too soon to tell how this resorts in a two-person race. If Sanders wins IA, he will also win NH.
Why do you assume that a message and messenger that appeals to you won’t appeal to people that demographically aren’t like you? Sanders does change up his stump speeches depending on the audience and location even if his core message is the same. I’d like to see some sharpening of that message, but as it is, it’s not beyond the intelligence or education of most people.
Personally, I don’t get why anyone “falls in love with” or “swoons” over any politician or celebrity. Pols are running for a job, not auditioning to be a new best friend, lover, spouse. Acting like adolescents in evaluating candidates is silly if we recall how dumb we all were when we were that age.
I don’t have much concern about the GE for Sanders (assuming that he gets a first rate VP). To get that far in the process, there will be a lot of enthusiasm for the policies he advocates for. The only way he loses the GE is if the DINOs repeat their 1972 behavior and a majority of the general electorate once again votes for a loathsome creature. A difference is that ’72 was a re-election bid for Nixon and at the time, there had to be a compelling reason to toss out an incumbent and in that year, racism and not economics was a driving factor.
What agenda does Clinton have that you expect she’ll manage to implement?
It’s not probable that the 2016 election outcome will be like 1992 or 2008. Clinton won’t have any significant coattails and Sanders won’t have any Congressional candidates attempting to ride his coattails. Thus either one would be saddled with a GOP congress. On the plus side, that would mean neither of them would lose a DEM congress in 2018 as Bill Clinton and Obama did. So, for me, the question is which one could better shape national debates on the issues and steer the 2018 election (including candidate recruitment and candidate messaging) in her/his favor? Which one would concede less to the GOP and more effectively use the power of the President during those first two years? (Legislatively 2005-2000 was a disaster for progressives.)
I don’t have the stamina to deal with this in detail right now because of huge life stress. As I said somewhere above, I’m not really interested in arguing the point. Either reality will support my opinion or it won’t and I’m content to wait and see.
So, I’m only going to address this bit: “Why do you assume that a message and messenger that appeals to you won’t appeal to people that demographically aren’t like you?”
It’s not an assumption. It’s an observation from six years of doing retail politics in a place where most of the other politicians and their constituents are not liberal intellectuals. It’s a type of rhetoric that doesn’t sell well beyond the intellectual bubble, and I’ve seen it tanking repeatedly both locally and at the bigger state meetings.
My primary skill as a politician is code switching and inter-English translation. English isn’t really one language, it just sounds like it. I’m fluent in about ten different versions of English because of my background–started out rural poor, moved to a big city, went from poor to middle class through my mom getting a technical education on top of an English degree, mom married a carpenter, I married a women who went on to graduate school and became a professor, and now I’m a moderately successful author of fantasy, science fiction, and children’s books.
The reason I don’t believe the message will sell in the way it’s being communicated by Bernie is because I’ve spent the past six years watching a whole host of related messages not sell when they’re communicated in the way he’s doing it. Sometimes, I’ve been able to make a translation from academese or related intellectual dialect that helps a specific idea sell at a specific meeting to a specific constituency and sometimes I’ve failed, but in either case it’s something I’ve had significant experience attempting. I don’t know that that’s why he’s not doing well with racial minorities outside the Cornell West intellectual set, but I think the evidence suggests it.
I know I’m very much in the minority here but I don’t believe in this “revolution” at all. Sanders argues that unlike Obama he will be more effective in dealing with the GOP which I don’t see happening.
Whether it’s Hillary or Sanders we will all in be in for more obstruction and flouting of the rule of law from the right. He hasn’t said how he will fight against this except for vague references to the “movement”.
I think his pursuit of right wing working class white votes is misguided. How can they be brought into the fold without asking minorities, gays and women to make sacrifices that we shouldn’t have to make? These people might like him for his economic message but they will not support social justice initiatives.
For the record I don’t believe in Hillary either but the Sanders campaign leaves me hollow.
How can they be brought into the fold without asking minorities, gays and women to make sacrifices that we shouldn’t have to make?
Huh? It’s not a zero sum game. Even if the GOP/rightwing and certain sectors of the Democratic Party have been promulgating that notion for decades.
Poor white folks have been clinging to the color or their skin for a hundred and fifty years and their guns and GOP for the past forty-odd years and their still poor and getting poorer than they were back when we all started sharing a bit more.
I agree it’s not a zero sum game. But I don’t have faith in people who have been kicking my community in the teeth for decades (or to be more accurate centuries) and continue to do so.
There is nothing that I see politically from that group that leads me to believe there is a political awakening around the corner.
If anything the fact that so many embrace Trump and his populism that is also laced with xenophobia and racism tells me all I need to know.
The establishment Democrats would love to get people to believe that the white working class is uniform in thought and deed and nothing can be done to convince more than a trickle. Because it absolves them of responsibility for their butt-kissing to the overclass. ‘Well, we could add economic leftism to our platform, but the WWC are SUCH bigots that it’d never work and all we’d get for it is an angry donor base’.
Here’s a stat for you: Outside of the South, The Democratic Party has been doing increasingly better with the White Working Class. Yes. Really. Look at state-by-state exit polling from 2000 to 2012. The Republicans have been slipping really badly. Iowa/Minnesota/Michigan/New Hampshire/Ohio/Wisconsin going from swing states to lean-D isn’t a result of raw Demographic change — it’s the Democratic Party doing better with the white working class.
That 60% white vote that the GOP crows about? That’s being driven entirely by the South and to a lesser extent Appalachia. In the West, Rockies, Midwest, and Northeast 2012 Obama did better than Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. Yes, the Rockies. Not too many cycles ago, that was a region that the Democrats used to lose by 20-30%. Now it’s 10-20% outside of Utah and Idaho.
Progress can be made. But it’s not going to be done anytime with the HRC/Obama playbook, especially if the GOP runs a Trump.
That’s the big reason why I’m supporting Sanders. His campaign is the only one that’s even going to try to reach out for the WWC. The HRC wing? ‘Fuck ’em. We’re already a majority and they’re too mean-spirited and bigoted to ever convince.’ Sort of like what you insinuated with your post, double v.
The HRC/Obama wing as you call it is the backbone of the Democratic party. These are largely minority voters who are one of the few reasons there is a Democratic party still left for you to vote for.
Those black voters who don’t want anything to do with your candidate are part of the HRC/Obama wing. Every time one of you states something like this you lose votes.
You are calling black voters corrupt, ignorant and saying our efforts don’t count. Good luck with that message in SC and on Super Tuesday.
If not for all the white folks that early on settled on Obama instead of Clinton or one of the other 2008 candidates, including Biden, giving time, money and support, there would be no “Obama wing” of the DEM party.
A century ago, white progressives began confronting the fact that more economic equality couldn’t be achieved if nationally they continued to support the GOP. Yes, it did mean finding common ground with the racists. But quite frankly the GOP had done a piss poor job in confronting racism and the impoverishment of AA. Jim Crow was allowed to flourish as Republicans dominated the federal government.
FDR had to walk a political tightrope and AAs didn’t get their fair share in the early stages of the New Deal, but the stage was set for more equality. From the justices appointed by Democratic Presidents (and Ike’s “oops” with Warren, but Warren was from a state where the GOP had a tradition of good and fair government) to JFK/LBJ that worked through the passage of the Civil and Voting rights legislation with awareness that it would reduce the voting base of the DEM party, but with unwarranted optimism that racist white folks would grow up and move beyond that within a generation. Hearts and minds don’t change quickly. But not once in all the dark years for progressive Democrats have we ever suggested rolling back or watering down that legislation to gain more votes.
(Okay, Bill Clinton did throw a number of distinguished AA professionals under the bus to gain a few racist white votes for himself, but progressives were repulsed by much of what Clinton did.)
How sad that poor white folks vote for Republicans because they support their racist and Biblical world views and never notice that those GOP pols serve corporations that are picking their pockets and sending factories overseas. IMO those people are ignorant.
But so are voters that choose corporate aligned DEM pols because Republicans alone didn’t pass NAFTA, deregulation legislation, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, etc. That were fine in pandering to white folks in passing racist drug laws and arming local police departments like paramilitary operations. As a woman, I would never be fine with any politician that at any time had played a sexism card in any election to appeal to a great percentage of the male vote. As a woman I also have no respect for any politician that plays the race card because it’s offensive to my sense of decency. I neither overlook such behavior nor forgive it. Ever.
AAs noticed such behavior in 2008 and responded as I did. What’s changed for you that hasn’t changed for me?
Um nothing.
Notice where I said I don’t like Hillary. I don’t support any of the primary candidates. I am will vote for the nominee but I don’t have good feelings for Clinton or Sanders.
And I’m well aware of white voters who helped Obama win Iowa. When I make my criticism I am not talking about them.
The main problem is that the first thing that so many blacks hear from Sanders supporters is how awful we are followed up by how dumb we must be to support the “establishment”, whatever that means. When you broadly criticize the Democratic party you have to know how that criticism will be taken. Not just by those who already agree with you but by those who don’t.
And by the way there are plenty of blacks who see Sanders as being part of that establishment as much as Hillary is.
You can’t vote for the 1994 crime bill too, have problematic gun control policies and admit you don’t have relationships within the black community, despite supposedly knowing us so well, and play the revolutionary.
Sanders has parts of his record that absolutely give people pause not just the disagreement on the economic focus of his politics which many feel doesn’t address the core oppression we face.
The choice for many isn’t as stark as you think. So yes people support Hillary. Because they justifiably don’t see how Sanders is better.
…that sincerely doesn’t understand the disconnect black voters see between Sanders economic and social justice positions in general and the belief that it doesn’t specifically address “the core oppression we face.”
I may be the only white guy left that believes in restitution for slavery. I don’t know how it would work, but I’d be willing to confiscate the excess wealth of those that have it in this country and just redistribute it evenly among all African Americans in the country. My read is probably simplistic, but it seems to me that slaves, the profits of their labor, provided much of the capital used to develop the nation through the civil war (at least). Not sure how to calculate its value in dollars today, but whatever the amount, it should be confiscated from those that have it (the 1%, mega-corporations, stockholders in general) and returned to its rightful owners. Truly. And that would be revolutionary.
A social democracy like the one Sanders proposes goes a long, long way further toward that aim than anything Mrs. Clinton would dare to conceive, much less fight for. And surely any movement in that direction would directly address the “core oppression” at issue.
Is it unimaginable that Sanders means what he says when he describes himself as a democratic socialist? Is his platform just too far-fetched to believe? Why on earth wouldn’t an oppressed voter vote for the candidate that most directly, and vehemently, responds to the core cause of their oppression. I don’t get it.
Yeah I know economics solves everything. Except when you are dead or in jail or get arrested and dragged around by a power mad school officer. That’s problematic but at least those of us still alive will have jobs and an education while we mourn eh?
Like I mentioned Sanders voted for the 1994 crime bill. The same one Biden wrote and Hillary supported.
I know that doesn’t matter to you but it does to black voters. It undermines Sanders argument when he says that he will help us on the issue. It absolutely makes people distrust him.
And before you respond with some list of things he’s done since to stop private prisons or whatever, you don’t get to help burn my house down and expect a pat on the back a week later when you bring a bucket of water.
Please tell me how Sanders is going to get all these wonderful laws passed out of a Congress controlled by GOP whackjobs. Don’t rush to type anything I’ll wait.
Please tell me how Sanders is going to fight the obstruction we see at the state and local level. Texas is refusing to issue birth certificates to Latino babies born there. You have places refusing marriage licenses to gay couples after the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law in this country. You have minorities still being arrested for possession of marijuana in places where possession has become legal. What is Bernie Sanders plan for that. So far he’s talked about the movement but that movement won’t mean a damn thing in deep red states.
Like I said I’ll wait. Fanciful notions of revolution don’t answer those questions.
We absolutely have the right not to see Sanders as some sort of savior because he isn’t.
Here’s the thing, though: while Sanders’ improvements are uncertain, Clinton’s lack thereof are certain.
HRC has no plan to win the House in 2016 or keep the Senate in 2018. Anything that Sanders can’t do goes double for her, because she’s not even trying. And it’s not hard to see why she’s not trying: because the composition of the Obama Coalition, while an electoral majority in Presidential years, is still struggling against the gerrymander and lopsided Congressional elections. Trying to build up a large enough majority to do this requires going outside the bounds of the BC/Gore/Kerry/Obama playbook, which HRC shows no interest in doing so for its own sake.
I’d rather go with a candidate that would at least try to break the Congressional gridlock than one that just threw up their hands and declared it impossible.
It might be more worthwhile to just read double v and, if we choose, respond to the points raised rather than jumping to explaining alternative reasons why double v should support Sanders.
People have to be met where they are, not where others think they should be.
…but maybe a prophet with a better set of proposals, a set of ideas that otherwise won’t be heard at all.
I don’t know how my anger and sadness at seeing a grade school child thrown across a classroom floor by a thug cop compares to yours; I’m enraged and heartbroken, again, as I think we all have been witnessing these acts in almost real time since the advent of phone cameras and web postings of the videos of them; as furious and crushed as ever. Words…fail.
So I’ll stipulate that Sanders won’t save oppressed minorities from the evil perpetrated on them in perpetuity throughout the universe. But he will propose radical alternatives to current policy that will actually change the conversation and keep it focused on solutions that could create conditions for widespread reduction of misery. Without economic advancement, imho, oppressed minorities remain victims. Why this is so, I think, is self-evident to anyone that’s poor or broken. But maybe not and they want a savior who will save them.
A lot of oppressed folks have hoped that from presidents throughout US history and it never happened. We’re told as schoolchildren that Lincoln was a savior and maybe we should be electing the guy that’s promising to wage the 2nd Civil War, if there was one. I’d probably vote for that gal if he made a rational case for it (not hard to do anymore, I think). But, no, Sanders isn’t proposing a Second Civil War.
Looking for a savior that will smite the wicked and end the violence, whatever the means, is all you can do when you’re constantly under siege. I suppose that’s how those kids felt in that classroom.
Anyway. Fuck Sanders. Fuck Clinton. Fuck ’em all. None of them are going to save anyone from anything and we all know it. Right?
I may be the only white guy left that believes in restitution for slavery.
Then I’ll be the only white gal that stands beside you.
…the first thing that so many blacks hear from Sanders supporters is how awful we are followed up by how dumb we must be to support the “establishment”, whatever that means.
Is that what’s being said by Sanders and his supporters or is that something blacks are think they heard or being told that is what is being said? Sanders’ critique of the USG is color-sex-religion blind. But maybe folks need to actually, you know, listen to him to appreciate that. And for those that haven’t a clue what the “establishment” means, they can be enlightened on that as well.
I can appreciate that there is a confounding variable in the discussions between Sanders’ supporters and large portions of the AA community. (If one bothered to look at Sanders’ rallies, they would notice that the audience isn’t all white and generally conforms to the demographics of the rally’s locations and the those that engage in the process early. Obama’s rallies at this point in the 2008 election cycle (which would have been at the end of September 2008) weren’t anymore integrated than Sanders’ are today.) Perhaps black voters would never have jumped on the Obama bandwagon if not for team Clinton using the race card against him. And the white people that supported him in the early going are unaware that they never made the sale to AA voters that Obama was the better choice and not as firmly aligned with the “establishment” that doesn’t give a crap about the “have nots” of any color or gender.
We white folks that today support Sanders, more likely than not voted for Clinton in 1992 and 1996. Never with any desire that the Democratic Party would be relabeled the Clinton Party. Such a notion is repulsive to any traditional Democrat. We also soberly evaluated Clinton’s performance in office and concluded that it wasn’t merely weak but atrocious. And in 2008 didn’t want any more of that with a Clinton restoration. Obama was the better choice, but we had no way of knowing for sure that he’d fill his administration with Clinton and GWB holdovers/carry-forwards. “Weak” remains preferable to “atrocious.” We’re not stupid enough to expect “great” from Sanders — the “establishment is too entrenched to allow that to happen even if Sanders had the capacity to be great which he doesn’t. We’re aiming for good even if it likely will fall short of good enough and with the full realization that may have a positive impact on the political dialogue that a Sanders’ administration may not be able to deliver more than “weak.”
If Sanders should win, it won’t be the Sanders’ Democratic Party. Merely what it should always have been, the Democratic Party. Before all this nonsense that it was the Clinton, then Obama, and now the Clinton/Obama Democratic Party.
Didn’t I tell you there is no longer any place for white people in the Democratic Party?
This white person disagree with that sentiment utterly and completely.
Don’t take words from someone with a personal and large chip on his/her shoulder as the truth. “Ism’s” aren’t the exclusive domain of white folks.
In the Democratic Party the ratio of white to minority voters is still about 3 to 2. White votes remain essential to the Democratic Party coalition nationally. Loss of white votes to Republicans has damaged the party as much as gaining minority votes has helped.
What double v and a lot of Democrats like that poster keep missing is that the Democratic Party’s weakness with white voters is being driven by the South and Appalachia. Everywhere else, 2012 and 2008 Obama gained on Kerry, Clinton, and Gore.
Why? Here’s my theory.
A.) Racial identity politics aren’t bringing in the votes like they used to. The Republican Party has been explicitly beating that drum harder yet voters outside of the South/Applachia continue to drift towards the Democratic Party. Democrats can add to their platform of racial justice and not worry about losing the non-South white vote, especially because of B. The post-Obama Democratic Party does not, unlike the New Deal Democrats, need to water down their platform with neoconfederate slop to compete for the white vote.
Of course, there’s still the issue that even if non-Southern whites aren’t significantly turned off by the Democratic Party’s stance on social justice issues, that’s still not a reason to vote for them. Again, this is why I support embracing economic leftism. Get the best of both worlds.
B.) White youth are different in their voting habits from older whites. This is not as obvious as it seems; the mismatch only really started to happen in 2008. Before that, with the exception of 1992 Clinton, the divergence in party choice of post-Nixon voters by age was a lot smaller. Compare the 2000 US Presidential election to the 2012 election. Even granting that modern youth are much more racially diverse compared to older voters, Democrats do much better with white youth than they used to. Fuck, 2008 Obama won an absolute majority of 18-29 whites (including Southern whites) and 2012 Obama won a plurality of white women.
Even if the Democratic Party can’t court the non-Southern WWC as a whole, each election will get easier as long as the Democratic Party doesn’t wreck its image.
I agree with what you have said I just don’t see where those right wing whites who left the party or who never joined are going to be supportive of a full progressive platform.
Careful with the ‘right wing whites’ modifier. Many of the whites that abandoned the Democratic Party following the Southern Strategy weren’t right-wing, they were just bigots. Or, more charitably, religious/sexual (in both the gender and sexuality sense) supremacists.
That’s an important distinction to make, because people, especially across generations, don’t necessarily stay racist/sexist/homophobic/bible thumpers. As (white, Christian, patriarchal) identity politics become less of an overriding issue, they can be courted to on other issues. We see this happening in the Northeast, Midwest, and urban centers.
What the fuck is your problem? Did I say anything about black voters? If you want to have that discussion, let’s have it, but I react really poorly to someone unilaterally playing the race card and then accusing someone else of doing it. Especially when it’s under the assumption that I, myself, am white.
Here’s the bottom line: The idea that the white working class cannot be courted is a fiction. I already outlined why this is so in the previous post. And I think that the formula to get this done is ‘change nothing about the Democratic Party’s stance on social issues, heartily embrace economic leftism’. That such a hypothetical platform wouldn’t do anything is a fiction convenient to the ‘let’s do nothing and let demographic change do the dirty work’ wing of the Democratic Party. It’s a stupid, cowardly plan for several reasons.
It’s a stupid plan because it’s politically suboptimal. The HRC wing has all-but-abandoned trying to win the House, content with just sitting on their ass for four years after nominating justices for the first two. What the fuck is the country supposed to do if we have an environmental crisis or an economic crisis? I guess we just grin and bear it while the Republican Party uses their media quislings to slam the party and they ride in on a white horse in 2020.
It’s a stupid plan because there are existentially threatening crises going on right now that need to be attended to right now, otherwise that whirlwind will turn into an F5 by the time we’re forced to reap it. Aside from the lesser ones such as workforce mechanization (and AI development) and child poverty, there’s also the 8-ton elephant of climate change. Years 2016-2028 may be the most important years in human civilization. And humanity cannot afford to just sit on its ass and hope for conditions to improve.
It’s a stupid plan because it assumes that the Democratic Party’s current advantage is indefinite. It’s not. The whole ‘why don’t racial minorities vote for conservatives if so many of their values line up’ line of thought remains just that as long as A.) the Republican Party continues to have its head up its ass WRT racial egalitarianism and B.) the Democratic Party doesn’t fuck it up. The 18-29 youth vote (40-60% of which will be racial minorities between now and 2028) only significantly diverged doing the Bush administration. There’s no reason to believe that can’t reverse with a bad Democratic Presidency. The 11% of the black and 44% of the Latino vote 2004 Bush got seemed to be a fluke, but Bush’s improvement of that vote — more than evangelical turnout or shenanigans in Florida — is what lead to his victory.
I don’t have a problem. And I’m not playing any card. And I don’t assume that you are white just that we disagree.
Your words:
The HRC wing? ‘Fuck ’em. We’re already a majority and they’re too mean-spirited and bigoted to ever convince.’ Sort of like what you insinuated with your post, double v.
When you say that you are saying fuck black voters. Tell me how I’m supposed to read that differently.
Yes, you did. You did it with your inane assumption that criticizing the view of establishment Democrats i.e. HRC wing means criticizing the view black voters. Composition and division fallacy, look it up.
And the establishment/HRC wing view is to, increasingly, passively or even actively write off the WWC under the idea that the only way that they can be recruited is to water down the Democratic Party’s platform on social justice. Fuck, people are doing this in this very thread. I think it’s short-sighted and misguised and will lead to disaster in 2018 and 2020. But that’s another story.
as far as his policies I tend to agree with the majority of them
Is he causing a revolution … hardly
I like the black power salute from bernie but it’s not gonna be enough to get the brothas & sistas behind him. kos said bernie had maxed out the white liberals at 25% and is flatlining in the polls. hard to argue with this but we need bernie to gather enough delegates that godzillary throws us a bone on the veep side. she’s gonna tear thru super-delegates like that old BOC song and the revolution may be televised but only marginally so thanks to DWS.
Comrades, to the barricades!
I think not. Progressive change will come eventually, in dribs and drabs, but not from any revolution. At least, I hope not. In actual revolutions, the unintended consequences tend to overwhelm the good intentions.
Internal revolutions that occur within the most powerful Empires don’t always turn out how the organizers planned them to turn out. Mostly because there isn’t just one group of organizers in any revolution.
When the US was just a satellite chunk of coast-hugging land on the far end of the earth, there were two revolutionary groups, one which ran the original revolution (founders) and the ones who didn’t like how it ended up, and revolted, using a constitutional convention instead of muskets and ships (framers). While they had some similar goals, they had different political ideas on how to get there.
So, while I often feel like a political revolution is necessary, I wonder which group of organizers would eventually “get their way”. People who I mostly agree with, people who I sometimes agree with, or people I find morally and ethically disgusting. Considering that the morally and ethically disgusting people are often much more willing to use tribalism to establish “us vs. them” attitudes, and often talk using violent rhetoric, like second-amendment solutions, or watering the tree of liberty, I’m not quite sure that the two groups that I don’t find disgusting would be able to ultimately win out.
At heart, I believe some type of revolution is necessary, but in my mind, I think it’s best if we can somehow outlast the morally and ethically disgusting, even if it requires piecemeal reform, because revolutions are never really predictable. Just ask the people who wrote the Articles of Confederation.
The Guardian Tunisian national dialogue quartet.
heh – the only N.Africa/ME “Arab Spring” revolution that the US and other countries didn’t foment or participate in.
…began when Reagan was elected in 1980. That revolution has continued apace through two Democratic and two Republican administrations over 35 years. It caused higher taxes for the middle classes to pay for much lower taxes on the wealthy. It reversed progress that had been made in the 60s and 70s toward racial equality and equal rights for women. It delayed the arrival of universal health insurance. It led to increase of terrorism and further wars. Most shamefully for the Democratic Party, the Clinton administration was conceded defeat to it and unashamedly advanced its causes. It’s been a wild success and it’s still going strong under its second Democratic president.
So, when I hear about a new political revolution, the one Sanders describes, it doesn’t sound like a revolution to me as much as a return to policies that had been in place during much of the 20th century and resuming the progress that began during the Great Depression. What Sanders describes is a political restoration rather than a revolution. Little that he proposes is radical from the point of view of where the country was in the 1970s before the last political revolution began.
…and whether a Sanders presidency were able to produce the changes it proposes, the benefit of his election would be to reintroduce, in no uncertain terms, the traditional platform of the Democratic Party into the public dialog. It’s been almost fifty years since we’ve had a president that advocated on behalf of what most Americans believe to be the fundamentals of democracy. Senator Sanders, as president, would articulate them in the simple, direct language in which they were originally defined in the 30s and 40s. The Four Freedoms, social and economic justice, equal rights for women, civil rights. He might forcefully add an end to war as a foundation of foreign policy. (That would be revolutionary.)
His first inaugural address would shake things up, I’d guess. And, judging from his speeches and consistently held policy positions throughout his career, Sanders will stay on message of the Democratic Party’s traditional platform throughout his tenure. It would be the first time in most of our lives that a Democratic president actually followed through on that platform. Regardless of short-term results, it would also be the first time the public will hear about (and listen to) a lot of it. That alone could make his presidency revolutionary.
There was no Democratic golden age. Fifty years ago, you had a Democratic caucus with John Stennis sitting next to Gene McCarthy.
…in comparison to what’s happened since then. Undimmed even by Nixon. Politicians pretty much have always been sitting next to other politicians, good, bad, and ugly. But looking back on it, mid-century sure was a Democratic golden age, as you put it.
No. Simply not true.
The Democratic party has never been more liberal than it is now. Where are the David Borens, Sam Nunns, Howell Hefflins, Scoop Jacksons, of today? The Blue Dog caucus in the House is a quarter of its original size, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus is the largest Democratic membership group in the House.
Who were the Democrats calling for a thoroughgoing critique of the capitalists system, or American hegemony abroad, back then? Or greater inclusion of the powerless? How powerful or prominent were they in the party? No more numerous, or prominent, than they are today. One Henry Wallace doesn’t make up for that.
There’s a myth of the Great Democratic fall, and it’s just that — a myth.
It was “golden” because from 1933 through the early 1970s progressive legislation was being enacted. Expanding social/welfare commitments of the USG or individual or group civil rights. The project was incomplete, but real progress was being made throughout that period. The “progressive” wings of both parties dominated. The regressive/racist wing of the Democratic Party was as unhelpful and obstructionist to good government then as they are today in the GOP.
The ERA:
Don’t have a breakdown by political party of the seven N/Vs, but even if they were all Democrats that would have meant the aye votes were 46 (D) and 39 (R).
The only thing that brought them to the table at the beginning of that period was the poverty of their voters and the only thing that kept them at the table until 1965 was what the New Deal delivered to those folks. Once their bellies were full and not acting at the federal level to wipe out the gross inequality at the state level, they ran off to a new overload that promised they could keep their goodies and racism with the implication that “those people” wouldn’t get a fair share. Unfortunately, those selfish, war loving, and racist people were a majority in the country at that time, but it took them a few election cycles to change the equation at the federal level. Thus, the ERA passed in 1972 with overwhelming support and then went on to defeat at the state level.
The actual problem is, in other words, that there’s no more liberal Republicans.
How this is the Democratic Party’s fault escapes me.