I don’t have the time or the inclination to sort out all the he said/she said allegations for what went down at the Nevada Democrats’ state convention over the weekend. You can read a Sanders supporter’s version here. You can get another perspective from Nevada reporter Jon Ralston who I respect from what I’ve seen of his body of work.
I might be more interested in sorting it all out if I thought it actually mattered, but the whole brouhaha was over control of a handful of delegates to the Philadelphia convention, and even if the Sanders folks had prevailed it wouldn’t have changed a damn thing.
That said, it’s not a good sign for Democratic Party unity that the Sanders camp came way absolutely incensed by their treatment. And it’s appalling that someone is issuing death threats to Nevada Democratic Party chair Roberta Lange. As Melissa McEwan put it:
So, Sanders supporters shut down the convention by shouting at Senator Barbara Boxer, throwing chairs, and generally behaving like a mob of reckless dipshits, then spend days harassing and threatening a Democratic state chair, and Sanders’ spokesperson scolds the Democratic Party that they should be more welcoming to them?!
That’s a Clinton supporter’s view of what happened.
Like I said, I don’t really care a whole lot about the details. Were Robert’s Rules of Order observed? Were 64 Sanders delegates unjustly decertified? I’ll leave the debate about that for others.
What I think people should be focused on, and by “people” I mean the folks at the top of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns, is how to mend some fences and get this craziness under control. Precisely because Clinton has this thing wrapped up, she doesn’t need to resort to procedural hardball to squeeze every last delegate out of the process. She needs the votes of Sanders voters in the fall more than she needs a couple more delegates out of Nevada or a disproportionate number of seats on the power committees at the convention.
And Sanders needs to inject some realism into this process. His supporters are fighting like hell for him, which is good. But they seem to think the stakes are still for the nomination. If they’re so riled up about a small handful of delegates that some of them are hurling chairs, shouting down senators, and issuing death threats, they need to hear from Sanders that all that nonsense isn’t going to accomplish anything and it needs to stop.
I don’t think bad behavior should be rewarded on any side here, but Clinton’s in a better position to be magnanimous, and it’s in her best interests, too. She should talk to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, about making some of the concessions Sanders called for in his May 6th letter to the DNC. In particular, she should do something about this:
That was why I was so disappointed to learn that of the over forty people our campaign submitted at your request you chose to select only three of my recommendations for the three standing committees. Moreover, you did not assign even one of the people submitted by our campaign to the very important Rules Committee of the Democratic National Convention…
…In our conversation, you told me with respect to the platform Drafting Committee that you would consider allowing each campaign to submit ten names from which you would choose four from each and then you would add an additional seven. While having four members on the Drafting Committee is an improvement, it does not address the fact that up to this point Bernie 2016 has secured some 45% of the pledged delegates awarded. Frankly, we believe that percentage will go up in the coming weeks and, of course, we hope it will end up being a majority.
I believe that each campaign should chose seven members to serve on the Drafting Committee. The fifteenth member would be a chair who would be jointly picked by the two campaigns.
Sanders is also angered that Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and former Congressman Barney Frank will be chairing the convention Platform Committee and Rules Committee, respectively, because they’ve both been loud critics of his campaign. That’s the cost of losing, but that doesn’t mean that some concessions can’t be made to give Sanders’s delegates fair representation at the convention.
It’s a small price to pay for tamping down what could emerge as a wildfire with the potential to disrupt the convention, and it has the advantage of being the right thing to do.
If Clinton doesn’t get the party united (and, of course Sanders has to do his part, too), her unfavorables will remain high and the polls will continue to look somewhat close as too many Democrats refuse to tell pollsters that they like or will support her.
If she offers an olive branch here, she will be the main beneficiary, and so will everyone who isn’t relishing a Trump presidency.
Latest polls point to changing 2016 landscape
05/17/16 10:46 AM
By Steve Benen
As the political world shifts its focus from primary speculation to running-mate speculation, general-election polling starts to take on the kind of salience it lacked in recent months. It’s still very early – Election Day is 174 days away – and the presidential race is very likely to take multiple turns, but it’s not too early to start establishing some baselines for future comparisons.
Take the new NBC News/Survey Monkey results, for example.
Attention is now rapidly moving to the hypothetical match-up between the leading candidates with an emphasis on a [Hillary] Clinton and [Donald] Trump contest. In this week’s poll, Americans are nearly split between their choice of Trump or Clinton; her margin over Trump narrows from 5 points last week to 3 points this week to 48 percent to 45 percent.
This early data indicates a very close race right now – though that may change considerably before November.
A closer look at the details reveals roughly what one might expect to see: men prefer Trump, women prefer Clinton. Those with less education back the Republican; those with more support the Democrat. Trump enjoys a lead among white voters, while Clinton enjoys even larger leads among every other racial and ethnic constituency.
And the media horserace narrative is out of the gates.
You are way more magnanimous than I am. The first reaction of the Sanders campaign is to whine about the process, not tell their own supporters to stop making death threats – that should tell you all you need to know about his campaign. They are so goddamn drunk on their Kool-Aid that they are going to resort to physical violence if they don’t get their way. The fact that Hillary has fairly and squarely gotten way more votes and delegates does not even matter to the Sanders camp.
I would do the minimally required couple of unity events and then keep him as far away as possible.
Did you mean to set up a straw man, or just got a little carried away?
I don’t think the Sanders camp can be fairly portrayed as indifferent to threats of violence. If you do, I suspect you’re 1) paid to do so or 2) not really thinking this through very carefully.
I’m pulling for HRC since I think she’ll be our nominee.. But I disagree with our host that the formal end of the Bernie campaign will mean her unfavorables will ease. I’m concerned that historically her unfavorables have tended in the other direction. I’m especially concerned that Bernie has pulled a lot of punches that Drumpf will not, so that I fear her already-low unfavorables will be under even more downward pressure than would have been the case had Bernie let it ‘er rip.
Maybe we can all convince ourselves that Drumpf has no chance, but I’m not seeing it. We got a long ways to go…
The first reaction of the Sanders campaign is to whine about the process, not tell their own supporters to stop making death threats – that should tell you all you need to know about his campaign.
You mean like Wendell Piece attacking a woman just because she’s a Sanders supporter? It’s also interesting that the two text messages I’ve seen were sent from Waukesha, WI and Atlanta, GA. That’s where the numbers are from. Has any reporter called those numbers? Just curious. Have they verified they were/are Sanders supporters?
And of course, outta nowhere, Wendell Piece didn’t have anything better to do than attack this woman?
Puleeze.
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE
Why did he attack her then? He was arrested for it. Have you read any of the reports about it?
Here is the story I’m talking about:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/16/source-bernie-fan-stopped-wire-star-wendell-pierce-
s-alleged-attack-with-knife-threat.html
interesting since Waukesha is like Walker Central. everyone lived through Cointelpro and yet grasping for the “Sanders Supporters are mean” meme without any examples of such
There are reasons to complain about the process. For example, it was reported that Harry Reid cut a deal with the owners of the casino to allow workers, on the clock, to participate in caucuses held at casinos.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily illegal, but it is obviously using the power of Reid’s connections with casino owners to flood the caucuses with Clinton supporters. Using the power of a sitting senator to throw the results in his chosen candidate’s favor is a good meme of the collusion between the established party power structure and much of the Sanders’ supporters’ discontent.
That’s why I am more inclined to see the Democratic Party’s long-term viability as more delicate than the Republicans’ current problems. The Republicans can carry on with their fascism-lite progression. There will always be a market for that. But what happens to the Democratic Party when large sectors recognize that the corporate Dems have abandoned them?
Throwing chairs will be the least of it.
It may not cost Hillary her election, but it certainly will destroy the party.
Let me see if I have this right:
Harry Reid apparently got casino owners to allow casino workers to participate in caucuses.
And it’s apparently a bad thing. This apparently constitutes “throw[ing] the results in his chosen candidate’s favor”.
That working-class people — the very people Bernie claims to be the representative of — participated in caucuses is a bad thing.
Why, I wonder?
I’m sure it couldn’t be because so many of those workers are of minority groups.
So much for “democratic” socialism, I suppose.
On the clock. That is, casino owners let people who supported Clinton participate in the caucuses ON THE CLOCK. That is, they were paid to caucus for Hillary.
On what grounds do you suppose they supported Clinton?
…adding:
I also voted on the clock. For Bernie. Full disclosure.
Tell me of this on-the-clock voting corruption more, pal.
People like you are why I’m no longer a Democrat.
Well, you’re a racist asshole, so good riddance.
Then what the hell does that make you?
Philadelphia is going to be ugly. If I were Clinton I would be worried about mass defections becoming a reality.
A non-racist asshole.
Not so sure your comments back that up.
Care to point to some that contradict it?
You know, there are worse things in life to be than racist.
I don’t know where this ‘lol, ur racist’ rhetorical trump card came from, but I do know that liberal Democrats making this the unforgivable sin has allowed the party to be taken to the cleaners by warmongers, plutocrats, poisoners (see Flint), and corrupt thieves (see New Jersey).
Because, let’s face it, racists kill a lot fewer people than food stamp cutters and warhawks.
If you don’t know where it came from, you can start here.
If you can take a break from excuses for deplorable outlooks, anyway.
And it’s upgraded by 5 Sanders supporters.
Why would that be…..hmmmmmm. It’s just a complete mystery.
.
Going to love it wins Trump beats Hillary. You people can then whine to your hearts content that it’s all Sanders’ fault.
Has anyone identified the man who made the death threat and verified he has been a Sanders supporter for sometime?
Given that Ralston’s story is full of holes (no chairs thrown, no actual death threats), I think I’d reserve my demands for Sanders to “do something” about his rowdy supporters and ask a better question: Why hasn’t there been any demand for Clinton to repudiate the violence of her own supporters? Because the only person who has been charged for violence in Nevada is the Clinton supporter who attacked a Sanders supporter.
Even though I have supported Clinton for months, I still planned on voting for Bernie in CA. I’ve encouraged others to do the same. I wanted to support his movement. I wanted to send a message to the Dems. Not anymore. I don’t blame him for the actions of his supporters, but to not speak out against violence, misogyny, and death threats is unacceptable. I will not reinforce negative behavior.
If Bernie allows this to go on, he’ll not only lose any chance to affect the convention, but may return to the Senate to find the Dems unwilling to work with him at all. He could lose all the power he has gained. I don’t know how he thinks this can help him. I’ve written to his campaign and asked them to speak out against aggressive and violent behavior. I hope his supporters will as well. It’s not too late for him to end this campaign with respect and dignity.
And yes, I agree that Hillary should reach out to Bernie’s supporters, too. I believe she will.
Reach out and crush them.
He has no incentive to be conciliatory. He used the party as a vehicle of convenience, and the party’s voters rejected him. Point me to anything in his lengthy political career that suggests Bernie gives a shit about building a political movement that does something other than promote his self-interests (namely, getting himself elected).
So I see you feel it is more important for him to keep in the good graces of the DNC than the people who have passionately supported him over the past year.
Yeah, no thanks.
As to the acts of people he has not control over; why don’t you make the same call for Clinton to speak out against some of her supporters?
I hope he keeps fighting. I don’t care if it ends up burning down the Democratic party. I’ve had it up to here with the excuses of why Sanders needs to be nice, and apologize for any supporter who is awful, but Clinton can continue to act the way she does, and is not called on to address her own unbalanced supporters.
Fuck that.
If he has no control over any of these thugs, that speaks volumes about him, and the thugs.
Seriously, after L.A., and now Nevada, we are seeing the unfortunately more visible face of Sanders, and it isn’t pretty.
I only have anecdotal experience, but even that is disturbing. Voters telling me that they will support Trump if Bernie doesn’t get the nod? Yeah, this is what I’m hearing from people I thought of as having some sense.
And you know what? Every single one of them has really very little at stake in this race. None of them are poor, or women, or minorities. This is like a game to them, and they are sore losers. Because they can afford to be.
I grew weary of Sanders’ pontifications years ago after one too many “Brunch with Bernie” segments. He is always right, and everyone is always wrong, and you know something? Fuck him. There’s a reason he has always been a gadfly. It’s a tidy way to disclaim responsibility for anything.
Not to discount the party affiliations of Bernie supporters, but I’ve always felt part of his support came from repugnicons that were trying to sew discontent on our side. Perhaps now that their thread is rotting, they are trying a different approach?
Either way, I lost faith in Bernie months back, but now have no respect for him. Bernie’s statement has sealed his fate in my mind–time for an Anybody But Bernie movement on our side, not that its needed for the election, but it is the moral thing to do.
As opposed to Hillary Clinton, who is explicitly bragging about her support from and outreach to Republican plutocrats who see the current incarnation of the Democratic Party more friendly than the Republican Party?
I gotta say, I love how liberal Democrats decided to make HRC their hill to die on. It’s like: they have almost no arguments that can’t be instantly turned against them. Makes things really easy.
“they have almost no arguments that can’t be instantly turned against them.”
Since when were did arguments exist that couldn’t be?
Look, I’ve rarely found candidates that were perfect fits for the office, and this election is no different in that regard. I was happy–bordering on excitement–that Bernie joined the fight and am still happy he did. But neither of the two candidates are ideal IMHO. I would always be choosing who I thought would be better knowing that there were things about them I was concerned about. I clung to the desire for what Bernie talked about even after it became clear to me that he couldn’t convince enough democrats and wouldn’t have the coat tails to make it happen. I am happy that he continues to battle for a voice at the convention, even happy that he runs full steam to exploit the only improbable path to victory that he might think he has, but what happened in Vegas has to stop and to the extent Bernie implicitly supports the actions of the worst of his supporters, he has to be stopped.
Over the campaign season, it was the actions of both candidates that moved me from happy about Bernie, then to struggling for a reason to be lean Bernie, then to to lean Clinton. His reaction to what happened in Vegas moved me to anti Bernie, I’m happy he ran, but he just confirmed my worst concerns about him.
Still, I would rather his message and its impact on people ring loud in the ears of our electeds for quite some time, and that it not be muddied by people who only see one way and one warrior for their cause.
Look, I have very low standards. There is not a single post-FDR non-HRC candidate, including Misters ‘thanks for that tip on silently starving hundreds of thousands of people, Albright!’ Gore and Clinton themselves, that I wouldn’t have voted for over the best of the post-Eisenhower Republican frontrunners.
And yet Hillary Clinton is having a hard time clearing even that pathetically low bar. There are like five polls right now that show her struggling against a cartoonish, sexually depraved fascist plutocrat. You might want to ask yourself how we got into this position. I think endless cycles of ‘vote for the crook, it’s important!’ may have had something to do with it.
Uh-huh. Bernie and his supporters being mildly cantankerous caused you to lose support.
I’m still hoping that Hillary Clinton wins, but on the way there I’m hoping that Trump and his legion of poo-flingers alt-righters really fucks her world up. Like, two or three months of her being underwater in polls before things regress back to brute demographics. The pearl-clutching elite liberal class need a strong, sharp reminder on what political ugliness really is.
If Clinton has no control over any of these guys, that speaks volumes about her, and the thugs.
Why do I not see this statement as well?
Anecdotal experience does not equal data.
And I grow weary of people like you slamming Sanders, but not holding Clinton to the same standard.
This type of attitude is what will cause more Sanders supporters to stay at home or vote for someone else.
tb92: Who has verified the death threats? Do you know or just ASSUME that it was a Sanders supporter? How do you know that these alleged death threats were made? How do you know that it wasn’t a dirty trick by Republicans?
If it was a Sanders supporter, how would you expect the candidate to guarantee to stop any misbehavior by all Sanders supporters?
It sounds as if your are creating an impossible demand for the Sanders campaign. This is not the same thing as Trump on a podium telling his supporters to rough up protesters.
This is a real problem for the Democratic Party. The GOP does not win elections for the most part the Democratic Party loses them. They need to recognize that for them to win this election and numerous others from the top down the party needs UNITY.
A promise of “more of the same” is not conducive to unity in 2016.
Including the promise of. two-get presidency.
Thought I checked for typos. A two-fer presidency. Spell correction the culprit.
Got your meaning. BOGO
Yeah, this is a test of Clinton’s vaunted realism and pragmatism, not to mention her political skills. Barring catastrophe (or a miracle, depending), she’s won. She won months ago, really. Her campaign’s inability to show the leadership necessary to coopt and neutralize the Sanders campaign and message–or the cutthroat ability to drive a stake in its heart–is troubling.
Asshole supporters will be asshole supporters. A prominent Clinton supporter allegedly hit a woman for supporting Sanders the other day, and spittle-flecked Sanders supporters allegedly made death threats. It’s harder to lose than to win, but there’s no excuse for any of that; still, it’s largely an exercise in nutpicking.
What really matters is the campaigns, and the candidates. We’re learning, perhaps, that Sanders truly is utterly uninterested in the Democratic Party, and cares only for moving his issues forward, and that he’s willing to play hardball and talk bullshit if that’s what it takes. We’re learning, perhaps, that Clinton truly is uninterested in moving liberalism forward, and that she’s unable to cleanly win a race in which she had overwhelming advantage, without getting bogged down in bullshit.
“Her campaign’s inability to show the leadership necessary to coopt and neutralize the Sanders campaign and message–or the cutthroat ability to drive a stake in its heart–is troubling.”
Hang on a second. Isn’t that the same argument people make about Obama and the Tea Party? Why can’t he just reach out to them and make common cause?
Because a large part of the Tea Party, and Bernie Busters, are unreachable. The Barack Obama the Tea Party sees bears no relation to the actual Obama. Just like the Hillary that the Bernie Busters see bears no relation to the actual Hillary. She can no more reach them than she can the Teabaggers.
The fact is that Bernie has so poisoned their minds with conspiracy theories and nonsense that the only person who has a hope of bringing them home is Bernie. And I give 50/50 odds that if he does come to his senses and go all in for Hillary, his fans will turn on him as the ultimate sellout.
I think that to the extent that the Tea Party and the left wing of the Democratic Party are identical, you make a very good point.
Which isn’t much.
Clinton is keeping her mouth shut and is letting the process play out. To do anything different, would likely engender accusations that she is asking Bernie to concede. She’s backed the Medicare buy-in and public option. If she wins, she’ll appoint judges who will support net neutrality, voting rights, and dump Citizens United. Slowly, the Sanders supporters I know seem to be coming around to her.
With all due respect, I suggest that if you haven’t noticed until now that Hillary is not a liberal, you haven’t been paying attention.
In my view, what happened is a epiphenomenon of the fact that the Sanders and Clinton campaigns have not negotiated an endgame for the convention.
Part of that has to do with Sanders’s determination to show how far someone with the “S” label can go in inside politics. Part of that has to do with the Clinton campaign’s and Democratic establishment’s determination to leave Sanders supporters with nowhere to go and no concessions.
That deadlock is the same one that has made progressive supporter more and more angry over the past ten years.
The Democratic party appears to them to be herding up progressive with empty talk in order to support an agenda of business-as-usual, while the international, economic, and environmental crises deepen and there are perfectly reasonable and proven progressive solutions to all three. Since Occupy Wall Street, the concern has been how deep corruption has become in the US economy and politics and how the public really doesn’t matter because they are the “little folks” or “the children”. It has been insulting and it has made ordinary folks angrier and angrier as this division threatens to elect Donald Trump and fail to deliver a better Congress.
This is the one that the Clinton campaign better tone down because they are the ones delivering a majority of the threatening reports. And the conduct of the Nevada convention is typical of the lax and self-serving business-as-usual atmosphere that has turned of many folks who have tried to engage at local and state levels with the Democratic Party.
It is not a temporary situation; it is the overall tone of the establishment of the Democratic Party. And too often, it masks serious corruption as well. Not a good situation for winning elections.
We have a country in disarray because we have the two major parties in a totally dysfunctional state to be representatives of the people. Media and money addiction is what has done this; ending that is going to be difficult. And even this “wildfire” represents marketing plays to social media.
What threatening reports are you referring to?
As to the overall point, TarhealDem, you’re right. I think there are big lessons for Senators and Congresspersons from this election. They are the ones who mainly have to respond to the people, to issues of war and peace, income inequality, campaign finance, and other matters brought up by both Sanders and Trump. They need to be responsive on the local level.
I’m a local Dem party official and people have turned up lately that I’ve never met before. Great. But will they be around on June 8? Or later when their energy is needed? There are rules in place to which we must adhere. Already these folks are frustrated beyond belief and if Clinton wins the nomination, I anticipate that they won’t be heard from again to actually work on an election. However welcoming we are, seeking folks to work together, they are just being reconfirmed in their belief system that “it doesn’t matter; the system (the DNC, etc.) is stacked against us.”
well, that’s part of the problem; if someone steps up to get involved you don’t start with “where were you before” and “I don’t believe you’ll stick around”. you put the person to work with a task that gets them involved.
They don’t seem to be stepping up to get involved, except as relates to Sanders.
Oh golly, doesn’t that say it all?
well then, that’s where you start. organizing 101
Paolo Friere 101
These generalizations aren’t true. The last few days we’ve been housing a mid-level muckity muck in the Sanders campaign here in Oregon. I expect him to be working in Washington whatever happens.
However, I don’t think you can exaggerate the growing divide between progressives and the corporate Democrats. As far as the corporate-minded are concerned, having Hillary overlooking a Republican Congress is just ducky, not unlike Bill’s deals with his Republican Congress.
‘I don’t think you can exaggerate the growing divide between progressives and the corporate Democrats.’
This.
And clealry, whatever you think of it, something equivalent is happening with the GOP. So just keep mouthing the words “America is a centrist country” if you like, but it isn’t, because the oligarchy has pushed us beyond where the “centrist” parties can control it. (And the GOP hasn’t been centrist for years.)
The looting has been going on big time since the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s-1990s, the BCCI scandal of the 1980s, the great sucking sound of NAFTA (1994), the crash of 2008, and other financial frauds too numerous to mention. Sooner or later, something’s gotta give.
And now Hillary announces her election will be a two-fee, jet as Bill announced nearly 25 years ago. And what he be put in charge of? The economy! Face plant here. The couple that made $15 million last year giving speeches to Wall St. firms will jointly work on the economy? We’re screwed.
Ugh. Last second spell correction to something I didn’t write. Two-fer just as
Here’s the Freire link, he was on education, teach people via the things they care about most (Pedagogy of the Oppressed)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire
Might it be because Sanders is advocating policies and a rhetorical style that appeals to people on the margins of the Democratic Coalition? And they rightly suspect that when Sanders goes down, the replacement figureheads won’t be so accommodating?
No, no, it must be because Sanders is sending mind-control rays to his coalition of youths, poors, and WWC. Mind control rays powered by his… celebrity? Help me out here.
nicely put.
Bernie will not have a movement if he can’t get people elected at the state and congressional level. Otherwise it’s a cult of personality.
The reports of threats to Nevada Democratic Party Chair Berta Lange, which the Clinton camp automatically ascribed to Sanders supporters.
The naive expectation of newly engaged political activists is that the party apparatus should not put its fingers on the scales to bias the vote of the newly expanded Democratic Party.
The Clinton camp at the moment is painting Sanders the person as unfit for the Presidency because he does not have strict control of his supporters that in their view are behaving violently. And this messaging is occurring immediately prior to two crucial primaries and the last of the primaries before the convention.
Any unhinged person can make threats and any political operatives can engineer events with ringers. Just a sidenote, Roger Stone is an operative in the Trump campaign with a history of doing just that.
Allowing the benefit of the doubt has gone away in relationships between Clinton and Sanders supporters.
Any compromise must involve actually hearing what the Sanders camp requires and starting negotiation there. Letting it get personal is a huge mistake for the Democratic Party.
Yes, Sanders is putting together a movement that likely he hopes goes beyond this election and puts some fire under the seats of the downticket candidates that they deliver votes for.
The establishment politicos cannot say both that elections are the time for holding them accountable and then rigging the processes of the election to ensure that they never are held accountable.
Hillary Clinton’s gun-shyness with the media is fully understandable, give two and a half decades of wilfully misrepresenting what they have said and leading a lynch mob during the Clinton presidency.
And Bernie Sanders stance that he can control his campaign staff but his supporters are independent agents who either listen or not–and that the campaign leaders in Nevada did do their due diligence in controlling the disrupters is also understandable.
Both campaigns are in the thick of setting expectations for their supporters and attempting to dampen expectations of their opponent’s supporters.
The should let the primary procedure just run its course and focus on the end game. That is, if the Clinton campaign wants a major fraction of Sanders supporters to vote Clinton in November. That, more than anything else, and the Clinton insistence that she’s already won, is why the burden is on her campaign to try to unify the new form of the party.
And that new form of the party likely will include some former Republicans who will not have formal clout in the party this year but might be a force in 2020.
The difficult job that a President Hillary Clinton will have to do is re-establish a national establishment that is knowledgeable of the world and the nation and actually gives a damn about peace and prosperity and not their next quarter’s profits. That’s the burden that is already being put on her presidency, just as the burdens that were put on the Obama presidency. Can she as a candidate rise to that stature before the convention? In 2008 Obama could and did rise to that stature; it’s why the GOP hates him so and so persistently.
Yes, one could come to think there is no home in the Democratic Party for progressives. It started perhaps with Bill Clinton and was brought forward by Rahm Emmanuel and the break up of the Occupy movement. I blame Hillary for this, sorry. She controls the party machinery. She has got to reach out and bridge this divide or her campaign will be all the more difficult, even impossible. Alienating the left wing of the party, ala Rahm or DWS, is not the way to go. Inequality, economic stagnation, the continuing threat to the safety net and endless freaking wars are real.
There is certainly a place for progressives in the Democratic party. My gosh, there is a progressive caucus, it welcomes Bernie Sanders to run for president as a Democrat. Can’t blame Hillary. There are conservative Dem forces closer to another end of the spectrum. As I’ve said before: we welcome folks from Joe Manchin to Elizabeth Warren. It’s not about “a place for progressives.” It’s whether progressives want to join in and sustain an involvement with a winning argument.
The country is centrist. That’s what one does to win a general election. Afterwards, it’s folks in the party, including Sanders, who have to keep the heat on to move leftwards.
I think these are some basic understandings of how it all works that the new-to-the-game Sanders folks just don’t understand. They want the revolution, and they want it now. That rhetoric turns off as many folks as it turns on. Sanders, in talking about “the revolution,” might state more clearly that he means within the system, if that’s what he means. He’s not really been a “within the system” guy, which may be what excites (stick it to the man), but which also allows for this kind of disruption.
The country is centrist. That’s what one does to win a general election.
Says who? You need to turn off the big three. You do realize how popular Social Security and Medicare are, right? I could go on all day about how you are wrong. Just because Chuck Todd says something doesn’t make it true.
You can’t look at the results of the last ten elections and come to the conclusion that the country as a whole is neither conservative nor liberal?
The Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 out of the last 6 presidential elections. The 6th is obviously a tad dubious because it was Dubya’s re-election, since he was never elected in the first place.
Well, they kinda had a hard time electing a dog catcher in 2014. What is with that? Is that a vibrant party?
Because Obama ran as a liberal and governed as a centrist.
And before that the GOP dominated for 12 years. We are not a leftist country, nor are we right wing. We are split pretty close to down the middle.
Jobs for all Americans, a fair tax system and an end to job killing trade deals are Leftist?
Actually, the left-right model doesn’t work well now, not that it every did.
This is about top versus bottom. If you recognize that while the owner of Chik-Fil-A maybe be a bigoted asshole and all the good people of Goldman Sachs are honorable and liberal, Goldman Sachs and the asshole chicken sandwich maker are on the same side of the economic divide, and just about everyone I know is on the other side.
The cheesy truism about the US being a centrist society is true when we divvy up social issues like all things sexual, but that’s in part how the cow is sliced. There are plenty of right-wing social positions that would not have gotten a batted eye fifty years ago, or even ten.
But when you talk about fiscal issues, which include healthcare, welfare, jobs, college for all, wages, then we’re in a top v. bottom spectrum. Since both sides use the social issues to divide and conquer, I think that it’s always important to understand the pecuniary interests of the various political groups.
It is called re-framing the meme.
Pitting the “underclass” against each other so the controlling oligarchs always retain control.
The MSM is simply doing its part to keep the underclass divided and following the approved story lines, whether from the left or the right.
The unapproved story line is how the poor and middle class has been screwed by both parties for the last 36 years.
That is why any protest or political attempt at following that idea is dismissed, derided and ignored by the MSM.
The right uses the attack on liberalism while the DNC machine uses both triangulation and the fear of the bogeyman right winger to never allow an HONEST in-depth discussion of how this has happened and who is responsible. The corporate owned MSM happily plays along using approved story lines for different groups that lead to accepted conclusions if you never look behind the curtain.
We are allowed to argue over abortion, sexual orientation and even gun control. Not however, the process where the wealth of the planet is steadily being drained by a small sect of very powerful people in each country, coordinated by even a smaller sect of people with access to the covert and overt military power, through their control of the political process in their respective countries, that they can force any smaller players who get too far our side the rules allowed to either be forced back in line or eliminated. Recent examples from the USA perspective Saddam and Noriega, useful and empowered when they played their assigned roles, eliminated when they stepped too far out of line. Putin does the same thing but with far less restraint inside his sphere of influence.
Trade deals are for enhancing the wealth pump to the powers that be to the detriment of the rest of the citizens inside the sphere of any trade deal.
The thing that sticks out in the last 5-6 years is far to many of the small people are saying FUCK THIS, to the powers that be. Even centrist democrats who claim the right to try to dictate how the process is allowed to unfold.
On the republican side the revolt against the sitting power structure actually worked except for the individual leading the charge. He may be so odious he cannot complete his revolution and change the direction of the country in the way he wants (if he even knows what he wants), and that allows the republicans to try to reset in 2018.
On the democratic side of the isle, an easy primary didn’t turn out because of the same fuck it that is held by enough people. The reaction that the party apparatus is responding with is kinda heavy handed and transparent, but has achieved the desired outcome. the selected nominee has made it to the goal line, even if party unity is in danger. BTW not just for this election cycle but 2018 and 2020.
The discord of the underclass isn’t going away, because their economic situation is not going to be allowed to improve. So their collective anger is going to grow, as more and more people slide, or are limited in that untenable state.
Remember the economic expansion from the crash of 2008 is getting very long in the tooth, and hasn’t even begun to trickle down to those who are feeding this discontent on the political establishment. A recession is looming on the horizon at best, while the usual tools for fighting a recession have been deployed the last eight years with very little to show but an over extended stock market system around the planet.
Winning the election just might land Hillary in a recession unlike even 2008 with in a years time. If she cannot respond ably enough, the 2018 midterms will be at least as horrible as 2010, and her re-election is in doubt. Dissing almost half of the people left of center cannot help her in this scenario. When the feces hits the rapidly rotating device, she’s probably going to be in over her head, and Wall Street will come holding it’s hand out for their next bail out and resetting of the game further in their favor.
As AG would say;
the perma-gov band plays on
bet on it.
No. The Democrats have won the White House in those elections.
Meanwhile, we have lost 900 seats throughout the country. Everyone hates “centrists” (neoliberals) and the more the DNC tries to put them forward, the more they lose.
Every country that uses first-past-the-post elections will have two main parties. Even most single member district systems force people into two parties.
If you want to go with a proportional electoral system, it would mean going to a pure parliamentary system.
Otherwise, the parties will have a center of gravity near the center.
What has been disturbing is how far from the center the GOP has moved without being penalized for it.
Phil, I never watch the big three.
If there is really a place for progressives in the Democratic Party why not be more magnanimous about it? I suppose the Clinton people may believe there is no where else for them to go. Maybe that will be the winning combination. OTOH Sanders wants change and is pretty clear it will come from a political revolution. Perhpas he can be ignored. But there is a non zero risk of ignoring him and freezing him out.
Will somebody kindly explain to me what in the devil Sanders means when he refers to a “political revolution”? I’m assuming he doesn’t have in mind France 1789 or Russia 1917, so what is he referring to? If he means “reform”, call it “reform”.
Revolution as in turning things upside down. A Party and a government run for the benefit of the majority and not an elite minority.
That is much more than “reform”.
Kinda simple he wants votes.He wants a large turn out beyond the normal.
Since a number of moderate Dems and HIllary allies, to include our current President, have flirted with “saving Social Security”, aka, cutting it, I’m not so sure that progressives, after they vote, are all that welcome in the party. Not unlike how Bill Clinton allied with conservative Dems and the Republicans to “lift the chains off Wall Street” at the end of his second term.
I saw a headline today that the Democratic Party today is the Republican Party. It’s what the mainstream Republicans used to be.
There’s nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
“Centrist” has no specific meaning apart from the median opinion that caused one side or the other to win an election.
The whole notion of the Overton window is that the extremes pull that center back and forth over time.
Staking out a position as a “centrist” does not mean that that is where public opinion currently is.
For this chaotic cycle, that won’t be clear until November, but Democrats claiming to be “centrist” will permit Trump’s right wing to pull opinion way to the right unless the promised landslide election actually occurs.
The country is not “centrist” except in an aggregate of contradicting individual positions. That is not a coherent political position. Often folks who claim to be “centrists” are trying to modify their own political positions enough not to be in conflict with most of their friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors.
In other words ‘centrist’ means being respectable.
Sometime is means “respectable” in the sense of “bourgeois” — not the working rabble.
it means
Actually, “centrist” is an idea Nate Silver invented to describe how members of Congress vote. It has nothing to do with public opinion.
Silver’s fiction is that Democrats are “liberal” and Republicans are “conservative” and that therefore those who vote most often with the other party are at the “center”. This can be true even when the legislation they are voting on is clearly right-wing and Democrats vote for it. If it is proposed and supported by Republicans, Democrats who vote for it are “centrist”. If it is proposed and supported by Democrats, Republicans who ote for it are “centrist”.
Where bread-and-butter issues are concerned, both parties are far, far to he right of mainstream voters. It’s not liberal to propose Social Security cuts, TPP, and so on. It’s actually easier for Obama to get Republicans to vote for some of his policies than to get Democrats to vote for them. But once he twists Democrats’ arms and gets both parties voting for them, the Democcrats who vote for it are “liberal” and the Republicans who vote for it are “centrist”. See how that works?
Looking at the Orange diary series BNR [Bernie News Roundup], it’s clear that Sanders is shepherding a movement not simply a primary campaign. He’s not going anywhere and neither are those concerned about the issues. Without concessions, and some kind of loosening their grip on the dem party, the HRC campaign / admin is going into this thing crippled. One of the names we Sanders supporters get called a lot is “not really democrats” and that’s the way some of the anti-Sanders NV stories are casting it. That’s not a help.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the arch-Democrat. How is she doing?
It is only to the extent that Sanders supporters are not toadies for the party that they can hope to advance progressivism.
Thank you for this commentary. I think you’ve captured the heart of the problem.
Yeah, well, delete the rhetoric and cant in that statement, and you get that BSers are really incensed that they can’t control a party they never bothered to join. This is, of course, the essence of what happened in Nevada: They didn’t register as Democrats.
If you are going to affect a party from within, the “within” pretty much implies you will join that party. Oops.
So “progressives” who are too pure to do that can really just shut up. The rules weren’t written on the inside of a Crackerjack box: They’ve been published, and are on websites, and everything.
Now, for a bit of reality, the fact is Bernie attracts young voters, who have never turned out to affect a goddamned thing. And in four years, guess what? They’ll have graduated, and started to pay bills, and all of this idealism will be something they chuckle about around the pool, when they take a break from talking about how much preschool costs.
“Shut up and go away!” That’s a great message to youth just starting to get involved in politics.
Please keep saying it! The more you do, the sooner the rotten corrupt Democratic Party will die.
You make of lot of bold statements. No, that’s not right. Sorry, you make a lot of insulting statements.
Have any evidence to back up the claims you made or did you just let your hate do the talking?
I’ve been a Democrat since I voted for McGovern in 1972. And I’ve been consistently a Democratic voter throughout. I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Party’s leaving me.
You have not described what happened in Nevada nor what has been going on in this campaign. Certified Democratic delegates were decertified, the rules were changed arbitrarily, and Clinton suddenly won when, by the rules, she should have lost. That’s why people were angry to start with.
Be that as it may, a lot of stories were spread about “violence” and “threats” supposedly from the Sanders campaign, and the Clinton campaign and media started demanding that Sanders condemn his own supporters – for something that didn’t happen. The only documented violence was by a Clinton supporter who assaulted a Sanders supporter. Yet no one is demanding that Clinton reign in or condemn her own supporters.
The people you’re talking about are Democrats, they are registered members of the party, and they went by the rules. They are angry because those rules were suddenly disallowed.
Yes. And I am afraid that if this keeps on, even if Clinton wins in November, it’s going to be worse next time – all of the anger will still be there, and the Republicans might nominate a True Believer next time, instead of Trump – someone who actually believes all that Ted Cruz stuff but who can pass for nominally “sane”.
If we don’t get left-populism, right-populism can always wait us out, brown shirts and all.
I think you’re right about the DNC stuff, rules committees and all that. But I think it’s weak tea for the Bernie supporters. They are in “disrupt mode.” They want to make a point that the DNC is corrupt, that it’s all fixed, that they aren’t being taken seriously, that they never had a chance — and that Hillary is the devil-incarnate. So turning this kind of behavior around requires more than a few committee seats because these riotous folks aren’t paying attention to that. They show up in big numbers with loud voices and without an understanding of how the nominating rules work. They believe just because they’re there, they should prevail.
It requires, I believe, strong statements from Bernie Sanders himself. He has to show leadership to quash this. If he can’t control his supporters, if he can’t lead them to civility, then he should step away in the name of safety.
They are in “disrupt mode.” They want to make a point that the DNC is corrupt, that it’s all fixed, that they aren’t being taken seriously, that they never had a chance — and that Hillary is the devil-incarnate.
They’re right about the DNC. Changes need to be made there. Or are you happy with the last 6 years and what has happened to the party? All those saying the GOP is dead are stupid. It’s not dead. Just look at Congress and the states.
I don’t much think about whether I’m happy or unhappy about the DNC. What I know is that the DNC was essentially dead for a while because of OFA. Obama didn’t count on the DNC. It is a hold-over from the Clinton years and there is an opportunity to modify and improve it. But why wait til now? Where have these folks been in these six/seven years? I’d posit: sitting it out as independents. But my advice is don’t waste this opportunity. C’mon along and shape the DNC into a better organization. But you gotta be in it to win it.
Where have these folks been in these six/seven years?
Maybe not old enough to vote yet? I know a few Bernie diehards on Twitter that are college students. Meaning somewhere between 18 and 23 or so. A lot of his support are young people, so maybe this is only their first or second election(the first, maybe, being 2014).
The guy who’s staying with us who is one of Sanders’ people had been in the military. That’s where he was.
“It is a hold-over from the Clinton years and there is an opportunity to modify and improve it.”
It seems to me the first part of the sentence contradicts the second. Hillary is the prospective nominee precisely BECAUSE the DNC is a hold-over from the Clinton years, and that is exactly why it is NOT going to improve.
I’m going to say something now that many will not want to hear, but if you do some honest research I believe you will see that I am right: The Clintons are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bushes, and the two have been playing tag-team since 1992, except for the interruption of the Obama years, which wasn’t “supposed” to happen. And now it’s drawing to a close, we’re going to go back to the good old days (not that the last 8 years have been so different, but actually, without Obama they would have been worse than they have been. Obama was dealt a very difficult hand.)
Needless to say, Bernie Sanders wasn’t supposed to happen either.
It’s no coincidence that, backed by Jackson Stephens, a major Bush funder, Clinton ran against Bush, Sr. in 1992 and won (wouldn’t have without Perot), at a time when Bush Sr. was very unpopular; and that Hillary was “supposed” to run against Jeb! but isn’t, because he is so unpopular that apparently limitless infusions of cash couldn’t even get him to first base.
Check it out. Jackson Stephens, BCCI, Burt Lance, Bill & Hillary’s continuing closeness to the Bushes. Oh yes, and Hillary’s vote for the Iraq War.
Yes, the same side. I know Boo gets upset when I get all conspiratorial on him, but allow me for a moment.
Let’s pretend that in 1963 there was a coup in the US, led by the CIA with its various allies in banking, business and politics.
It was clear that enough of the mainstream press was on board with the cover story, and there was a None Dare Call It Treason moment in American politics. LBJ was certainly compromised and following him Nixon was both an ally of the CIA and compromised.
But what happens after that? If you threw a successful coup on Friday you don’t just go back to your cubicle on Monday. The coup plotters had to ensure that they were not going to be prosecuted and that the enterprise would continue.
In the late sixties all of this was apparent to people who killed JFK. In the short term they followed the blueprint of the Black Reichsfehr during the twenties, assassinating politicians that threatened their reactionary leaders. However, even the most gullible Americans were beginning to get suspicious about the rash of lone nuts who had it out for progressive politicians.
So why not groom career politicians? Already the Bushes were well-established in the Republican Party politics. GHW, like his father, was involved with US intelligence in the service of industry. Ronald Reagan had been a spokesman for the Congress For Freedom, a fifties CIA op to import Nazi residua into the US as well as an informant for the FBI during the red scare in Hollywood.
But back in the sixties who could the CIA groom for future political office? How about a young go-getter from Arkansas who was trying to get out of the draft and over to Oxford under his Fulbright connections? He would be in a place where he could routinely report back to the his handlers about the anti-war movement in Europe. This would not require even as much as Gloria Steinem did at the beginning of that decade in spying and propagandizing for the CIA (under one of the Walkers!). How about a militaristic young Republican woman who was writing pro-Vietnam speeches for Mel Laird in 1968? And Yale has been ground zero for CIA recruitment post-WWII. Why would she, a few short years later, be summer interning at a law firm in Oakland, CA? The law firm turned out to be representing the Black Panthers, and anyone familiar with the American intelligence experience during the Vietnam era knows that the FBI, CIA and the many branches of military intelligence, as well as local red squads, saw the Black Panthers as the biggest threat. So of course they would try to get someone into those law offices. Just like the CIA would like to know everything going on in the Democratic staff for Watergate a few years later. Likewise, Bill Clinton, having climbed into the governor’s chair by the Reagan administration, was in a perfect position to look the other way while Southern Air Transport dropped duffel bags of white powder over Mena. (Asa Hutchinson, who later became Dubya’s first DEA chief, also had a serious aversion to looking at Mena.)
In a sense Bill Clinton’s cover to accommodate his betters in the corridors of power was the Republican Congress and their mean, mean attempts to impeach and get rid of him over a blowjob. Obama’s cover has been a Republican Congress and all the racial hatred of the right directed at him. I would presume that Hillary’s cover story for why progressive things can’t be done will be the Republican Congress and anti-feminism. And with Wasserman Schultz and company recruiting DINOs to run for Congress it won’t be hard to maintain a Republican majority in Congress. With a dolt like Trump this year’s race is sufficiently cartoonish for the hoi polloi to follow.
So, yes, I believe the Clintons are no more Democratic than whatever serves their interests and the interests of those who invited them into the corridors of power.
If you accept that JFK was removed in a coup…
Was the Mel Laird gig part of her Wellesley in Washington internship at the Republican Conference in 1967-1968?
William Fulbright (of Arkansas) was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee when Clinton interned there. No doubt that required a security clearance, easily passed at a young age.
You mean that the coup didn’t happen in April of 1945? 🙂
What did Jimmy Byrnes know?
Yes. It’s mentioned in a page of Laird’s on the net.
From the NY Times: “I remember her being very bright, very aggressive and not very Republican,” said Ed Feulner, who managed the summer interns in the office and now heads the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group.
Ever diligent, Ms. Rodham did “a fine job,” said Mr. Laird, citing a “very thorough and well-researched” speech she wrote on the financing of the Vietnam War. At the end of the internship, Ms. Rodham proudly posed for a photo with House Republican leaders, including Representative Gerald R. Ford of Michigan. The photo hung in her father’s bedroom when he died in 1993.”
++++
I’ve yet to see the contents of the speech. In 1968. That was the year that H. Clinton attended both the Republican and Democratic Party conventions. Quite unusual.
And yes, those White Russian painters doing FDR’s portrait who ran when they “discovered FDR dead” did indeed seem suspicious. I don’t know much about Byrnes, but I doubt, since he was so insistent on an absolute unconditional surrender of the Japanese, that he was part of any conspiracy by the folks who were in on the coup in 1963. Those people were fascist-friendly.
Regarding Laird’s speech, you can find the gist of it, and the context, here:
http://www.dceoralhistoryproject.org/melvin-laird.html
He was not trying to end the war, but he did pursue the chimerical project of trying to get Americans out of it and turn it over to the Vietnamese entirely. (“Vietnamization”, which he says was his idea.) He also was troubled by the tremendous costs of the war to America and NATO. He mentions that Hillary helped him wrote the speech.
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and a couple others who never made it to President has a political alliance in the early 1800s. So did various opponents. The elites can scheme but they cannot always work their will without rigging the ballot boxes or offering peach brandy on election day.
If Clinton is going to win the general election, her campaign will have to deliver to the polls her supporters, a significant proportion of Democrats who support Sanders, enough independents who support Sanders, and whatever Republicans change parties outright because of Trump. She will have to at least position herself to the left of Eisenhower Republicanism and make explicit commitments and concrete plans for peace, prosperity, and a response to global climate change. She will not get away with the loosey goosey commitments that Obama made in 2008. And she will have to have all of the Democratic candidates for Congress and legislatures sign on to that agenda for their campaigns.
Few outside of her supporters think she is flexible enough in her views to make that change. But she will need a huge mandate and a willing Congress to be able to govern. And a plan for increasing her support in the 2018 mid-terms that actually works this time.
That is where Clinton supporters need to be pushing, not trying to shove Sanders out of the last primaries or delegitimize his movement. (And charges of violence are an easy go in hot political campaigns. Read some of the histories of 19th century campaigns for perspective.)
This brouhaha really comes down to a legitimate process story contending against a respectability story. Unless otherwise proven, consider the death threats and other nasty phone calls to be from folks not organizationally controllable by the Sanders campaign. Likewise the actual physical attacks on Sanders’s office. (Nevada is Ammon Bundy country, remember.)
I am amazed how organized the Clinton messaging and social media has been; of course there are a bunch of experienced blog commenters who are working on blogs and on Twitter to get out a relative consistent and only occasionally hyperbolic message. Sanders commenters have been of both kinds, with some really going over the top for whatever reasons. That to my mind is the difference between an establishment campaign and an insurgent movement. It also can skew an understanding of what actually is going on at the grassroots of potential voters.
The danger all around for this election is supporters getting high on their own propaganda. There is no widely observed entity that can sort out truth from falsehood. There is no forum in which a consensus about facts can be built.
When there is talk of active use of nuclear weapons and torture as acceptable policies, there needs to be something authoritative put in place stat. There will not be. It’s up to us to keep our relative cool despite disagreeing about selections of candidates.
“The danger all around for this election is supporters getting high on their own propaganda.”
About sums it up for me.
Need to go back two more administrations that I’m aware of. Jackson Stephens was all in for Carter in ’76 and then Reagan in ’80. Recall that BCCI goes back to the ’70s and one of the players was Carter’s Bert Lance.
Hell, their activities probably would be legal in today’s climate.
Not legal — just less likely to be caught.
Oh yes, the story starts earlier, but I just went back to Bills entry into presidential politics.
they . . . they . . . they . . . “
This sort of broad-brush stereotyping is seldom (never?) a good idea, imo (nor — perhaps more to the point — valid).
For example: I am a Bernie supporter. Your description does not fit me.
How about, “I know the Clinton supporters cheated and then made up the story of chair-throwing, but my supporters suck anyway.” Think that’d make the DNC happy?
I would imagine that Sanders and Clinton will address this in some way in connection with the OR and KY primary results. It would be nice if there is some kind of joint statement addressing disruptiveness in general, but maybe that is too much to hope for at this time.
That might be a good token step to get their supporters back to work on California.
The end of all the primaries is when I anticipate the unity statement, if there is to be unity. Sanders is going to have to get something substantial in process, policy, and narrative in order to avoid a “Sanders co-opted us” into the Democratic Party meme.
Clinton knows that and the concern is that she might think she can just ignore Sanders and his movement will go away causing just minimal damage, because “where can they go but a Clinton presidency, given the threat of Trump”. After all Bill and Obama both successfully sidelined whatever progressive movements were pushing in their Presidencies.
But TarHeelDem, how can Bernie do that when he is supposed to quit and abandon California? They can’t have it both ways.
You assume that I am a partisan of one or the other just because I had to choose one in the NC primary.
Of course Bernie could and should do that. It’s what primary opponents are all about–gauging the sentiment of the alternative direction for the party.
I was referring to: “That might be a good token step to get their supporters back to work on California.”
How can that happen if Bernie listens to the rising chorus and just quits?
He can’t do both. Nothing to do with your personal choice which you are under no obligation to divulge, unlike me, who wears my heart on my sleeve. I wish I could be a coldly analytical as you and that is NOT a condemnation.
“… she might think she can just ignore Sanders and his movement will go away causing just minimal damage, because ‘where can they go but a Clinton presidency, given the threat of Trump’. After all Bill and Obama both successfully sidelined whatever progressive movements were pushing in their Presidencies.”
Exactly, and that is how the game has been played lo! these many years in order to keep this country “centrist”. But it’s not going to happen this year, and that is what the DNC doesn’t seem to understand — because it doesn’t want to understand it.
All the commenters who keep on trivializing and demonizing Sanders and his supporters, don’t you realize you are talking about half the Democratic voters PLUS a whole lot of independents? And that a huge percentage of folks 29 and under, of every ethnicity and race, are supporting Sanders? And don’t you realize that the issues at stake are very, very serious? Who you vote for is your business, but if you don’t give due weight to the grim prospects the country and the world are facing in this year of 2016, you’re simply demonstrating wilful blindness. I assure you that Sanders and his supporters are well aware of the stakes.
It’s pretty clear that the liberal Democrats have become smug and arrogant off of their demographic advantage. Like the Republicans in 2002, they think that they’ve put together an invincible coalition that has a huge amount of banked votes and can govern, campaign, and outreach however they want and still win elections.
Of course, there’s one (well, several, but one at a time) little fly in that ointment: the Obama Coalition does not exist without youth support. And the youth today are red as hell.
Liberals who are salivating over their future victories while simultaneously plotting to make the Berniebros go away need to repeat this to themselves over and over: You can’t sustain a multiracial coalition without youth support.
Don’t say “liberal Democrats” when you mean “ex” Republicans.
She probably should do that, in that it probably couldn’t hurt.
It probably won’t make any difference, though, as anybody willing to throw chairs and threaten the head of the state party and her family is too far gone.
And, unfortunately, if my social media feeds are any indicator, this sort of escalation of bad behavior and rhetoric is growing more common, albeit thankfully not seemingly to the extreme that’s happened in Vegas. But don’t be shocked if these lunatics try to pull this kind of crap in Philly.
Wonder if they can arrange a cop riot again for the DFHs?
Doesn’t sound like they’d have any need to.
I guess not, since it appears to be already up and running.
With today’s social media, how many Sanders supporters do you think will come to Philadelphia. A quarter million? A million? I would not be surprised it the Sanders candidacy ends like McCarthy’s, in the streets. Which is better than how RFK’s candidacy ended.
Historically, open class warfare does end in blood, you know.
A bit of a stretch to call ’68 that sort of conflict, though it was generational.
For the most part, so is this. Youth was galvanized by Obama. When his promises turned out to be lies they abandoned him in 2014. Then Bernie Sanders turned up and inspired them again. That’s why Hillary and Booman want him to grovel at the convention and lick her boots. Because if he does, the young ones will have seen that their second leader sold them out too. They believe this will turn them into sheep that turn out every election to reflexively vote for whatever turd has (D) after their name.
I think it will have the opposite effect. They will either abandon politics completely and join the non-voting majority or they will turn Republican.
My guess is a max of 15,000 given the modern military policing approach to crowd control (contracted through Israeli consultants).
Yes, someone wanted RFK out of the way very badly. The problem as usual is too many suspects.
Who might Bernie possibly be a threat to? Especially if Clinton indeed has the delegates sewn up (the constant pushing of Sanders to drop out and the remaining primaries run counter to that narrative). If so, it must be close enough to require some serious concessions that Clinton is reluctant to make.
Sanders to drop out”? Seems surprising to me how little of that there’s been — in fact, I can’t think of any. To their credit, the Clinton campaign at least seems to get how dumb that would be.
Indeed, as they see it slipping away, they are becoming more childlike in their behavior.
Wait until they try to buy a house.
Old Man/Old Woman you are so wrong! No wonder youth rebel against their parents.
What explains the behavior from Clinton and her supporters then?
And what does buying a house have to do with the subject at hand?
The majority of Americans can’t afford to buy a house.
You, uh, are aware that Millenials, especially Millenial women, are significantly poorer than the predecessor generations? And their prospects ain’t looking too good in the medium term, too.
You seriously may as well said ‘let them eat cake’. I mean, how else is someone supposed to interpret a reply of ‘stop being children and go buy this expensive symbol of status and adulthood’ to a generation whose primary grievance is class struggle?
I remember when we were supposed to be “the reality-based community” and at least look up some facts before spouting off about the bad behaviour that didn’t happen of people you know nothing about.
Nobody threw chairs. People were angry because the rules were changed in mid-stream without regard to the results of the voice vote, but they did not throw chairs. Sounds to me like amazing restraint.
They are who we thought they were.
…………….
Former Republican staffer names Wisconsin senators who were ‘giddy’ about voting law changes
JESSIE OPOIEN | The Capital Times | jopoien@madison.com | @jessieopie
May 16, 2016
Attorneys challenging a series of Wisconsin voting laws implemented over the last five years argued Monday that lawmakers intended to discriminate against non-white voters by passing them.
The trial began with a former Republican legislative staffer testifying that not only was that the intent, but some state senators were “giddy” to do so.
Todd Allbaugh, who served as chief of staff to then-Sen. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, when the state’s voter ID law was passed in 2011, said there initially wasn’t much enthusiasm among Senate Republicans to pass the bill.
Sen. Mary Lazich, R-New Berlin, argued on the bill’s behalf to her colleagues in a closed caucus meeting, Allbaugh testified.
“She got up out of her chair and she hit her finger on the table and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to think about what this could mean for the neighborhoods around Milwaukee and the college campuses around the state,'” Allbaugh said.
Boo, I think you are wrong here. Clinton has played things right and kept her mouth largely shut about Sanders and his campaign since New York. To do anything else, possibly even reaching out to negotiate with Sanders at this point on the convention, would likely be perceived as tantamount to asking him to concede. She’s discussed letting the process play out, which is exactly what Sanders has said he wants to do.
Bernie’s response…
https:/berniesanders.com/press-release/statement-nevada
Very interesting.
Right On!
While I don’t have an issue with the subject this post raises, if you are going to use Melissa McEwan as a prime source, it really makes it hard to take the rest of it seriously. I made the mistake of following the link; that place has gotten even more extreme than I remember. And the echo chamber is deafening.
I’m also having a problem with the lack of a quote from a Sanders supporter about the incident. I know you are not really interested in the details, but it makes the post come off as sloppy or biased.
Stopped reading after this:
“The details” don’t seem to matter much when they don’t support TPTB. It’s the “move along; nothing to see here” attitude that is so discouraging because it explains why we continue to go to war based on lies, give certain elite folks total impunity for any crime, accept that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Booman’s next point, after the spot you stopped reading, is this:
What I think people should be focused on, and by “people” I mean the folks at the top of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns, is how to mend some fences and get this craziness under control.
That seems like a worthwhile goal to me, but I do understand that you disagree.
Again, I think Boo has this wrong at the moment. To reach out to Sanders now could be interpreted as asking him to concede. Sanders wants to finish the primaries, if not a revolution outright, so letting the process play out is best.
One way to “get the craziness under control” is for the DNC and state parties to stop cheating or changing the rules when they don’t favor HRC.
When the contest is over, then we can talk about “mending fences.” Why have HRC supporters been so anxious for the past year about what Sanders’ supporters will do at the conclusion of the primaries and delegate selections? Demanding pledges from Sanders voters to vote for HRC. While early on it was assumed that there would be a GOP nominee and HRC, why would everyone rule out the possibility of one of more other choices? If HRC is half as formidable as her campaign and supporters claim she is, why have they been acting so insecure?
Exactly.
I love the “I stopped reading” comments. They’re the very best.
Go read the comments in this thread and come back to me on how I’m just shilling for the powers that be.
Legitimate criticism of you. You didn’t quote a Sanders supporter. You usually do better.
https:/berniesanders.com/press-release/statement-nevada
I, uh, wasn’t being much criticized for an anti-Sanders bias there, Bob.
Plus, I linked to an entire article about what happened in Vegas written by a Sanders supporter. I provide links to shit so you can read it if you want to know more about what I’m referring to or talking about.
And, my point was that I do not give a shit about what happened in Vegas or in these stupid procedural delegate fights because the nominating process is over. What I care about is that the people in charge of the two campaigns exert some effort to get this shitshow under control.
Well, their respective partisans are making it more and more difficult, no? And no one is giving the other the benefit of the doubt.
Lack of criticism doesn’t mean it wasn’t an issue.
Yes, you provided a link to a Sanders supporter’s account; but you actually provided a quote from a Clinton supporter in the body of you post.
Too difficult to have direct quotes from both?
The fact you couldn’t give a shit about the process, and no it is not over, speaks volumes. Furthermore, not caring about the process is what leads to the shitshow you see now.
The process is a critical part of democracy.
After looking at the thread you directed us to, I’m inclined to think that the people who read Washington Monthly and comment are mostly DNCers and DINOs.
Not surprising actually. And really doesn’t say what you think it says.
WTF? Seriously?
DINOs?
Because they support a former Democratic First Lady, Democratic senator and cabinet member in a Democratic administration who has run for president as a Democrat twice and been a prominent Democrat for over 45 years straight?
Do you listen to yourself think?
Yes, seriously.
Yes, DINOs. Try reading some of the comments.
No, because of the statements that many made. It read like the talking points from a DNC flier, or worse. And I didn’t see support as much as outrage, and attacks on Sanders and his supporters.
And don’t forget your lack of getting a quote from a Sanders supporter. It really helps to frame the comments posted.
Do you even think?
My head is going to explode.
Have fun with that.
Great — double down on not giving a shit about the details AND mock those that prefer not to waste their time reading opinions that don’t bother with pesky things like facts and details.
Short of a real surprise…HRC gets sick, HRC is indicted w/some kind of massive evidence, some whistleblower blows her cover with hacked proof, HRC is proven to be a total crook or liar by unimpeachable video evidence, she just says “Fuck it!!! I’m going home” etc. etc. etc…she’s got the nomination.
Dassit. No more need be said.
No matter how she treats Sanders, his supporters by and large are going to look at the alternative…a Trump presidency…and either bite the HRC vote bullet or not vote at all.
How will that affect the race?
I dunno. I personally think that it will be close…a whole lot closer than the centrist media mouthpieces are predicting…provided neither candidate implodes. Will the economically challenged working class/lower middle class vote…of all ethnicities…for Trump cancel out the minority vote for HRC? Maybe, or it might even blow it out of the water. Will the people who switch from Sanders to HRC give her a majority? An electoral college win? Could be.
Time…and the conventions/debates…will tell.
If either…or both…conventions come across as some kind of ratfuck? Could happen. If someone seriously fails in the debates? HRC drops her mask? Trump’s mask gets too frightening? Possible…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Bet on it.
AG
About Booman’s recent call for a respite from relentless negativity….
I would call it more of a skirmish than a wildfire at this point.
You don’t care about the details of what happened? That’s utter bullshit. I know this site is pro-Sanders, but trying to just paper over what’s happening is shameful.
All of this is a direct result of the Sanders campaign peddling the delusion that the can still win the nomination. Also from the fact that HE’S NOT A DEMOCRAT and has spent the entire campaign demonizing the Democratic Party as a whole, and Hillary Clinton in particular.
Now his supporters look at any Democrat (y’know, the party he’s running to lead) as the “enemy” that’s out to “cheat” them in a “rigged” election.
But lets not concern ourselves with those details.
I see you just joined today to shill for HRC. I hope she’s paying you. Don’t give it away when you can sell it.
This is one time you need to cool your jets a little IMHO.
Let the principals (Clinton and Sanders) fight this one out. Don’t get sucked in.
I am so incredibly sick of this “not a democrat” bullshit. If it takes a non-Democrat to do what Democrats claim they want and have failed to do and in fact, fought against, then GREAT. My loyalty is to goals not a party.
LOL DNC has no problem recruiting flat out Republicans, do they? Where is THAT outrage.
Just tell all the indies they are unwanted, folks.
The Wasserman Schultz/Schumer candidate for the open Senate seat in Florida is a former Republican congressman who voted to investigate Hillary and Benghazi. That’s how brazen the corporate Dems have become. If he’s a good grifter, plug him or her in.
But .. but .. but Floridians are supposed to vote for him over Grayson because Grayson’s a two-faced asshole, or something. Hell, 80 out of the 100 Senators are two-faced assholes. So Grayson would fit right in.
Yes, two-faced assholes.
But from what I’ve read about him, Grayson actually is a charlatan and a horrible person.
Indeed, but hes also right. The republican healthcare plan really IS die quickly. His opponent really IS a corporatist DINO.
I’ve read establishment supporters saying he’s a two-faced Charlatan. What I haven’t seen is any evidence. Reid is pretending to be outraged by something the ethics committee looked at (after Grayson’s opponent complained about it) and couldn’t find any There there. Seems obvious this is just more of the Schumer-Reid wing trying to make sure right-wingers keep progressives out of the Senate.
Grayson is opposed by Patrick Murphy, an “ex”-Republican who is probably the worst Democrat in Congress. And he’s plenty dirty all the way down, so I’m not impressed with claims about Grayson until I see some meat.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/rep-alan-grayson-targeted-by-second-ethics-complaint-119795
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/florida-rep-alan-grayson-back-court-bizarre-bigamy-case
Yes, but according to the folks who support him, “Grayson is our two-faced asshole.”
Heartburn rhetoric isn’t everything, but it is undervalued in the Democratic Party.
If I recall correctly, Grayson is running against a pro-Wall Street guy who was recently a Republican congressman who actually voted for the Benghazi investigation.
He wasn’t a GOP Congressman but he did donate to Willard. And his parents basically fund his political career.
are important to people that are progressives (who also appreciate that they have to fight for every smidgen of power that they can get because they aren’t getting those power and money handouts from oligarchs, Wall St, and Hollywood like liberals.:
Sanders Statement on Nevada
Interesting timing – Tuesday primaries in Kentucky and Oregon – for such hand wringing (during primary coverage tonight by MSM) about something that happened three days ago.
Besides, the devil is ALWAYS in the details.
If I didn’t know better I’d guess they are following the example of the republican leadership of the house.
Gain the predetermined outcome no matter what the hoi polloi in the convention actually wants. Then blame those who complain for their complaints, no matter how justified.
You left out, “Make up stories about people throwing chairs.”
I was commenting on the actions of the chair of the meeting not anything else.
Gratuitous bullshit reporting from Nevada labeling the voicemails as “death threats.” They were nothing of the sort. Neither is there any evidence they came from Sanders supporters.
Sanders campaign issued a statement on the events today.
Posted it upthread, but Booman, may want to update it.
Interestingly enough, I can already guess the reaction to the statement base on whether someone is pro-Bernie or pro-HRC.
https:/berniesanders.com/press-release/statement-nevada
Harry Reid’s response before and after the Sanders camp issued the statement I posted.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/17/politics/democrat-bernie-sanders-revolt/index.html
Harry Reid. That says it all.
What is that supposed to mean? Is there no elected official good enough?
Republican in Democratic clothing. One of those who blocked even a vote on public option. Now he’s running Nevada Chicago style.
what are you talking about it wasn’t him that blocked the public option, you’re thinking of the GOP Senators. There weren’t the votes for the public option in the Senate because of the GOP
Um, ACA passed with no Republican votes. It could not have been Republicans who blocked the public option. Either someone in the Democratic Party blocked it, or … what?
All of the Republicans voted against it anyway. And yet it passed. Since it wasn’t them who blocked the public option, who was it?
it was them, do you not understand how our Congress works?
Oh Harry Reid thought Bernie Sanders was gong to say something that Harry Reid approved.
Wherever Hillary supporters go wheedling, acrimony and whining follow. Sanders wasn’t around in 2008 and yet it was the same; ‘whitey’ tape and all.
In case people forget, in 2008 it was the “Obama Boys” as opposed to the “Bernie Bros”.
Here’s a Salon article from then:
http://www.salon.com/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/
The same game was played by the Clinton campaign back then.
Meanwhile, the great purge continues over at big orange. Bernie supporters are now compared to those of Trump, after the events in Nevada, pursuant to today’s front page post by the great Markos himself. There is open hostility to both Bernie and his remaining supporters. I say remaining because they have moved elsewhere including Reddit. I have been there 11 years and posted more than 750 mostly well received diaries. I have never felt more unwanted. What started as “Crashing The Gates” has now become what is surely part of the party apparatus. He, teacherken, BBB, mbnyc can all go fuck themselves. I’ll support who I choose and not who is forced upon me.
Visit Balloon Juice. They’re burning Sanders supporters over there.
And they burn Clinton supporters over here. So? I read both commentary threads.
“they” – can you find more than one commenter on this thread? if not, chuck the hyperbole
Conservadems have authoritarian instincts, too. So no surprise.
The only reason Kos ever wanted to crash the gate was because there was money to be made in him doing so. Thats where you go to figure out what Kos wants.
It’s so nostalgic to think of the sturm und drang spilled there over Gilligan’s Island II — not that there wasn’t a serious political issue involved. Interesting who were the “bros” then.
Now we’re being played as pawns in high-stakes campaigns. Yes, I’m amazed, but not surprised, at the tone and who is involved in it.
I may be a cynic on this but it seems to me that after ten years of progressive Democratic opinion and action, we continue to fail getting better Democrats because the Democratic establishment blocks ways of getting more Democrats.
In 2014, my response was the donkey is dead. My sinking feeling these days is that the donkey is determinedly so. I hope this cycle proves me wrong, but I have not lost my pessimism over this election.
It’s dead, but its zombie corpse shambles on, absorbing people who used to be alive.
Did they stop you from publishing diaries? Or are you just losing the argument?
you have to see it over there, hard to describe
I go over there a couple of times per week. Every thread has Bernie supporters and Hillary supporter, but there are certainly more Hillary supporters in most of them. Is that what you mean?
unlike Boran2 I’ve never written a diary over there [nor here neither]. there are a couple regular Sanders diaries over there, but since Nevada there are a whole lot of tendentious diaries with, Enquirer type headlines and kos’s fp post as well. feels like a mob mentality, getting ready for the Oxbow incident
Bernie supporters have been banned, usually for frivolous reasons, or fled because of Kos’s asinine edicts about what can or cannot be said. Most have gone to the caucus99percent web site.
I joined in 2004. Go back once a day to recommend OPOL, LieparDestin and a few others. Close to quitting that. Kos & pack have driven off the dedicated, issue oriented activists. Great move for the Democratic Party. Sarcasm, for any who might miss it.
yes, that’s what I wanted to say, issue-oriented is completely lost. all feels like propaganda
Death threats bad. Clearly. But there have been shenanigans in Nevada and it’s pretty clear that HRC supporters in power have been using that power to put weight on HRC’s scales everywhewhire ch I find corrupt and threatening. You might say that’s the way it’s always been or that’s the rules. Fine, but if they think the new generation is going to lay down and take it, they are flat wrong.
Also Barney Frank has been an asshole this entire campaign season. Fuck him.
Barney Frank is representing his clients. That’s what the big bucks of a post-political career are for. It’s just business.
And, unfortunately, we can count on MSNBC and the rest of our illustrious corporate media to not tell their audience what Barney Frank’s current job is whenever he is on, telling us about how bad Bernie is.
This is not helping Hillarys cause. Would a few delegates either way matter to her or is she really frightened?
She’s frightened because they were supposed to be totally in control of this, and they’re not. They find themselves in uncharted territory.
Which is one more reason why Trump might be more formidable agsinst her. No rules with Trump.
DWS just blew it all up. She is not helping the situation by blaming Sanders. It is just that sort of thing that will drive a wedge between the two factions.
DWS has taken her traveling anti Sanders show to MSNBC from CNN. Guess I should be convinced Sanders is dead wrong. Again this is not going to help. What a hot mess. And we think the other guys are nuts.
Meh, 2008 was so much more bonkers than this.
Bernie’s statement today makes it pretty clear that he is OK with whatever his supporters do, because everyone else is in the pocket of the 1%. His mask has now fallen off, and Ralph Nader’s face is what we see.
I feel that Donald Trump has a real chance now, and that’s a new feeling for me.
this is a primary not the General.
That’s an interesting interpretation.
Sanders didn’t throw his supporters under a bus just because the establishment supporters made up some stories about them. Good.
Maybe it’s because I’m not paying as much attention, but it certainly seems like the Clinton-Sanders divide is nowhere near as bad as the Clinton-Obama divide in ’08. It’s a long time til November. I’m still gonna vote for Bernie in CA, but it will take me about zero seconds to get 100% behind Hillary against Trump and the GOP Congress.
Seconded.
This is where someone is supposed to write that you are giving up all your leverage by announcing at the outset that you intend to vote Democratic. And someone else writes that you are obviously a DINO.
Something else just struck me. When have the Clintons ever been magnanimous in victory?
If an example were quoted, would it influence your opinion?
you could try posting one or two, might de-polarize the discussion thread
If it actually demonstrated that the losing party was both not marginal (a serious opponent) and was not required to basically kneel and kiss the ring but not retaliated against (by being marginalized) then yeah.
The Clinton team – and their supporters – have been behaving like bad winners since the moment Sanders entered the race.
And Sanders doesn’t want to be Secretary of State, so what can they give him?
since Sanders would be a horrible Secretary of State that’s good
he can maybe get concessions at the convention at this point, I doubt he will be in the Clinton Administration