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In a comment on Booman's dissection of last night's HRC rout of Bernie Sanders in NY (What Now For Bernie?), Parallax wrote:
Ultimately the Democratic party is our team. That includes all of us.
That got me to thinking. I posted a response, and now I am posting that same response as a stand-alone post. Read on.
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I don’t think it is “our team” anymore, Parallax. It most certainly is not my team, and hasn’t been at least since Gore and the rest of the Dem establishment basically caved in to the theft of the presidency by the Bush II campaign in 2000.
It apparently is no longer the team of a great number of Sanders supporters, either. Regardless of whether they have realized this fact yet or have not, when the “healing” clownshow is performed at the convention it will become obvious to many of them what is really up. Once again a progressive candidate has been beaten by a member in good standing of the Permanent Government with the almost total collusion of the mass media, and the same damned thing will happen in 2020. Bet on it.
This is not a generational thing, nor is it a demographics thing. It’s a power thing, and the Democratic Party machine is totally in bed with the .01%. Only the founding of a new party that is dedicated to public funding rather than corporate ownership will change this state of affairs, and so far I do not see the slightest hint of such a thing happening on any level that would be able to mount a good fight in 2020. I would be delighted to hear Sanders get up in front of the convention and essentially say:
OK motherfuckers, I’ve had it with this shit. I tried to warn you and you didn’t listen. We’re taking our bat, our ball and our gloves and we’re going to go build a new field. Best of luck in the future. You’re gonna need it. Build it and they will come. Buh-bye, bubbelehs!!!”
But of course…he won’t.
So here we are, stuck with Hillary Clinton.
Running against whom?
Aye…there’s the rub!
The safesayers think HRC will beat whomever the RatPubs nominate, but I’m not so sure. I think Trump…even with the almost unanimous opposition that will be mounted against him by the centrist media machine…will be able to clean her clock in a head-to-head battle. Her only hope is that the dummies in the RNC successfully do their Rat thing, bump Trump and put some tomato can up against her.
Stay tuned.
It’s gonna get even more interesting soon.
Watch.
AG
Who knows.
Stranger things have happened…
Later…
AG
No, it’s not a “good guys” party. But if Trump is the GOP nominee, it won’t matter because all the “good guys” could decline to vote and HRC will win with the votes of white women, wealthy self-identified social liberals, AAs, Latinos. Trump will be limited to the misogynists, racists.
You write:
No, he will not be limited to those people, Marie. They certainly will vote for him, but his real constituency is comprised of people whose American Dream has over the last 8 years turned into an indebtedness nightmare. They’re not deep thinkers; they’re just working class Joes and Janes…of every race, age and religion…who are buying his economic line. Many of them…black, brown or tan…don’t give a pig’s ear about more recent immigrants. In fact, they quite rightly feel threatened by immigrants coming in who will work for less than they can manage to work.
Is Trump full of shit about the promised results of his plans?
Probably. Partially full of shit, for sure. Aren’t all politicians? They’ll vote for him anyway because the Dem line of bullshit is not working very well at all. They gave it 8 years, and now they’re ready for another line of bullshit.
So it goes, and the world just keeps on ‘a turning.
Later…
AG
What’s the area of overlap between racists and misogynists and those you identify that will vote for Trump? May not be 100% but it’s close to that. The teabag set full of resentment and fury doubling down on the public policies that have contributed to their plight. If Trump’s so-called economic prescriptions are so powerful, he wouldn’t have needed to call Mexicans rapists, and nobody, including his fans, expect that he would actually build a yuuge wall. This is not a new constituency and it’s getting old.
Will be interesting to see what the primarily evangelical voters in the south, midwest, and west will do if Trump is the nominee. Trump, third party, or sit it out?
You ask:
Whatever it is, is exists. Sure there are identifiably racist and misogynist white Americans. Lots of them. But…they comprise an increasingly smaller percentage of the white population every year. Why? How? Because the workplace and media cultures that…two of the few really successful results of the whole Civil Rights movement…have gradually and consistently introduced minorities and women into the overall culture as equals for over 50 years. That’s why.
It’s much easier to be a “racist” if you never meet other races in the workplace as equals. Bosses, even. Ditto for misogyny. And the culture in general? Sports fans literally cannot hold racist views unless they are entirely hockey fans and nothing else. The elegance, personal power and sheer intelligence of people like Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente (just to name a few) have finally…several generations later…won the day. And…that very same white working class that supports Trump is also the foundation of the sports fan world in the U.S. Sure there are still racist assholes in that group, but the generalized racism that was in place when Jackie Robinson started the whole sea change in sports? Gone forever.
Watch.
If the RNC opposition and lockstep mass media demonization don’t manage to do him in first, Trump is going to be prove to a very, very strong candidate.
Watch.
AG
I will hand it to you AG, last summer you called this. I didn’t believe he would get the nomination, or by some miracle if he did, he would not be viable against a Dem.
I picked Kasich, haha.
Anyway, I totally agree that there are a mass of fed up people out there, and many will vote for Trump in spite of his racism, although he led with that because that is his real base. The polite racists.
God help us.
It’s like Louie DiPalma once said before surgery:
“God, I know we haven’t talked very much lately…by the way, this here is my friend Alex…”
Yes, sadly you are right. Not on this blog, either. I’m on the verge of taking my disgusting white body over to the Republican Party, where I have been assured that I will be welcomed and not wear my whiteness like a scarlet letter. Why should I stay with the Party that has chosen bribery, war, Wall Street bankers, and multinational corporations over working people of all colors? Gay rights, abortion, women’s rights, freedom to get stoned? I support all of these because I don’t try to run other peoples’ lives, but they are not central. Economics is central and the Democratic Party has gone hard right on economics. The Republican Party is already there, but the insurgents that want to change that appear to be winning. Unfortunately, many, if not most, also want to run other people’s lives. If that’s the price we have to pay to not live in poverty, so be it. I came out of poverty and violence. I’m not going back. I won’t allow Hillary the Whore to pull my family back down. The Tea Party insurgents are not fanged monsters. They are white working men like me. People I’ve worked with. They don’t wish me dead because I’m old and white like the Democratic true believers.
Bernie Sanders fought well. It was a fight worth fighting, but in the end all he proved was that you can’t fight City Hall, that massive corporate cash can crush any hope for honesty. I’ll still make donations, but only to clear up his campaign debts, IF he doesn’t roll over at the convention and urge everyone to vote for Hillary. Then I’ll know it was a sham and just personal aggrandizement.
Trump is foul-mouthed, coarse, ignorant and narcissistic. he has absolutely no experience in government. But it seems he is honest about returning jobs to America. I’ll be switching parties now. Adios, Art. It’s been nice conversing with you. Maybe you’ll consider joining me?
Resist the impulse to join a club that will be nice to you personally but stands for repulsive, anti-humane, principles and policies just because there’s not another club available that embraces “New Deal” economic policies. Think of all the authentically good Germans that felt more personal affinity with the Nazis than any of the other parties.
Maybe it’s somewhat easier for a far left-leaning older woman to accept not being in any club because I’ve never been in one. Regardless of the social milieu, I have always stood out as not one of them.
Being clubby can skew one’s view too much. Better not to be, IMHO.
Probably should have put club in quotes to denote formal and informal ones. Never a problem interacting with most people, but never had any desire to be part of an identifiable clique from the time I was young. Maybe it’s because too much conformity is required to derive the status of being in a group.
I was the same way and there are some others on Booman too. LOL I did like all the levels of the Girl Scouts, but those activities primarily involved earning badges for writing plays, having pen pals, doing archery, reading, etc.
I could have done that. We did less fun stuff during my one year as a Camp Fire Girl than I could do with friends and on my own. I was organizing and putting on shows when I was about eight. Outdoor physical activities were just part of everyday life. By today’s standards dangerous because we didn’t wear helmets when biking or roller skating.
We also played a lot outside. One of the most fun activities was flattening a big cardboard box and sliding down a steep hill. We didn’t wear helmets either, but there were no trees where we played the game. “Ghost in the moonlight”, a form of tag, was great before bedtime. Probably unheard of today. The neighbors next door had an expensive wooden playground built. I saw the kids play a few times, but now they are too old for it. It’s become an eyesore due to the algae growth and dirt on the metal slide and tarp roof. What’s wrong with going to a city park or a state park nearby? We did that.
Neglected to include that it would be wrong to view the Sanders’ campaign as a sham when he endorses HRC. He’ll get something for his endorsement. Probably not much because HRC can win without it and whatever he does get won’t become public knowledge for a very long time, if ever. Would hope that it would include no HRC/DNC/Senate and House elites retaliation against Sanders and the few that endorsed him and committee assignments, including chairmanships for those that have earned such a position.
Let’s recall that Dean, while not half as much of a good guy as he presented himself to be, did get the DNC chair and did honorably serve in that capacity. While understandable that getting his head chopped off by Obama (doesn’t matter if that was his choice or he was forced to own) would be a yuuge disappointment for him, he chose to suck up to TPTB in an attempt to win favor from them and regain some power and in doing so, rejected the “good guy” part of himself and now is nothing but a standard issue DEM asshole.
See my sig, Voice. they (governments, officially designated “government” parties) are all rotten…except perhaps in time of real trouble and/or new ones that haven’t yet been taken over.
I’ll stick around here for a while. At least a number of people on this site…not all by a long shot, but quite a few…have decent reading comprehension skills and would join a real progressive party if such a thing started to seriously happen.
Farewell.
I’ll miss ya.
AG
Voice, I hope you stick around to share your thoughts. I don’t trust the Dems, but I trust the Repubs less. The Dem party knows it’s in trouble and has to change, but People never like to give up power. I feel we’re entering into a different Zeitgeist and the previews are all around us. However, I am disgusted and have been disgusted for a while.
Whaaa? Everybody give em some air…..he’ll be ok….
I can see voting for Jill Stein. The reason being, to show the Dems you are willing to blow them up if they don’t change.
I can see voting strategically for Clinton, while simultaneously supporting an automatic primary challenge in 2020, in order to stop a GOP monster from tipping the Supreme Court.
I cannot see voting for Trump. If he ran as an independent, then I can see your point about maybe being better than HRC on a few key points of economics. But he will be running as the leader of the GOP, and he has signaled to them that he wants to do it the traditional way. Since Trump is not that interested in Constitutional Law, he will give the Supreme Court and other judge appointment decisions to Senate leaders. He will gladly give them their people in exchange for giving him more power on whatever his top agenda will be.
That will lead to more power for corporations, and the damage will long outlast Trump. That doesn’t even mention social issues.
Don’t do it. There are still lots of middle aged white dudes in the Dem party that appreciate your sticking with us. We are trying to wrestle the party back from the oligarchs. I think we do best by staying in the party but fighting the HRC element as if we were an outside party. That way we just make it easy for the establishment people that want to do the right thing to come over to our side with ease. The rest we primary out. It’ll be easy. The AA vote will not go to every establishment candidate-they aren’t the Clinton brand.
Anyway, think twice before you do something you’ll regret…that I’ll regret….thanks