MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Why “Bernie Would Have Won” Matters
By jollyroger on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 7:30pm |Following the 2016 election, many supporters of Bernie Sanders spawned a meme: “Bernie would have won.” Notwithstanding the merits of the argument itself—of which much has already been said—the meme itself is significant: An indictment of the Democratic party establishment. And, just as in the general election, the centrist Democratic Party establishment has failed to grasp the essence of the meme.
URL:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-bernie-would-have-won-matters_us_589b9fd2e4b02bbb1816c2d9
- 32553 reads
Comments
by jollyroger on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 7:33pm
Yeah, awful of her to be be not electable by having 3 million more votes than her opponent. John Kerry called - wants that kind of failure. Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale queueing as we speak.
By the way, we didn't offer fuckall to anyone - you're just fucking deluded as usual. We kept saying "Trump will be a disaster for us all, vote reality and largely progressive policy - if you think Hillary's bad (which we don't), Bernie and Jill and Gary Johnson and whoever have *0* chance" (as the primaries proved, despite the mythical sanctity of the exit poll). Come back from the 60's - it's only 50 years give-or-take.
BTW - you might want to consult a dictionary - "electable" means "possibly", not "anointed". After folks made it a point to kneecap her for almost 2 years straight, not being able to "hold their nose" and vote for her, and her still losing 4 critical states by say 100,000 or less, it's the height of bizarre self-prophecy, not a condemnation of the candidate herself. Yeah, she made mistakes - who doesn't.
It's also bizarre to see a once-in-a-lifetime candidate like Trump come around and destroy the whole Republican field - 14 or so well-monied contenders - and then have people say "well, he was the weakest candidate she could have opposed - it just shows you how bad she was". I've come to hate Democrats much more than Republicans for some reason.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 7:48pm
completely (or maybe not) O/T, your riff on Gurdjieff popped up in my google news feed. Must be a news shortage, no disrespect.
by jollyroger on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 8:13pm
No coincidences in Gurdjieff land. Perhaps he's telling us "enough talk - now work".
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 8:23pm
Speaking of John Kerry, did you know that if Kucinich had won the democratic primary he would have beaten GWB in 04.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 8:57pm
Damn spaceships did him in.
by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 9:08pm
The link got trashed, so you didn't see the article itself. (I've fixed it now.) The writer avoided the unknowable counterfactual argument that Bernie would have won a match-up against Trump. His point was that regardless of whether Bernie would have done better, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership messed up:
by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 9:35pm
If by saying Bernie would have won some are attempting to point out that the democratic establishment repeatedly misjudged national attitudes than they are pursuing a failed strategy. It will not be heard as a meme but as it literally states, Bernie would have won. It will not provoke conversation about the establishment's misjudgments but an argument about the unknowable, whether Bernie would have won. It will provoke defensive reactions from Hillary supporters, even those who acknowledge the establishments misjudgments.
Words have meanings and people can't redefine them at their whim. If people want a discussion on the establishment's misjudgments than they should start that discussion. I wrote a comment on this a month ago in which I addressed some of the ways Hillary supporters might have misjudged how and why too many in the nation viewed her. Attempting to start that discussion by claiming Sanders would have won will not work, simply because it's clear beyond all doubt that Sanders would not have done even as good as Hillary did.
by ocean-kat on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 10:09pm
I assume that provoking a strong reaction is whole point. The expression is bitter and defiant, which is how people feel. They want their pound of flesh, as the writer put it. I agree that it's not conducive to civil discussion, but I suspect that many on the left have lost faith that civil discussion is an effective way to change the party or the country.
by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 11:19pm
It's not only not conductive to civil discussion. It alienates their closest allies. It provokes angry fights between people who share similar goals. Sanders supporters seem to want to deny that we share similar goals. That's another problem I have with the article. It's based on the premise that the left and Sanders supporters are equivalent. They are not. There were many on the left, even far left liberals, that supported Hillary. I've no doubt that every group fighting for major change experienced the whole range of emotions, depression, a sense of futility, anger. Over the century long fight for women's suffrage many probably lost faith in civil discussion or even direct action. But fostering fights with those most likely to support your cause is not the best strategy going forward.
Especially since, as I pointed out, there was absolutely no way that Bernie could have won. Instead of a popular vote win for Hillary it would have been a landslide loss with Sanders as the nominee.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 12:01am
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”
(Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6)
by Flavius on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:08am
Think of it as a hostile takeover. And yes, the strategy can work...surprisingly well. It worked for progressive Democrats from the 1890s to the 1930s, and it worked for conservative Republicans from the 1970s to 2010s. In both cases, the insurgents were criticized for counter-productively chasing people out of the party, yet in both cases they succeeded in growing their parties' bases and creating majority rule.
PS You've been using a lot of superlatives "clear beyond all doubt" and "absolutely no way" to assure me of your immense confidence that Bernie would have lost to Trump. I don't know if he would have or would not have--as I said before, it's an unprovable counterfactual--but 2016 has taught me to be humble in my prognoses.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 7:31am
I thought my use of superlatives was obvious though implicit but I'll be explicit if you didn't get it. If people want to claim Bernie would have won and if they want a pound of flesh this is the # they'll get from me. When I'm in a good mood and feeling nice.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 6:02pm
I see your point. The issue really isn't the possibility if Bernie had been the nominee he would have won ... it's a total misdirection off to a make believe world.
The real issue that's not being discussed is the political leadership and their decisions. Their judgment is definitely a subject that should be debated thoroughly. And yet, from what I'm observing, that discussion is being avoided and any attempts to entertain such a thought is quickly attacked as if it's water under a bridge and there's more important things to discuss.
As for Bernie not having the political power to endure the general election against Mr Trump, the same was said of Mr Trump against Miss Hillary too. But that really is water under a bridge.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:40am
That subject is derailed imo because Sanders supporters can't come to grips with his loss. My main point throughout has been that claiming Bernie would have won will only foster a discussion of whether Bernie would have won. It's the only reason I'm arguing that he would have lost.
Frankly Beetlejuice I don't see how we can have a constructive dialog when you're claiming that Hillary is so far right she should have run as a republican. The notion is ridiculous. On nearly every policy issue. Climate change and the environment are my main issues. The republicans deny CC and propose to do nothing. Hillary promised to install 500 million panels by the end of her first term. I'd like to see more but that's a substantial promise. The republicans want to ban abortion and defund Planned Parenthood. Hillary supports abortion rights and has been a strong supporter of PP throughout her career. Republicans want tax cuts for the rich. Hillary has long supported tax hikes on the rich. In fact Bill pushed through major tax hikes on the rich with his Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.
I can only see such baseless attacks as claiming Hillary is so far right she should have run as a republican as pique born of your inability to accept that your candidate lost and lost big.
You claim that Hillary had very few real supporters. How do you explain that she fought Obama to a dead heat with a record breaking number of primary voters. Each got about 18 million. Sanders could not even match Hillary's loss to Obama let alone beat her. The question you need to answer is if Hillary is a bad as you think she is why did she do so well against Obama and so easily defeat Sanders. We can't move on until you and other Sanders supporters accept his loss and let it go.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 6:31pm
From the link: "Democrats insisted that we have made a full recovery" - bullshit on that - Democrats noted that the "recovery" as well as the last 30-40 years had left a lot of people behind, and her *PRIMARY* job was to fix that.
New economy, new good paying jobs.
Time Magazine easily figured that out from her convention speech last July - please read & digest - how come Democrats are still confused? Oh right, a significant minority, many the "only Bernie can win" types, used the period since then to keep repeating she was only a tool of Wall Street, that her "neoliberalism" was roughly the same as neocon and as hateful as Nazism.
Many Bernie fans think he invented the student loan issue, but here's a Huffpost article from before Hillary or Bernie announced discussing her work on student loans in the Senate in 2006 & 2007, and its place in her 2008 platform.
Year 2007: "Clinton's proposal is by far the most detailed plan released by a candidate yet" and "Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front runner for president in 2008, unveiled a college aid plan Thursday that would pour $8 billion a year in new funds into an expanded tuition tax credit, bigger Pell Grants, support for community colleges, and work force training, among other things" - grants, not more loans, including free community college - "and winding down the guaranteed student loan program", while the 1st thing out of her mouth when she announced in May 2015 was "debt-free college".
Bernie did it again with health care, turning her decades long practical, incluential and partly successful efforts (including many ACA details) into a negative, an anchor - she hated people because she wouldn't give them single payer - an impossible sale for a public that a) doesn't know ACA & Obamacare are the same, and b) largely hates single payer when they find out details, but a rallying cry for pep rallies.
I don't mind arguing for policies you want, and Bernie to some extent made Hillary sharpen up her delivery, when it wasn't being covered up and distorted.
But the basic point, "Hillary was unelectable", is obviously proven A LIE. A HUGE LIE. A 2 year in-your-face lie. The fact that many in the party didn't pull together for her, still bitched like spoiled children at every supposed affront the DNC made against anointing their cherished socialist leader DESPITE THE PUBLIC'S LARGELY VOTING AGAINST HIM makes it clear that with a LITTLE extra effort and a LITTLE less bitching, Hillary would have won.
The Dakota Pipeline bit pisses me off big time. Months of "progressive" (read "braindead pathetically stupid") went into 1 single picayune issue that they lost within a day of Trump becoming president at the expense of progressive participation in the much more important election as a whole over the 4 month pre-election period. Yeah, Native Americans love you and your signs and feeble incompetence and misplaced strategies. Hold your nose or hold your breath till turn blue? The Veruca Salts of the party have triumphed.
Worse, the "Bernie would have won" meme ignores that Larry Kudlow and others ignored any positives of Hillary's plan and focused *ONLY* on the fact that it would cost tax dollars to implement (but much more modest than Bernie's price tag). Then Kudlow et al pretended that Reagan, not Bill Clinton, had the best economic stimulus record, and that tax incentives *HADN'T* been tried, when we all know that much of the 2009 relief was burdened with being tax-cut heavy, along with Obama continuing Bush's tax cuts for the rich along with other heavy continual obstruction over 8 years.
In short (yeah, I"m getting there), "Bernie would have won" ignores the exact lies that Trump and the whole GOP/conservative base would have used against him (including old age/health/socialist-commie/Jewishness/Muslim-lover/anti-Israel/anti-business anti-economy spendthrift liberal), that Hillary managed to swat away deftly in Debates #1-#2-#3. It's *almost* purely wishful thinking based on some misleading exit polls, enthusing over attendance at campaign events, mashing up some caucus success with primary failures, misprojecting the significance of # of small donations, and 10 tons of wild speculation about how Bernie might have done if he'd made it to the general elections.
So yeah, build the new Democratic Party according to the ideals of the 2016 Independents. The Republicans didn't get to run against Bernie last year - they'll love destroying Bernie 2.0 in 2020. Lessons learned? Not so much.
Maybe we could just fucking rally around the nominee for real next time, and stop all the piddlefucking around? We did it in 2008 and it worked out pretty well. Instead of focusing on an expanded 50-state strategy in 2016, we spent all our time on emails and fighting our own party.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 4:12am
I find it sad that you blame people who did not "rally around the nominee" for her loss rather than blaming the nominee for failing to persuade them to rally around her.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 7:47am
I disagree that Hillary failed to do that. All anyone has to do is go back and look at all 3 debates. She made an elegant and easy to comprehend case for her many plans to improve health care, relieve academic and child care financial burdens, as well as improving tax policies to help the middle and lower class. She demonstrated her vision for combating climate change, and adapting a jobs program to lift up those who have been left out with the changing demands of the engergy sector.
So, her speech on the helping coal-country poor be the new face of the renewable energy industry was cut off just after she said their coal jobs were ending....and I never heard one person speak up about this. Any time she would refute these things, she was said to be either whining, or lying.
The, "I just don't trust Hillary" was an acceptable answer to any question, and it was massaged and polished by the GOP and the Democratic purists without anyone bothering to throw anything out except accusations. Her work helping every constituent she ever had was glossed over because..."Crooked Hillary."
So I do blame those who gave us trump, and I include in those all the people who were seemingly incapable of being objective. Just go back and look at every debate.
Who in the world could justify giving us: "No Puppet. No Puppet, You're the Puppet!"
by CVille Dem on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 8:52am
She failed miserably ... wrong candidate ... those who did support her were small in numbers and still are ... that's why the party is having so much trouble reorganizing ... the majority is angry Miss Hillary was the darling of the party politic and they failed to listen to the base.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:21am
Yeah, that majority that voted for Bernie if she hadn't stolen the votes. Rigged, I tell you.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:12am
Exactly !
She ignored the base and without them she really was winging it on a wish and a prayer!
I noted during the convention, her forces were trenched in and refusing to work with Sander's supporters seeking to meld their differences so as to create a platform all Sander's supporter would feel comfortable with ... as Mr Trump is fond of say ... big mistake.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:28am
Yes is was a big mistake. Many of Bernie delegates were funded through local small donations because they were not wealthy. When they got back home, they explained to their backers all that happened. Many of the backers were veteran Democrat grass roots activists that the party needed in the general to get out the vote. Hillary's campaign made it very clear they were not wanted or needed. The campaign was completely out of touch with a big enough part of the base to lose the general.
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 8:53pm
Sad! Unfair!
It's always a compromise, no? A party isn't a single person, at least in a democracy.
If Obama had lost, I wouldn't have been blaming him for not persuading those last lazy whiny bastards to get out and vote for him. He set the wheels moving, but the greater party has to do much of the GOTV. He fulfilled 70% or more of what I expected, so that's the compromise I made with myself and the system.
What is wrong with us, that we need to be entertained and constantly "persuaded" rather than just look it up ourselves and decide. There are light years between Trump and HIllary, and there was tons of info easily available - no amount of fake news can cover that up - some people are just fucking stupid, and don't prioritize so well. Do we need a clown show to get over that little disgusting reality?
In 500 years, we'll still be debating whether candidates are too progressive or too conservative, too risky or too unimaginative, too fringe or too beholden to establishment figures. There will never be a perfect candidate, and typically if there is one, as Conferderacy of Dunces notes, the people will line up against him or her.
But we do know there's lots of room to pick an evil conniving candidate - one that "persuades" by promising everyone everything and then doing exactly the evil shit that he always planned to do but people pretended he was just kidding.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:10am
Guys, let's not get into yet another round of Hillary good / Hillary bad. I apologize for encouraging it.
So leaving out any value judgments, if you want to win an election, it's useless to blame for the voters for being fools. To win an election, you must persuade a majority of people to vote for you (or rather, a majority of electoral college delegates, sigh...) Hillary Clinton failed to do that. Whether that was because people were too stupid or stubborn or sexist or whatever, she failed. And not only Clinton but Democratic politicians across the board failed to win, leaving the Democratic Party in a weaker position than it has been in for a hundred years.
Is it not obvious that the Democratic Party should change it's game plan? If we just sit on our asses denouncing the disloyal ones while doubling down on the same strategy, we will continue to lose.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 12:33pm
Yet somehow you think chanting "Bernie would have won" will be a successful change in strategy. A hostile takeover. Hostile take overs produce hostile pushback. We'll see who's standing and what's left of the party after we have that fight. You sporadically try to tamp down that fight here yet you seem to advocate it on the larger level with all the animosity it will engender.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:20pm
Mea culpa. I have a scholarly perspective on the progressive insurgency. I believe it has to succeed to save the Democratic Party, and I suspect that it won't be pretty, but I don't want to personally take part in the ugliness, and I don't want to see it tear dagblog apart. And honestly, this fight won't be won or lost in the blogosphere in any case. It will be determined in Democratic primaries.
Also, though I defended this article, I don't think going after Hillary Clinton is productive because I don't see her as an ongoing leader of the party.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 5:05pm
Your mention of "a scholarly perspective on the progressive insurgency" reminded me of this Politico article. I enjoyed it, and am curious what you think.
by barefooted on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 5:26pm
Yeah, I read this and appreciated it too. We could definitely use an intellectual salon right now and more folks like Brandeis and Frankfurter.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 8:49pm
MIchael, many people *are* fools. What do you think the rising "fake news" is built on?
But we've got a mosaic of different constituencies, policies, vested interests and allegiances, along with demographics and tribal ties.
If we talk about the presidential election, we're discussing a different topic than party improvement at all levels.
Should the Democratic Party change its game plan? I didn't even know it had one.
We've been playing Swing State for a good 16+ years. Yes, I'd hoped last year was when we'd get it on with the 50-state plan (or at least 30+).
Then there are issues like cost-saving but warming fracking vs. new & old energy, "identity politics" vs. "being creepy as we used to be"/PC backlash, the eternal tax cuts create jobs vs. getting businesses to pay their fair share for needed redistribution, anti-abortion vs abortion rights, pro-Israel vs. pro-Palestine, job opportunities in a technologically/globally challenged employment future, poverty within the same (both domestic and global), industrial/commercial policy vs. an ever anti-business stance, security/terrorism concerns vs. the need & desire for open society, high immigration & dilution of identity & weakening of services vs. xenophobia and regional backwardness, racism & superiority vs. inclusiveness, etc.,etc. These are our realities, our dichotomies, and they're not decided by the flip of a coin.
The future's quite complex, and I'm pretty sick of people talking about their cures for all things wrong when I know the answers will be much more complex, much more of a fight, much less satisfying than any of the pretenders claim. The reason I like Hillary is because I don't think she oversells - that she's pragmatic and understands the shit storm. If the Democratic Party is going to design a platform and plan, it has to acknowledge the shit storm and compromises and workarounds required, and that not everyone will get what they want. The fight between $12 and $15 was just so much horseshit - they're numbers largely pulled out of people's asses and don't take into account so many factors in multiple economies spread across the country., yet people acted as if it was a litmus test between good and evil. And we're so self-absorbed in all this, we're just roadkill for the Republicans who no longer even resist overt lying. Will our new plan take into account how Trump's pushed the party over the edge, that our habit of trying to take policy issues seriously may be simply a luxury that *keeps us from winning*? (I'm not sure, but it may be).
Will we put *EVERYTHING* on the table to make this change, or are we going to start from our same diverse and largely rigid perspectives and let one of them rout the other? I'm pretty sick of people saying HIllary ignored the Democratic "base" when I"m part of her base - they're telling me I should go fuck off in a hole somewhere, that the future's moved on from me. Sorry, me no play. I'm adaptable - I'm not suicidal. Nor are white people in the country who've listened to so much horseshit about how the minorities are making them irrelevant and that they're supposed to be convert to self-hate to cater to largely uncontrolled immigration. (The only real reason we don't have a huge immigration crisis is that the 2008 economic crisis plus increased post-9/11 surveillance killed a lot of the unsustainable Mexican immigration that was happening before).
Maybe it's *GOOD* to have these debates, but not in the round-and-round-and-round-we-go manner of relitigating the same thing already lititgated in blogs and elections, but figuring out what we can budge on, which of our scared cows aren't so sacred, what we'll give up for the team, what *ALL OF US* should be learning from the election and 20 years of defeat at all levels, with occasional glimmers of brilliance and hope. I can guarantee you it's a lot less clear and satisfying than "Bernie Would Have Won". We're getting to be a bunch of cripples arguing over who'd look best riding the Prince's steed. The Women'S March a few weeks ago, and some of the ways we've been obstructing and taunting Trump *may be* a step in the right direction, but we're still lacking some overall themes, directions, including how not to "heal" our left-centrist divide but learn to work with it as it's not going away, but also how to articulate the kinds of compromises and hard-nose core zones & issues that we need to provide, and then how we message that and get as many people as possible on the same page vs. run around backbiting worse than paid Macedonian bloggers. We're our own worst enemy still, and it's hard to see how that will turn into a coherent inspiring movement. Let's think of what we'll give up, sacrifice to win, rather than plodding along pretending we can have it all and ending up with nothing.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:40pm
"but not in the round-and-round-and-round-we-go manner of relitigating the same thing already lititgated in blogs and elections"
Totally agree. I thought this discussion was interesting at the meta-level, but as you may have noticed, I tried to steer it away from the Hillary-vs-Bernie show. I have also rejected blog posts that attempted to relitigate the primary, one of the few times I have employed editorial discretion based on content rather than terms-of-service.
by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 5:12pm
There is a big effort across the country to change the direction of the party. Local party meetings are loaded with new people some of them that supported Sanders others because they want a better party. They are voting in new people in leadership position, that means new ideas.
There is also national organizing going on to set up PACs to collect small donations the same way Sanders was funded. The groups are also going to help vet candidates to run in 2018. This is a move away from the donation call room that congressional Democratic members have to spend time doing. They won't need to and can spend more time working for the voters and not making promises to lobbyist and CEOs. It will also help fund state level offices.
Justice Democrats launched their program 2 weeks ago and within a week had 110,000 people signed up to make small donations. I am sure it is still growing. This is being done through you tube news outlets and former Sanders campaign people. There is also Brand New Congress and Our Revolution to field and support Democrat candidates.
Edited to add: Sanders was invited to Kansas Democrat State Convention as the main speaker. They now have to move it to a bigger venue. It reinforces what I said above about local party that are out reach to voters. Link: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article132303819.html
by trkingmomoe on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:39pm
While it's good to revise our thoughts and strategies re: fundraising & campaign expenses, and there are certainly developing ways to do more with less, I'm concerned we expect from recent campaigns that we can do "Democracy on the cheap", and that candidates can make do with piddling sums of money.
$ still largely makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful campaigns.
Contenders for small contests in backwater locations will likely struggle to generate the crowds & excitement of national contests, and the money raised is usually a small fraction of what the big boys & girls manage.
Yeah, it's nice to feel like the little people make a difference, but as Hillary discovered yet again, it's nicer to be campaigning late in the race rather than going back to fundraise. There're only so many days in the month and only so much attention a candidate has. And even Bernie ended up blowing much of his budget on traditional media buys, not shoestring GOTV operations. We still can't be sure of *what* makes a difference, so our costs likely go up, not down.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 8:44am
I think the fundraising strategy has to flow from the party's message. If one of Democrats' primary arguments is "Money corrupts," as the left-wing reformers are urging, then Democratic candidates cannot take money from big donors without coming off as hypocrites, and no amount of money can wash away the stain of hypocrisy.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 10:57am
Out out, damned spot. We'll be Lady Macbeth to their King Midas. Me, I can live with a bit of hiphoprisy, seeing as I don't think being anti-money per se is healthy, nor a winning stance, however exciting a pile of $27 donations looks. It's putting 1 or 2 arms behind our backs.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 11:12am
Yeah, but King Midas beat Lady Macbeth, even though she spent far more money (and was infinitely more qualified). His "crooked Hillary" attack was effective because of that damned spot that you so blithely dismiss.
Metaphors aside, one reason some progressives didn't rally around Hillary Clinton was her perceived association with Wall Street. This is what I meant when I said that it's useless to blame the voters. You can argue until you're blue in the face that Hillary was not corrupted by money, that Republicans are far worse, that candidates must have money to win, but those arguments do not turn out voters.
If you believe that campaign money is so-all important, then Democrats could do like Republicans and drop the money-corrupts message, thereby avoiding hypocrisy. My point is that you cannot have both. Democrats should either practice what they preach or stop preaching.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 11:32am
Blame voters? Blame activists and pundits. "Voters" largely have a heavily-repeated soundbite's worth of understanding combined with a largely tribal allegiance to party-faction cant. Please don't overstate the principles and ethics at stake - 90% of Americans would run over Grandma if a teensy bit more scared.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 11:55am
There is another strategy that is also being worked on by these groups, that is local campaign support as well as financial support. The party has lost 1000 local state seats in the last few elections. Some of the money is being used to have a structure in place to help local candidates run a successful campaign. Not only do they need money but advice on how to conduct a campaign. The idea is to bring in talent that is not just independently wealthy to foot their own campaigns, but from all across the board.
Much of this came from ideas that began last July and that is why you are seeing it emerge so early after the election.
by trkingmomoe on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 9:41pm
Regarding the change of venue, Bernie had large crowds during the Primaries. He lacked actual people who showed up to vote. The crowd size did not reflect support at the polls.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 9:29am
There was election fraud during the Democratic Primary. This is something that the party has to also address in order to bring back voters. Whether you personally think it is CT or not, there are voters who do feel the system has been rigged because of their own experiences. Why even bother to take time off of work if you know your vote may or may not go to the person it was intended? Why even bother to go back and vote again for the party that handed you a provisional ballot when you found yourself purged or party affiliation has been changed? It is a issue that the party needs to work on or continue to lose elections.
by trkingmomoe on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 8:48pm
There was no voter fraud
https://forwardprogressives.com/for-the-last-time-heres-proof-the-democr...
Bernie Sanders is not yelling about your mythical voter fraud.
If you rely on Wikileaks as your source, you are relying on a source that was a Russian puppet
Wikileaks
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/07/donald-trump-julian-assange-and-russia-h...
You are free to conduct your snipe hunt on the DNC. The rest of us are going to focus on Trump. We will work to GOTV in 2018. I doubt that we will have your support.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 9:20pm
BTW, here is a real conspiracy. Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General fired by Trump, told the Trump White House that Flynn talked to the Russians about sanctions. Flynn's lies made him vulnerable to blackmail by the Russian government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-departmen...
You chase voter fraud along with Trump. I'll stick to real issues.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 9:29pm
Incredible. So you might as well support Trump - he speaks your language - fraud, rigged, unfair!
Yes, many Bernie fans pushed the "rigged" meme and "Hillary's unhealthy", hacked her own database to trap Bernie,, and a bunch of other nasty shit. So you got your perverted orange-haired dictator - own it. Don't think you're organizing AGAINST him - - hr's yours, he reflects your values. It comes full circle. Say any bullshit to win and you become mired in bullshiy. We don't trust you, and you certainly don't speak for us or inspire us for a party you hold utter contempt for. You're in Florida - maybe Trumo will ket you in Mar-a-Gogo or whatever it's called.
Live by alt facts, suffer by alt facts.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 1:42am
Over and over we Bernie supporters told you Clinton backers that he was a better candidate. We pointed out a myriad of facts, we cited to a multitude of polls, we presented well-crafted arguments, we debunked your simplistic formulations. In response, you stuck your fingers in your ears, jumped up and down, and shouted "I can't hear you." Well you specifically wrote "fuck" and "bullshit."
Given the results of the election disproved everything you have claimed, don't you think it's long past time for you to take your the profanity and your "arguments" and point them right at yourself?
by HSG on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 8:44am
One man's "well-crafted" is another man's #FAIL.
Somewhere you learned the bad habit of thinking just because you wrote something you were right.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 8:52am
I knew you couldn't take my advice . . . or anybody's for that matter. But hey I tried. Look PP, your arguments are so so bad and have been for so long. I mean the Democrat raised and spent twice as much as the Republican and lost. She lost because voters rightly viewed her (and Democratic elites) as corrupt because of her close ties to Wall Street and multi-national big businesses.
Your solution - Democrats need to court more multi-millionaires and billionaires. Don't you see how batshit crazy that is? Do you have close ties to very wealthy people? Is it possible that you have completely lost touch with anybody who's not at least upper middle class so you can't empathize with the day-to-day economic struggles of those who aren't extremely fortunate? Is it in your best economic interests to have a President who gives secret speeches to Wall Street financiers and takes advice from oil & gas men like Ken Salazar? I'm just trying to understand how you can consistently take the demonstrably incorrect positions you take.
by HSG on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 9:35am
There's plenty more where this came from:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fT69FG2irAo
PS: It's a video of a young Bernie praising Castro and putting down the US.
by CVille Dem on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 9:31am
Oooooh, scary socialist! Be afraid. Be verrrrry afraid.
by HSG on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 9:40am
There is not going to be an apology for Bernie losing the Primary election. Bernie could not gain the support of the minority voters he needed to win in the general election even if he won the Primaries. Bernie supporters tell us that blacks did not support Bernie because black people are easily duped. In stead of dealing with this condescension, we get pure arrogance from Bernie supporters.
Trump is now in the White House. Bernie is still a non-entity for black voters. Elizabeth Warren just captured the Progressive torch. She got support from Senator Kampala Harris and Warren's name is known to an important block of black voters. Bernie is a non-issue. Black voters are priming for 2018. Activists like Reverend Barber have moved on since the 2016 election. The black community does not have time to wallow in sorrow over 2016. We are under assault today. Warren's act in the Senate energized people in diverse. The guy who lost the Primary race in 2016 still cannot break out beyond his ethnically limited base. We need people who speak to a diverse group. The person who spoke to a diverse Democratic group won the Democratic nomination in 2016 and will do so again in 2020.
The Democratic nominee got the most votes in 2016. The electoral college failed its duty to keep an autocrat from the White House. In 2018, we need to get a diverse population out to the polls. In 2020, we need a candidate who can energize a diverse group of Democrats. We are under assault now. Reliving the failures of the 2016 candidate who had limited ethnic appeal is of no value.
The national security adviser lied about communications with Russia. The White House knew that he lied and did nothing. We need to push for an independent investigation into the circumstances of this communication. A White House adviser went on the Sunday news shows and said that Trump's wishes cannot be questioned.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/13/stephen-miller...
A black community outreach adviser for Trump openly attacked a black White House reporter. The Trump minion said that Trump had dossiers on Black reporters. We are under current assault. Focus!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/journalist-says-omarosa-m...
For those who want to remain frozen in 2016, have at it. I'm done.
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 9:59am
RMRD - you write "the person who spoke to a diverse Democratic group won the Democratic nomination in 2016 and will do so again in 2020." How diverse was the audience at Goldman Sachs where Hillary spoke three times in private for a total of $675,000? Here's a hint: Top Wall Street executives are less than 3% African-American and less than 40% female. In fact, 64% of the top execs there are white men. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/wall-street-elusive-dream-...
RMRD - you know that red-lining is a very serious problem for African-American and Latino communities. Why do you think the banks that engage in and profit from this practice showered the candidate "who spoke to a diverse Democratic group" with large donations?
RMRD - you know that private prisons profit from the incarceration of African-Americans and immigrants. Why do you think the banks that finance these Dickensian institutions overwhelmingly supported the candidate "who spoke to a diverse Democratic group?"
RMRD - you know that the population of Haiti is almost entire black. Why do you think the candidate "who spoke to a diverse Democratic group" stymied a minimum wage hike to 61 cents/hour for mostly women garment workers there?
RMRD - you know that payday lending institutions have a destabilizing effect on black and brown communities. Why did the DNC Chair who tried to stop regulations designed to rein in these shylocks support the candidate "who spoke to a diverse Democratic group" and why did that candidate hire said chair as soon as she resigned from her post?
RMRD - I share your fears of Donald Trump's Presidency. He's even worse than advertised. But you cannot separate his election from the abysmal record of the Democratic candidate when it comes to issues affecting the working class. It's true as you incessantly point out that African-Americans did vote for her but they did so because of how terrible Trump is not because of any affection for Clinton and they were not enthusiastic. If you want a better America, join with those of us trying to get corporate influence out of the Democratic party.
by HSG on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 10:24am
Hal, we argued every one of these issues in 2016. We went through the minim wage situation in Haiti which is a complicated issue.
http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-suppressed-haitis-minimum-wage/
Obama begun steps to end federal ties with private prisons. Much more needs to be done.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/08/27/obama-break-wi...
Hal, sadly we cannot work together. You are going to tell me the mindset of black people who voted for Hillary. I told you that there was zero enthusiasm for Sanders, you counter with a punch at Hillary. You are stuck in a 2016 bubble. I don't have time to spend on 2016. Most Bernie supporters are on board with the majority of Democrats. I don't have time to try to convert Trump supporters or hardcore Bernie supporters. At some point, both groups will tell me how black people should feel about a certain situation, and I will say something I will later regret.
White women worked to make the Women's March diverse. Reverend Barber is working to include whites, ethnic minorities and Gays in a common battle. People are trying to actually listen to each other. Trump supporters and hardcore Sanders supporters tell us how we feel. You probably don't understand what I am saying, and that is a major part of the problem.
I wish you luck in your endeavors. I chose to work with people willing to listen rather than dictate.
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 10:48am
Sorry, but Miss Hillary was way right of center ... more closely aligned with republicans than with the democrat base ... she should have run as a republican.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:24am
Saying foolish things doesn't improve the debate.
Not even worth picking this one apart.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:14am
"Saying foolish things doesn't improve the debate." PP - every time you get the urge to write an article or post a comment, I strongly urge you to read your own comment here and then go back to bed.
by HSG on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 9:39am
Based on her campaign and her debate topics, how can you possibly say with any credulity that she was not progressive? Everything she wanted to do was progressive. The fact that it was actually DOABLE in contrast to Bernie's single payer, universal coverage, free college for all.
Hillary's history of her work through the years belies what you accuse her of.
by CVille Dem on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:55am
Amen! There are factions on the left who were far more damaging to Hillary Clinton than the Trump campaign was.
by Danny Cardwell on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 1:08pm
MUSLIMS ARE ON THIS PLANET !
Trump tells it like it is and wants to protect white people, cut taxes and make them rich!
Forget details on policy. Democrats need a message to beat that, and a white male heartland candidate who reads the Bible, is OK with guns and is at least troubled by abortion.
by NCD on Sat, 02/11/2017 - 10:08pm
Yes
1.it's possible that Bernie would have won. And that would have saved us from the current Trumpmare. And
2. it's possible that instead of getting 2.9 milllion more votes than Trump ,sadly ,Bernie might have actually lost the popular vote to the Trumper and many more democratic Senators and Congresspeople would have been lost . And a 2018 recovery would look hopeless.
If (1) were a fact instead of a counter factual then the Democratic "establishment" made a mistake.
If (2) were a fact instead of an etc. etc. then the Democratic establishment deserves a vote of congratulations.
But
(3) with truly awesome respect neither Jolly nor I have a clue whether (1) or (2 is more likely. One thing that we both know is
(4) gaining 3 senate seats 21 months from now would ensure that Chuck could prevent the Supremes getting worse than 5 to 4.
But pending such proof of (1) just maybe we should concentrate on fighting the other guys. Not one another.
Please?
Edited to insert Marian Wright Edelman's name.
by Flavius on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 12:47am
The WaPo is running a similar article ...
A gift and a challenge for Democrats: A restive, active and aggressive base
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/a-gift-and-a-challenge-for-demo...
There, the groups supporting Miss Hillary have yet to realize while they claim to the left of center, they really are more to the right, almost on the periphery of the moderate republican platform. Note too, after the general election began, Miss Hillary charged into republican territory looking to pick up stray disenfranchised moderate republicans to her cause.
What I found astounding is they never thought twice Miss Hillary never paid any attention to the base ... as if they didn't matter because they had an easy cake walk to the Oval Office attacking Mr Trump's verbal assaults on himself. What's more, even to this day, they fail to understand the turmoil going on at this very moment in regrouping the party is because they still haven't figured out the base is way far to their left. They're in an area the leadership decided back in the McGovern campaign to abandon the base because union, labor and worker issues were dead weight holding them back. Issues like salaries, pension, health care and so forth that republicans love to equate to socialism/communism and have no place in America. Issues the Democrat leadership refuse to champion because they 're afraid of being labeled socialist/communist.
So if the democrat base is going to reform the party, it has to be top down restructuring ... there's no room for the failures that lead up to the 2016 blow out.
by Beetlejuice on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 10:11am
Which base are you referring too? The Bernie supporters she let help write the platform and compromised with on a number of issues (TPP, minimum wage, etc.)? Blacks who overwhelmingly support her? Hispanics whose difficulties with immigration and access to services she focused on? Women, who are always 2nd fiddle in every single election?
At the beginning of the campaign, Hillary locked up endorsements of 90% of the unions - and then Bernie started convincing his followers that she just had the support of the elite heads, not the rank-and-file. Did she do something to deserve that reputation, or was it just another well-spun boat anchor to hang around her neck? Frankly, I don't recall her saying anything unhelpful to unions, but Bernie & followers managed to destroy much of unions' confidence and enthusiasm in her, despite his vaunted "positive campaign".
Nobody ever thought it was a cake walk, not in 2008, and certainly not in 2016. Hillary had massive swings in poll numbers (obviously Trump had them going the other way), and several times it took only 3 weeks to go from clear skies to a nail biter, and then it swung back again...
The "Democratic [sic?] Base" is what Hillary appealed to. The Independent Base is what Bernie appealed to. Half of the Independents have no interest in reforming the party - they want to trash it and start over. How many of them want to do the hard and tedious work of building a party is another issue. We've been losing in state houses and Congress for 20 years - we only ever seem to notice when the Presidential race goes bad.
It's very strange - Bernie lost the primaries quite badly, certainly much worse than HIllary's 2008 showing. Yet I've never heard anyone tell him in such a condescending way that he needs to learn basic lessons from his campaign mistakes - at 75 some people even think he's the future of the party. Please name me 1 thing Bernie should have done better from the race, just 1.
BTW - past tense of "lead" is "led". Another angel lost its wings.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:29am
Blacks voted for Hillary 11:1 when compared to Trump. Bernie would have fared much worse with black voters. Bernie supporters will state in a condescending fashion that blacks were duped. As the award from Marian Wright Edelman points out, blacks could point to more things that Hillary had done than the nothing Bernie Sanders had done. Sanders had zero connections to the black community.
We have a mentally ill President with white supremacists as senior advisor, crafting immigration executive orders, and in place as Attorney General. Bernie supporters want an apology before they will get off their behinds. Clinton supporters like Reverend Barber are taking the battle to the streets. The only Democratic Senator who voted against all the cabinet nominees was Gillibrand, a Clinton supporter. Bernie voted for Trump's nominees, then Bernie' splained why he did. This is a repeat of his Bernie' splanation of why he voted for the 1994 crime bill.
We are in 2017. We need people fighting against the white supremacist in the White House. Elizabeth Warren makes Bernie look like a dwarf.
by rmrd0000 on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 11:28am
One thing that happened over the last 8 years that millennials ignored is that voters got older and more conservative - maybe from boomers & GenX, maybe other trends intertwined. Roughly a 10 point shift in Seniors' affiliation over the last 8 years. These are people who've largely retired - for whom health care, their house paryments and their retirement plans are largely their only pressing issues, not new jobs, though with more time on their hands, they also may pay more attention to the news. But really, how badly did Obama ignore *their* interests to push them back into the hands of the guys who caused the meltdown and the Mideast wars in the first place? For attracting America's lesser educated voters, Congressional obstruction and playing chicken with the economy and government and military has been an overwhelmingly successful strategy.
What I can't understand is why amidst this, Bernie fans think these lost older less-educated white voters would back *him*. The older union worker blue-collar Democrats are dying off, and the Me Generation is taking over. in the 50+ range, and a lot of those people who migrated from the Rust Belt to Sun Belt 35 years ago inherited the South's lovely intolerance to anything and everything as well - though quite frankly, our blinkered *non* policy re: immigration hasn't helped. But the maps supposedly showing Bernie doing better than Hillary by taking Florida (they hate Castro, remember) and North Carolina (not their kind of people)?
Anyway, look at the affiliation shifts and tie them into your theories on what's happening.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:05pm
Cheer up! Some folks think we'll have a chance to do it (at least half of it) all over again! And if Bernie decides to have another go ... then again, we may not have anything left to fight about by then. ;-)
by barefooted on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:26pm
You know, I"ve had enough of this DINO/Nixon in a pants suit bullshit for a lifetime, and if it's not Hillary, there will be another proxy to fulfill my annoyance.
It's symptomatic of something larger and deeper that's wrong with us. We've adopted so many memes and so much self-destructive behavior that the Republicans wanted us to. Lambs to a slaughter.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 1:59pm
And maybe we can stop acting like the Party of Doom. http://www.realitista.com/image/156631303892
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 2:06pm
From Rolling Stone:
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 2:12pm
From We The Pleeple:
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 2:15pm
It doesn't really matter. Because team Trump won by very strategically going after getting out the votes of the disaffected who dislike or despise both parties ("the swamp") and ALL the other politician candidates spewing whatever they consider business as usual whether they were Bernie, Hillary, Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush. Right, left, center. These were all people who either haven't voted in years or would not have voted this time because they were fed up with them ALL.
Don't you guys see you couldn't have won these votes for ANY politician, that these people wanted a NON-POLITCIAN to stir things up? And they were not all idiots, I know some, and some of those are so fed up that yes, they were making the decision to apply a sort of Bannon chaos theory, blow the whole thing up, see what appens.
Sure, most of the sane ones who voted for Trump are probably disappointed now, but that's because they fell for it that Trump was a competent sane businessman. Not because they would have been happy with a politician.
As I see it, the answer lies only in getting out the vote of those who did not come out and vote to counter the above.Strategically, like Trump did. Get out the vote of those who still believe in politicians of any kind, and Dems usually win a lot. Doesn't matter if a Bernie or a Hillary or whatever.
by artappraiser on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 2:43pm
Trump used the techniques of demagoguery, is surrounded by ideologues who do not believe in democracy and was voted in by mobs who turned out because the prospects of being governed by an authoritarian with simple answers to their fears and prejudices appealed to them.
Huxley on demagogues 1958:
by NCD on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 3:52pm
If we must pin a tail on a donkey, how about blaming both camps for only arguing with each other while Godzilla advanced upon Tokyo?
Complacency also tangled up the GOP in this cycle.
Trump voters themselves were complacent in believing in a system that would support them no matter how much stuff they set on fire.
Maybe our nation is in a coma.
by moat on Sun, 02/12/2017 - 8:40pm
This is going to be the most apparent problem in 2018 for Democrats, Progressives, sentient beings, people refusing to move the fuck on and get to work. But sure, keep fighting about Bernie and Hillary, that should of great help to the Underpresident, Agent Orange.
by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 10:41am
There is a lot of work to be done. I hope you are getting the local help you need?
by trkingmomoe on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 9:54pm
Just ran across a 2/13 op-ed on Huffpo by a Sasha Stone, doing a lot of the same old Hillary fans vs. Bernie fans thing, but this one point she makes struck me as fresh, clear-eyed, and very apropos to a lot of practical things and other things discussed on this thread
by artappraiser on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 11:19pm
We have a national security crisis. We don't have time for hardcore BernieBros. We will have to find victory without them.
by rmrd0000 on Mon, 02/13/2017 - 11:36pm
Shutting down this discussion now. It was destined to go off the rails.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 02/14/2017 - 10:49am