What exactly does the Democratic Party stand for?

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 5:30pm

A few days ago Bernie Sanders called out the Democratic Party.

"The evidence is pretty clear," Sanders continued, "that when you lose the White House in a campaign against a gentleman, who, I believe, will enter the White House as the least popular candidate in the history of this country, when you lose the Senate, when you lose the House, when you lose two-thirds of state governor's chairs, when you've lost some 900 seats of legislatures around the country in the last eight year, I think it is time for the Democratic Party to reassess what it stands for and where it wants to go."
Sanders said that amounted to a choice for Democrats to decide whether they're standing with "corporate America" and Wall Street or with a declining middle class

So what do the Dems stand for?
From the 1930's to the 1960's the Dems stood primarily for economic progress and equality for the working class, and it was a winning strategy. Some will claim the Dems still stand for that, but the working class increasingly does not believe it.

Part of what drove the Trump takeover of 2016 was the fact that liberal culture is obsessed with identity politics based on race and sex, having all but forgotten anyone who isn’t a racial, ethnic, or sexual minority — and the bread-and-butter issues that exist outside of those categories. Classism is a very real thing too — and this year, the white working class of America stood up and said very loudly: You’ve forgotten about us.

Anyone that has spent any time on liberal blogs has notice the priority of social issues over economic ones, even to the point of accusations that prioritizing the economy is a symptom of white privilege.
The problem with de-emphasizing the economy is that the Dems aren't speaking to the concerns of the voters.

A majority (52 percent) of voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country. (Voters were given a choice of four issues; “terrorism” was the second most commonly named “important” issue, with 18 percent choosing it.)

Social Justice Warriors will most likely view the exit polls as evidence of the pervasive white privilege in American society. But the reality is that the exit polls show the opposite.

Overall, 46% of Hispanics cited the economy as the most important issue facing the country, followed by terrorism (20%), immigration (19%) and foreign policy (11%).

Unless liberals are going to start accusing Hispanics of White Privilege, the obvious conclusion is that liberals aren't just out of touch with the white working class, liberals are out of touch with minority working class as well.

When you think about it, this shouldn't be a big surprise. People of all races are pretty much alike, and have similar concerns. The trap of identity politics leads liberals to forget that basic fact.

Besides being for the working class, liberals used to be noted for being against unnecessary war.
After 15 years of expensive, inconclusive, non-stop war, the American public is war weary.
antiwarleft.jpg
Yet, where is the anti-war left?

Just days after Donald Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, Sanders published a high-profile article in the New York Times outlining the policy agenda for progressives going forward.  The piece contained the usual laundry list of identity politics and spending proposals that left-wing types have been pushing for decades.  What was striking, though, is that the article contained not a single word—not a single word—about foreign policy.  The United States is mired in the longest war in its history in Afghanistan, it has returned to the scene of its last major interventionist disaster in Iraq, and it is already entangled to a dangerous degree in Syria.

If Bernie can't be bothered with a destructive failure of a generation-long war, what does that say about liberals in general?

“What anti-war movement?” former Congressman Dennis Kucinich asked when called for comment last week. Medea Benjamin of the radical group Code Pink agreed: “the antiwar movement is a shadow of its former self under the Bush years.” Cindy Sheehan quipped that “The ‘anti-war left’ was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the ‘anti-Republican War’ movement.”

peacel.jpg
The demise of the anti-war left isn't something new - it started declining in 2003 - but the total abandonment of the issue by liberals, like the de-emphasizing of economic issues, leaves Democrats will precious few ways to connect with a majority of voters.
It also leaves the Dems with the fundamental problem of describing what the party actually stands for, outside of identity politics.

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Submitted by ggersh on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 5:52pm
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http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

20 NOVEMBER 2016
Why the Democratic Establishment Lost the Election In One Picture

Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

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Submitted by Twain Disciple on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 6:03pm

I don't think the Democratic Party (which I left after 44 years this July) WANTS to stand for anything. They'd rather not be pinned down to an actual belief. They have to wait to see what the donors want them to fight for. They hope to be elected by squalling about racism and sexism and abortion, pointing fingers at those who disagree with them, and bullying voters into checking the D candidate on the ballot. But an actual position? Where are they on war versus peace? Where are they are labor versus management? Where are they on Wall Street and big banks? Where are they on "free" trade -- with American workers or with American companies positively drooling over that cheap, cheap foreign labor? They talk out of both sides of their mouths. Hillary's not the only professional Democrat with a private position and a public one.

I'm sixty-three, and I remember a Democratic Party that stood for something in addition to abortion, social liberalism, and high stock prices. Those things are good, but they are not enough -- particularly when the party seems to believe that shrill accusations of racism and sexism and "privilege" against other people (who may or may not deserve those accusations) are an adequate substitute for activism.

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Submitted by detroitmechworks on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 6:15pm
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We'll be anything you want, baby...

Cash up front, please.

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Submitted by Nailbanger on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 8:08pm

"But if everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position,” Hillary Clinton

Hillary and the Democratic Party are simpatico, its all really about money and patronage, and some good ad copy.

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 7:34am

...then it is prudent to be careful.

lol

there it is, as they used to say.

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Submitted by neoconned on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 6:48pm

They have to wait to see what the donors want them to fight for.

I had a similar thought, with a slightly different approach. The Republicans aspire to wield raw power. That can be a dirty job, so the Democrats rush up with an offer to do the dirty work under the direction of the fastidious Republican masters. This would go along with the belief that taking apart the New Deal requires that a Democrat do the dirty work (Right, Barry? Right Billary?). The Republicans benefit, and the Democrats get to taste power no matter how filthy they get.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

Submitted by k9disc on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:05pm
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Trustees must display the ability to get along with other inmates, trustees and correctional officers. To be considered for trustee, an inmate must have a good jail record. Trustees are required to maintain a high degree of personal hygiene, and a neat, clean, well-groomed appearance.

Not like those dirty fucking hippies.

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 7:36am

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Submitted by k9disc on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:29am
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1st Result, excerpted:
http://www.hallcountyne.gov/content.lasso?page=6193

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Submitted by irishking on Wed, 11/23/2016 - 4:11am

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:36pm

on BLM

According to The Atlantic, Johnson’s survey presented 366 Black respondents with multiple hypothetical election scenarios to determine the impact of various factors on their voting choices. These factors included the state of the economy, health care costs, positions on abortion and same-sex marriage, and ideas on reducing racial inequality, among others.

Respondents were then asked how best to reduce racial inequality and discrimination and presented with political candidates supporting contrasting strategies — one candidate who favored the Black Lives Matter Movement and new civil-rights legislation and another who promoted increased access to economic opportunity by means of hard work and self-determination, the paper reports.

The results revealed that Black Lives Matter had little impact on Black voter behavior, compared to other factors.

When broken down along gender lines however, Black men were just as likely to vote for the candidate in support of economic opportunity and hard work as the best way to tackle racial inequality as the candidate who backed Black Lives Matter and civil rights legislation

economics matter

In 2014, the Pew Hispanic Center reached a similar conclusion as Gallup has:

Asked about a variety of pressing national priorities, 49% of Latino voters identified the economy as the most important issue facing the country, followed by health care (24%) and illegal immigration (16%). That ranking is similar to that of all U.S. voters, among whom 45% named the economy, 25% heath care and 14% illegal immigration.

In this report, not only do the economic issues of "the economy" and "health care" gobble up 3 in 4 Latino voters as the most important issues, but Latino voters turned out to be virtually indistinguishable on this question from the overall population.
Here are results similar to the above for their 2007 survey:
 
 
Just as with whites and Hispanics, "lack of good jobs" is the biggest issue.
 
In 2010, a similar question was posed, and a similar answer was given:

specifically

In an effort to hear what issues Black women are most concerned with this election cycle, Higher Heights asked Black women across the country (at events and online), what is the most important issue facing Black women and their families. 556 Black women responded to the survey, 49 percent stated that economic security was the most pressing issue.
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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:42pm

but I feel that history (especially Plato) turned the word "sophistry" into an undeserved pejorative...

Race and class are inexorably related...try polling those very same minorities as to what's holding them back economically and you would begin to see the relationship between the two...

Problem is, people keep looking to construct binaries to keep things simple.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:55pm

1) you imply something without attempting to prove it

2) if it was all about race, then why do whites feel the same way?

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:22pm

as I've been saying (since talking about the Rust Belt has been all the rage lately and I am a product of the Rust Belt)

Of course, the white blue-collar worker that lives in Macomb County has similar issues to the African American blue collar worker that lives in Detroit...if they work in the same plant (as they often do) they go on the picket lines together (if they still have a job).

Still, the white-blue collar worker in Macomb County is able to send his kids to better, safer schools (for the most part), is likely to have a home worth considerably more and is more likely to have better access to decent grocery stores (I have family that lives throughout Macomb County, so I know this is true...members of my family were quick to notice the difference).

I never said that it was ALL about race, either.

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Submitted by k9disc on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:27pm
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We were on the bluer collar side of town. Your words do resonate, ck.

That said, there's a pretty strong racist sentiment in Macomb county largely because of our reductions in quality of life and opportunity. It's the soft racist type, not like the South, there is some solidarity, but it's a product of proximity and experience -- the Other is still distrusted and at least somewhat at fault for the lot in life there.

All that said, I've not lived there in 20 years, so I could be completely out of date.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:48pm

there's a few more people of color that live there than there was 20 years ago (which has made for a bit of tension) ...but yes the Macomb County/Detroit binary is still very much in evidence...I was never surprised that Barack Obama did as well there as he did...but then again, many of the Macomb County types were my classmates and my classmates parents when I was growing up on the northeast side of Detroit in the 70's and 80's...so I get it...

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Submitted by bobswern on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:01am

The real reason Hillary lost Michigan was because her campaign truly--to use a technical term--fucked-up, due to an overwhelming aura of hubris, "supported" by a general level of political campaign(ing) malpractice that was self-evident throughout her campaign for the entire election cycle, and further exacerbated by campaign management sentiments that misread the general public, and took a lot of its "traditional" support for granted, especially in the last couple of months of the effort.

Thomas Frank has been writing about this for over a year. But, everyone who was anyone in the Clinton campaign (and, definitely over at Daily Kos for two years, too), simply didn't care to pay attention.

Perhaps even more concise than Tom Frank, here's a few paragraphs from Jacobin on Friday (11/18/16), by NYU Professor Christian Parenti...


Garbage In, Garbage Out
Turns out Clinton’s ground game sucked.
by Christian Parenti
Jacobin
1.18.16

Christian Parenti teaches in global liberal studies at New York University. His latest book is Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.

It is now becoming clear that Clinton’s ground game — the watchword for defenders of her alleged competence — was actually under-resourced and poorly executed. Like so much else in this election, her field strategy was hostage to the colossal arrogance and consequent incompetence of the liberal establishment.

At the heart of the failure was the notion of the “new emerging majority.” According to this argument — pushed by, among others, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira — women, Latinos, blacks, and skilled professionals who support the Democrats were becoming the demographic majority. Thus the traditional white working-class base of the Democratic Party could be sidelined.

Back in July Chuck Schumer summed it up: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

From this theory and strategy flowed a deeply flawed set of tactics, and a badly fumbled get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort.

A labor organizer in Ohio, who wished to remain anonymous, reports that Clinton’s early GOTV effort there focused on Republicans in the mistaken belief a significant number of them could be peeled away. This play largely failed...
...

...Only in the last two weeks, according to this labor source, did the Democratic Party outreach effort really switch back to traditional Democratic voters. By then, it was too late. Due to lack of preparation, the voter lists guiding the effort had not been updated... ...the campaign was often unsure about the voters’ current political attitudes.

And when the campaign finally showed up in the African-American, Latino, and white working-class areas they got lots of “so you only come by once every four years?”

A union staffer in Pittsburgh reports a similar pattern, saying that Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters failed to invest in a locally generated plan to reach out to African Americans who lived in parts of Pennsylvania other than Pittsburgh and Philly. There are, of course, black communities all over the state. However, without money from the campaign this local effort struggled for lack of literature, vehicles, etc. And with no resources, enthusiasm faded...
...

...Another labor organizer lamented in an email about the awful campaign Hillary ran in the northern Midwest. When local leaders started to panic at the apparent traction Trump was gaining in these regions and urged the Clinton campaign to send the candidate into the Rust Belt, the geographic ulcer of corporate globalization, nothing happened. Clinton largely stayed away from the counties she lost; but Trump was all over them. Counties that Obama had carried four years ago experienced fifteen- to twenty-five-point swings in Trump’s favor.
...

...Even Obama has taken a shot at the Clinton campaign ground game and its flawed “demographics as destiny” theory. At a press conference earlier this week, he said: “I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated it, but because I spent eighty-seven days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and VFW hall.”

By mid October, the bad news from the field had filtered up into some sections of the party leadership.

South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn told the Daily Beast in an October 16 story: “I’ve seen some good GOTV plans. On paper they’re great. The question is what about implementation? It’s one thing to see what you need to do, it’s something else to execute.” ...
...

...Similarly, G. K. Butterfield, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, worried out loud about the lack of campaign investment in African-American communities in his home state of North Carolina, which Obama lost by fourteen thousand votes in 2012.

“I don’t know why we have been unsuccessful in being able to make the case for a significant investment in grassroots get out the vote,” Butterfield said. “On the Clinton side and on the DSCC side, I’ve been trying to get them to increase their commitment. They have made some investments, but it’s not enough.”...

Instead, the Clinton campaign went all in on TV ads. Meanwhile, field offices suffered. In 2012 the Obama campaign had 789 field offices; this time around, Clinton only had 489 nationwide.

It gets worse....
...

The above is an excerpt from a "must-read" story. (Click on the link at the top of the blockquote to check it out.

Here are some comments from YOUR DKos diary, posted early afternoon of Election Day (Nov. 8th), about strange goings-on in Detroit...

bobswern
Nov 08 · 02:10:48 PM

I’m sure--no, make that Damn Sure--that the Trump people have LOTS of “WAM” (walking around money, as they call it on election day in many big cities in the U.S.) out on the street today, bigtime.

That being said...my comment here from late last night…

bobswern - megisi

Nov 08 · 12:42:32 AM

I think Michigan could end up being Tuesday’s (mostly unexpected) wildcard.

Recommended 0 times

bobswern - bobswern
Nov 08 · 02:14:48 PM

And, now that I think about it, having worked in a Presidential General Election in Michigan, I’ve seen that firsthand in Detroit, specifically. (And, it was so bad there, we’re talking about “senior-most, elected officials” handing out those stuffed, white envelopes, too!)
Recommended 0 times

Chitown - Kev bobswern
Nov 08 · 02:18:02 PM

Please go somewhere.
Recommended 12 times

WI Lurker - Chitown Kev
Nov 08 · 02:24:39 PM

If he’s taking suggestions, I have some ideas where..
Recommended 4 times

bobswern - WI Lurker
Nov 08 · 02:31:53 PM

Yeah, let’s not and say you did.
Recommended 0 times

WI Lurker - bobswern
Nov 08 · 02:38:28 PM

I’ll try, but I have a vivid imagination.
Recommended 2 times

bobswern - Chitown Kev
Nov 08 · 02:32:06 PM

Nah...
Recommended 1 time

Chitown Kev - bobswern
Nov 08 · 02:42:33 PM

Oh well...a troll has to troll, I suppose...
Recommended 5 times

And, on top of everything else, with Daily Kos (it's a business, and it hasn't been a "community" for, at a minimum, four or five years, and that's being very kind) still at the forefront of sowing divisiveness, and Chuck Schumer (D-Wall Street) now all but sure to be the TOP DEMOCRATIC VOICE in the Party for the next four years, how is this going to help put forth the notion that the Democratic Party is the "party of change" in 2020? For all intents and purposes, it's nothing other than the Party of the status quo, the Party of yesterday, and it has NOT demonstrated a damn thing to make me think that it's going to behave any differently over the next 48 months than it has to date.

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Submitted by reflectionsv37 on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:00am
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I guess to use Kev's own words on him, "Oh well...a troll has to troll and please go somewhere".

It must not be so much fun posting over at the Daily Losers since their humiliating loss!

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:43am

anyone who has ever read me at DK knows that I never minced my words about Hillary Clinton, either before or after the election.

Some of y'all are just mad that I never celebrated Bernie Sanders as being some sort of progressive god or something...

I didn't come over here to pick a fight, but I have no trouble throwing down in one, either.

You've trolled me and my posts ever since the primaries, bobswern. I didn't back down then and I won't back down now, so go to hell

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Submitted by Crimson Buddha on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 7:22am

You have a lot of nerve complaining about trolling, Chitown Kev. Bobswern is just reminding you who you really are.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 7:38am

(as erroneous as it is) of who I am (just as I have mine of who he his)

I'm sorry that I don't fit into the box that many would like to place me in...I do get awfully claustrophobic in that regard.

Again...I was issued an invitation to post, I told the administrator that I had no intention of fighting, I have my points of agreement and disagreement with some people over here (just as I do at DK)...and I am well aware of some of the reasons as to why people will treat me with a bit of hostility over here...I'll put up with it to a certain point...

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Submitted by riverlover on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:26am
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We try not to go into attack mode with each other here. Disagreements are kept agreeable. Keeps JtC from investing in antacids. I for one valued your perspective over there.

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Submitted by JtC on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:54am

For the record:

You make it sound like I sought you out and invited you here. That's not the case. You registered for an account and I did follow up the registration asking if you had received the registration emails. I do that will all new registrations because many new registrants don't receive them, they get lost in spam folders and sometimes their email security blocks them.

In the follow up correspondence I did welcome you here after I told you I was well aware of your work at Daily Kos and you promised that you did not come here to cause any trouble. I made you aware of our posting parameters, our DBAA rule and you told me that you "Got it".

Everyone is welcome here until they start lobbing insults.

Just for the record.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 1:08am

I did make a point of not even mentioning my work at DK or linking it. That's....over there, this is here (I used to have that rule at DK over what goes on at other blogs but I have broken it a few times over seven years...so that is my rule the than the exception.

I was invited to post here by a regular poster here...turned it down at first and then I changed my mind...I do have my rules of engagement under these circumstances...leaving DK at DK is one of them; an unwritten, unknown unenforeceable rule that everyone respected (and seemed to pick up on) until bobswern

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Submitted by BayAreaLefty on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:05pm

by bringing in drama from TOP, to be honest.

I don't think this is fair to Chitown Kev.

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Submitted by dervish on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:37am
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This site doesn't have many rules, but one of them is that you must be polite. Please don't insult others.

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Submitted by Wink on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 9:41am
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give a damn about winning. Like my local yokel party pooh bahs they're only interested in maintaing what little "power" they think they have, the rank & file be damned, and when's the next big Village party celebrating Hillary?

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Submitted by Caerus on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:45pm

I learn so much from your essays. B4 I go to follow the links in this one, I have a question: WTF did Clintons do with all the money they raised and spent on the campaign? Seriously - it was a helluva lot more than just walkin' around money.

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Submitted by Wink on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:20pm
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campaign-raised money. Prolly use it to jump-start Chelsea's run.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 1:49pm

Instead of debating the extent of racism effecting economics in minority communities (I totally agree that our racist justice system devastates the AA community by crushing career prospects for those who get trapped in the system), I'd like to focus on the math.

You can talk all day about how legitimate grievances of racism is harming the economics of 20% of voters, OR...

you can talk all day about the legitimate grievances of policies harming the economics of 60% of the voters, which will include many of the above 20%.

Which will get you elected?

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:24pm

at this point (and I'm talking on a national level, a presidential level).

You still need those that are already voting for you (who have been slowly but surely falling away for the last 12-15 years). You still need to make sure that those that are already voting for you can continue to do so.

You have to address A and B in the right proportions at the right times before the right audiences.

EDIT: Let me give you an example...

You can go back and read black newspaper presidential endorsements from the 1920's.

You find pretty much the same Republican talking points about entrepreneurship and lower taxes, blah, blah, blah...but even then you always find civil rights being first and foremost in those editorials...even though the GOP was basically giving lip service to them because...well, the GOP was trying the best that they could to snatch something...anything...of the Solid South...even in 1932, 2/3 rds of blacks that voted voted for Hoover based on civil rights issues alone even though blacks were (as statistics show) hit very hardly by the Great Depression.

FDR did a lot more than simply address economic concerns.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:21pm

can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But the two issues aren't equal. And by "not equal" I mean "what is important to a large enough of a coalition to win".

Thinking of this in any other way is virtue signalling, not democracy.

Responding to needs of a majority is how democracy is supposed to work. That doesn't preclude doing right by the minority.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:34pm

You make it sound as if it's a zero-sum game and it's not...address and tailor the message to different audiences. It's not like WWC workers will lose anything if other issues are addressed, that will only happen if you address one set of issues to the exclusion of other issues.

Example: Everyone think that the idea of free tuition for state-run colleges is a great (but maybe not attainable) idea.

Most African American parents are a bit more concerned about quality K-12 education.

That doesn't mean that they don't like the idea of free college tuition (quite the contrary, in fact). That means that the AA parent feels that it is less likely that their child would even be able to take advantage of such system given what K-12 education realities are already like for them (for the most part).

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:51pm

that's all.
Anything else is illusions.

Fortunately, most minorities are like most white, and are concerned primarily with the same issue: the economy.
Thus a smart politician (i.e. not a Democrat) leads and ends with economic concerns. Other issues get sandwiched inbetween.
That's how democracy is designed to work.

You know I never understood why a Democrat never combined the two issues. There is no reason not to.
For instance, our racial justice system.
Explain to white evangelicals: you don't like kids being raised by impoverished single mothers? Then stop throwing young black men into prison for victimless crimes, so they can raise their children.
Explain to WWC: you really care about impoverished, crime-ridden inner cities? Then stop throwing young black men into prison for victimless crimes, so they can escape the cycle of poverty and gangs.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:01pm

have better stats than I do...do it your way.

Explain to white evangelicals: you don't like kids being raised by impoverished single mothers? Then stop throwing young black men into prison for victimless crimes, so they can raise their children.
Explain to WWC: you really care about impoverished, crime-ridden inner cities? Then stop throwing young black men into prison for victimless crimes, so they can escape the cycle of poverty and gangs.

That's been tried, actually. You can believe that all or most white people are the salt of the earth when it comes to these matters but I don't and I never will...they tend to think that I'm OK or that (most of) my family is OK but I understand that I (and my family) is an exception in that regard

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:34pm

That's been tried, actually.

I've never heard it. Which doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
Only that it never got pushed very hard.

You can believe that all or most white people are the salt of the earth when it comes to these matters but I don't and I never will.

Well, if you believe most white people are racist beyond saving, then your point is that it's hopeless.
I won't go there.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:46pm

even though I winced when she said it.

I know of it because I have heard those implicit biases when some white people talk to me ...it's that whole "black person v. n-word" binary...it exists...and when I was younger, white people didn't mind telling me about it...of course, they weren't talking about me, it would often be said...

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:13pm

the current DP strategy should be OK with you.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:28pm

reading

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/rowejhap.htm#appa

Zoom down to what would seem to be page 133...not a one size fits all plan, to be sure

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Submitted by irishking on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 9:36am

here, or am I wrong?

You can believe that all or most white people are the salt of the earth when it comes to these matters but I don't and I never will.

oh, well.
it's always something.

peace trumps war.

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Submitted by irishking on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 7:54am

The idea of forgiving student debt for middle and upper class college students,while saying nothing much about K12 is a good example of why Green Party must seem clueless to AA community.

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:22pm

Isn't that a lot of what is wrong with DP today?

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:40pm

The DP can't even win elections, so no, it's even worse than that.
Why? Because they aren't listening to what a majority of voters want/need.

You know, it's not a bad thing to be the party that responds to the needs of the working class.
There are far worse things to be guilty of.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:37pm

even in 1932, 2/3 rds of blacks that voted voted for Hoover based on civil rights issues alone even though blacks were (as statistics show) hit very hardly by the Great Depression.

Until the 1960's, only the GOP had ever done anything for southern blacks. Plus Hoover was relatively progressive for a Republican. Plus, FDR didn't run on a radical agenda. That came after.

FDR did a lot more than simply address economic concerns.

I love FDR, but his civil rights record wasn't a reason why I love him.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:52pm

besides inviting Booker T Washington to the WH and Harding giving a speech condemning lynching before a mixed (but segregated) crowd in Birmingham, Alabama?

FDR's civil rights record was mixed, of course (I would never call FDR a "radical")...but it was far better than Wilson's...and southern blacks had moved north in a major way by then...so FDR did realize that you weren't simply dealing with "southern blacks" anymore...The Roosevelts worked very hard within the limitations placed on them by the Southern Democrats lobby to secure the black vote as a Dem vote...it doesn't look like enough by today's standards, true enough...

...point being...don't take the black vote for granted (Kasich got 25% of the black vote in his last election in Ohio...the right Republican can peel those votes off...and, of course, Iit might not go Republican at all...)

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:20pm

"internment camps".
I could also point out this as well.

Interesting how those events didn't even factor into your consideration.
It's interesting how the black civil rights people say "minority" when they really mean "black". I think that's a huge political mistake.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 5:35pm

toward Latin America (which Bernie missed when asked about it in a debate), I could factor in his refusal to support an anti-lynching bill, I could factor in his refusal to desegregate the military in favor of Executive Order 8802 (which stopped a MOW in 1941), I could factor in FDR's wife and her actions and I could factor in not allowing some Jewish refugees entrance into the United States...don't make arrogant assumptions about what I factored and didn't factor in. I've read and written rather extensively on all of these things.

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Submitted by irishking on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 7:56am

Please don't start that here.
Though I can see your point.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 11:54am

what I knew and did not know about the topic and what I meant by the term "mixed record" and then went on to make generalized statements about black civil rights leaders...those were pretty aggressive statements and claims to make against me...

I can handle tone policing but not double standards (although to be fair, gjohnsit is longtime contributor here and should be given more of the benefit of the doubt than a newbie like myself in this venue)

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Submitted by k9disc on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:30pm
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Submitted by k9disc on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:13pm
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I totally agree with your A to B ratio.

Bernie's pivot probably wouldn't have been that bad on it's own, but the Clinton crew totally blew it up at every opportunity and made hay with it.

The key is to put us all in that boat at the same time.

This reminds me of a big pet peeve of mine, transactional, monetary langauge and framing -- money talk.

"I feel like a million bucks", "Invest in America", "Co-pays and Premiums", etc.

Back in the day, all the way through MLK, there was very little transactional language in watershed speeches. Post MLK, that's all we get.

The Cross of Gold Speech, entirely about economics, didn't have one transactional or monetary frame in it. It was completely moral and ethical, values based language.

I think the framing of any pivot from race to class, or the framing of any attempt to tie the two together, is key. It's not about poor black kids on the corner not having a job and winding up in trouble. It's about how our society calculates the value of human beings. No money? Then you're not worth the effort and not eligible for the team.

Freedom and opportunity in modern America are based upon your ability to support wealthy people.

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Submitted by k9disc on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:51pm
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ladened language, rather than identify them with the soundbyte of practical reality.

When you pivot to "X% of unemployed and black kids on corners instead of at work" you are identifying them, pointing at them, and drawing into focus all the negative stereotypes.

It violates the first rule of framing: if the frame is not good for the reception of your message, switch frames.

The Democratic idea when talking about racial discrimination is to try to speak directly about the racial part. It's clumsy, even when wielded by someone of the group. It's highly divisive.

I think the key is to speak about race in broad general values that put us all in the same boat and let us all find out, for ourselves, that we are in that boat together. That's how we create solidarity across demographics.

This is done quite well on the economic growth = opportunity front. All of us can identify with more money and more opportunity. We all want to be in that boat. We'll find the way there.

We can even make the jump from individual to community, to nation, to humanity. It's a wide, value ladened frame. It's compelling and coherent up and down the food chain.

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Submitted by irishking on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 8:01am

absolutely agree that this is the way out of the trap. (++)

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Submitted by Azazello on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 7:57pm
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But, if you look at what the Democratic Party has done, the haven't been campaigning on class issues. They tried to use race, gender and identity issues to shut down any debate on economics. They even said, "economics is a white male issue."
Say what ?

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Submitted by gjohnsit on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 8:06pm

When you start by disregarding more than 1/3rd of voters and all their concerns, you leave yourself a very narrow window to win elections.
You have to nearly be perfect everywhere else.

And even that breaks down when you make the mistake of de-emphasizing economics, when it's the top concern of minorities too.

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:38pm
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in which Democrats assume that people of color couldn't possibly care about economic issues, and that racism couldn't possibly be connected to anything to do with money. This is a creepy and obviously false narrative which is, unfortunately backed up by some prominent POC and especially by lots of trolls on social media who may or may not actually be POC.

Apparently slavery, which started this whole mess, had nothing to do with money, the fair treatment of labor, or the allocation of lasting wealth.

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"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Goin South on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:54am

Democrats assume that people of color couldn't possibly care about economic issues

Working class POC are the primary targets of the intentional misdirection game that is identity politics. That goal is to provide some motivation to vote "D" without having actually to advocate and enact policies that help working people. The Ds are so owned by Wall Street and MIC that they cannot advocate for peace, economic justice or the environment.

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Submitted by duckpin on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 6:12am

share the same cultural outlooks and aspirations. Do those descended from the colonizers of California & what is now the American SW & Florida in the 1600's have the same backgrounds as people from Puerto Rico? Or recent immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador? Of course not

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:04am

and "little people" to boot.

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Submitted by duckpin on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 9:50am

That seems to be the Dems stance.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Submitted by k9disc on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 4:36pm
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It's almost like the Establishment thinks a job or money is about "buying things".

While we do buy things with money and a job enables us to buy things, there's far more to money and a job than consumption. A job and money empower people.

Self sufficiency, self respect, security, opportunity, fairness, and leisure time are all products of money and a job. I'm sure I could rail off a few more, or get down to the root values a bit better, but the point is that I think the Establishment, including the Democrats, thinks jobs and income inequality are about buying stuff.

Your comment really drives that home for me.

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 4:56pm
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I sometimes forget that assumption is being made, since I have personal reason to know different. Not only do different nationalities of people have different ideas, but people who come here at different times--my great-grandfather & grandmother came here from Cuba (her) and Spain via Cuba (him) in the early years of the twentieth century; they were poor as dirt when they lived here. The people my family called "the Cubans" are the Miami expats from the 50s and their kids. It's totally different: different class, different experience coming here.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by MrWebster on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 11:56pm

When Sander supporters began to be thrown off the island at TOP, I commented that the party is a coalition and that throwing out various coalition members was not a good idea electorally. The notion seemed to be, with I believe Kos explicitly even saying this, that white votes were not needed to win the election. That is, a coalition of a few "identity groups" could win. And basically, groups defining Sander supporters were not needed (and this include young men and women regardless of race or class).

There was a poster (forgot his handle) there who responded by saying that in 2008, Obama got roughly 30% of the white male vote. Ha ha ha, see don't need that vote. But in looking at that census data, he claimed that the 30% of the white male vote was more than all black voters put together regardless who they voted for. That is, white males gave Obama more votes than all black voters. I didn't check his figures, but they seemed correct.

This poster argued that one could get a lot more votes for the dems if they could raise the percentage of white male voters. Apparently the people at TOP forgot that America is still a majority white country, and that elections are won by who got the most votes, not on which candidate got the highest percentage vote of small groups of voters.

Guess what. At least the numbers I saw (and hopefully remembered correctly), White male vote for Obama in 2012 was 30%, but went down to 20% for Hillary. In absolute numbers, that is huge. It may have been one of thee factors in losing the Midwest states--not getting the same number of votes that Obama got.

I don't think this fatal electoral choice will change.

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Submitted by Carol Joy on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 11:05pm
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Talking Heads talked about how 65% of the Democratic voters would support Hillary. Or 72%. Or even 85%.

But there was never much mention that this year, both Gallup and Pew Survey polling showed how 42 to 44% of the nation was now unaffiliated, indie voters. (Leaving the Dems with 34% of the voters.) And apparently Hillary supporters are not smart enough to realize that 72 percent of 34% of all voters is not that much.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:41pm

but she did make this point when the primaries turned from the South to the Midwest...that you simply can't make the exact same appeal to blacks in the Midwest that you do in the South.

In states like Michigan (where half of my family voted for Sanders), Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois during the primaries...Sanders did considerably better than he did in the South (doubling his percentages of that vote, in some cases)...it wasn't because black people "got to know him better"...it was Sanders' that message resonated better without him having to change all that much...in some of the GE exit polls...it would appear that Clinton didn't quite get that message

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Sun, 11/20/2016 - 9:48pm
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loser doesn't mean she knows nothing about electoral politics. Smile

Yes, I have disliked her since I was fighting the FL election fraud in 2000 (and she wasn't.)

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--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by dervish on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:46am
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small world!

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 1:50pm
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And Jesse Jackson didn't show up because somebody broke a news story about him having a mistress, or something (obvious timing).

It was after that that I left the Democratic party for the first time. I thought, if they won't make a moral stand for the Black voters, and they won't make a political stand for their party's chance to win the Presidency, what the hell good are they?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by dervish on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 10:43pm
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with Lady Liberty and her duct-taped mouth. Fun times.

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Submitted by irishking on Thu, 11/24/2016 - 8:26am

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Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:07am
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Clinton had the support of a fair number of the pastors in the South and of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Submitted by Phoebe Loosinhouse on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 9:22am
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who were just as invested in a Hillary victory as the white neo-liberal meritocracy for identical reasons of reflected prestige, possible patronage positions and membership in The Insiders Club. Black media personalities were also almost completely invested in Hillary and pushed the Bernie Bro meme as hard as humanly possible. Joy Ann Reid seemed like she was trying out for Press Secretary every day of the week. Hillary was the early established gravy train and seemed like a sure winner. Who wants to jump off that onto Bernie's little box car puffing along the tracks for reasons of ideology? They were backing what seemed to be the obvious winner.

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" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:16am
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Everything you say I believe to be true also Phoebe. It's the same kind of think MLK was up against too.

In that light, Harry Belafonte gave one of the most searing indictments of the Democratic Party's penchant for going back on its word, just after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. So glad Jimmy Dore reprised this very powerful segment. It should be seen by everyone.

He's pulling no punches at all, speaking directly to the two people seated at his side, Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton, without naming or looking at them. It's a tour de force by one of this country's greatest activsts and advocates who used his celebrity so magnanimously.

Martin said, 'you know I've been thinking long and hard about our struggle. We worked tenaciously for our rights and that the combination of all that effort will be reflected in what we've come to call the integration movement.'

And I sit here deeply concerned that I suspect we're leading our nation on an integration trip that has us integrating into a burning house. I don't think we quite understood how prophetic that remark was.

His indignation and quite frankly fury then gets directed at the Democrats who come around every four years with empty promises and flowery prose, visit the poor and marginalized for orchestrated public relations. He even refers to Obama, right then and there at this Congressional Black Caucus gathering in 2005:

It seems to me that there will be no loftier of statements and no greater speeches than to be made that have already been made. Certainly Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Fannie Lou Hamer down in Atlantic City when she challenged with the Freedom Mississippi Democratic Party.

There are a lot of people who made speeches that are as eloquent as will ever be written. We've listened to a lot of redundancy. A lot of people have carefully selected the phrases and applied them to the moment.

What eludes us is the bankruptcy of the action itself.

(emphasis mine)

It's a must-watch:

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THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:11pm

not quite as effectively...

My question is (and was)...why wasn't someone like Belafonte or Glover or Jealous or even Barbara Lee (someone who can't be pushed around by others) directly reporting to Sanders (I always thought this was a fatal flaw of the campaign) and directly advising Sanders day-to-day on this matter.

One of the things that struck me about a Fusion story by black activists working with the Sanders campaign was that they believed in Sanders' sincerity and didn't have a bad thing to say about him...but they had to go through his other advisers.

Myself, I believe that Sanders could have engaged black millennials more than he did; in fact I encouraged it...

...it's all water under the bridge at this point...

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:16am

that there is some truth this, that it was discussed, but I am not about to bring the specific type of criticisms of these types to an overwhelmingly white website at this time...it was discussed those (Michael Eric Dyson's BS being one of the worse)

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Submitted by FuturePassed on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:27am

Plus you have to think of the pension plan offered by Team Clinton. (See Barney Frank.) You don't have to keep winning to get vested. Sometimes you don't have to win at all.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:09am

In fact, I wrote a DU post (that I can't access now) where I said that I was tired of seeing Hillary going into black churches...can't stand the mofos, for the most part, actually (Rev. Barber is one of the exceptions to the rule)

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Submitted by Cassiodorus on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:18am
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Our main interest is in refuting right-wing canards.

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“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon

Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:00pm

you have to get beyond church folks and popular perceptions...which isn't simply a right-wing canard...

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 8:19am

My recollection is that high point for Sanders was about 30% in Michigan.

It's a "success", if the bar is to beat 15-20% he got down South.
But it loses.

As did Sanders, finished by AA 75-25 HRC vote in NY.
That percentage was about what he got in Nevada- never improved.

PS. No problem with a "Christian woman".

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 11:56am

Michigan- 68C-28S
Illinois 70C-30S
Missouri-67C-32S
Ohio-71C-28S
Indiana- 74C-26S
Wisconsin- 69C-31S

Sanders did need to raise his numbers in the South though...which was possible...the objective being less to getting 50% or more of the black vote than that "losing by 20 where you might have lost by 50" thing...that sets the stage to get 35-45 of the black vote in the Midwest...which would have given you wins in Illinois and Missouri...and made for a very stark map...

(...and...I'm starting to feel like the only black kid in the class again...)

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Submitted by bobswern on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:28pm

...at DKos. But, you got pretty ugly over there (at least as far as your interactions with me were concerned) in the few days before the election, and since.

I'm sincerely looking forward to your blogging here. That is the god's-honest truth. But, the double standard (how we interact here versus the level/tone of interaction at DKos) is both unnecessary and inappropriate. So, I ask that you please forgive me for bringing this (interpersonal dust-up) into the threads of this diary; and I promise to do the same, from this point forward, REGARDLESS of wherever we happen to be communicating.

And, yes, one of the reasons I enjoy your commentary so much, in general, is because it transcends a LOT of blogging bullsh*t that's predominant at places like DKos, nowadays, with the "Facebook-ization" of everything being what it is. (At least up until the past few weeks, as far as our interactions were concerned.)

So, there you have it.

Carry on!

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:40pm

some of the Hillfolk have told me that I've been a bit too nasty, too.

I simply try to call it as I see it. I'm not particularly aligned with one group or one train of thought or trying to fit into certain boxes and I have a visceral reaction when someone attempts to place me there...well, unless the box fits, of course.

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Submitted by bobswern on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 12:55pm

And, I REALLY appreciate your response. (Much more than you might realize.) A LOT of people that closely follow U.S. politics are on edge. I really do have friends that are quite seriously thinking of moving out of the country. They're light years beyond upset. (Hell, I'm upset!) It's affecting almost everyone I know. But, being a student of U.S. history (did an interdisciplinary major in "20th Century American Studies" in college: politics, sociology, media, etc.) , there's a side of me that finds this entire moment in time pretty incredible/intriguing. And, I'm not using the word "incredible" in a positive manner. (Kind of like an infectious disease doctor--I have a 1st cousin who's pretty renowned in that field, was at the forefront of AIDS research, etc.--studying a new plague. Meanwhile, the MSM and the blogosphere just stoke these destructive "fires." .

A perverse fascination, as it were; but, certainly one that could bring about death and destruction--possibly at a much higher level than even what it is now in this country--right to our respective doorsteps. Perverse, I know. But it--at least to some extent--reflects my sentiments being in "the moment."

So, yes, I think, at least to some extent, I do understand where your head's at, like millions of others in the U.S.

We're living in highly uncertain/troubled times.

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Submitted by irishking on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 2:40pm

He did about 30-70 throughout the region which was a bit better than I thought.

Agree that 40 -60 was a good target for him in South , though ambitious.
If he had hit that number even as late as NY, things might have gotten interesting.

What Sanders was up against in South was in large part CBC, as exemplified by John Lewis.
As I have said elsewhere, Sanders never solved that problem. And (imo) any progressive in 2020 will face same thing.

Which brings us to the question of what could he have done here. Though BLM , for example,has been faulted here for not connecting to Sanders campaign, it should have been a 2 way street. I would say it was an error if Sanders did not reach out.

Of course all this lies in view of Sanders' long time symbiotic relationship with the DP. So the upshot is that had he split the AA vote, he simply might have tanked harder. But an analysis is important (imo) for future application.
thx.

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Mon, 11/21/2016 - 3:37pm

Sanders would have never won older blacks for a host of reasons.

Millennials and even the younger GenXers, perhaps, were a different story. Get them out there to vote and to vote for you...then let the media talk about that for awhile heading into the Midwest primaries...where even the adults were listening and where...you don't need 50% of the black vote...you just need enough of it

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Tue, 11/22/2016 - 1:57pm
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when I organized a meeting in DC about how Black voters were being disenfranchised systematically for the second Presidential election in a row, a meeting where neither of the Clintons nor any of their machine were present, I think I might consider supporting that guy. If you're going to support a white politician at all.

But, being white, of course I have no idea what it would look like to a Black person. I have to try to imagine a parallel circumstance: if it were the only straight politician to show up after Matthew Shepard's death, or something like that. It would matter. It would stick in my mind. Especially if that guy had been pretty consistent throughout his life in doing the right thing.

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--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Chitown Kev on Wed, 11/23/2016 - 11:51pm

The African American community does politics the way they do politics...it's not right or wrong...it's simply the way they do things (FTR, I disputed Palast's account of that event...I think that Bernie did show up at something but it may not have been in DC at that time)

NOW back to my hiatus...

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Submitted by irishking on Thu, 11/24/2016 - 8:32am

The African American community does politics the way they do politics

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Submitted by Chitown Kev on Thu, 11/24/2016 - 8:01pm

1) I need the hiatus
2) That "I'm the only black kid in the class" feeling gives me the creeps (and it always has in many different aspects)...but I also don't like to see some things simply go unchallenged if I see them...

To use a metaphor from another political race, sometimes, you simply have to go and shake the hands of Red Sox fans outside of Fenway Park...and you have to understand that they are Red Sox fans and not Mets fans).

The Clintons had a head start doing that with black audiences.

Bernie Sanders, the elected politician, was unfamiliar with doing this.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/02/13/1484470/-First-impressions-of-t...

This old thread from TOP (see, I'm already breaking my rule!) kinda illustrates my approximate meaning here.

and with that...back to my hiatus (where I will lurk a little bit).

I do appreciate the questions that you are asking, irishking

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