I'm Uncomfortable With This

For far too long now, I have noticed the Democratic Party shooting itself in the head and ending whatever they are trying to accomplish by exposing their plans in the media long before they actually achieve anything.

The latest example is this: 'We don't need white people leading the Democratic Party right now' -Symone Sanders, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and a CNN contributor.

Many White Democrats voted for Trump because they are feeling the loss of their race-based societal dominance and a decline in their personal economic well-being. It isn't hard to find examples of this if one really wants to see, because Michael Moore found them without looking too hard. To now have a Black woman essentially tell White people to stand aside and let the Republican Party's most overtly disdained opponents act to solidify and strengthen GOP opposition injects race into an already divided Democratic Party at a very bad time, and makes it even more likely that the Democratic Party will split.

When Republicans form a plan, they tend to not let the media in on the knowledge until they have something to brag about. Then we can't get them to shut up. In contrast, the Democrats brag about what they are going to try to do before they even get started, and are so very surprised to discover that the Republicans are already thwarting their pitiful efforts when they do.

I doubt anyone here at c99 would argue against a change in the Democratic Party hierarchy. The incompetence and arrogance of these incumbent Party officials alone screams the need for such a change. But how about these changes not be exclusively based on race? How about the Democrats display some intelligence and capability and select people with a track record of successful political management? I'd much rather support someone who managed to elect a slate of education-supporting local residents to a school board than to be expected to follow along with someone whose divisive opinions get expressed nationally and create additional problems, making it more difficult to organize a viable opposition to the Band of Billionaire Bandits now taking power.

The Democrats have earned this new dilemma. The GOP were on the floor in 2009, and Obama could have left them there. The GOP were helped up off the floor, dusted off, and then Obama turned around and begged them to kick him and not stop. They kept Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination and leading a huge popular movement toward victory. So if the Democrats split, the only real loss to America would be in that there would be no realistic chance to stopping the revived corporatists from establishing a one-party authoritarian state.

If that happens, even New Zealand isn't far enough away.

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Symone Sanders, former press secretary for Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and a CNN contributor running off at the mouth makes it sound as if it is representative of Bernie and the left. It isn't. If they want white flight from the party based on race in addition to economics, let her keep blabbing about race-based politics.

I believe BLM's name and non-inclusive stand on militarized police and police brutality shot the issue and them in the foot. I am not arguing against the fact that some demographics have a bigger issue with it than others. I am arguing that making it a black only instead of a black mostly problem isolated and therefore marginalized the issue and them.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

apply."

The first was a winning electoral position. Want to wager how well the latter will play?

President Obama, also head of the Democratic Party, has presided over the greatest rout a party has experienced in over 100 years. This kind of incompetence is rare but we are living through it. It was just this summer when most of punditcracy was crowing over the demise of the Republican Party. They would not acknowledge that Obama and Clinton were leading the Dems into holding the fewest legislative seats and governorships in decades. Why? Lousy anti-worker policies and lousy candidates. Money for war and bank bailouts and next to nothing for schools, public health, and paychecks.

So, who's racist now? Which class is becoming wealthier at expense of which class?

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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"

Meteor Man's picture

And don't forget Donna Brazile!
http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/10/cnn-severs-ties-with-donn...

Oh yeah. And forget about cornbread leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Hey! I got an idea! How about every former and current DLC, DNC and New Dem playing Russian Roulette with a fully loaded Glock 9?

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

WoodsDweller's picture

the big tent party gets to lead. You can't have a single message and have a big enough tent, we don't have a shared culture/religion/race where "everyone has the same values that make us American". We've got voters who have their own priorities. The closest thing to a universal concern is economics. If you aren't independently wealthy you need a job and a social safety net.
Yes the Democrats seem to have gotten the idea that in a majority-minority nation they can get to 50%+1 with identity politics. Yet it will be a very long time before a White Peoples' Party that at least gives lip service to populist economics (we don't have to spend time pretending they will actually DO anything) won't be the big tent party.
So the solution is simple. The Democratic Party doesn't need anyone in leadership who is afraid of saying those three little words "Nationalize the Banks". There would, if the absence of institutional discrimination, be a healthy mix of women and PoC among the economic populist leaders, who would be the natural focus for outreach efforts to those communities.
Even a grouchy old man with frizzy white hair and zero charisma can fill stadiums when he talks about reforming a rigged economy. Imagine what a powerhouse a charismatic young, female, Hispanic (for example), Democratic Socialist could accomplish at the top of the ticket.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

Hawkfish's picture

Short, sweet and spot on.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

Wink's picture

if you have a message. Just ask Hillary. on second thought never mind. The difference between Bernie and Hillary was Bernie at least had a message.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

until now.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

katchen's picture

there was speculation that Symone was a Clinton plant, and that's why she left the campaign abruptly in June. Google "symone sanders a clinton plant" and you'll find a number of hits.

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sojourns's picture

of the DNC is to alienate people? Any remarks like the one made Symone Sanders are incredibly damaging even if it were intended as a throw-a-way line.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

More like, continues the narrative, or in wrestling terms, the booking, that Hillary and Donald were using all along.

The Democrats and the Republicans are dedicated to expanding the race war, regardless of the impact it might have on their party organizations.

Since the individuals in those parties have platinum parachutes regardless, they don't care what happens to the parties.

Their platinum parachutes depend on doing what the extremely wealthy want. In my opinion, the extremely wealthy want a race war so they won't have to face a class war.

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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

Cassiodorus's picture

Haven't you heard? The Democrats have ruled America since 1852, when the Know-Nothings and the Republicans split the Whig Party.

Or at least this is how it played out according to your logic.

So if the Democrats split, the only real loss to America would be in that there would be no realistic chance to stopping the revived corporatists from establishing a one-party authoritarian state.

The rest of us recognize that the Republicans control all branches of government today because the Democrats persist in handing government to them, and that a "split" (ie people standing up for themselves) would only weaken that effort.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

'We don't need white people leading the Democratic Party right now', is the most tone-deaf remark I've ever heard from a political spokesperson. I'm sure she wishes she had it back.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

Occupational hazard of politics. Sometimes there's blowback, sometimes there isn't (whether or not there should be).

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Leading a major party either.

Wondering how 13% adds up to a majority in her mind. Does she think Asians and white Hispanics are in love with black people? She might want to introduce herself to some actual minorities outside the Beltway. They made a bigger swing toward Trump than white voters did.

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I think it's generally good for the leadership team to reflect the constituency of the party. Black and brown folks form about 45% of the democratic vote (this, by the way, is one reason why reliance on demographics for a majority is about as asinine a strategy as one can have--the black and brown vote isn't even a majority of democratic votes, much less a majority of general election votes). I think that justifies having faces that aren't white in the top spot every now and then.

However I would stop far short of using the sentiment as a platform to continue the race-based antagonism and exclusionary rhetoric that has characterized the party's strategy for several years now, culminating in a recent noteworthy and catastrophic electoral performance.

If you read further down, Symone also says:

"Howard Dean is on record maligning young people and millennials, telling those Bernie folks they just need to get in line, and maligning Bernie Sanders," Sanders said. "And that is not what we need right now."
Sanders, a black woman and millennial, said she is interested in hearing each of the candidates' proposals for taking the party into the future.
"I want to hear more from everybody. I'm here for the millennials and the brown folks," she said.

I'm not convinced she's interested in hopping on Hillary's "you're an racist and sexist if you think economics is important" train that so many, e.g. at ToP, have hopped on (or doubled-down on).

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I've heard from some people in the campaign that Symone Sanders was suspected to be a mole for the DNC. Don't know if it's true but it could explain her taste for ID politics. It's really stupid of her either way.

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... So if the Democrats split, the only real loss to America would be in that there would be no realistic chance to stopping the revived corporatists from establishing a one-party authoritarian state. ...

Seems to me that there's already two halves of a Corporate/Billionaire Party, so this just effectively drops the two-party trade-off part of the scam... why not just drop the whole corporate/military/political (fascist) scam and build the Green Party and a social democratic party so that people have something to vote for hereafter? Assuming that even the appearance of voting occurs, of course, but let's think positive rather than about the upheaval and horrors of a bloody global revolution before the fascists succeed in killing off people's faith in government and in the rule of law in a just society?

It seems to me that this has long been one of the objectives, because only a strong democratic government and law serving the public interest and applying equally to all can quell and contain, on the behalf of the public they exist to serve and the survival of life on the planet, the corporate/billionaire monsters created by complicit government aiding the enemies of the people to drain their resources to the point where the relative few now have nearly all of everything and are determined to take the rest even though they destroy it all in the taking.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

The more radically authoritarian wing of the corporatist party no longer has a brake on their activities to convert all citizens into corporate assets, maybe even with ownership rights bestowed upon the "employers". There won’t be enough strength in either half of what was once the Democrats to do anything, and there already isn't enough cooperation between them after the Dolchstossing the DNC did to the Berniecrats during the primary.

The nation is now under the direct control of corrupt plutocrats, and there is little chance of that changing any time soon, especially not after that idiot Obama gave the GOP so many new draconian laws to use against us.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

If The Dems Split The more radically authoritarian wing of the corporatist party no longer has a brake on their activities to convert all citizens into corporate assets, maybe even with ownership rights bestowed upon the "employers". ...

Just wondering what the Dems have done against this lately? The lube they've been using may seem to have less grit in it than the unlubed Republican approach, but isn't the result remarkably similar, especially when the rough-shod-riding Clintons are considered?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.