Hey Democrats! Do you ever want to win again? (Updated)
I finally decided to write a valedictory diary over at TOP, after not participating there in over six months. I'm publishing it here first, and will let them know where to find the original. Warning: some links are to DailyKos diaries.
And this morning I added an update to the DK diary, as a response to the furor.
Update: So I’m out of the penalty box, and wanted to put in one last word. Thanks to all of you who read and responded to what I wrote. To those who clearly didn’t read or didn’t consider my points, thank you for illustrating my thesis. Too many Democratic party loyalists here seem determined to learn nothing from the election returns. Trying to turn the Electoral College is a fool’s errand. Citing the popular vote is pointless: Hillary lost the damn election, people. Blaming the Russians or James Comey or me for that loss is engaging in the most hopeless form of denial of the real problem: the Democratic party is at its weakest point in almost a century, thanks to the actions of its leadership over the last three decades. And to those here attacking me personally, or Jill Stein voters, or anybody who’s not already on board the Democratic party as you think it should be, congratulations. You are and remain the problem, and you stand in the way of the solution.
I’ve been missing from around these parts since our Dear Leader pronounced that free speech would no longer be tolerated in his joint. (Remind you of anyone?) The Brock-sponsored shills have come and gone, so I thought I’d come back to take a look around. Not a pretty sight. It appears that the Orthodox wing of the party, well represented here, seems determined to learn nothing from last month’s events. Instead it has doubled down on its delusions and its failed approach to politics, and is as hostile as ever to anyone disagreeing with them. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are in charge, assuring that the Wall Street sponsors of the party will maintain their grip on control like Gollum clutching the Ring as he hurtles down to a sea of fire.
Newbies won’t know who I am. Ask around. I had been here since late 2004, and have been a consistent commenter and staunch advocate of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. But now I’m an independent. I left the party after the Convention, disgusted at the cynicism and overreach of the Clinton campaign. Subsequent revelations from Wikileaks only confirm what I already knew. This is the first time in over 40 years, since I first registered to vote, that I am not a Democrat. But, as so many former Republicans — and a growing number of former Democrats — have said: I didn’t leave the party, the party left me. DLC controllers (starting with the Clintons), Wall Street greedheads, asshole manipulators like David Brock, and sanctimonious know-nothings have all played a part in my departure. I do not contemplate rejoining the Democratic party in the near future, and may never do so again.
I am not alone. From a recent high of 36% of the electorate in 2008, Democratic party share of the electorate has hovered around 26-28% in estimates during the general election. Independents far outnumber Republicans or Democrats, and it is not unreasonable to suspect that they could approach the number of Republicans and Democrats when Gallup gets around to its biennial count in January. The result in electoral failure for the Democratic party since the 2010 midterms is well known around here, and it mirrors the failure of formerly center-left parties in Europe as well. When I was a Democrat and writing around here, I warned against the temptation to blame scapegoats and avoid embracing the need for the party to change. I pointed out that the history of the Clintons’ corruptions was the story of the Democratic party in recent years, and argued for the need for a change. The party stubbornly resisted change or cleaning itself up. It embraced the status quo, and its comfortable Establishment identity. It told those demanding better to shut up and cheer, and fall in line. This site was a typical and reliable mouthpiece for the party establishment in these respects. I did not want to abide by the political fictions it embraced in recent months, so for the first time in over a decade I left.
If Democrats want to win again, they need to win me back. Far more importantly, they need to win millions of voters back, and embrace a lot more. What is the party doing wrong, and what can it do differently?
[video:https://youtu.be/JDUjeR01wnU]
I was a vociferous Bernie backer during the primaries, seeing him as the last best chance for the Democratic party to remember its New Deal, working class identity. The Clinton campaign’s cynical, divisive, dishonest politicking during the primaries disgusted me, and Hillary Clinton’s ham-handed and outrageously insulting outreach to Republicans even during the primaries disqualified her for my vote. In November, I voted for Jill Stein for president.
Want to blame me for Donald Trump? Well, go fuck yourself. Hillary Clinton threw away my vote in the general election. She won my state handily without my vote, so I had nothing to do with her losing. In January of this year I warned the DailyKos community of what would happen if Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump:
The most important lesson the 2016 campaign teaches so far is that people are fed up with the status quo, and are no longer willing to listen to the establishment’s opinion shapers telling them the way things are supposed to be. They are increasingly believing their lying eyes…. People in general are increasingly unwilling to accept the arguments for the status quo, the preemptive capitulation to the power of money, the reality of oligarchy.
Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders derive much of the power driving their candidacies from this rebellious mood. They speak different languages to different audiences, but the subtext of their appeal is similar in this respect. Throw the Bums Out is a much more potent argument this year than More of the Same. And people are increasingly wise to the game power plays, in which bums are thrown out to be replaced by more bums….
Hillary Clinton’s long record (the downside of “experience” is that it leaves a record) leaves her defenseless against the weapon of the corruption issue. And Republicans know it. Donald Trump has already fired a shot across her bow by mentioning her association with him. It is not unlikely that one of the reasons the Republican establishment has begun cozying up to the Donald is that they see a possibility he can beat Hillary. If they’re right, corruption will no doubt be the main feature of their general election campaign. Another endless round of accusations and scandals surrounding a Clinton, this time with a lot more evidence than was available to those pushing the Vince Foster conspiracy nonsense….
Indeed, “Crooked Hillary” was a constant refrain from Donald Trump on the campaign trail. Blame me for being a Cassandra if you wish, but I’m not the reason 68% of the electorate found Hillary Clinton dishonest and untrustworthy. Yes, yes, 30 years of right-wing attacks blah blah blah, but the point Clinton fans refuse to acknowledge is that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s own actions created that distrust. They were constantly engaged in dodgy and barely-legal (if that) stuff that invited Republican attacks. They created a target-rich environment for these attacks, and Hillary reaped what she sowed. So did all the rest of us, unfortunately.
Clintonian triangulation has become the meat and drink of modern Democratic party politics. The Clintons were all about slicing and dicing the electorate, trying to appeal to this group or that to try to cobble together a bare majority. The Democratic party has followed their lead. DailyKos is a hotbed of this stupidity. Every damn day you read people talking about PoC or women or the WWC or college-educated white people or whatnot. These groups are treated as the indivisible atoms of political tactics. The stereotyping and disregard for the individuality of voters, who have their own concerns and conflicts and histories and ideas, is lost in this triangulating calculus. People don’t fit neatly into little boxes. Nobody likes being treated as a stereotype, and that’s pretty much all today’s Democratic party does come campaign season. The results of this approach can be seen in Washington, in state capitols, and among dog-catchers nationwide.
Democratic politicians act as if they own the votes of “their base,” the contents of the little boxes they feel they’ve collected on their side. “Where else are they going to go?” is the implicit — and sometimes explicit — assumption. The obvious answer, as midterm elections and even last month’s general election showed, is “Away.” For every Stein voter there were scores of “Democratic” “base” voters who stayed home, or even showed up but didn’t vote for president. The Democratic party is entitled to precisely no one’s vote. It has to earn every one. And it has been failing to win enough of them to win elections, very conspicuously and catastrophically in recent years.
Arguments have raged around here, as at many other social media sites and Democratic-leaning media outlets, about an alleged battle between economic populist issues, as represented by Bernie Sanders’ campaign, and social justice issues, as purportedly represented by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. These are often portrayed as being in opposition, a binary choice. The argument is often framed as which is more important. Let me be clear: this is stupid and is bullshit. Economic and social justice issues are not opposed to each other. They are like your right and left hand. You need both to be fully functional and operate at peak efficiency. They are not identical, but they are matched. They proceed from the same set of values and moral imperatives. They are the political embodiment of the Golden Rule. They are why most of us became Democrats in the first place.
Those pitting one set of issues against the other refuse to see this obvious truth. There is always a reason for this, though people’s reasons differ. But the end result of these arguments, like all such arguments pitting people against each other in politics, is the same: The owners of this country win. Divide and Conquer is ruling class politics 101: it’s as basic a technique as there is for keeping a country’s people under the thumb of its ownership class. Those who foment such arguments are doing the bidding of the oligarchs, whether they choose to see it that way or not.
The New Deal Democratic party found its way out of the political wilderness and built an enduring majority party that lasted for decades by essentially standing up for the 99% against the 1%, as we would put it today. Of course there were aspects of racism and injustice it committed, as it was a creation of its time and place. But it generally did not worsen these social ills while it pursued the goals of economic justice. (Yes, Manzanar was one glaring exception, and you could name others.) Did it do enough to fight racism and sexism and other forms of inequality? Of course not. But the New Deal Democratic party convinced African-Americans to become Democrats rather than Republicans pretty overwhelmingly, so in the context of the time they must have done something right.
Today we have economic inequality rivaling the worst of the Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties, and it shows no sign of abating its rapidly worsening trend. Poor, working class and middle class Americans are hurting. Most are worried and pessimistic about the future. Median household income hasn’t come close to recovering from the level it reached at the end of the 1990’s, as a bubble-fueled economic boom was about to pop. US life expectancy has begun to fall, a surefire sign of a sick society. The suicide rate in this country is at a 30 year high, with women and middle-aged Americans killing themselves at much higher rates than in the past. Our national infrastructure is getting worse all the time. All these big-picture statistics paint a nation in decline, offering the mass of its citizens little or no reason for optimism.
Today’s Democratic party offers little hope for the vast majority of Americans worried about their economic security today and in the future. Obamacare is its main recent achievement, but increasing numbers of Americans are finding their mandated insurance unaffordable to use if they need it, and rising premiums for insurance they can’t afford to use only deepens their stress. Hillary Clinton’s campaign offered little to address these concerns: Jobs only rated fifth among her campaign’s issues-based ads, and economic issues didn’t hit the top five in her allied super-PAC’s advertising. But for decades, the Democratic party has moved away from lunchbucket economic issues and constituencies. It’s no accident that Card Check never came up in the 2009-10 Congress, or that Barack Obama never put on his comfortable shoes to walk a picket line. Everybody could see Barack Obama’s quest for the TPP, just like they could see his previous quest for a Grand Bargain to cut Social Security. He was Captain Ahab on these issues, for Chrissakes. And nobody believed Hillary Clinton’s campaign conversion on the TPP. Nobody trusts her, remember?
Concern for working class welfare is not racist. PoC are disproportionately represented in this class, as are women, and their concerns for a living wage, a chance to put some savings away and buy a home, and see their kids have a better life are not substantially different than working class white men. Participating in the Divide and Conquer game, just like the Republicans, only gives people scapegoats to blame for their troubles. The false dichotomy between economic and social issues has in practice allowed the Democratic party to continue to pursue it’s economic agenda favoring the wealthy while pretending to be “progressive” or “liberal” or “left.” In doing so, they have robbed these labels of much of their historic meaning. These words are signifiers that signify less and less. Looking back to January, I observed this as well:
Today we are functionally an oligarchy, with the Democratic and Republican parties acting as divisions in the Governmental Affairs Department of America, Inc…. [T]he New Deal Democratic party is as dead as the Whigs. Our latter-day version is one more vehicle of corporate influence: the Goldman Division, as it were. We are locked in phony battle with the Koch Division for spectacles of Potemkin democracy, which offer choices that cost the owners of this country nothing and usually improve their quarterly numbers. Nothing can be done anymore that doesn't pay off billionaire sponsors first and last. Social wedge issues are used by both parties to keep their partisans cheering, but these issues have negligible cost to the sponsors of the contest.
When I bowed out of participation here, Bernie Sanders supporters were being run off in fairly vile and hateful ways. It was made clear that we were not welcome, and the Clinton campaign didn’t need us. We would be tolerated, barely, if we behaved ourselves and didn’t bring up inconvenient facts. Even these days, with the Clinton campaign reduced to a smoking crater in the ground, this sentiment is common — it seems to be the prevailing sentiment still, in my brief visits lately. How did that exclusionary vision work out for you Clinton fans?
It wasn’t just DailyKos. The Clinton campaign was just as bad at the convention, muzzling and evicting Sanders delegates from the floor. Clinton made plays for suburban Republican voters, and her campaign explicitly believed that they’d pick up more country-club Republican voters than they’d lose pissed off working class folks. The entire campaign was the apotheosis of Clintonian triangulation, and perfectly reflected Thomas Frank’s thesis in his recent book "Listen, Liberal." Accusations of Racism and Sexism and Privilege were liberally (!) hurled at those who didn’t toe the party line, in a transparent effort to silence dissent. These accusations were usually wrong, and always truculent. The economic left of the party — what remained of it — was shown the door of the not-so-big tent.
Candidates and parties win when more voters vote for them than the other side. Exclusionary rhetoric and intolerant gaslighting does not win support, it actively repels it. After years of criticizing the Democratic party from the inside, in an effort to improve it, I gave up on it this year. I voted for some Democrats, but not for Hillary Clinton. Again, my single vote didn’t make a difference, as Democrats won up and down my ballot. But I offer myself as a cautionary tale to the purity police on DailyKos and around the Democratic party, for whom any deviation from party orthodoxy is cause for burning at the stake. You party purists are not always right, and you’re almost always wrong when it comes to attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with you or vote the way you want them to all the time.
Here are some suggestions, from a former Democrat many of you know:
1. If you want more votes, you need to do more listening and less accusing. Ask questions of people, and listen to what they tell you. Efforts to “improve your messaging,” so popular around here, only amount to finding more ways to tell people what you think they should believe. This is rarely convincing or productive.
2. You need to find some humility, and admit that once in a while, perhaps, you might be wrong about something. Especially those of you who were comprehensively wrong during the late campaign season. Dog knows the Democratic party has had enough lessons in humility lately, and it will have more until it starts to learn what those lessons are trying to teach.
3. Don’t set yourself up in opposition to the large majority of voters, white people. You don’t have to pander to racists to find a common agenda that appeals to a wide swath of white voters, while maintaining a strong social justice agenda. The Democratic party did just this for decades, with far more success than it currently claims.
4. Address the economic fears and pain so many of your countrymen and women face, even if their lives are not like yours. Develop a forward-looking vision for what this country can do to reinvent its middle class, and rescue itself from the clutches of rapacious billionaires. Even if they are big Clinton donors.
5. Apologize to the voters. Admit that what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked. Listen to other ideas for what might work better. And admit, Goddammit, that what has happened to the Democratic party is its own damn fault. Stop the scapegoat hunt, and place the blame on the people who’ve actually been making the decision and calling the shots that led to this catastrophe.
If you ever want to win elections again, stop telling me and millions of other people like me that we’re traitors or selfish dicks, and start figuring out how to give us a party we might want to vote for again. If you can manage that, I’m willing to come back. If not, have the decency to clear the rotting carcass of your party off the road so something better can get around it.
Comments
You are way off the mark in one bit:
The idea that voters are human is anathema to political professionals, those campaign managers and the like. Today such strategizing has become a participation with huge swaths of the public chiming in and parroting their preferred messaging. You might as well forget the idea of treating voters as people, and, especially, as remotely rational.
Second, the war between the parties is not about business versus labor. That dies with the Taft-Hartley act and has been being undermined by the Democratic party establishment constantly ever since. We have two clear poles. Our future as citizens is simply to knuckle our forehead and throw in as serf, servants and warriors for one or the other.
Condolezza, like Bush the Lesser, was oil. Trump too appears to be solidly in the oil camp. One might suspect that he is FIRE, but his portfolio is really more fraud and snake-oil. Look closely and you will see a long standing affinity of the GOP for Oil, and this is one pole.
Both Clintons and Obama, however, are FIRE, most particularly in the corner of the Financiers and Insurance, but Real Estate tags along with those two anyway. Not just banksters, either, but hedge fund managers and others of the broker ilk are aligned with the Democrats who, are in turn, aligned primarily with the interests of the FIRE sector. This became an irrevocably done deal not later than WJC the great de-regulator who promised the end of big government and regulations.
Your job, as a minion and "voter" (as opposed to citizen, person or human) is to pick a side. Other choices will be consistently eliminated.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
It's not often that one can blow up DK like dynomite
Congrats - quite impressive. I believe that today you won the Internet.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Great essay. Clinton's parting gift to us.
Great essay and spot on. I remember what you wrote previously where everything the Clinton's seem to touch, they corrupt. They poisoned the primaries and the entire democratic party establishment. Hillary corrupted union leadership to support her over and above who the members supported. She got John Lewis to attack Bernie Sanders while praising two race pimps in the Clintons. And now Clinton leaves us with a new virulent McCarthyism which has swept the democratic party and establishment which will poison debate and policies for a long time (a NYTimes article as noticed by Marcy Wheeler identified Putin as the force behind anti-TPP protests). I believe Assange when he said the Russians did not give him any leaked emails--Clinton campaign cynically used Putin/Russia for political advantage, which ironically did not give her any advantage except for the war hawks.
In terms of winning. Seems the only thing democrats know how to do after electoral losses is to move further to the right. Identity politics allows this to happen, as identity is defined outside of policy content and is no more than a faceless voting block--much as you describe. In this way, the establishment and big donors can pour into the vessels of identity anything they want. Saw this when Hillary and supporters used the language of republicans to bash Bernie's economic policies. I don't think the democratic party is capable of moving back to progressive policies.
Excellent point
Yes, if any lessons are learned by the DP strategists, it will be to cut-off the TP from the right.
Clintons' influence in the DP will be noted by economic and political historians, as the Clinton's were able to end generations of faith in the DP brand, and leaving the US for the worse, in so many ways.
Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever
I logged in over there to recommend and comment
I finally signed up here, been lurking since the beginning. I haven't been able to help myself logging in and trying to persuade over there, I don't know why. Maybe because I've been a member for so long.
I never posted much, so ya'll probably don't recognize my name.
I also demexited after 30 years. I appreciate your effort to explain. I'm tempted to write a diary explaining what its like on the ground in a red state. How amazingly clueless the party is to what's going on in this country. I see the russian paranoia and it makes me embarrassed. The stupid is impenetrable.
I don't have a party anymore. Most people don't talk about the issues that I think are most important. They all center around the decline of empire and the degradation of the biosphere. Even here, my impression is that the focus is on politics as if the trajectory will continue on course, just get worse in the usual ways. I'm of the opinion things will change very drastically for the worse in horrifying ways, and it scares the crap out of me.
I participate in another moderated blog that shares my concerns, but its mostly non-political, and focused on macro analysis of history.
I'm not politically active, except with my meager pocketbook, because I support a disabled husband, work a million hours a week, care for an elderly parent, and any spare time is spent on non-political service work on an issue very important to me.
I am, however, interested in political dialogue and voting, so I'm glad to be here.
Welcome Nerdsie - Great comment.
You can post about anything you like, it doesn't have to be political and there are lots of history buffs here.
" “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 "
I'd be most interested in reading such a report.
We call them essays. Of the kind you propose, I think of them as testimonies. All Empires collapse, just as the US is now doing. But until the Internet, historians and anthropologists have never had a chance to see inside the lives of the people while the empire was circling the drain: What did they think was happening, the most popular pockets of denial, changing attitudes toward government and society, and just getting through the day. Welcome.
Welcome to cc99%
I hope you do come back and write about history or any subject outside the farce of partisan politics that is nothing but the duopoly theater. This site is about the 99% of humans and history is a needed subject. The focus on the useless captured politics of our representative democratic republic system which is so broken seems to me to be a big waste of time. It would help if people let it go and focused on how to build coalitions and solidarity with each other globally. To define the current duopoly of electoral politics as a useful vehicle for the 99% to get representation or even hold up our basic human and civil rights is to me delusional. It's hard to deal with the fact that people who believe in democracy and equality and all that jazz have been herded into consenting by vote to this global madness. 'The pump don't work as the vandals stole the handle' Hope to see and read you around here. I'm more interested in reading about the long buried humanities and universal principles that people throughout history have developed to keep the wolves from the door.
Hello, neighbor. Heh. Nobody does it better...
Your lovely 'spankpost' makes excellent thought -provoking points and provides a link to the alternative space here for some who want to get free of the hateful atmosphere there. At least here there is FAR less piling on when someone has a different, unpopular view.
Took me a while to wean myself from there. Frankly I miss the days there when I still believed it was about crashing the gates, that the D party could be saved. Miss all the arts and science posts but have little time for it now.
I followed the Evening Blues here and spend most of the limited time I give for reading news here at C99.
On occasion I go there to read MB green posts and whatever else that catches my eye, looking for breaking news that interests me etc.
We travel internationally about six months of the year but even now still not ready to abandon the US. For one thing, we depend on our SS and teacher pensions, and though we have some savings don't really have enough to abandon ship.
Noticed upthread you mentioned checking out France. A British couple we met in Zambian bush camp a few years back have sold their house in the UK and bought one in France. Was interesting to read some of their posts on FB about all that they went through in both countries. Think you are very wise to go over there to check things out.
Perhaps you may have seen this?
Tips for those who want to emigrate to France
The following is a random anecdote but thought I would share that July in Zurich on way back from Africa we sadly experienced Swiss friends try to use the LOTE on us in support of Clinton. Even though they have the Green Party in CH , and one of them had participated in campaigns for it, they of course had never heard of Jill Stein. They were also like many of our white friends here, still enamored with Obama, aware of but totally ignoring the losses of civil liberties, the extra-judicial killings, charter schools, the foreclosures and lack of prosecutions, militarization of police, the climate serial killer all-of-the-above energy policy, attack on the safety net, trade deal etc etc etc.
Contrast that with Belgian friend we met up with in Paris on the same trip who has for years railed against US petro imperialism but who has of late really gone off the deep end with posting conspiracy theories on FB . He really was happy though, that we were endorsing Stein.
As the end draws near for Obama I am seeing a resurgence of these FB meme posters glorifying the Obama Family which are pure propaganda. I cannot let them stand unchallenged.
Here at C99 have read some of the useful discussions about a new party. Have read elsewhere that focusing on issues and finding candidates to support that way is probably likely to produce better results. Brand New Congress seems headed that way.
Wishing you, and all of us, all the best as we continue to try to interpret reality and act in such a way to produce sustainable results for life on this glorious planet.
Namaste.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Re-cap 1987 and 1988. The where and how are apparent
when you look at it all at once. Fear of change and the Democratic Party Bosses caused the country to go stupid in 1980.
Predictably and predicted, he bankrupt us. The U.S. economy, and through it, the global economy collapsed on Black Monday.
At the time, only a few of the wonkiest of wonks understood what was happening and what consequences the response to it would inevitably yield, but as I said, if you go back and look at the whole picture from 30 years on, you can see just where we turned to this model of pretending that shuffling vast quantities of money is a substitute for an economy.
It is also no coincidence that this was the year that Democratic Party Leaders sold out to corporate interest. Bill Berkowitz spent nearly a decade tracking down part of the very secret list of foundation funding of the DLC.
My point is that there is no going back for the Democratic Party, this is where they've been determined to go for most of our lives.
Thanks to another war criminal, we all know that, "Only Nixon could have gone to China", but how many of us have ever asked why Nixon went?
You may recall, doc
I was down in the trenches with you for over a year as dkos slowly transmuted into a play by Ionesco. We sounded the alarm. Clinton was a deeply flawed, unqualified candidate with whom the Village dems would suffer historic defeat. It is our fault, of course, that our predictions proved to be correct
And it isn't only the presidency. The right in this country has assiduously captured state leges and governorships. They only need to take a couple more before the threat of a constitutional convention looms. Have the Clintons or the Village dems devoted so much as a moment to address this imminent threat?. No. It's the Russians! So cynical, so insidious...
I've been away from over there for many months. As a decade long trusted user and ex-dem drone, I occasionally fly over the ruins of a once proud city...
We need a party--a serious party--and the dems will never again be that.
I remember you both over there, Chuck,
and agreed with you both.
Unfortunately, they seem determined to continue as they have been, comforting themselves with "she won the popular vote".
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
When the Rs are busy drafting
Constitutional amendments that outlaw everything after 2018, DKos will still be blaming voters and looking for Russian spies.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
It's a race against time for the Democratic Party
How fast can this sclerotic generation of 'leaders' die off/retire before the party collapses from a complete lack of electoral viability.
Because let's face it, none of your excellent prescriptions will come to pass so long as the current crowd is running the apothecary.
All these quacks ever dole out is laudanum and hemlock, and even with the patient on life support, they continue to insist on doubling the doses.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
So I got booted out of daily kos again and it's all
Dallasdoc's fault.
I was so happy to see his post over there today, and it just so perfectly said what needed to be said. So I got all worked up about it, then saw that he got timed out for it, and got pissed, then happened to run into the wrong person at the wrong time, Armando, in a different diary. and said something to him that also needed to be said (Fuck you) and invited everyone to flag me for it, and they did so...
I haven't read the site rules here yet but is it okay to say
FUCK ARMANDO AND TRIX
here without getting timed out, banned, bojo'd, flogged, whatever... If so I guess I won't say things like that. IMO those two were the worst during the primary.
Anyway, I just can't take that place anymore and I don't think I'll ever go back.. So I signed up here.. Probably should have a long time ago. So uh...
Hi everyone!
Yes, you can say FUCK YOU ARMANDO & TRIX here :-)
You just can't be an ass to people here.
Well, if Armando and/or Trix showed up here, and actually had the balls to post, I might say fuck you to them both myself, and I might get in trouble for it. But knowing what types of people they portray themselves as over there, I'm pretty sure they'd be acting like the same dicks over here, so I'd probably be okay.
Welcome, btw.
Good. I was going to make it my signature
but I thought that might be a little much.
Seems like old times, dinner dates and flowers
Just like old times, staying up for hours
Making dreams come true, doing things we used to do
Seems like old times being here with you
Don't forget bbb!
And Denise can be really, really offensive, also too.
Oh, and good to see you here.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I see BBB as the least offensive of Armando, Trix and DOV
At least based on way back when I actually went there. He at least has a sense of humor. The other three have sticks up their butts.
Then, of course, there's Little Napoleon himself.
Thanks to ye gods for C99!
BBB is a horrible snob, now preaching about automation
and replacing not everyone as good as his holiness with robots, what an a-hole.
I hate to inform him that the easiest damn thing to automate is the financial sector.
Yes, someone I know (don't like) made his fortune
installing warehouse robotics as CEO, I think. They own a house in the Thousand Islands, Canada and one on Cat Island in the Bahamas, where they winter after hurricane season. Smug, self-satisfied, self-preening.
I have little doubt that he is on speaking terms with Bezos. He picked the right glimpse of the future and went for it, with a big wad of family money to help. All I got was a moose antler and some books. From them.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
I used to get a kick out of bbb sometimes, but
yeah he turned into a real dick.
So many people I liked and read for years and years and had so much respect for lost all credibility with me forever. I guess some turned and for some it was just the true colors coming out, I don't know.
They won dkos
I think it was a Pyrrhic victory. That bunch drank toxic levels of Kool-Aid and now they want to blame Putin and us, of course, who called their delusion for what it was. I can't prove it, but I think some folks over there preferred losing with Clionton to winning with Sanders...
yep, very true.
Most there, I think, would prefer HRC's loss to Bernie's victory. There was /is something about Bernie that rubs people the wrong way there like Hillary rubs many of us here the wrong way.
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.
He won't bow to the corporate overlords
Bowing your head doesn't feel quite as humiliating if everybody is doing it. But Bernie wouldn't go along.
Even Trump didn't want to pay out of pocket to run his GE campaign, so had to bow to take the RNC money.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
I have an idea what that thing is
It's the combination of bluntness and candor, neither of which a fan of the Clintons--or most politicos--would find comfortable or welcome.
They don't recognize, or value, integrity or honesty. Yet those qualities are what filled stadiums for the old white Jewish Social Democrat guy. It certainly wasn't his polish or soaring rhetoric or carefully nuanced-to-each-audience message-tested triangulation.
Nope, his basic stump speech is one he delivered over and over until his audiences could join in the key lines. He spoke about justice--economic, social, the works. He told the truth about our rigged system, who rigs it and how. And that truth pointed straight at the Clintons and all they, and their pay-to-play operations in and out of office and at the family foundation, stand for.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti
'Offensive' does not cover
both DOV or BBB's nasty ass racism. I got 19 HRs by DOV's flying monkeys for saying that the economy was racist and classist and was one of the reasons so many black and poor people joined the military. They are both neoliberal/ neocons who are doing just fine in this cruel meritocracy. They define equality for minorities as being able to rise to to the top and win the rigged game. All their bs.about identity politics, pol worshiping persona and white privilege is so hypocritical it makes me hair stand on end.
There are many ways to say F U to Armando on DK
Without getting sanctioned... But you can't do it in plain English but you Cn Do it in yiddish lol
Orwell was an optimist
Oh, I now need to know how to say F U in Yiddish! Do tell, pls
I can say lots of bad words in several languages, but none in Yiddish, that I know of.
Please, do tell!
Welcome, Dopeman!
While I think you might as well leave Armando and Trix in the dustbin of history - living well being the best revenge and able to live quite well over here, and there are probably all kinds of cool sig lines you can think of otherwise - it's your choice.
No timeouts, no bojo's, no flaggings or floggings. Also no ad hominems and we try to limit the straw men. Just DBAA to this community. If you are, you'll get pushback and maybe a warning (from JtC or Joe, who founded this place). And as long as you consider the warning, that's it. The only people who were banned just would not stop being a$$e$. Those have been very, very few.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
You can say fuck you
to any asshole except the people here who you are conversing with. Some of us are swearer's and other not. There is no censorship other not being a rude asshole to other people. I suggest you read some of the earlier essays here to get a good feel for what this site is about. Glad to see you here I always enjoyed your spunky spirit at dkos.
Good for you, Doc!
I understand why folks don't want to go back, but it seems to me that politics is all about changing minds and we cannot do that preaching to the choir. For everything, there is a time ... sometimes participating in the choir is exactly what is needed!
I also remember that it drove folks crazy to see all of those nutty Sanders diaries at the top of the rec list all of the time. Seems to me that if we did it before, we can do it again ... and wouldn't a constant presence there have a good effect?
For me, I always like to think of the lurkers. For sure, some folks hearts are as fixed as stone, i will never get them to change THEIR minds. But those are not the minds that I truly care about, truth be told. I want to have "my side of the story" at least be available, so that it might have a chance to resonate with some readers.
I'm proud of you, Dallas Doc. You were brave and true. Thank you for doing what your heart and mind called on you to do.
~OaWN
I think I will go back to DKos one last time
just to see what my status is, and if I'm still allowed to log, in make sure I am bojo'd from the place. DK was my internet home for years, but it's gone to hell. I don't want to be a member in good standing there any more as I am now ashamed of the place.
My mojo is only down to three bars --
even though my last comment was on May 22 and I deleted all my diaries there.
(If you miss them they're here...)
“Those who make Bernie Sanders impossible will make Luigi Mangione inevitable." - Dan Berger
I agree with OaWN - stay there for the lurkers
Use them when you want a big audience. Don't read the crap. Read community diaries if you wish to keep your hand in, those that have nothing to do with Kos and tend to have few to no enthusiastic partisans.
Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.
Sorry to be so late replying elena
I mostly just read & lurk so I don't know how to navigate c99 all that well...anyway...though you make a good point, I have already GBCW'd. I just can't ignore diary titles that catch my attention, so I just need to stay completely away from DK.
More importantly, I clicked on your Pet Vet Help link and will donate as soon as I can get out from under current bills. I should be good to go in January if no other huge unexpected bills come along. I used to work as a vet tech/animal hospital office manager, and having to tell people their estimate equaled an arm and a leg and see their faces or hear their desperation over the phone when they couldn't afford to treat their pets is the main reason why I got out of the business. I just couldn't take it anymore...and this was at a private practice, not one of the ripoff chains.
One of the things that pushes vets to have to charge more and more is the cost for equipment and drugs. They used to make a lot of income off of vaccination and heartworm prevention, but then things like online pharmacies cut into that. Their main surgical income used to be spay and neuter, but the increasing number of specific spay neuter clinics that can charge less is cutting into private practices, so they tried to push more labwork, dentals, and boutique services to make it up - but that is not working in this economy. I'm not saying that to badmouth spay clinics - if driving down the cost gets more people to cut down on unwanted pets, that's to the good. I'm just explaining what I have seen happen.
I really believe that Big Pharma is ripping off everyone in vet med just like in human med.
Anyway, major props to you for starting this and I will support your effort as soon as I can!
One thing for sure
This is one of the best threads I've read in awhile, it reminded me of the old Daily Kos where discussion was actually discussion, and people interacted with wit, respect and intelligence.
Welcome to the many new users it seems, I hope you find C99 to your liking
Progressive to the bone.
just gave you rec #574 at TOP.
some people heard you.
Excellent update!
The entire update is priceless, but these three sentences do it for me:
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Late to the party
Thank you Doc . I went over to the cesspool to see what there was to see and found that the remaining denizens of dkos are still delusional and brainwashed. Your fine essay was right on the money. I don't think the Demorat's who own and run the party want to win. They could careless as when they do win they immediately blow it off with victories for compromise and 60+ = a majority. Good cop/ bad cop is the nature of this duopoly. It keeps the power right where they want it and democracy real democratic representation is an impediment to their global agenda. A fine exit diary but pretty wasted on the partisan authoritarians who are true believers. Hopefully the truth will free the people that are there and still believe that there is such a thing as more better Dems. or believe that it is all about the lesser evil's of the red and blue duopoly. I'm so glad you now post and write here. You were always one of the dkos posters who I respected and who fought the good fight. Thanks for sharing your swan song here.
Well done Dallasdoc well done
Well done Dallasdoc well done, you put 99% of my thoughts into words
Thx
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