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?

Stop taking voters for granted

[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.


It's the economy, stupid

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.


You catch more voters with honey than with vinegar

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.

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Big Al's picture

Daily Kossacks and democrats to commiserate over their disaffectedness.
And you know mimi, I don't put that on JtC, he's done the best he could with this blog. I'm not trying to blame or accuse per se, I'm just stating what I see. That most people here still view the democratic party as a vehicle for change, if only it would get it's shit together. .
If we can't speak about the evolution of this blog then that defeats it's purpose.

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mimi's picture

as an outsider, whose heart has no home and whose loyalty is not soaked with patriotic or nationalistic feelings, I just think, that one needs a complete new party, not liberal, not progressive, not green, not republican right or democratic center.

I would focus first on totally eliminating the electoral college. One person/one vote equally in weight. No winner take all, no electoral college, no fears that minorities will always by outvoted. Minorities are a minority only on the basis of their ethnicity and sexual orientation/gender. And voting on that basis and building an electoral college that tries to give those minorities a special weight with some tricks, just doesn't do the trick.

The votes in east and west coast cities can't have less weight just to give those states, which have larger land mass and less people and a history of exploitation, more weight.

You need to have equality in weight of all votes. The electoral college is not doing it. People, who vote shouldn't even have to register as something. If the Americans didn't have a phoby towards ID cards for each citizen (not DL numbers, of SS numbers), it would be much easier for all people to vote without being tricked out of their voting rights and equal vote weights.

The campaigns need to be publicly paid by taxpayers, there could be a mandatory little amount all people have to pay to guarantee campaigns are publicly financed. There needs to be a publicly funded media outlet, that guarantees anyone, who is running for an office, equal time to promote himself.

Once all of that is in place, I like to see a party, whose goal it is to fight corporations and finance institutions who take over control of political candidates and their parties, a party who doesn't shy away to legislate some sort of control over them to protect freedom of speech, civil, human and privacy rights and proportional representation.

I wouldn't want to have the words "liberal" or "progressive" or "independent" or "Republican" or Democrat" or "Green" used to name that party. Because they would have to fight for social and financial and justice equality and that is in the interest of all people from all those current parties and they may draw from all of them. To me the above words have no clear meaning and definitions and are worn out and not any more useful since the technological advancement of the internet. Tools of persuasion and manipulation have changed and reach over borders and cultural identies globally.

Liberal - liberal to allow equal rights to be destroyed?
Progressive - progress into what? Please define where you progress towards.
Republican - so what is that supposed to mean -
Democrat - so what is that supposed to mean - are Republicans undemocratic?
Green - there are things that need to be defined and considered that are not "green or environmental issues" per se.
Independent - Independent from what? Are you independent from the evil doers or the do-gooders? Who defines who is the evil doer and who is the do gooder?

I don't know exactly what you meant by "not putting it on JtC". I don't understand what him (JtC) providing this place and platform has anything to do with what is discussed here in dallasdoc's essay. Joe and JtC have done what needs to be done to rescue people from being drowned through voices on sites like TOP, where people gang up and throw people over board.

I still want a new party and the eradication of the electoral college.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Everybody knows what they don't want to do.

Knowing what to do is extremely difficult, because the situation is horrific.

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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

Big Al's picture

democrats who are unhappy with Daily Kos and democratic party leadership and want them to say they're sorry, they're wrong, and beg them to come back.
Just like this "diary" says.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

But maybe that's because I'm reading it in the context of DD's comments of late.

I guess you think that he wants the Democratic leadership to say sorry and beg him to come back because he doesn't absolutely rule out ever rejoining the Dems, as I have. At least, I see little else in the diary to suggest that this is an attempt to get the abuser to say sorry and buy roses and a nice dinner.

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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

elenacarlena's picture

about the Greens and look what happened. 1%?? Where the heck did everybody go on election day? We can't mount an effective 3rd party with 1% of American voters.

My preference is to ditch the Dems and build a new party. But how do we do that? IF the Dems would change and become more progressive, we'd have a much better chance of success in general elections. A third party splits the progressive vote. Fine by me, IF only we had the majority of the progressives! But if we do, they sure had a funny way of showing it on election day. OTOH, the Dems so far sure show no signs of learning anything from this disaster.

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Steven D's picture

entirely, but I understand your point. And I respect it.

That said, since this is a refuge for many people who only knew about Daily Kos and not many other progressive sites, which btw all went head over heels for Hillary this last year, I also understand that yes, a lot of us, including me, will react to what happened to us "over there" and at other sites.

It the grand scheme of things it doesn't amount to a hill of beans to paraphrase a line from a classic movie.

I'm here now and staying. All voices are welcome here, we aren't expected to be automatons spouting the Daily Talking Points or to live in fear of censorship just to express our opinions. That's what I love about c99 and I hope that it can retain that quality for soever long as it lasts. Which, btw, I hope is a very, very long time.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

We need a word more emphatic than "done" to describe what I am.

For that matter, unless we want to choose our political candidates the same way the establishment chooses secret agents (plenty of military training, no family, no close friends, hard as nails, as proof against pressure as a human being can be), it makes little sense to run electoral campaigns.

I know I used to disagree on that point, but what's happened with Stein has changed my mind. I don't know whether she was bought, bullied, or just persuaded it was a good idea, but it's obvious that when you go outside the duopoly, parties have little or no control over their candidates--their presidential candidates, anyway.

If you can have Jill Stein obviously helping Hillary Clinton and her band of merry pranksters, while the whole thing is framed as a moral defense of electoral integrity, we're in too deep for traditional electoral contests. Though I still think that if Bernie had been willing or able to join Stein when invited, things might have been different. But that would require a person hard as nails, with few or no attachments, proof against most kinds of pressure, etc. etc.

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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

Raggedy Ann's picture

Great read. Although what you espouse in this essay is reality based, it will be a hard sell for those in Oz. When we pulled back the curtain with Bernie and exposed the man behind the curtain, they closed their eyes. Problem solved! Good

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"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

Pluto's Republic's picture

And connected a few dots I had missed.

On that very last paragraph, I'd switch the voice to third person, and speak directly to the Democratic Party. That puts some distance between your readers and the Party, and gives them a chance to gracefully move closer to your position at the end.

Just a thought. It stands just fine either way, and resonates with authenticity.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

The essay talks about the party but addresses the party purists at TOP, so I maintained that address at the end.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

Wink

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cassiodorus's picture

"Hey Whigs: Do you ever want to win again?"

Now, I know that the primary effort of the "populists" in America is going to be invested in a revival of the Democratic Party. The result, I predict, will be even fewer Democrat seats, as David Brock and his associates continue their elite-money-collecting sprees. The neoliberals are still strong enough to control the Democratic Party but not strong enough to win enough public offices to make a difference.

At any rate:

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.

The problem is, of course, that for your bourgeois audience the point of listening is to improve their messaging.

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.

Neoliberals are, however, very clever about being wrong, as Philip Mirowski points out in his book Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste (which you should try to get somehow). When their plans are revealed in their full idiocy they always have backup plans which are also equally wrong. I'm not sure how humility solves that problem.

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.

Back in the old days, back when neoliberalism was a nascent opposition movement (& this is described in Richard Cockett's Thinking The Unthinkable), the Civil Rights Movement declared the problem to be "segregation." Nowadays, opposing segregation among the neoliberals means "pandering to racists." I can imagine the good "antiracists" at Daily Kos opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act merely on the grounds that its main proponent, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was a racist, as indeed he was. Today, the good folks at Daily Kos have jettisoned integration in favor of communities of the pure, with Denise Oliver Velez at the helm.

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.

Didn't Hillary Clinton do this? Her "solutions" were of course of no importance whatsoever, but she did follow in the footsteps of Bill "I feel your pain" Clinton. The problem of course is that even the truth is a lie when coming out of the mouths of people who have no intention of doing what it takes to solve the problems they "address."

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.

This solution of yours, dallasdoc, comes closest to the heart of the problem, which is that the people who should currently be apologizing to the voters have no rightful business in government at all. Even if the Democrats "blamed them" they'd just be switched to another seat on the gravy train, and allowed to continue in their paths of destruction.

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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

The essay over there is meant as something of a demonstration project: to illustrate the complete inability of partisan Democrats to entertain anything that might make their party worth a damn. So far the demonstration has been going swimmingly.

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May I point out that there were many regulars from the Daily Kos commenters who expressed our happiness about seeing another Dallasdoc diary on the site? I registered here but will not leave many of the diarists there by avoiding the site, even when I disagree with them, because my parents raised me as a Democrat and I continue to hope that the party will work its way toward better things. Here in NC there are two choices, and one is unthinkable. Glad to have a couple of Democrats back in our state government and hope to move forward to more despite pretty incredible odds. Yes, I was a Bernie voter who voted for Hillary against Trump and I would do it again. But can we work toward more inclusive choices for a better future?

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

They're the ones who decided to take an extreme path.

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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

Most of the people here are more than done with the Democratic party. For years I bought the argument that I had to stay in the party to reform it, but long experience showed me that the party has no intention of being reformed. I'm glad some people are trying, and hope they succeed, but even the best case scenario will see only a partial success. The Wall Street donors will not let go of their control, and the institutionalized corruption of our political system will not allow their complete ejection.

Political efforts are probably best concentrated outside party politics. In NC you have the Moral Mondays movement to show how this can be done. The Democratic party has too often showed how it co-opts such movements into the Veal Pen, and it is not to be trusted, to my mind. Outside political efforts which are not tied to the party are more likely to succeed in influencing change.

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elenacarlena's picture

Some friends there will not visit here. And vice versa. I mostly stay out of the political diaries there and avoid the trolls, but love commenting when someone like Dallasdoc comes along. I'm working on groups and projects here and there and elsewhere, hoping something will pay off eventually.

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Greyhound's picture

I'm afraid that is not at all likely. "We", as in rank and file members of The Party are utterly inconsequential, as this primary and election have so clearly demonstrated. The only "we" that matters at the level of real power are the "we" that elected President tRump. Will Podesta, Pelosi, or any Clinton ever pay any personal price for this disaster? Of course not.

They won the only battle that mattered to them, or any other conman, making sure that the only choice was no choice at all.

It's time to stop pretending and look at what is, assess, and move on.

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Today, the good folks at Daily Kos have jettisoned integration in favor of communities of the pure...

What the hell does this even mean?

I mean, you can't be much more of a cultural mongrel than I am and I wouldn't be very tolerant of a place like that...

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Cassiodorus's picture

He knew a bit. Or, more simply, consult Yvette Carnell over at Breaking Brown about "people who won't work with racists."

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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

myself, I'm in multiple "communities" (black, gay, agnostic, Michigan Wolverine fan) that often puts me at odds (especially with white straight evangelical Buckeye fans) so I really can't comprehend what a "pure community" would even mean, much less account for the amount of diversity that's within these so-called "pure communities."

I mean, I've "worked" with people who have more than a tinge of racism (even slept with a few) but like me nevertheless; many of my best friends are straight, I would say, and that's the way I prefer things...that doesn't mean that I don't recognize why various "communities" are formed and maintained (protection being the big reason) but...I find the entire idea to be weird

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riverlover's picture

So I agree, not a good term. Pure is now a loaded word. And community can be flexible n size and in meaning. Are all people on an interstate a community? For a ttime they are, but do not see it that way until traffic slows or stops.

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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.

blacks working with Steve Bannon (by "having a seat at the table") as opposed to protesting?

Ms. Carnell made a very bad analogy of comparing working with Bannon to working with LBJ (so much wrong with that).

I wouldn't even compare working with Bannon to working with FDR (who was difficult to work with...nevertheless, some things did get done)...

Maybe I'd compare it to working with Woodrow Wilson (which some black leaders attempted to do for a time)...or even to working with Nixon

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riverlover's picture

Feels the urge to deal with a not-interested POTUS, (spelling disorders going on) , time to retire from online for a bit.

Time to start looking at where else Power back to People rears its head. Time to grab.

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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.

Cassiodorus's picture

Feel free at any point to bring Yvette Carnell over here to C99% to explain her rationale. She's a grown-up and can speak for herself. I'm bringing her up (I watch her Facebook broadcasts, and the one I'm thinking of is one in which she discussed the "we won't work with racists" rationale) simply to point out that there's no real principle behind the idea of the communities of the pure. I think you agree with this argument as well, though it's my observation that one of those communities can be found, with the blessings of the post police, over at Daily Kos -- Velez' fans call themselves "porchers," if I'm not mistaken.

What's especially weird is that same folks who declared that they wouldn't work with racists are the ones who uniformly voted for Hillary "I campaigned for the Welfare Bill and the Crime Bill and I cozy up to Republicans at every opportunity" Clinton in the primaries.

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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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I just can't engage.

I've been asking people for a long, long time "What did Hillary Clinton, or Bill either, do that was so great for the African-American community? At any time! 1960s--Goldwater Girl. 1980's--privatizing education. 1990s--Crime Bill, Welfare "Reform," financial dereg (and yes, that last one had specific impacts on POC, especially Black people and Latinos). 2000s--"hard-working people, white people, won't vote for Barack Obama."

or how about this?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLNFsl130_Y]

I keep expecting that this video will be taken down, given Olbermann's new job.

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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

existed?

It didn't...not online and not in IRL...I know quite a few black people that were not happy with the choices that they had in the primary (I, for one, was not).

At least Clinton did know how to engage with the community (well, the more churchified parts of the black community, in any event). Sanders and his campaign made a decision not to engage with the community, to a large extent, or even to learn how to engage and it cost him.

By the time he began getting significant portions (and even majorities, I think) of black millennials (and I was happy about that development) it was too late...and that one is on the Sanders camapign.

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Deja's picture

and that one is on the Sanders camapign.

Remember how we were vilified and called racists by people like your beloved DOV? I do.

Remember how Hillary supporters claimed Bernie had never protested or been arrested during the Civil Rights Movement? Posted it at DK, too. I remember.

Remember how Hillary wasn't in favor of gay marriage until it was convenient for her to be in order to gain votes? I do.

Spreading lies and propaganda in order to divide and conquer isn't on Bernie, or his team. That's squarely on Hillary and her merry band of haters - who should now, embrace the suck!

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Some Sanders supporters...yes, some of you were and are; many of you are racially tone deaf...I never bit my tongue about that and I am not about to start.

I actually did do my own research into what Sanders did and didn't do as far as the civil rights movement and actually defended Sanders aganst some of that slime...the racially tone deaf part on the part of Sanders supporters are your own expectations as to what black people thought that should mean.

Some of you wanted to keep insisting instead of listening to what was being said.

I believe that I told elenacarlena privately that Clinton would NEVER get my vote in the primary. There was nothing that Clinton COULD have said or done to win my vote then.

If you have issues with DOV, take them up with DOV and not me...I can tell you that DOV and I disagreed about this publically and privately

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Deja's picture

many of you are racially tone deaf

What does that actually mean?

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and be idealistic, black people and white people ARE socialized differently in America (and you could break this down across all sorts of lines, it's not a white/black issue, per se...and that doesn't apply simply to America, of course) and have, at times, entirely different POV's based on the fact that groups frequently have entirely different postulates about...just living...a lot of times in these instances, there are no "right or wrong" answers or way of doing things or way of thinking...try to respect where an individual is coming from and to, at least, understand they are coming from...

Many Sanders supporters (and Clinton supporters, as well) simply see the premise presented and conclusions reached as simply wrong and in need of correction...and people find that to be offensive (not saying that a given premise is necessarily correct in all cases)

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Deja's picture

At least until the end. Not sure what you meant in the last paragraph.

I always try to respect and understand where a person is coming from. I try to always give people the benefit of the doubt. Now, if a person (any person, of any gender, race, religion, sexuality) causes me to lose respect based on their words and/or actions, fuck 'em. But I don't say fuck 'em because they're a certain gender or race, etc. I say it because of their words/actions.

It happened with my racist, sexist, agist boss. I didn't walk in disrespectful of him because he's Hispanic. He lost my respect because he showers young Hispanic males with privileges, special treatment, extra breaks, overtime, and lunch outings, rubbing it in the faces of the older Black males, the Muslim middle Eastern guy, and my middle aged white self. He can go fuck himself, and I will be a witness for one of the men who filed an EEOC complaint.

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mimi's picture

other black folks in the US? Aren't "black" folks, who are of mixed racial ancestry, differently socialized, dependent who their mothers and fathers were? The socialization of "black and brown" men in the United States are imo very different, dependent on who of their parents had what kind of ethnicity (and nationality). Just my two cents of real life observations.

Therefore I just run away from listening to this stuff. All the racial meanings to belong to me. Yep. Can't stand the discussions anymore. Of course I am a racist, I was an Obama supporter, a Sanders supporter and have German dna. That definitely does it. Cheers.

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Be a racist if you are black, and only black people get to say what is racist. Markos doctrine.

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

don't talk about DOV. You're entitled to your opinions, but you don't get to decide what other people can or cannot say. This is not TOP. We don't have roving gangs censoring speech and imposing their will on other people.

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

and a but of hypocrisy.

I was being judged on the basis (and tauned) on the basis of my online relationship with DOV.

I have a fucking right to defend myself, OK?

I can make a request and you can say yes or no...no roving gang of anything involved with that.

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You own you, and Dee owns her. If seeing actions in print is a problem for you or her, then maybe it was wrong to do in the first place. I owe you and her nothing but not bein a dick, and not being a dick doesn't include not calling her or anybody else out because you don't like it. You can defend yourself, her, god, mother and apple pie. You can ask anything you want. People can tell you no, you don't get a safe place when you don't like what you hear. Common courtesy -ha. I remember all the courtesy dkos gave to the "crackers". Hypocrisy and double standards may fly there, but they will get called out here.

Besides that, have fun.

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

DOV and I have somewhat different politics and experiences and views on all of this stuff...I mean, I did write an essay at TOP about my own reasons for personally disliking the concept of "safe spaces"

If you can't separate me from DOV then I will maintain that that's not my problem, that's yours

Nw...true enough, I never liked Sanders enough to vote for him. It's not my problem that (to this day) construed that into being a Clinton supporter (which I never was).

DOV never sent me over here. Elenacalena kinda sorta put out a request, I read, and said why not?

I came ove here with no hostility, I don't even link to work over at TOP. I freaked out abit when I saw some people that actually vted for Trump, yes, but I'm over that now.

Now, what dkos did and what I do are two different things. If I were over here as some sort of mole, at least I would be a bit more kiss ass.

So..I mean, for all the complaints about groupthink (which is how this convo started) I think that maybe y'all need to look in the mirror and check yourselves. (as I will do the same)

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elenacarlena's picture

We're all here to speak freely, to trade ideas and discuss possible plans for the future, and to build community, IMO. We feel constrained against speaking our minds Over There in many circumstances.

I have asked for certain constraints over here in the interests of sensitivity to others' feelings and that request has been denied. It is what it is.

So we each constrain ourselves as we see fit, and if we are rough about the edges and insensitive, then we'll have to endure the pushback because the protests won't be squelched either.

FWIW, I do think discussing blog writers who are not here to defend themselves should probably be kept to a minimum. And CK is clearly not DOV.

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Please check out Pet Vet Help, consider joining us to help pets, and follow me @ElenaCarlena on Twitter! Thank you.

I judge you based on you, what you espouse, do, and the company you keep. If you can handle the candor of this place, welcome. If not, that's your problem. We all do our battles face to face, not in anonymous gangs. We also don't do identity politics, which is all the bots at TOP are capable of. Don't like the message? Attack the messenger because they are white, male, and privileged. This from a bunch of old, rich, white, men, that are overly educated and without kids. You know, the epitome of white privilege they throw at everyone who doesn't kiss their ring.

You don't have to like Bernie or anybody else. We are non-partisan. Everyone is welcome including the Trump supporters and those that are non-political. After 10 years of big brother censoring us at TOP, no way in hell anyone puts a gag in someone's mouth at c99. No name calling, but facts and opinions stand for themselves - or not.

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

nd the company you keep.

Who is that, exactly?

I pretty much "mix it up" with everyone, online and off (and, if you didn't notice, I got over that Trump supporter thing at least enough to start posting here).

What the hell do you know about "what I espouse?"

I going to post a link here and an excerpt(which I don't like doing)...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/08/25/1563896/-University-of-Chicago-...

However, as a gay black man, I agree with the decision of the University, to an extent.

On the surface, one could well imagine that I would find the idea of “safe spaces” quite attractive; indeed, I have been in “safe spaces” frequently and, to some degree, I do participate in “safe spaces”

But in my experiences in most (if not all) of these “safe spaces,” I have not found my own dissenting views to be welcome.

Additionally, I have found that those participating with me within a designated “safe space” occasionally feel free to make many assumptions about who I am and, more importantly, who I should be.

And among those “safe spaces,” I would include online blogs. When it comes to online blogs, I don’t mind, of course, adhering to various Terms of Service (TOS), obviously.

I simply don’t believe that anything like a “safe space” truly exists and even if it did, mine is not a temperament suited for those venues.

There's an entire lifetime of family issues, "safe space" issues, identity issues, personal issues (i.e. difference doesn't scare me, if anything, difference fascinates me)...so, right now, I don't see you any differently from the black kids that said I was "too white." or the homeless queers in New York that thought I came from a rich family (I don't)

I'm more OK here than most people probably suspect. I didn't bring up any of the personal dynamics that happened over at TOP up for discussion, the rhetorician did with his language about DOV and "porchers" that was said in a pejorative way:

I learned not to do that type of stuff (bringing in stuff from other blogs, that is) when I was a regular at Pam's House Blend and for the most part, I adhere to that

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You can quit defending yourself to me. My objection to you is when you tipped a porcher (I guess) for the use of cracker. I reported it to the front desk, which absolutely didn't care.

As elena said, welcome to c99.

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

You could have Kos-mailed me about it right then and there

Honestly...

I don't recall doing that and sometimes I have been known to tip things by accident (since the rec button is rather sensitive)...but I'll take your word for it

I did see the word "peckerwood" used by another (white) Kossack about a week ago and I did tell him that I don't like that word...

BTW, what part of MI are you from?

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I didn't kos mail you because there is no conversation in that rat hole. It is all angry attacks, name calling, pimping the party line, and killing for sport. I was there for 11 years. I don't miss it one bit.

Several of us anticipated how ugly it would get this election and built this new home. Johnny is our admin and shoulders the technical load. Joe is his partner in crime. I am one of the mods. When we created this place, we decided it would be everything dailykos wasn't. Escapees from the gulag marvel at the freedom they have to actually speak their mind.

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

Went to HS on West Side of Detroit...most family members live in Macomb C. now with a few remaining in the city.

pimping the party line

I agree with that, in a sense... I do find it easy enough to say what I feel I need to say, for the most part but formulaic thinking simply gets...boring after awhile to me

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you either STFU or get sat in a corner like a bad little kid. I resent the moderation system there to no end. It is a weapon, and it treats people with zero respect.

Anyway, hope you enjoy your experience here.

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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

white and Black, and other POC as well, who apparently swallow the idea that Hillary=anti-racism whole.

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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

I see it all of the time.

People thinking that because I was (and am) so critical of Sanders that I had to be in the bag for Clinton...then again, there was the Clinton supporter that sent me a private message 2 days ago accusing me of being a "martyr for the Bern"

So I see a lot of "groupthink" on all sides.

Frankly, I wear it as a sort of a badge of honor that people can't possibly put me into the box that they deem to fit me.

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Jazzenterprises's picture

and something we should always be analyzing.

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Progressive to the bone.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Hillary supporters assume that Hillary=anti-racism. There is, apparently, little or no reason for this, given that she's been on the racist side of the race war more often than she's been on the side of anti-racism. And it's not just a reaction against Trump, b/c I saw this meme repeatedly during the primary, when she was running against a guy who got arrested protesting segregation at the same time she was supporting a segregationist, who made speeches against the Crime Bill and only voted for it because they folded the Violence Against Women Act into it (a shit choice if I ever saw one: would you rather be racist or sexist?), who was the only white politician to show up in 2004 when the CBC called meetings about Black voter suppression in Ohio.

But anyway, I repeatedly asked Hillary supporters why they thought she was anti-racist, what she had done in the fight against racism, what she'd done for Black people. The only responses I got were people calling me racist for asking.

That was the focus of my comments--not whether other groups also engage in groupthink, not whether Bernie supporters are better or worse than Hillary supporters, and certainly not the idea that All Black People Agree On Everything, which never even occurred to me.

As for Bernie groupthink, sure it exists. Groupthink apparently exists wherever there is a visible leader. The creepy thing about Clinton supporter groupthink is that, at its heart, there is vacancy.

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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

with you responding to a comment the rhetorician and grammarian made about a video of Yvette Carnell (where Carnell made a somewhat similar comment that I didn't entirely disagree with)...all of a sudden, you jumped onto groupthink.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Cass said:

What's especially weird is that same folks who declared that they wouldn't work with racists are the ones who uniformly voted for Hillary "I campaigned for the Welfare Bill and the Crime Bill and I cozy up to Republicans at every opportunity" Clinton in the primaries.

I was responding to the fact that Hillary supporters, who proclaim their opposition to racism as a reason why they voted for Hillary, can't deal with the fact that Hillary herself is often racist, on a policy level, which is the most broadly destructive way a public official could be racist.

I was commenting on the fact that Hillary supporters have taken a public figure who has, more often than not, occupied the racist side of the debate, and turned her into an anti-racist icon. And FWIW, in my experience it's been as many white liberals who have done this as Black people. The scariest thing about all this is that there is absolutely no reason for it--no evidence to support the idea that she's even anti-racist, much less that support for her should be The Way Americans Show They Aren't Racist. There is a hollowness, a vacancy, at the heart of all that rhetoric, and every time I pushed at it even a little bit, every time I asked anybody--white or Black--"What did the Clintons do for Black people that was so good?" what I got was character assassination in response. So it's an emptiness guarded and defended by people making character attacks.

So that is how I got to groupthink. And it was in response to something in Cass' comment. I'm sorry you perceive it as tangential.

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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

was black so you can start there with it...(and when it comes to the Edelmans, people bring up the Welfare Bill and some of Edelman's comments since then...I know)

Clinton's roots among the class of professional women in the black community IS very deep and very personal and has gone on for decades and is well documented.

As Carnell points out (rightly, IMO), the reality of black political life in these United States is that at some levels, black people and black politicians do have to put up with various amounts of racism and racial...tone deafness from public officials to get anything done and the Clintons were no exceptions to that. And in my view, neither was Bernie (nor is Obama, for that matter...but Obama is a strange and unusual case).

Bannon is simply entire dimensions of difference from LBJ, though. (black people did not, by and large, vote for Trump...they did vote for JFK, in fact, blacks were a critical part of JFK's win in 1960, so LBJ had an entirely different electoral calculus to deal with in many ways)

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Cassiodorus's picture

that Clinton had connections to Black elites in the South which were far deeper than anything Sanders had time to organize?

Is it "on the Sanders campaign" that the CBC endorsed Clinton?

I remain unpersuaded.

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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

endorsed Clinton, too. Why single out the CBC?

And why did Sanders not have those connections...that IS pretty much the way that politics has worked since the beginning of time (even for "outsiders")...why the expectation that Sanders should be the exception to the rule...and why are we even arguing about the primary?

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its membership would be a surprise to many voters, I think. The Intercept had a piece on that endorsement and who made it: https://theintercept.com/2016/02/11/congressional-black-caucus-hillary/

Ben Branch, the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, told The Intercept that his group made the decision after a vote from its 20-member board. The board includes 11 lobbyists, seven elected officials, and two officials who work for the PAC. Branch confirmed that the lobbyists were involved in the endorsement, but would not go into detail about the process.

Members of the CBC PAC board include Daron Watts, a lobbyist for Purdue Pharma, the maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin; Mike Mckay and Chaka Burgess, both lobbyists for Navient, the student loan giant that was spun off of Sallie Mae; former Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., a lobbyist who represents a range of clients, including work last year on behalf of Lorillard Tobacco, the maker of Newport cigarettes; and William A. Kirk, who lobbies for a cigar industry trade group on a range of tobacco regulations.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

dervish's picture

structured the primaries for a Hillary coronation long before Sanders even announced. They were leaning on the superdelegates far in advance of the election, and any supers that refused her put themselves in a precarious position. In addition the primaries were front-loaded with conservative, southern states unlikely to go for anyone except the known quantity Clinton.

If the first primaries were in places that are actual blue states, like CA, WA, MA, IL, etc, a candidate other than Clinton might have had a chance, as it stood, no one did, not Bernie, and not any other theoretical challenger. The DNC knew it was her turn, and set things up accordingly. If AL had followed IL, blacks in AL may have gone for Bernie, but because AL went before, those people didn't really get a chance to get to know him, or if they did, it was weeks after their primary.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

the damn contest. Make the necessary adjustments. (California is always last with the exception of 2008 when it was on Super Tuesday and Clinton won CA then)

One thing that I do have a somewhat low tolerance for in politics and IRL is the almost complete inability to say " I was at fault" or "my side was at fault."

This "blaming everyone but my own team" is as nauseating coming from Sanders supporters as it is coming from Clinton supporters now and in this respect, I don't see either of the two sides all that differently at all

Both sides are blaming everyone and everything but certain elements in their own losing campaign...how does the saying go, "when you point a finger, three fingers point back at you"

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PriceRip's picture

· · · the almost complete inability to say " I was at fault" or "my side was at fault."

          A few years ago the Nebraska Democratic Party switched from recognizing the state primary election to using a caucuses to select delegates to the national convention.

          When Hillary was running against Obama, the Hillary Democrats were in control of the Buffalo County committee. In Kearney the committee selected a small venue for the local caucus with the largest room of the house designated for the Hillary supporters (minority of participants). The Obama supporters were packed into the smaller rooms, narrow stairway, and outside on the porch. The Hillary supporters were not happy with the results that year.

          When Hillary was running against Sanders, the Sanders Democrats were in control of the Buffalo County committee. In Kearney the committee selected a large venue for the local caucus with the North Bleachers designated for the Sanders supporters. The Hillary supporters were expected to use the equally large South Bleachers. The smaller East Bleachers were designated for the undecided individuals. The North Bleacher were filled with Sanders supporters, several of the people setting in the East Bleachers were Sanders supporters, and several of us were standing along the West Wall. The West Bleachers were scarcely populated with the smaller contingent of Hillary supporters. The Hillary supporters were not happy with the results this year, except they were excited with the primary vote even though it did not "count" toward the national convention.

          Throughout all these years Hillary supporters have complained about the rules, the circumstances, and the lack of support for Hillary even as they have (except for setting up this last set of caucuses in Buffalo County) been in control.

          I see a pattern.

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Hillary's was a losing campaign in 2008 and 2016 and Bernie's was a losing campaign 2016.

Stop pointing fingers at Hillary's campaign and at least accept and take responsibility for the fact that the Sanders campaign lost by 3.6 million votes (minus some caucus votes)

In this case, you're being awfully "introspective" about Hillary's campaign but not about Bernie's inability to compete in the South (at least so he doesn't get blown out by those margins) but you didn't do all that great in places like New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey either and you couldn't quite close the deal in places like Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, and Massachusetts.

I've seen Bernie people point fingers at everyone and everything (rigged systems, low info voters, black people just need to get to know Bernie, etc.) but Bernie and his campaign...

And don't give me the "but what about Hillary" business because even the author of this OP knows that I've gone there and applied the same standard with Hillary's GE campaign and I don't see either of the campigns and the whining supporters all that much different at this time.

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PriceRip's picture

          " · · · take responsibility for the fact that the Sanders campaign · · · "

          I am responsible for you own actions. I was a part of a committee the made sure every participant had access to the caucus site. TPTB in this state's party were hostile. Is that so very difficult for you to understand.

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snoopydawg's picture

by 3-4 million votes I wonder how many of those votes were lost because people were kicked off the voting rolls or had their party affiliation changed?
And don't tell me that didn't happen because it happened to people on this site.
There was so much voting fraud during the primaries that no one knows if Bernie actually lost.
There were so many other shenanigans that happened during the primaries.
When a candidate cheats to win then the election should be invalid.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

with voter suppression in places like Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan (I talked to my cousin about election problems with machines at his precinct in Detroit on election day)

Were the margins in the primary more like the 2008 margins, I would probably understand the fussing.

I don't believe that 3-4 million votes worth of voter fraud exists in this case.

Hillary's GOTV operation (among other things) was piss poor especially given some of the obstacles in getting to the voting booth that some people may have had...you're going to Detroit at the last minute but not taking the 8-10 mile ride to do a rally in Macomb County...and thinking that sending Chelsea to Wisconsin would suffice while he goes to Arizona...and she can't give simple answers about her e-mails and has aides getting immunity deals and let's the story fly out there with that typical Clinton flair with drama

...and people wonder why I took a pass on the primary by voting for that goofball Martin O'Malley

Bernie wasn't that popular and, in the final analysis, neither was Hillary in the places that she needed to be.

Let's move on...I don't mean to be harsh

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Did California even get counted? Bernie won Michigan. For someone who "wasn't all that popular", Bernie would have kicked her ass if Hillary and the super delegates hadn't colluded with the media and DNC to steal the primary from Bernie.

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

Let me remind people, I'm a pox on all your damn houses guy.

And I pretty much thought that the entire primary was a joke and that both Hillary and Bernie were kinda jokes.

To a lesser extent, the super delegates dd the same thing in 2008. Obama overcame it.

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MsGrin's picture

money and arm-twisting and media-courting arguably begun in 2013 (although it seems more probable it was 2008) really had no impact on the primary?

K - got it. This is America, and for now, at least, we are all free to make our own deductions from the evidence presented. Using that logic, let's stay with this system of having corporations and other mega-donors continue to sponsor the party and our elections and see how well we continue to fare. I gather none of that likely makes any impact anyway and those who get to attend the performances will be served finer food.

Sure, some joke. Someone's laughing all the way to the bank, and all I know is that it's not me or anyone I know (ok, I lie - I know at least two people who showed up in the wikileaked emails or mega donor lists, but I don't live in their world).

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'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

I think it happened in 2008 after the primaries at Dianne Feinstein's house...at least that was my gut feeling even in 2008.

Whether Bernie was a willing part of that electoral kabuki (and I have seen that theory thrown about here at C99)...sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no...but I certainly thought that the 2016 primary was, by and large, a formality...so I had a distaste for it too but maybe for different reasons than many here; I suspected, sometimes, that Bernie was part of the show.

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MsGrin's picture

I think he figured the outcome was sewn up in advance and felt it was worth getting in anyway to make some noise and demonstrate an alternative, perhaps, I think, to put a crack in the impenetrable facade that someone later may be able to break through. I think he was surpised at how far he ended up getting. I think with an even playing field he actually could have played it off.

I have missed (or mis-understood) the references to which you allude which suggest Bernie played a role in sewing things up for Clinton, if that's what you are saying.

I believe he surrendered under protest

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'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

Mark from Queens's picture

I've been completely consumed for the past week with family stuff which has curtailed my involvement and even reading here (which has been a fervent daily exercise for me).

First of all I'd be remiss if I didn't first say that Dallasdoc's essay, as expected from one of the most cogent, lucid and best writers in the history of TOP, was so fucking dead on accurate and comprehensive. I celebrated with my heart soaring while reading it as my family milled around me. The truth will set us free, as they say. I haven't even had a chance to congratulate and thank him yet, because I feel compelled instead to respond to you after a string of your comments weren't addressed sufficiently enough.

So let's get to it:

Bernie wasn't that popular and, in the final analysis, neither was Hillary in the places that she needed to be.

Wasn't that popular?

What kind of Orwellian, RW-style Board of Ed revisionist re-writing of history is this garbage? Maybe if one's "news" come exclusively from mainstream media sources (who almost completely blacked out Bernie) you would not know such things as the extent to which Bernie consistently had massive, historic sized crowds everywhere he went. But I think you're smarter and more aware than that.

Here's the dirty little secret revisionists such as you and the Neoliberal cretins in the stagnant cesspool of TOP refuse to acknowledge: Bernie was attracting crowds on par with Obama '08. Full stop.

Tens of thousands at stadiums, open field city parks, and neighborhood streets teeming with exuberant diverse mixes of people, all over the country, in most cases announced only a couple of days before, just like Obama. it was a fucking phenomenon. A 74 yr old Brooklyn-born Jewish Socialist and obscure VT Senator, with no media, party and establishment support whatsoever was filling places everywhere he went (I don't have to time to flood you with links but I wish I did). But the media refused to reflect what was an unbelievable story, so rare in politics. For evidence of just one, in my hometown of NYC, here's a little piece for you to savor, "Euphoria And A Hero's Welcome for #BernieInThe Bronx, Mostly Passionate Black and Brown Young Folks." (warning to all 99%ers: contains a link to TOP)

"Coulda, woulda, shoulda
Let me remind people, I'm a pox on all your damn houses guy.

And I pretty much thought that the entire primary was a joke and that both Hillary and Bernie were kinda jokes."

A joke?

Name one fucking white member in the history of Congress who, in order to dramatize racist policies across the country, did something as magnanimous as Bernie Sander did in Chicago on the mid 60's, by literally chaining himself to the ankle of a black woman protester? He was so modest he didn't even bring the story up on his own. For context imagine Hillary doing anything remotely in the same universe and she'd have batteries of PR people writing up the corniest pandering platitudes stretching the truth or outfighting lying, which there's a pretty long record of. The good folks of #BlackMenForBernie were so taken in by him they toured the country to canvass for him in a bus with a picture of that scene emblazoned across the entire surface of it. They also had SUV's painted similarly.

He's a joke, a guy who singularly stood way above the pack of abysmal candidates in 2016 as by far and away the Most Trusted? You know what that guy is - a fighter. And honest. Poll after poll bore that out. Maybe we don't recognize them anymore because there are so few around anymore. He wins in a fucking landslide against the competition, on that account alone! Same qualities Obama had, though of course sans the photogenic calmness and poetic prose. In a epoch of deep distrust (thanks in no small part to Barack, who I canvassed for in 4 different states, including driving my van with 5 other volunteers to Youngstown, OH), people were clamoring to hear the things Bernie was saying. There are many media studies that showed Trump was given something like 80 to 1 coverage at some point. Whenever people would hear Bernie they would begin lining up, signing up to volunteer and participating in getting out the vote. As a further reminder, after each debate the subjects he was discussing were leading all Google searches and across the board online polls taken by the networks at the conclusion showed him with runaway numbers (same thing happened when here: "Most Prominent #BlackLivesMatter Activist Conducts Online Poll: Sanders 83%, Clinton 17%").

But maybe I've misunderstood your commitment dear Kev, and you're out in the streets like I have been, as a middle-aged white guy, at numerous #BLM actions to show solidarity with the oppressed. Over the past two years for me one of the most troubling things to observe at the pestilent Neoliberal cesspool at TOP was the absolute dearth of any young radical activist voices, and lack of support from elders. I did my part as often as I could to call attention to the two movements I believe would be the only saving grace of the pathetic Dem Party, Occupy Wall St and #BlackLivesMatter, but still remain highly skeptical of TOP's alignment with these struggles (here's a few more taking on that subject: "#MillionsMarchNYC was MASSIVE. Brooklyn Bridge? #ShutItDown" "LIVE NOW: 2k BlackLivesMatter protesters marching in NYC, not cowering to police brutality apologists" "Big Turnout for #LawyersMarch To Crooked Staten Island DA, Demand GJ Case Unsealed/Console Garners." "Not NYPD Machine Guns Nor Ferguson Tanks Will Intimidate #BLM Movement, Say Radical Black WOMEN") Far from it, folks there are just a little too soft, smug and disconnected. I'll never go back. A couple of hours wasted reading the inane and defensive remarks to DD's brilliant essay reminded me of why I'm here and not there.

That place OT where you've got a little following has become a joke. Those folks are not interested in fundamental change of the system, not whatsoever. And that is where we part ways. You all are just spinning each other's wheels, stuck in the charade of the duopoly, without the vision or courage to begin reimagining another way and then doing something about it.

I said my piece in April and have not been back, "As Another Pissed Off Liberal, There Are Some Things I'm Not Interested In."

For it I was honored to be right alongside my dear C99 compatriot dallasdoc to have been the only two people in the past few years with essays that collected over a 1000 recs. The clarion call of our messages have been clear: the Democratic Party is a failure as the Party of the People. We are compelled to fight for something more humane and dignified, as in a true socialist government the kind MLK, A Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Bernie Sanders, Harry Belafonte, Chris Hedges and Cornel West know is the only solution.

Cornel West doesn't rank for you, I know. But for those of us compelled to take the streets as the only means of redressing our grievances to a government clearly an auction house to the highest bidder, his kind of activism and advocacy is the only kind of allied force I see in this struggle.

He does for me, and as always nails about the motivations of those who claim one thing but do another:

“There’s a difference between a peacock and an eagle. A peacock walks around and says look at me, look at me, I’m part of a spectacle. A peacock struts because he can’t fly.

Eagles fly high with nobility. They look concerned with folks who are downtrodden.

We need more examples of eagles. And those examples are becoming more and more apparent from the young generation.

The eagles are not at Daily Kos.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

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

- Kurt Vonnegut

No, Bernie wasn't...and what Obama was able to do was to translate that into votes...and more than that

the entire primary was a joke and that both Hillary and Bernie were kinda jokes."

Meaning, I thought that the entire 2016 Democratic primary was a facade and a bit of a coronation (in fact, I said that in so many words)...hell, I wanted Bernie to go after Hillary for her racist 2008 campaign, which she was never fully vetted on in the primaries...I've written and addressed more than enough about Bernie's stuff in the 1960's.


Over the past two years for me one of the most troubling things to observe at the pestilent Neoliberal cesspool at TOP was the absolute dearth of any young radical activist voices, and lack of support from elders.

Again, I actually did write multiple times that I wanted Bernie to fully expose the generation gap that exists in the black community AND to get them out to vote for him. Bernie wasn't able to do that (esp. in the South) because I think he made some bad personnel decisions.

That place OT where you've got a little following has become a joke. Those folks are not interested in fundamental change of the system, not whatsoever.

Well, I think that some are and some are not but here's the thing on that...

I think that a "fundamental change in the system" still means that you're operating in a system.

One of the...paradoxes of Sanders' candidacy was that if he were elected President, he could no longer rail against The Establishment; he would BE the Establishment...and I would still be the type of person telling him to get the hell out of my sunlight for that very reason.

As far as Cornel West is concerned, he ranks for me "bigly" but I see him from a different perspective.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/8/28/1415585/-Black-Kos-Week-In-Review

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elenacarlena's picture

I think that's why it took Jill to ask for a recount. Hill's folks rigged the primary and then Trump's sneakier folks rigged the general. Look too closely at what happened in the general, some shenanigans might get uncovered about what happened in the primary.

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elenacarlena's picture

Clinton needed a decent challenger and Bern's not getting any younger, so it would have made no sense for him to entirely sit out this race.

Considering where and when he started, and that he somewhat hamstrung himself by taking no corporate donations, the Senator from the small state of Vermont did fantastic! What's to blame?

But it is a fact, had the liberal states gone first and given Bernie significant early wins, the media would have given him more free air time and the south and rural areas would have had more time to learn more about him, and he might have very well been an unstoppable force. It was not within his power though, AFAIK, to affect which states went first.

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I've seen you around these parts but not so much, Chitown Kev. And now we have the dkos pattern of moving off the essay's topic, running the threads out into narrow right-hand ribbons.

You have some points worth making. In such cases, it can be best to pen your own essay and start with a fresh slate and space to pursue the comments that arise.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

it can be best to pen your own essay and start with a fresh slate and space to pursue the comments that arise up.

I first read "a fresh slate" as "a fresh hate", lol

Perhaps to clear up some misconceptions that people actually have about me personally, I should do that

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for the lol.

But yes, might be good to reintroduce yourself. I have a fuzzy mixed-bag recollection of you from TOS. Though I try to take comments on their own merit, not colored by my views of the commenter, effort doesn't always equal success in that regard. Can be helpful to have you introduce you as you see yourself.

I've rarely seen this site's comments move so far to the right (strictly in spatial terms) that they're hard to read, as they did on Dallasdoc's essay and as often happened with the dkos format. And I have to say that I'm sorry to see it here. Which is why, when a side track takes off from a high-comment diary, it seems a good idea to start over with a new essay: highlight that side track for early readers who missed it and give opportunity--and space--to continue the discussion.

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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." --Jiddu Krishnamurti

please don't bring up DOV; she is a friend of mine (and co-editor as well) and...well, that's just awkward...I AM one of the porchers, after all.

Second of all, speaking to your last paragraph, you can go look it up, but that was one of my reservations against Hillary Clinton (and I'm not the only "porcher" that felt that way); everything from that tired "hot sauce in my purse" line to her 2008 racist campaign to not being able to think that black folks existed anywhere outside of a church (my most recommended diary at the TOP is a diary against Clinton)...and some of the things that Clinton said about LGBT issues didn't sit well for me, either.

We are talking about the same Carnell broadcast; it's on youtube.

Carnell is correct to the extent that the black community almost always has to work with government officials (at every level) that are racist or ones that have racial blind spots or officials that feel the need to do a "Sister Souljah" move every once in awhile. The examples that she chose defeated her thesis, IMO.

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Cassiodorus's picture

but don't bring up she-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned. Well that's awkward. What's that nice category I remember from Daily Kos: "cockroaches"? Why aren't we all "cockroaches" here?

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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

Deja's picture

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Cassiodorus's picture

The community of the pure is a community without "cockroaches."

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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

I never said that.

This is guilt by association bullshit.

If you see me as part of a "pure community" then that's your problem, not mine...and we talked about this on the "what's wrong with identity" thread about the difference between how I perceive myself (self-identify) and how the world perceives me (that emic and etic thing).

I've had this problem for the overwhelming majority of my life (black folks thinking I act too white, gay folks thinking that I'm not gay enough because I'm too much of a football fanatic, etc.)

Here's a great case study right here.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

And it brings up some issues that deserve essays in their own right:

I can imagine the good "antiracists" at Daily Kos opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act merely on the grounds that its main proponent, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was a racist, as indeed he was.

One of my favorite stories is about Social Security. I was objecting to Barack Obama's oft-repeated desire to cut Social Security. The person arguing with me said that Social Security was racist because the benefits were not initially extended to Black people. Of course, this was true--in the 1930s. It hasn't been true during my lifetime, and, in fact women of color are the ones most dependent on Social Security--women because they live longer, and thus are old for longer, and women of color because they generally have less wealth than white women do. So basically, when you cut Social Security, you're popping somebody's Black grandma in the mouth (you're also popping a lot of other people in the mouth, but less hard).

But never mind. It was racist at its inception, so it's a Racist Bad Program.

That interaction was on Daily Kos. I had a similar one on Twitter, except that time, the argument went: FDR created Social Security. FDR put Japanese-Americans in internment camps. FDR is thus horrifically racist. That means that anything created by FDR is also racist. Therefore, Social Security is racist and bad.

This kind of personalization of politics is a much more serious matter than people usually realize. Personalizing politics puts politics under the control of the people who determine the reputations of political figures and the political organizations or movements they lead. In other words, the nationwide "hatchet job" industry is basically in control of how people perceive politicians and public figures, what is considered most important about them, what is covered up, what fabric of lies and truth and spin ends up representing those people to us. And then, depending on whether they're portrayed as Good or Bad, their actions and policies get dumped into the Good or Bad box.

This would be a bad enough state of affairs with a press, or many presses, that ran themselves and had their own agendas. Given that the press is now basically a propagandist's wet dream, the state of affairs is horrendous.

The one thing I don't get is how they could possibly NOT know that the personalization thing that works so well for them in most cases, and worked swimmingly with Barack Obama, could do nothing other than work against them in the case of Hillary Clinton.

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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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

The problem of course is that even the truth is a lie when coming out of the mouths of people who have no intention of doing what it takes to solve the problems they "address."

And this:

the people who should currently be apologizing to the voters have no rightful business in government at all. Even if the Democrats "blamed them" they'd just be switched to another seat on the gravy train, and allowed to continue in their paths of destruction.

My favorite example of the first point is climate change, in which Democrats tout their willingness to admit that it exists like they're showing off their new prefect's badge, while doing jack and shit to stop it for the last 25 years. (There are exceptions, of course, like Kerry and Gore, but they've been convinced to go with the flow. The truth is, not all of the plutocrats are crazy enough to want to let global warming run its course, because, well, doing so is FUCKING INSANE, but their brethren have managed to contain them just fine.)

The second point brings up one of the most fearful things we're facing, which is that, for the most part, power doesn't seem to be located in the government anymore. Not primarily, anyway. I think the military portion of the government is the main place where governmental power can still be said to reside (I'm including the covert folks in that). I guess the Supreme Court might have power, but I'm not sure the justices have any more independent authority than Congressmen and Senators do. Essentially most, if not all, of these people have been reduced from men (and a few women) of importance to being dickweeds who stand in front of cameras in expensive suits reciting lines. Somebody else writes the script and puts it in their hands, and I'm not talking about their staffers.

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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

Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

it will be the Supreme Court making bribery legal with Citizen's United and equating dollars and contributions with speech. That was pretty much the whole ball of wax right there. And it took even less time to go to hell in a hand basket than I ever imagined.

Imagine that the greatest legal minds in the country or so we are led to believe did not have the imagination to tie campaign contributions to buying legislatures and legislation.

Any reform or reclamation of power will have to be through a Party that demands as part of its bylaws that all candidates associated and affiliated with it will only take small donations from individual donors with full disclosure. Bernie proved you can be successful with that model and its the first paving stone to a better future. The second paving stone would be paper ballots counted by hand in public with a verifiable chain of custody. We are entitled to have secure elections that are verifiable.

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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 "

Pluto's Republic's picture

[In response to Cassiodorus, above.]

This place is starting read a lot like a professional Think Tank.

Might be a good idea to get funding, like Markos did. The POV here is in demand at higher elevations. So I've heard.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Big Al's picture

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Cassiodorus's picture

you may wish to get Jodi Dean on board. Dean's signature concept is "communicative capitalism," the notion that your words are capital and that there is supposed to be some sort of profit, at least a symbolic profit, from the issuance of the appropriately-entrepreneurial set of communiqués.

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2970-not-us-me

But basically, above, I'm suggesting that for the most part any attempt to chide the Daily Kos faithful will be of very little consequence. Defenses will kick in and they will all give the same "fuck you" that dallasdoc is getting from licorice114 and ksingh0311 and First Amendment in his current diary. The silent majority that has put dallasdoc's diary on the Rec List, I might add, appears to be uninterested in engaging these people, and with good reason. They're lost.

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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

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

That's pretty damned surprising!

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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

as long as we know and respect where one another is, you're OK with me...I can deal with differences.

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Thanks for linking to your diary over there. Glad you wrote it.

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