Voters are not property -- the appalling reality of Democrats
With the new election cycle in the never-ending election reality of America, we now turn to 2020.
The Republicans are solidifying behind Trump, with the RNC basically become an appendage of Trump himself.
The Democrats are running everyone and anyone, though a few are slowly being pushed forward such as Kamala "the cop" Harris.
But this discussion isn't about that.
With Bernie Sanders still sitting on the pot wondering if he is going to run or not, there is a contingent of bitter, old, wealthy, deluded Clinton supporters (basically her base) who blame everyone under the sun for Her not being anointed.
But that's 2016 -- what does that have to do with now?
If you peruse through the dusty archives and finger through the mountains of files of why Clinton was denied her birthright, there is this doozy:
Only 80-90 percent of Bernie's supporters voted for her.
The reason for that, in the deluded, entitled reality of Clinton supporters, is that Sanders did not give his voters to Clinton. That voters are merely the property of a politician by which they can simply sign a piece of paper and *presto* those voters now belong to someone else.
Voters are not property.
Before I continue, I'm not here to defend Sanders or any of the capitalist parties. My contention, my issue, is this notion of not only a politician being owed a vote, but also that by their will they can dictate how you can vote.
Most individuals would look at a turnover rate of 80-90 percent and be quite pleased with that value. But that isn't the case. The case is that it isn't 100. Why? Because those individuals refused to follow the script. But it is more sinister than that. Voters are nothing more than a prop, a tool that you merely use to get what you want. Nothing but objects.
So the question isn't that 80-90 percent of his supporters voted for Her, it's that 10-20 percent did not -- all because he refused to hand them over.
That is the appalling reality of Democrats, particularly those who pray at the altar of Clinton. Voters do not have their own agency, their own concern, their own reality by which they decide with what they do with their own existence. No, voters are tools and you are meant to be used. You are not your own person; you are the property of whatever politician you gave support to. That politician can then, in this frightening dystopia, merely give you away to another.
A politician is under no obligation in this philosophy to do anything to garner your support -- your support is a meaningless phrase to them. In this philosophy, it is your loyalty, unquestioning, unassuming, that is owed, by right.
Every voter has their own agency. I can vehemently disagree with a choice a voter chooses, but that is their right, their agency to decide upon whom to give support to.
A voter can choose one of the duopoly - so be it.
A voter can choose Green - so be it.
A voter can choose Libertarian - so be it.
A voter can choose some other entity - so be it.
A voter can simply not vote - so be it.
Voters are not property. There is no reality with free will that will assume that 100 percent of individuals that support A will support B. It doesn't matter if A is close to B. It doesn't matter if A is almost identical to B. It doesn't matter if A is basically B. But the reality of politicians, of their deluded followers, is quite different. Voters are property, voters are heads of cattle.
"I have 100 voters, therefore I now transfer 100 voters to you. Sign here."
Voters are not property.
What I can't figure out is which is more frightening -- the psychopathic politicians who adhere to this philosophy or the people themselves who follow their master's orders and follow this philosophy as well.
Edit: 1st proof-read.
Comments
Congrats...
this treatise is a well stated review of c99p's raison d'être.
JtC said it all for me
Thank you, Strife Delivery!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
He didn't give her our donations either. So she took them.
At least I don't think he "gave" that horrible woman our donations. She sure as hell got them, though.
Since I had to use a programmable machine (and they use programmable counting software -- and that software has been proven to be capable of changing vote counts), I don't doubt the witch stole my vote from him as well.
I wonder how many of the 80-90% of the votes they claim she got that would have been "his" had the true candidate been allowed to run were actually votes for Her Heinous in the first place. I don't trust her or her bots as far as I can throw a flatbed 18 wheeler, and that number seems artificially high to me.
Side note: I love the commercial that meme came from. Soooo funny!
Well, that's a point. Maybe it's nowhere near 80%.
"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
A link for the
Clinton supporters asserting this? Obviously you're correct, but I'm not sure where this is coming from.
As an aside, if 80-90% of Bernie supporters did vote for Clinton, that says a lot about most Bernie supporters.
@Big Al Mostly in comment chains
Mostly in comment chains in various centrist sites I've seen that have started to accumulate now that the 2020 season is in swing and Sanders is still sitting on the pot.
Guardian, Raw Story, Daily Kos, Alternet even, NY Times, Politico, Twitter.
A quote from DKos for instance:
First line is one person's comment, second paragraph someone's reply to that comment.
I guess for me it's a sense of anger. The easiest election in American history with the most beatable candidate and they lost. They had every conceivable advantage and they lost to a game show host. Due to their arrogance and greed, everyone failed in pushing Clinton to victory. Not anything Clinton did. Clinton can not fail, she can only be failed. They will push every excuse imaginable in order to reject looking in the mirror and realizing that not only they lost, but they lost because of themselves. Not Russia, not Sanders, not reason #1405, just Clinton being the worst candidate in American political history.
Now, regarding the point about the 80-90 percent of supporters voting for her. Yeah, that's utterly disappointing. Clinton was the antithesis of Sanders and for that large amount of people to go to her is disgusting.
I went for Stein, just like I did in 2012. I have no idea who the Greens will have in 2020 but a decent chance they will get my vote. Or if by magic a socialist is on my ballot, OK then.
I often look through centrist publications in order to understand my enemy and how to counter them. And yes, I say my enemy. Centrists are smiley-faced fascists. Centrists have, throughout history, supported the iron hand of fascism. Centrists will protect the extreme nature of fascism while serving as fascism's shield. Centrists have time and time again destroyed leftist movements to protect capital.
That's what Kos is about
delivering voters. It worked out well before. Halfway through the primary, declare the anointed one the winner, ban discussion of anyone else, BOJO the dissenters and viola! Easy peasy, he delivers a solid block of demobots. That and 10,000 roses ought to get you somewhere.
It was 25,000 roses,
and it allegedly cost $85,000. He hit up his members for it.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
"just Clinton being the worst candidate in American political
history." Well, Buchanan was no great shakes, either. However, he won anyway.
How do we know that 80 to 90% of Sanders supporters voted for Hillary? Some poll?
First, the polls whose results reach the public do so because whoever commissioned the poll wants the public to get that information. So, the most relevant questions become. who commissioned the poll and why did he, she or it want the results to be public? And those are the questions that are rarely answered.
Second, there is a Bradley effect. I know that many Sanders supporters voted for Trump or for Johnson. Maybe they did not want to admit that to a pollster?
Third, not all polls are reliable or we'd be complaining about President Hillary right now, rather than wondering where "her" votes went.
Please see also https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-we-trust-the-polls-it-all-depends/
P
ain't no Bradley effect
an old story but needs to be told as a reminder...because I was there.
Hugh Schwartz, of Opinion Research, was the official pollster for Bradley and my company processed the daily tracking poll. In August Bradley was ahead by 18 points. The lead kept shrinking. Remember, I saw this every day in 1982. Ok, so the lead was in single digits in October but still looked safe. Field Research, an independent polling company, stopped polling because they thought the race was over. This wouldn't happen today.
As October ended the race got really tight and then on the weekend before the election Deukmejian pulled ahead. Schwartz was in a panic because he'd been giving advice to Bradley and this was not good! The Sunday night polling, processed early Monday (the day before the election) showed Bradley up by 1 point.
On election day the exit polls were coming in and we were processing them as quickly as we could. Deukmejian, according to these polls, was ahead by 5 points. Schwartz didn't believe it, or didn't want to believe it. He decided not enough returns from Central Los Angeles had come in so he told us to weight the data, increasing those Democratic votes in his results. This showed Bradley ahead...when the unweighted data didn't.
Then Hugh went on TV as the polls closed to explain how Bradley won. And also how Jerry Brown had been elected Senator over Pete Wilson...which also was wrong. We'll come back to that.
Once the votes were counted and Bradley lost, Hugh fished around for an explanation. His polling was on the money but he'd fudged the numbers, instead publishing a fiction. He could have told the truth, that he messed with the numbers, that he deliberately did not report what was actually there (which would have ended his career) or he could make something up. And that's what he did. He went back on TV with the absurd idea that voters had lied in the exit polls because Bradley was African-American and they thought it would impress the pollsters that they, those voters, weren't bigoted....or something.
But then what was the story with the Brown/Wilson race being off by the same amount? Hugh never addressed that, as far as I know.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the so-called "Bradley Effect". What it really is, is a lie told by someone who had it right but then screwed it up.
Please post a whole essay of this!
I love 1st hand accounts, and this one is fascinating!
More, please.
It *is* interesting
Shaharazade and I watched the returns on tv that night and Hugh came on and spouted this cya nonsense. I remember jumping out of my chair saying 'whoa!" because it was such an outright lie.
Pollsters and market researchers often use weighted data in a somewhat honest way. I think that's why polls differ, besides the margin of error. But this one was a comedy of errors that he turned into a cultural weirdness.
Thank you and I am 100% certain you are correct. So, I will
stop using the term "Bradley effect." However, people do lie to posters, for whatever reason. I did myself once, when Little Georgie Bush was President, just because I did not want to give him even an eighth of an inch.
@HenryAWallace I don't mean it as
I don't mean it as hyperbole. When I examine all factors, Clinton was the worst candidate in American history.
She had been preparing for being President for close to 20 years, basically right after leaving the White House.
She had massive institutional advantages in 08 and still lost. She then forced her way in to be SoS so she could continue being in the public eye.
In 2016, the DNC was hers, bought and paid for. They rigged the primary in order for to win along with doing a money-laundering scheme through the Hillary Victory fund. They colluded with the media in order to prop up Trump so they could pick their opponent. She had the support of Wall Street, the MIC, Big Pharma, etc. She had a popular sitting President (Obama), popular VP (Biden), popular primary runner (Sanders), various celebrities, and a massive money pile all trying to push the 8-ton brick known as Clinton across the finish line. Her opponent was a game show host who had severe issues, which just mounted up day-after-day. And yet, she lost to a guy who said "grab them by the pussy". They outspent Trump 2-1 and still lost.
So yeah, to me, she is the worst candidate in American history.
Regarding that polling data, you can take a look here:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/29/data-manipulators-team-clinton-still-blaming-sanders-for-trump/
You forgot that she had the FBI
covering her behind on her private email server and sending classified information on it to people who did not have clearance to read it. And covering her influence peddling while she was SOS.
Plus she had people in Obama's justice department doing all kinds of nefarious things that Nixon would love to have had.
And with everything in her favor she still lost the easiest election in history to a reality tv show host. I'd be embarrassed to show my face in public let alone run for president again.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
She lost to Trump
, that’s all we need to know to be sure she has been the worst candidate ever.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I did not suggest that you meant it as hyperbole. To the
contrary.
A President Elect who intervened with the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case, as did Buchanan, was a POS, a waste of skin, in my opinion. Nonetheless, he won his Presidential election, but Hillary lost hers. That speaks volumes.
Or so I thought when I made my post.
@HenryAWallace It wasn't meant
It wasn't meant towards you, more just in general.
There are folks who will clamor "most qualified candidate ever" or "she won the election by 3 million votes" and all kinds of garbage.
I just wanted to lay my case why she was the worst candidate in American history.
Sorry for the confusion.
Thank you, but have absolutely nothing to apologize for.
Nothing was wrong with your post. I'm not the least bit upset or confused by it. If anything, I apologize if my replies to you have given a wrong impression.
I don't trust the poll either. 80% to me seems like it was
chosen for it's optics. If they chose too high a number then they would have no pretense to complain. If they chose too low a number it would reflect poorly on Hillaroid.
The first thing centrists did in our nation
was negotiate the 3/5 compromise.
"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
Excellent observation
Being a "centrist" by definition, means being in favor of the status quo. In favor of the status quo, just like the corporatists, bankers, ultra rich and especially the political pseudo-duopoly.
I don't trust Liz Warren--she hasn't got the moxie. She won't fire up many Berniecrats because of her cynical abstinence from endorsing him during the MA primary in 2016. Lizzy isn't far removed from the elites except on banking regulation. She has no spine.
Bernie is losing mojo daily. Ill-explained objections to the pending invasion of Venezuela by the vulture capitalists--he had his spine dissolved at the 2016 DNC convention and now wiggles like an earthworm and not a python.
Liz reminds me of an SNL character
When I see her or even just hear her, it's hard for me to focus on what she's saying for that reason. That's on me, I know. She makes me giggle.
You saying Bernie's spine was disolved in 2016 knocked it out of the park! Can't think of a better description.
YEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!
.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
As best I can discern, "centrist" is a myth.
IMO, they are rightists who watch what they say in public. Nothing more, nothing less.
Not just centrists, man.
They at least wear their colors on their sleeve. The lefties that talk a good game then vote for Clinton or get on the bandwagon for the next CFR candidate (i.e., Tulsi Gabbard), can and do more damage to prevent radical change than the centrists could hope for.
@Big Al I guess it all
I guess it all depends on what we want to call "left".
Social democrats like to call themselves lefties but they are just regulated capitalists with a heavy social network. Social democrats saw to the execution of revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg because she was a threat to capital.
American politics is so heavily skewed and also horrendously ignorant. Somehow social democracy, aka regulated capitalism, is communism.
First they came for liberal,
then they came for progressive, then they came for left (the terms). I actually used to identify as a liberal up to about 10 years ago. My experience on Daily Kos taught me I wanted no part of that because of who else identified as liberals and what they stood for. I never identified as a progressive but same thing, people like the little CIA dude (Kos) identify as progressives so I never wanted a part of that. It's been within the last few months actually that I've decided to not call myself part of the left either. Same reason, I'm not going to identify with people who pretend to be antiwar but in effect support imperialism which goes up and down the left side.
@Big Al I think it was
I think it was about 2 years ago I wrote a diary here about how the term progressive was dead.
Social democrats are trying to claim that the military and police stations are socialist. That basically the more things the government does in providing services the more socialist it becomes. Which is why social democrats bring up Scandinavia. Capital is still protected and that is the danger.
Democrats have a long history of co-opting things, from terms to whole movements. They water them down and ultimately neutralize them.
Capitalism requires imperialism because it needs to sustain itself with a never-ending supply of profit, which in this case is sucking up resources in places that suddenly have a "dictator" or "terrorist" problem.
I think you mentioned Gabbard. I think she is one of the few on the national stage that has talked about ending the new Cold War and trying to avert nuclear war. She actually used the phrase nuclear war, which is surprising in the modern political landscape, specifically for a Democrat. Now, I'm not endorsing her or anything of the sort. To me, it is just a bit surprising considering that a cadre of Democrats are quite happy with the prospect of WW3 with nuclear superpower Russia. Really, the only hope I have from her is that if she says nuclear war enough it might cause some much-needed realization in the American population to realize the life-ending consequence of our potential course of action.
Ya, it' easy to forget Obama won the Nobel peace prize.
Here we go again. That's why it'll never end, because the next one always brings a shade of hope.
@Big Al Obama never
Obama never should have been given the prize.
And, I have no hope for Gabbard in the sense of being a candidate or individual within the Democratic Party. You either misinterpreted me or missed my point.
The only praise I have of her is she uttered the phrase "nuclear war". Considering how asleep the American people are with this nonchalant attitude towards a possible war with nuclear superpower Russia, yes, having more people say the chilling phrase "nuclear war" is more than welcome.
There is no winning in a nuclear conflict. It only ends in annihilation and extinction.
The two greatest threats to life in general on this planet are climate change and nuclear war. The more people speaking, the more people acting against them, the better.
I'm not a progressive either
Or liberal or any of the names people call people who are against capitalism and wars. I like the term humanist. I'm for saving the environment for the animals, plants, trees, rivers and the ocean. Too many people who consider themselves liberals seem to be just fine with wars if it's the person who they admire are doing them. We saw how Obama's supporters agreed that Gaddaffi had to go as did Assad and the Ukrainian president.
And after what happened to Libya and the cackling with glee over Gaddaffi's death, Hillary should have never been considered for president. This woman has too much blood on her hands. And yet ... "she is not a warmonger! This is right wing talking points!"
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Humanist, huh?
I think I could go for that...
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I don't have such a solid opinion because
Clinton and her ilk go back and forth between calling themselves "centrists" or "pragmatists" and calling themselves "progressives" or "liberals." The only thing she hasn't called herself so far is a socialist.
So I'm not even sure what any of these things are, exactly. They've managed to destabilize language nicely.
"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
The ones who talked a good game, but urged us to vote for
Hillary included Noam Chomsky, Cenk Uygur, Charles Pierce and Thom Hartmann. Some of them were even calling out for Sanders to stand down before the primaries were over. I have no use for any of them anymore and certainly don't consider them leftists. As far as I am concerned, they are Democrats and "Blue No Matter Who Democrats" to boot. (If Hillary isn't in the "no matter who" category, I don't know who would be.)
That group also included Sanders. However, very likely, I will go to my grave not knowing what to make of Sanders, something I've tried to work through by writing and posting two essays here. I do hope he at least meant to do well by most of us. And that is as much clarity as I have about Sanders and as much as I likely will ever have. Others may be certain, one way or the other. I am not and doubt that I ever will be.
I voted for Stein, knowing she would lose. As best I can discern, our only options are Republican, Democrat, a candidate who will unquestionably lose and not voting at all. And, IMO, they all suck.
@Strife Delivery if you believe the
if you believe the official numbers to begin with.
Stein polling surged to 15-22% but she got 1%? Hmmm.
Like Canove polling over 50% and getting 5%.
Fraud.
Take hillarys vote total with a grain of salt.
If that's the percentage, that's pretty fucking sad.
It suggests that people are so frightened of Republicans that they are willing to accept blatant election fraud and voter suppression, and, for those that care, cheating of "their guy," in order to garner whatever meaningless protection Hillary offers from those like Trump.
I get the feeling I am not supposed to look too closely at what that protection actually entails. If I do, then again, I am the problem. After all, I might notice that she alternates claiming to defend us from Republicans with claiming to work well with Republicans and "get things done." Kind of odd to want to work with an existential threat to democracy in order to "get things done," but there you are. I get the feeling I'm not supposed to ask what "things" she is getting done, either, but that's all part and parcel of the whole. One minute, we need to have comity with our Republican brethren and not be "divisive" or "ideological." We need to be "pragmatic progressives" and not "let the perfect be the enemy of the good." The next moment, we must be willing to sacrifice anything in order to prevent these monsters from gaining more political power.
What is really being sold here is the *idea* of protection: the idea that there is a powerful person who will look out for you and defend you from the horrible bad people who are out to destroy your life. This person is smart, qualified, and "pragmatic;" she knows how the ugly world works and can rationalize her actions like a mafia boss. She's not stupid enough to have anything childish like ideals or fixed moral principles. At the same time that she is an adherent of "pragmatic" moral relativism, she's also the embodiment of Good in the political arena, fighting against an overwhelming and monstrous evil, and if we don't rally behind her entirely, we are no longer Good. Any criticisms of her might empower the enemy and are thus unacceptable.
I'd almost say that this is a 21st-century version of McCarthyism, which was an inheritor of certain kinds of fascist ideology: socialists (in America called Communists) are a monstrous, existential threat (as are Jews and others). In order to fight this threat, one is justified in doing whatever one must, including abusing one's own people. The leader knows under which circumstances such abuse is necessary, because she sees the big picture. We don't see the big picture, so we must trust her. Any failure of that trust, any objection to that abuse, and we suddenly become an enabler of evil, a traitor.
Interestingly, this political philosophy mirrors that of George W. Bush as well.
"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
You could make this essay into a pledge to vote authoritarian
regardless of the candidate, just insert preferred name of authoritarian to be bolstered by such pleas to accept sheepdom.
I was thinking more along the lines of her being a war criminal
The election fraud stuff doesn't move me much since all of our elections are basically frauds anyway.
Basically what we're talking about is people feeling they're forced to choose sides to stop the evil on the other side. Both right and left, if you will, feel the same way. It's disgusting and the reason why we should stop playing this game and demand a new one.
Well, Bernie led the way there.
While Bernie did have sense enough to say he couldn’t force people to vote for HER, he campaigned for HER which speaks louder, imho.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Isn't it true that he pledged to do so as a condition of being
allowed to run as a Democrat? Personally, I would have given a hollow perfunctory speech at the convention and left. Or, if required to campaign, gave lip service but with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
Others might have refused the deal at all, choosing to run as an independent. The Nader choice. You see how well that worked for Nader.
I would have loved it if Bernie had got up at the convention and said, "Vote for anyone except this crooked bitch" and walked out. But that would have been bad practical politics.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I didn't expect him to do that...
not really, though I hoped he would walk out.
Didn't really expect him to walk out either.
However, he sure as hell did more than give a hollow speech.
Then again, there was that shiner.
"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 figure all deals should have been off the
second he knew what was going on. And IMO he damn well knew how the deck was being stacked. He silently allowed his supporters to be screwed. And now he’s promoting their worst lies.
With ethics and beliefs and ‘courage’ like that, when you can do a total180 and go from “There’s a better way” to “Vote the the money grubbing war whore” and “RUSSIA!!!, maybe we didn’t miss all that much.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
A very good preach
to the choir, here, SD! I do believe 80-90% of dims voted for her heinous. I can attest to that because 100% of my dim friends urged me to vote for her heinous, but I didn't relent. As an independent, I voted third party. I'll bet many independents voted third party.
It's why I'm independent. My vote belongs to me and I get no guilt trip from the duopoly!
edited - of course
"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
Funny thing though
I know more people who refused to vote for Her, even though they are/were Progressive Dems, than those I know who voted for Her.
I question the entire 80-90% as well as the less than 5% for the Green Party.
I voted Green for the first time in my life. And many people here on these boards claim to have voted Green.
The stench of electronic vote rigging is strong.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
We have paper ballots in my state.
This gives me a bit of confidence. Not total confidence, by any means, but a bit, poquito.
"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
I switched my registration to Green
But I was really a Green already anyway. I've been voting Green since 2000...
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
I was shocked at the low Green vote
I thought it'd be 4%, maybe even 5%. Instead it was barely there, which means a lot of people didn't think building a movement was worth it.
Or that the numbers were fudged...
n/t
This shit is bananas.
Amen, sister! /nt
Or just didn't vote.
Which many advocated here. As I said then, that would be taken as evidence that you were too lazy or disengaged to vote. Voting third party is good, even if they have zero chance of winning. If third parties get more votes than the margin of victory, yes, they will claim that you threw the election, but they will be more careful next time to throw you a bone.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
The reality: Many Democrats began leaving the Party during
the administration of Bill Clinton.
Why?
1. Bill Clinton had campaigned on "reforming" welfare. Nonetheless, many either did not know that or did not take it to mean that he was going to gut welfare, or "end welfare as we know it." When he gutted welfare, many got almost as disgusted with Democrats as they had been with Republicans.
2. Many members of the LBTQ community and their supporters, including those who had worked to get Bubba elected, left* the Party after Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. He had originated DADT. He has, of course, tried to blame Powell for it, but Powell was not the President, Bubba was.
No matter what input he got from the military, he should have run it by the Human Rights Campaign and others before taking it to Congress. And, of course, we all know where the buck is supposed to stop; and that ain't with Republican General Powell.
As to DOMA, Bubba claimed a veto proof majority, but (a) that does not require a President to sign a bill, giving it his imprimatur; and (b) most often, Congress does not choose to override a Presidential veto. (My essay on this very subject: https://caucus99percent.com/content/bubba-clintons-fairy-tales-veto-proo... )
3. Another group left the Democratic Party during Bubba's administration, of which I am aware, is a group of Democrats who had just become disaffected, either from Carter forward or just during Bubba's administration, because the Party had gone so far away from its New Deal/Great Society phase.
Many of those people became Greens or became too disaffected to vote. We can surmise that the Clintons were very well aware of this from the way that the DNC scheduled its first Clinton-Sanders Presidential primary debate for after the deadline for switching parties in NY had passed. (We all remember, too, all the Brooklyn votes kept out of the primary. Since NY was faux Hillary's faux home state, it just would not do for Sanders to win NY, so they took every precaution available to them.)
Anyway, many of those who had left the Party, perhaps for Greener pastures, or perhaps not to vote at all, had, beginning when Sanders announced informally, registered or re-registered Democrat solely in order to vote for Sanders. They alone, IMO, could easily account for 10% or more of Sanders' primary votes. They would not have voted for Hillary Clinton if their lives depended on it. So, it wasn't so much that Sanders had cost her those votes. Those votes had not been Democratic votes for years. The Democratic Party had cost her those votes. Carter had. Her husband had. Hillary herself had. Not Sanders and not Sanders' supporters.
By "left the Party," I mean people who decided to stop voting Democratic, regardless of whether or not they formally changed their Party registration. Some changed it; some didn't bother.
There were also
the young people who were being flogged by the economy and voted in droves for President HopeNope and were disillusioned 2 years later. I think Bernie inspired them to come out again. When it was eventually HER, they drifted away. Also if POC voted in the numbers that they did for Obama, Her would have won. But they didn't come out in the same high numbers.
Edited for bonehead typos
Yes. Thank you.
How could I have forgotten to mention the Democratic President whose administration saw historic wins for Republicans? The very same President who, as Democratic Presidential nominee in 2008 got my own very last Democratic vote? Shame on me for not mentioning him. And thank you again.
He's pretty forgettable
Except for his Simpson/Bowles Catfood Commission....grrr.
It's coming up again.
Sort of like a cat's hairball coming up. Means testing SS is coming soon and that will be its death knell.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
How could you forget his insurance bailout?
"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
And his Grand Bargain Committee and his Sequester.
I still get angry when I think of that smug
warmonger looking straight into the tv cameras and LYING HIS ASS OFF about the NSA and the final nail in the public’s right not to be spied on and recorded by the government.
He’s being paid well now for all he did for his REAL constituents, the 1%. That so many of the ‘commin’ people idolize this man is beyond my comprehension. What ever the hell for?
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
He talks pretty.
Near as I can tell, that's the only reason. He was sandwiched between two buffoons who can barely string together a coherent sentence on a good day. Makes him look pretty good I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This shit is bananas.
Watch out!!!
You forgot the G in LGBTQ. You'd better fix it fast or the Hillbot SJW army will denounce you as a homophoberacistmisogynist, get you fired and picket your house.(at least we don't have the "Social Credit" system yet, so you'll still get Medicare and social security)
On to Biden since 1973
Great comment.
Your comment illustrates the essay's point really well. Hillary and her supporters know all these facts, yet they still believe that anyone who wouldn't vote for a Republican belongs to them.
"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
Thank you, CStMS.
I don't know that they really believe that. But, other than acting as though leftists who don't vote Democratic are doing something foolish, evil and against our own best interests, what do they have? Nothing. They aren't going to wish us a fond farewell, so they try to shame us. At that point, they have nothing to lose, except their integrity.
j/k Their integrity bit the dust decades ago.
In this philosophy, it is
In this philosophy, it is your loyalty, unquestioning, unassuming, that is owed, by right.
I believe this is known as feudalism, or at least one of feudalism's primary components.
"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
Even loyalty to nuclear family members is not always unwavering
I don't know who is loyal to the Democrratic Party for the sake of being loyal. I know people who are unconditionally loyal to the Democratic Party because they believe that they will be better off under Democrats than under Republicans and cannot see their way to voting for a Party almost certain to lose the election.
That group includes, among others, federal employees and their families. I sometimes forget that they don't all live in and around Washington, D.C. There are nationally-run properties and real estate in every state. The entire City of Boston, for example, is considered a national "park."
Feudalism in Western Europe
was, in theory, mind, a system of reciprocal obligation. In return for your loyalty I will protect you and you have a claim on my justice. Don't like it, see what kind of deal you can get from the Vikings, the Saracens or the Huns.
Mme. C. is another one of those stupid women, often women I am sorry to say, who when they get into high position, refuse to understand that employees don't wear livery, and have to make every business relationship personal.
Mary Bennett
Yes, it evolved out of the crumbling Roman Empire
Government could no longer be trusted. Coinage and laws could no longer be trusted. So personal relationships were all that remained. "I will swear to thee if thou will swear to me." Primarily between war lords and knights. Peasants were (and still are) considered cattle.
Feudalism broke down when the upper levels (their 1%) stopped following their oaths (leading to Runnymede) and started treating everyone as cattle. (Sound familiar?)
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
don't know if it really happened, but there was a
TV dramatized biography of LBJ many years back (Randy Quaid as LBJ), and at one point RFK, referring to LBJ's african american personal assistant, says something like, "Have your servant blah blah blah," and LBJ responds with teeth-gritted fury, "She is not my servant, she's my employee".
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I don't know. I noticed a number of PBS programs were out
to diminish the Kennedys. (Of all of them, I've always imagined that RFK was the most populist.)
If such a thing ever actually happened--and I'm not sure it did-- it was probably only because Bobby (and not LBJ) had grown up hearing his mother and father referring daily to "the servants."
On the other hand, LBJ used the n word, probably because that is what LBJ grew up hearing; and I am relatively certain that Bobby would not.
Loyalty isn't a virtue at all; it's an Evil
This is the conclusion I reached while studying the Nuremberg Trials (years and years before 2016, incidentally; I never imagined it would show up like this); the very concept of "loyalty", just like that of "authority", is one of two things: Redundant, or undeserved, and the threshold at which it ceases to be one is precisely the same point at which it becomes the other. I've specifically read that the Clintons value loyalty, which says nothing good.
I just about had a silent, private paroxysm just trying to type this post; my first-ever political arguments were desperate, impassioned defenses of the Clintons - now their wing has become everything I hate about the GOP, everything I effectively sacrificed the last 14 years of my life for to put an end to. This is what comes of Hillary's faithful attendance of those "prayer breakfasts", I think. If you haven't already, familiarize yourself with James Dobson and his vastly underappreciated impact on turning the government into an abusive parent (which is already some kind of Freudian perversity, don't you think? I HAVE a family, thank you very much - do I really need to dress up like James Dean, stomp up to the Bushes/Clintons/Bushes/Clintons/Obamas/Trumps and tell them in a screechy voice "You're not my REAL father/mother"!?!!?) - you may have heard of him after the "SpongeBob incident" several years back, but he's actually one of the most underappreciated monsters of our time and place. The book written about him by his own former friend and majordomo was literally titled "James Dobson's War on America".
If this is what the Blue Team is like, and it's them or the GOP, why shouldn't I vote GOP? Horse's ass apiece, right? I'm nobody's goddamned "ally". I gave and gave and GAVE (between 2015-2016 *alone*, possibly enough to buy a used electric car) out of sheer, authentic altruism, and if these people really don't believe in RIGHTS and ENTITLEMENT, but in DEBT, then guess what? THEY OWE ME, certainly not the other way around.
The most important right of all - a '0th Amendment', if you will - is RESPECT. No other right you'd care to name or take to court can possibly stand without that foundation.
RESPECT is the birthright of all sentient minds, NOT something that must be earned (despite, tellingly and alarmingly, being told otherwise point-blank in my waning days on DailyKos). If someone doesn't deserve that, then that person proves that by...disearning??? Isn't it weird how, in a society so obsessed with "earning", there is no *direct antonym* for it? Why isn't there a verb meaning, "to, by way of hard work and deliberate effort of a maleficent sort, cease to deserve something to which one would, in the absence of such exceptional efforts to prove otherwise, by default be entitled to"?
That needs to be a "litmus-test" for all future candidates: Is respect a fundamental right, yes or no?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Respect?
"Never give a sucker an even break." is their motto
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Yes, thank you!
I wrote an essay on this subject over on DK once. It didn't garner much attention over there of course. I've thought about re-posting and expanding on it here, but eh, there are others who are better at putting these thoughts into words than I am.
This shit is bananas.
*shrug* Give it a whirl anyway
Insatiable dissatisfaction with one's own ability to communicate is, as someone once put it to me after I'd expressed similar sentiment, "sign of a writer".
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Excellent point.
Religion as well.
But calling the Democrats a Cult would be rude. I'll leave that to future historians.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I doubt future historians will be sufficiently honest and candid
to call the Democratic Party what it is. As it is, histories, biographies, etc., have been written by partisans for a while.
Think of Demland
as a medieval feudal monarchy. Anyone left of whatever purports to be the 'center' is viewed as an inhabitant of Demland (regardless of personal, political views) and owes fealty to the monarch (most recent example, Her Heinous), with vague policy statements/'promises' offered in return. By not living up to the service/voting obligations of a vassal, feudal law is broken, and individuals who refuse fealty live beyond the law.... outlaws and outcasts, and are regarded as such by the rest of the population of said feudal state.
More scorn is poured upon these fellow inhabitants than on those inhabiting other similar states: Repland or Indyland.... or even NoVoteland.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Come to think of it...
...it's alarmingly similar to the white-supremacist hierarchy of anathema:
Inferiors > Hybrids > RACE-TRAITORS!
By their rubric, my father's an uppity lesser, my brother and I are abominations (of course, it isn't our fault), but that's really all peanuts next to my mother's apostasy. I've often wondered whether the strangely authentic hatred I've heard people sometimes put behind the word "hippie", or the decades of vilifying "liberals", has anything to do with code for precisely that. You'll all probably be tickled, in retrospect, to hear that back circa 2013-2016, I was at a point in my political hermeneutics where I was seriously considering submitting essays to DailyKos with titles like "Can Liberals Even BE 'White'?"
Anyone have any idea to what degree the Southern influence is in all this? As I've said before, I've lived my whole life west of the Rio Grande, but I feel more and more like The Truth(TM) is being dictated to me from somewhere I don't even have any reason to give the time of day to, by their own rubrics!
It's the brain-jellifying irony beneath the tactics of Rush Limbaugh and FOX News in the 1990s all over again: If their arguments were valid, then they wouldn't work, and they're only getting their way for precisely the reasons they shouldn't!
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
I think they might believe
Indieland and NoVoteLand are not legitimate kingdoms.
"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
Maybe it's 80%
of those who voted for Bernie, had their vote counted, and then voted in the General election. I met many young people who just let go after the Bernie fiasco and did not engage in the General. There are also all the Bernie supporters whose vote did not count because of shenanigans with the registration process who at best were able to vote provisionally. Do you think they spent extra time making sure they were on the voter rolls after being screwed so they could passionately vote for HRC?
Beautiful!!
So well put!!! Hoping Democrats let the strongest candidate float to top and not rig the game again.
Do not let the plutocrats divide us!