@bobswern

that anything has changed in the last twenty years, because people like John Rendon and Lee Atwater existed before twenty years ago. That way of viewing history is prone to error.

What usually happens in history is that many things co-exist at once, and some are more dominant than others at different times. What changes over time is what is emphasized. If something gets emphasized enough, it becomes customary, then "normal," then invisible. Once it becomes invisible, it has achieved maximum dominance, and cannot be dislodged until steps have been taken to make it visible again--a very difficult process.

When a group of well-funded people decide to re-engineer their society so that they can accomplish political and economic goals impossible under their current conditions, the process I describe above gets supercharged.

It should be obvious that if a group of elites wants to move the entire country to the right, as with, for instance, the Reagan Revolution, they would start the process by hiring political operatives, ideally to influence both parties. They would also recruit lawyers, journalists, media figures, educators, judges, and, of course, politicians. It stands to reason that these individuals would exist before the social engineering had been accomplished, in much the same way that abolitionists existed before the end of slavery was accomplished. Many political opinions exist at any one time; you could probably find activists trying to bring about left-wing anarchism in this country right now. That's not the point. The point is, which ideas receive emphasis, and what is done to provide this emphasis? Who creates the conditions for a particular set of ideas to prosper, while another set of ideas withers? When and how, specifically, does this happen?

The existence of people like Rendon and his group which started, unsurprisingly, in 1981, is hardly evidence that little or nothing of significance has changed. People like Rendon, Atwater, Al From, Karl Rove, and others were working in the 80s--and even the 70s--to create the right-wing America we now inhabit...or perhaps I should say, the fascist America we now inhabit, because this America is as oppressive to certain kinds of right-wingers as it is to the left. Corporatists and fans of centralized power and resources only should apply.

You go back to the beginning of the movement that changed our country into what it now is, and use the existence of the early adopters as proof that there has been no change.

Like I said, it's a viewpoint that is prone to error.

#6.2.3

...These are by no means all of the horrible things that the Clinton campaign and their allies in the press and the electoral structure did to Sanders and his supporters during that primary. Twenty years previous, no candidate would have endorsed a rival who behaved that way...

This is simply NOT the way ("major league") politics in this country has worked for generations. (I'm stating that from extensive firsthand experience.) For further reference, lookup John Rendon's Wiki page. Rendon, (and later and more importantly) via his business, The Rendon Group, was the "leading," behind-the-scenes, "Democratic Party media guy" (a very deceptive term, in and of itself) since at least the late 70's/early 80's.

Any accurate, current-day discussion regarding the inconvenient truth that there's only ONE POLITICAL PARTY (and how business interests--in large part via our country's intelligence community--run just about everything) in this country should take a look at the information behind the last link in the previous paragraph.

@Amanda Matthews
...with just another C99P member being critical of your post in the comments. Your level of projection is absurdly over the top.

#6.2.3
I expect we’ll see more of the ‘site monitors’ as time goes by.

@thanatokephaloides

From depression and a form of "trauma" after it was over?

#6.2.3

I'm taking the liberty of re-formatting your last comment. It really is that important:

the sheepdog charge comes from the fact that Bernie assiduously campaigned for Clinton, after, among other things, her campaign:

1)accused him of being on the side of the Sandy Hook killer against the parents of the dead children;

2)cheated him of delegates in Nevada;

3)used the events in Nevada to project an image of Sanders supporters as dangerous thugs through the corporate press;

4)including having a sitting Senator declare that she was "in fear for her life," which, under current law would open all those Bernie supporters present to charges of being, at the very least, enemy non-combatants;

5)falsely accusing him of racism;

6)falsely accusing him of sexism;

7)purging over 120,000 Democratic voters from Brooklyn, the one place in NYC where Sanders might have a clear advantage over Clinton;

8)changing people's voter registration data so they couldn't vote in the Democratic primary in AZ, NY, and multiple other states;

9)Declaring through the press that the primary was over and decided before California even got to vote, despite the fact that the numbers did not support that conclusion;

10)creating a near-blackout on Sanders in the press while lavishing attention on Trump;

11) getting elderly and ill people who are not fully cognizant to sign over their caucus rights to Clinton operatives (the execrably-named "granny farming,"); and

12)quite literally silencing Sanders' supporters at the convention with sound cannons.

edit: broke items 3 and 4 apart