Bernie must stay away from Identity Politics

People are sick and tired of Identity Politics.
This is a measurable fact. You can see it in popular culture.
More importantly, you can see it in politics.

... identity politics remains a political loser.
Kamala Harris created the first big viral moment when she tore into Joe Biden, absolving him of being a “racist” even as she accused him of working with segregationists to oppose school busing. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand didn’t hold the race card but ran a campaign about “women’s equality,” attacking any Democrat who didn’t measure to her standards on abortion, child care and violence against women.

Sen. Cory Booker campaigned relentlessly on “systemic racism” and “social justice,” blasting Mr. Biden for his work on the 1994 crime bill and warning the nation of an “all-out assault” on black voting rights in 2020. Beto O’Rourke felt the need to make up for his own whiteness by going all in on reparations for slavery. Julián Castro built his run on complaints about “discriminatory housing policy,” injustices to transgender and indigenous women, and threats to marginalized communities.

Which bring us to Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to rescue her campaign with a Hail Mary appeal to “sexism.”

Something I'd learned from investing is that any position can be justified, with logic or morality, but if it loses money then it was a poor investment. Period. End of story.

Now look at the narrowing field of Dem candidates.
All of the most 'woke' candidates are gone, or are losing.
And that's happening in the Democratic primaries, not the general election.
This comes after Hillary ran a 'woke' campaign and still lost to the most unqualified candidate of all time.
It's long past time the Democrats learned this simple lesson: stay woke, lose elections.

That brings me to Bernie.
He leads with economics, not IDPol, and that's what is saving him.
Where Bernie skates near IDPol is immigration. He sounds very 'woke' on the issue, and that's a danger.
The working class is too busy trying to keep their heads above water to worry about immigrants.
All the time Bernie spends talking about immigrants is time he isn't addressing their legitimate concerns. And it gives Trump ammo to fire up his base.
That's just the truth.
If you don't believe then please check with the former candidates.

Bernie needs to stay on message: MFA, free public college, no more wars, tax the rich, replace free trade with fair trade.
Just those five things would be more than you could possibly expect from any other candidate.

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Pricknick's picture

I said it a few days ago and it still stands.

Sanders only has to stay on message and the rest will fall on their own. That take's a hell of a team and organization and it's far more evolved this election.

I'm starting to have hope again. A dangerous place to be after 2008.

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26 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick In strong agreement with gjohnsit & pricknick

Stick with the basic policies, Bernie, and you will win.

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5 users have voted.

NYCVG

Situational Lefty's picture

can accuse anyone else of sexism.

Hillary Clinton, the paragon of why people, world-wide hate women. She's done more to promote misogyny than any male politician.

Why does she get to accuse others of sexism?

I probably shouldn't post this here.

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20 users have voted.

"The enemy is anybody who is going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." Yossarian

Pricknick's picture

@Situational Lefty

Hillary Clinton, the paragon of why people, world-wide hate women.

I don't hate her and I surely dont hate women.
I find little use in people who use others.
She's a user and a abuser.
She's the spoiled child who got cut in line.
She's a bully bitch.
Narcissistic to the core.
Rotten to the end.

But I don't hate her.
(Dispise is still in the works)

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29 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Situational Lefty Her hubby is the biggest philanderer on the planet

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

That first link is particularly interesting to see you citing here!

This whole "SJW" business has been really upsetting and confusing for me (I don't like the term, either - it's short for three words that really don't belong lumped together and takes no effort whatsoever to take as a compliment - look at where my nom de guerre came from!). I'm a fantasy geek myself ("gamer" is a STUPID term for more reasons than I can relate here - suffice to say, imagine stereotyping "readers" or "watchers" or even "foodies" - it's just a technological medium, people! Let's corral John Grisham fans into the same pen with "Twihards", shall we???), and what I've seen the past 5-6 years...things were bad enough before, and this has been...indescribable. It's like if the 1990s were "Revenge of the Nerds", then the '000s were "Counterrevolution of the Jocks" and while there was a window of hope in the "Occupy" era, since 2014 it's been "The Jocks Strike Back and Now They've Got The Cheerleaders, Preppies, and Somehow Even the Glee and Yearbook Clubs Joining the Dogpile".

I have a very hard time even forming words to talk about it, because it's like my DNA is being torn apart by the helices - this conflict shouldn't even be possible...or else I'M impossible. I'm not afraid to take sides, but how can anything side against itself??? My entire existence, my entire life story, nearly every thought and experience I've ever had, not to mentioned everything I learned getting *my* social studies degree, is being nullified by this - all because of a bunch of unimportant strangers's Jerry Springer-like histrionics.

I ran into this yesterday; what do you think?
https://thoughtcatalog.com/joshua-goldberg/2014/12/when-social-justice-w...

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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!

@The Liberal Moonbat

That first link is particularly interesting to see you citing here!

I just found it in a search.
Importantly, it backed up all of it's claims (about woke = broke) and that's why I used it.

I'm not a gamer. Unless Space Invaders, Tempest, and Joust count.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@gjohnsit "Gamer" is a stupid term, for all the reasons mentioned above, and more.

The last thing we need is MORE group identities; they get shoved down our throats because unique individuals are hard to market to.

"Gamer culture" in particular should be an oxymoron by the very nature of the core variety of people you'd be talking about, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something...most likely Mountain Dew.

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-merchants-cool/

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4 users have voted.

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!

Dems keep saying we have much more in common with each other than differences, then dive head first into the Victimhood Olympics. All the special interest groups that MUST BE FIRST drown out everything else. If you don't see yourself in there you're SOL. A non citizen in distress is more important than the American in a homeless camp, a kid living in a car trying to go to school.

I guess it gives dems cover when they let tax cuts for the wealthy slide, cut social programs, vote for endless wars and in general get a free ride floating on the gauzy memories of the almost 100 year old gutted New Deal.

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@Snode Victimhood Olympics

Misery Porn

disgusting and losing ways to proceed.

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NYCVG

lotlizard's picture

@Snode  
The narrative is still, victimhood, victimhood, all around us victimhood — side with victims, else you’re siding with the Nazis.

The president of Germany, a Social Democrat who was kicked upstairs into the largely ceremonial position after failing to unseat Angela Merkel, is in Israel to offer an appropriate gesture of collective national contrition on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

And indeed, steeped in a certain kind of elite-led globalist culture, what passes for “the international community” would expect from Germany nothing less.

Yet, sorry, but the fact is, back home, people who are in desperate economic straits and struggling to survive don’t have the luxury of seeing things that happened 3/4 of a century ago as their number one emotional priority.

Come the next election, they are not going to vote for any of the globalizing parties, if they bother to vote at all.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@lotlizard The Holocaust chainsawed entire branches off my family tree (surely all Askhenazim could say the same) - but I would never dream of blaming modern Germans for that. Blaming people for what happened before they were even born is brick-stupid...and it's a recipe for creating new Nazis from scratch.

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8 users have voted.

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!

lotlizard's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat  
for the U.S.

Somehow, wounds whose salving and bandaging powerful people profit off of, never heal — funny, eh? Almost as if there were perverse incentives at work.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@lotlizard If you're an African-American whose ancestors were slaves, then odds are excellent your ancestors were ALSO slave-owners. Same goes for Euro-Americans; if your ancestors owned slaves, you no doubt have other ancestors who WERE slaves. How would that work? Does your nose pay reparations to your hand? *We don't pick our families....*

I, on the other hand, may be pale-skinned, but am pretty safe in assuming I haven't got a single slave-owner in my family tree - most of my ancestors never set foot in the Western Hemisphere until the 20th Century, and what would anyone do with African slaves when they weren't even allowed to own land for them to work? And what am I supposed to think if I'm told by a screaming mob that my hands carry the blood of crimes committed by my ancestors, gee, where have I heard that before?

Would those gene-mapping companies who claim your DNA as their property if you use their services have to get involved?

Come to think of it, why are we bringing the 1850s back up when slavery is STILL occurring, worldwide and NOT legally yoked to ethnicity, possibly in unprecedented numbers (not that population ballooning wouldn't explain that, how about some percentages?), TODAY, and African-Americans are NOT among them while some Eastern Europeans ARE? That, of course, is all *assuming* we exclude wage-slavery and modern iterations of indentured servitude (lookin' at you, Armed Forces)....

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6 users have voted.

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!

snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

I think it's very hypocritical for the world to gather in Israel and reshout Never Again when it's happening in too many countries right damn now.

And it's especially hypocritical when those people hobnobbing refuses to admit that Russia played a very big role in liberating the Jew. Are they saying that some lives mean more than others? Yep. This is exactly what they are saying.

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7 users have voted.

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

Wally's picture

I really do enjoy Brainlet aka Shoe in Box. Really funny and incredibly insightful. A tasty dose of wonderful youthful silliness and a salve for the soul especially if you are typically curmudgeonly like me. Here she addresses this past Hellary week:

[video:https://youtu.be/iJj-2Q5Ieo4]

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Jen's picture

@Wally For a test of patience, mute the video and turn the captions on. I'll give them credit, it does have captions at least.

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5 users have voted.

Is it great yet?

He needs a IDPol flu shot in the worst way. Being cozy with AOC and Talib is a cringe-worthy mistake in fly over America. It might be too late for the shot now.

The Dems are going to have a very hard time in the EC anyway. It is unlikely that the Libertarians will muster the level of candidates they fielded in 2016 and they cost Trump EC wins in MN, CO, NV, NH and 1 ME delegate. And actually the conservatives (Rs and Libs) beat the liberals (Ds and Greens) in the popular vote 67,474,169 to 67,310,732. Trump really got Naderized big time in 2016 and won anyway.

For the life of me, I don't know why people think beating Trump will be so easy. I think it will be extraordinarily hard.

But certainly IDPols are a killer in the states that Democrats need to win in the EC.

Dems are extraordinarily EC ignorant. Complaining about the Constitution is an act in futility.

I really think at this point that only way the Democrats can win in 2020 is to have a strategy to prevent Trump from getting 270 ECs. And that is going to require the most competitive Democrats to run in these states and have the others drop out. (Same strategy as Brexit). And then keep the advantage in the House and let the House pick the President from the top three EC vote getters.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

Where Bernie skates near IDPol is immigration. He sounds very 'woke' on the issue, and that's a danger.

Just because the Goopers like to conflate immigration policy with IP doesn't mean we should as well.

Unless of course you advocate throwing all those Hispanic American voters over the wall just to avoid offending the tender sensibilities of racists in flyover country who will never vote for Bernie anyway.

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13 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger
Granted, my sentence was not specific, but please don't assume the worst.

Immigration is a tricky issue because both sides have valid arguments.

On one side, we are a nation of immigrants, and immigrants are generally a plus for a nation overall.

On the other side, a nation must have control over it's borders. And too many immigrants will depress wages in certain sectors.

For more than a century immigration has been controversial in this country. Taking the woke position ignores that reality, and it is a reality.

I don't know what the right position is, but it isn't the woke position, nor Trump's position.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@gjohnsit

On the other side, a nation must have control over it's borders. And too many immigrants will depress wages in certain sectors.

It's absolute nonsense to claim that the US will not control its own borders in a Sanders Administration. Seriousy, that's just unfiltered Trumpist bullshit.

Also, immigrants are a net plus in terms of both tax revenue and jobs.

Myth #2: Immigrants take American jobs

Fact: Immigrants workers often take jobs that boost other parts of the economy

Immigrants make up 17 percent of the U.S. labor force, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but few experts believe they’re taking jobs from Americans, as Trump claims.

“Most economists agree that in spite of being a very big part of the labor force, immigrants have not come at the cost either of American jobs, nor of American wages,” Peri, the UC Davis professor, said.

The reason is that immigrants often have jobs that Americans tend not to take. So instead of competing with Americans’ for work, immigrants tend to complement American workers.

Stop feeding the beast.

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10 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger

It's absolute nonsense to claim that the US will not control its own borders in a Sanders Administration.

Of course it is, but woke calls for abolishing ICE give that claim credibility.
It forces Bernie to explain himself, and the old rule of debate is "If you are explaining your position then you are losing."
Contrast that with "Don't put children in cages." It requires no explanation.

And don't make Hillary's mistake of thinking that everyone who disagrees with me is a racist.

“Most economists agree that in spite of being a very big part of the labor force, immigrants have not come at the cost either of American jobs, nor of American wages,” Peri, the UC Davis professor, said.

I call bullshit.
Not just because I've seen what happens to industries taken over by immigrants (example, meatpacking used to pay middle-class wages. Now it's a hell-hole), but because I have friends and family in construction. And they will call bullshit on you as well.

Don't make the woke mistake.

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Wally's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger @gjohnsit

Angela Nagle argued against open borders from a left perspective and she got roundly abused (not just disagreed with) by leftists of just about all stripes.

Here's her article: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-bo...

She's probably best known for her book Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right

i have mixed feelings on the issue of immigation. Trump will certainly make it a one way or the other issue, where there's no way to avoid being pushed into one corner or the other. The MSM will let him get away with because it increases viewership. Nuanced and reasoned discussion loses.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@gjohnsit @gjohnsit

Not just because I've seen what happens to industries taken over by immigrants (example, meatpacking used to pay middle-class wages. Now it's a hell-hole), but because I have friends and family in construction. And they will call bullshit on you as well.

I got nothing for that. If you want blame immigrants for the stagnation of industrial wages, then you really haven't been paying attention these last forty years.

Here's what you tell your friends:

Will you really vote against free healthcare simply to keep undocumented immigrants from getting it too?

See what they say. You might learn something.

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7 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger

If you want blame immigrants for the stagnation of industrial wages, then you really haven't been paying attention these last forty years.

Of course I blame multinational corporations.
I'm a socialist!
But we are dealing with people who are getting little real information, except for what they can see.
And what they can see is immigrants working very low wages, in industries that used to pay better.
Think about that. You are asking them to not believe their own eyes.

See what they say. You might learn something.

Who do you think you are talking to?

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@gjohnsit

Who do you think you are talking to?

spouting Fox News talking points and who doesn't understand the root causes of the immigraton issue?

But we are dealing with people who are getting little real information, except for what they can see.

And it's our job to educate them; not pander to their ignorance.

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5 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

@Not Henry Kissinger
Just answer one question for me.

Think about the last time someone told you something that conflicted with your personal experience.
When you disagreed, and this personal told you "it's my job to educate you; not pander to your ignorance."
How did that go over?

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@gjohnsit
First thing as a matter of fact! (eye roll)

When you disagreed, and this personal told you "it's my job to educate you; not pander to your ignorance."

I already told you what I'd say to your meatpacking buddies. I'd also explain that the immigrants that took their jobs were only hired because greedy owners wanted to screw them out of better wages.

So instead of blaming immigrants for simply wanting to work, why not blame management for profiting off their undocumented status.

You'd be surprised what a little education can accomplish.

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10 users have voted.

The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

snoopydawg's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

IMG_3977.JPG

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6 users have voted.

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

@snoopydawg
and yet I've found it to be pointless in most cases to make this argument, in regards to immigration.

My tactic instead is to point out that immigrants aren't coming to take away good paying jobs. They mostly work in the food sector, landscaping, child care, and other low-paying jobs.
The reason you can't get a good paying job is because those jobs were offshored by the millions. Immigrants didn't do that. Corporations did that.
My tactic still runs into resistance, but they have a harder time denying it.

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CS in AZ's picture

@gjohnsit

I guess I’m out of the loop on current lingo. But I’m a bit lost because I don’t understand or know the baseline assumptions. Using the word “woke” regarding immigration policy, leaves me in the dark as to what you mean or are alluding to.

Perhaps this is something that literally everyone else knows, and I’m an idiot for asking. If so, my apologies. I am asking because I truly do not follow what you’re saying, because I don’t understand this terminology. Somehow “woke” seems to be summing up an entire world view or mindset, I get that, but what do so-called “woke” persons believe?

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@CS in AZ @CS in AZ I have an idea, but once the argument veered into racism it of went off the rails. I have my own opinion, but it's prob. 100 years out of date.

Edit. Didn't mean the argument here... out in the political world.

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@Snode

but once the argument veered into racism it of went off the rails

No nastiness. Just a difference of opinion.

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@CS in AZ
I guess it varies, but abolishing ICE and sanctuary cities would be a good baseline.

To put that into perspective consider these polls.

link

Penn, who served as chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, revealed that 84 percent of Americans favor turning undocumented immigrants over to federal agents.

“I asked them, ‘Do you think notifying ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] would in fact increase crime because it would inhibit people from reporting crimes or does it decrease crimes because it takes criminals off the street,’ and they overwhelming said ‘decrease,’ ” Penn told Hill.TV's “Rising.”

link2

Americans' concern with immigration continues to be heightened, as 23% name it the most important problem facing the country. This is by one percentage point the highest Gallup has ever measured for the issue since it first began recording mentions of immigration in 1993.

The woke position is the opposite of a majority of Americans. It's tone deaf.
Much of this is due to fearmongering by the GOP.
But if we lose this election then we have no power to turn down the fearmongering.

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@gjohnsit reduced to idpol. For a little while there, it looked like it was going to mean something like red-pilled, having your eyes opened to the larger reality, the battle that supersedes race, gender, religion, party affiliation, etc. -- all the horizontal infighting that prevents the masses from joining together against our oppressors (which can be thought of as a class of people or a system built to serve the class). And I don't mean socialism or any ism except maybe populism. Over the past 40 years, power, wealth, and control have flowed steadily away from the people. Away from the many into the hands of the few, as Bernie reminds us. We are steadily losing autonomy, freedom, privacy, choice, opportunity, mobility, access to information -- everything that honors and respects our basic humanity, our common humanity, everything that gives hope to the future, gives a reason for a future.

"Woke" would have been just right for that awakened consciousness.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

@Not Henry Kissinger And the Democrats will lose the EC by 150 delegates. Democrats need to get woke about the EC.

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@davidgmillsatty Just any old Democrat. More Clinton, more Obama, maybe a little Warren. Just what we need.

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Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

@laurel Is beating Trump. Clinton is not running. It is probably going to be Biden, Sanders, Warren or Trump. I have serious doubts that any of these Democrats can beat Trump in the EC on his or her own even if one of them could garner more popular votes. If the Libertarians don't siphon off several million votes from Trump like they did in 2016, I think Trump could still win the EC even if he loses the popular vote by four or five million.

More Trump or not? That is the question.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@davidgmillsatty

I won't be fully confident of that until after the Democratic Party Convention.

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1 user has voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@davidgmillsatty beating Trump -- I'd call that a good start. And necessary one if Ds are to energize voters and drive turnout. Actually, Ds will already be highly motivated -- unlike in 2016 when most assumed HRC would win, and so many did not show up --to show up to vote out Donald. They just need to be careful not to select someone -- like Biden -- who could actually dampen voter enthusiasm.

As to 2016 and the Libertarian vote : do you have any cites to show for the assertion that the Johnson/Weld Libertarian ticket cost Trump many more votes than it did for the Dem that year? Libertarians draw from both the right and left side, and that pair of pols clearly were from the nearly-extinct liberal wing of the R party -- mod/lib on social issues, non-insane on FP. Weld even came out towards the end of the campaign with some very positive words to say about Hillary, probably over fear his ticket might end up putting the dreaded Trump in office.

Iow, the 2016 Libertarian ticket was definitely a place to go for never-Trump Rs and R-leaning anti-Trump Indies, Hillary-hating lib/lefty Ds and HRC-hating D-leaning Indies. These groups were not likely to vote for Trump if J/Weld had not been a reasonable choice. Some of these would have possibly even gone for Hillary -- but not Trump.

But i'd be interested to see your cites. Meanwhile, if your position reflected the truth, wouldn't we have heard much more in public discussion about the Libertarian vote in the past 3 years holding back the Trump numbers? Not much that I've seen.

Instead the analyses I've seen have been about how the very high protest votes in the key Blue states of WI, MI and PN harmed Hillary. Protest includes: voted Libertarian, voted Green, write-in voters, and DNV. This was partly due to Hillary Hatred -- she was one of the most unliked nominees of recent times -- and partly due to the complacency factor, the assumption that HRC was going to win easily anyway, so why not vote for someone I like/don't despise. Or why bother to show up at all given the outcome is certain.

There will be no such complacency, laziness this time. And now that reluctant Ds and Indies and DNVs have seen the awfulness of a Trump in power, they will be highly motivated to go to the polls. Only a Biden could keep many of them away.

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@wokkamile And the fact that usually Libertarians are to the right of Republicans. I really doubt few would have voted for Hillary. Most hated her with a passion. Libertarians are the epitome of deplorables. And they knew she was talking about them as much as she was talking about Republicans.

Some might flip to Bernie this time if he was staunchly anti-war, but he is not. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich agreed about war, but that was about it. Bernie is no Kucinich when it comes to war.

Since they think socialism is the worst idea humans ever came up with, I doubt Sanders would get any Libertarian vote. I expect them to vote Trump if there is the remotest chance Sanders could win when they otherwise would stay home or make a protest vote.

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@wokkamile That lead the Democratic contenders had over Trump. It has vanished. Trump is pretty much tied with all Democratic contenders.

After his acquittal in the Senate, I think Trump will pull ahead. So even "the stop him from getting 270 strategy" won't be much of a strategy.

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snoopydawg's picture

This was so much ID politics to me, but more like the bills that Joe got passed hurt the working classes while pumping up the elite class. I don't know of any legislation Joe got passed that didn't hurt most of us and helped his donor masters.

Dropping this here.

Lol... bitching about how republicans are not taking impeachment seriously and are acting like naughty school children that the teacher can't get under control:

Senate Republicans are united again in saying they've heard absolutely nothing new in the House impeachment managers presentation against Donald Trump. That's after they voted en masse, as a unified bloc, against 10 amendments from Democrats to provide more information at the outset of the trial. They don't want to hear anything new, which is glaringly apparent in their disdain for the rules and blatant flouting of them.

So I followed the link and lo and behold look what it says:

Almost immediately after Chief Justice John Roberts gaveled in Wednesday’s session of President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, bored and weary senators started some basic guidelines in a chamber that prizes decorum.

A Democrat in the back row leaned on his right arm, covered his eyes and stayed that way for nearly a half-hour. Some openly snickered when lead prosecutor Adam Schiff said he’d only speak for 10 minutes. And when one of the freshman House prosecutors stood to speak, many of the senator-jurors bolted for the cloak rooms, where their phones are stored.

Rising identified that republicans as Warner (Democrat). But do continue kids believing that it is only the gop who is trying to rob the country of its wealth and that democrats are doing everything they can to protect us.

What I don't understand is why the democrats did not wait until they got all the information that they are now asking republicans to get. Nancy said that there was an "imminent threat to the country if Trump is not impeached STAT and yet she then held on to the articles for a month and is now asking the republicans to allow extra witnesses. Yes this happens in court trials all the time, but to this extent? It's like saying I have no more witnesses and the prosecution has rested and then try to reopen the whole case.

BTW little Adam Shifty has been lying to the congress. Saying that Russia invaded Ukraine and that if we don't fight the Russians over there then we will have to fight them here. Utter BS, but many of my online friends actually do believe that Russia invaded Kiev and took Crimea by force with lots and lots of tanks. Any website that debunks this bs is forebodened because they don't buy into Russia Gate. Sure... only read the news that agrees with your opinion and you will have your opinion verified. Also Trump tweeted the countries that Obama withheld aid to with Ukraine being first and that was considered CT. Don't like the facts? Ignore them.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K35WGjTh3AE&list=TLPQMjMwMTIwMjA5sv9iWOF...

Lol... Krystal and Saagar nail it. Greenwald's pict is first for some reason. Anyhoo watch it.

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

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

Chief Justice Roberts lets Senate Republicans show blatant disdain for impeachment proceedings

But the first person called out was Mark Warner Democrat and yet no mention of that in the comments. Talk about gaslighting.

Trump's tweet

A response.

The key difference here is that whenever President Obama withheld aid to another country, it was in the interests of the United States and not for the purpose of helping Obama win an upcoming election by smearing an American citizen with bogus criminal investigations.

Nowhere on the phone call did Trump ask Zelensky to investigate Biden. He may have said Burisma, but many countries wanted it investigated until Joe popped in with his threat. And not one witness said that they heard from Trump saying that he is withholding the aid cuz he wanted Biden investigated. Their key witness Sondland said it was his presumption that Trump wanted that. Did he hear him say it? NO. Why aren't republicans hammering this point?

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5 users have voted.

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

Democratic party IDpols always degenerates into vapid symbolism without confronting real sexism and racism. Example: during Hillary's democratic convention, African American mothers whose children were killed by the police came on stage. I think they were all dressed in red. But a year earlier, the DCCC sent out a memo to all of its candidates telling how to basically avoid and/or marginalize Black Lives Matter if they showed up.

The gop has always heavily target African Americans and other minorities for voter suppression and victims of voter fraud. Democrats tout African Americans as their most important base and have done next to nothing to protect their voting rights. Hillary instead of picking an African American as her VP (she would have won) chose a center right white male--African Americans were her firewall. Native Americans in North Dakota who were being voter suppressed by the gop said the democrats were utterly useless. The examples are endless.

And all of this showed up as African Americans did not show up to vote in 2016. Maybe ID-virtue signalling wasn't effective anymore.

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11 users have voted.

@MrWebster The biggest problem with ID politics is the politics part. I am uncomfortable with it because at the root of it all these groups have real grievances. It's the decades of democrats benign neglect, the party pandering, the organizers with their own personal ambitions, the lack of a united front that frustrates me. Schumers DACA government shutdown was so predictable.

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2 users have voted.

and I think maybe Bernie might as well. Remember this?

“It’s not good enough for someone to say, ‘I’m a woman! Vote for me!’” No, that’s not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry,” the Vermont independent senator and former Democratic presidential candidate said in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Hillary Clinton.

Also, I think the person who coined the term Identity politics recently endorsed Bernie. I think that might help more than hurt. We will see.

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10 users have voted.

@peachcreek
If Bernie said (something like) that IDPol of today is just a matter of diversifying the race and gender of the ruling elite, which is just another way of saying tokenism.
When class becomes part of the diversifying of the ruling elite, then I'll get onboard.

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7 users have voted.
Wally's picture

@peachcreek

I never noticed that it's origin was attributed to an individual.

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3 users have voted.

@Wally . It's surprisingly thorough with a good bibliography. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics Last night, over-stimulated by the conversation here, I ran across it and also this interesting report: https://shadowproof.com/2016/10/11/labor-secretary-advised-clinton-cast-... which references this wikileaked 2016 Podesta email. (Before conking out from sheer exhaustion). So Tom Perez was pushing the weaponization of idpol for Hillary back in 2016.

Anyway, the wikipedia article says its use goes back to the 1960s-70s. I concur with Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s and Chris Hedges' critiques of idpol - it ultimately goes against the egalitarianism and inclusivity that we're fighting for. It's a dead end. I believe it's being cynically used by the 1% to keep us fractured and weak.

And yeah, I too would like to know who was referred to w/regard to someone who recently endorsed Bernie.

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4 users have voted.

Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

Wally's picture

@laurel

She's Bernie's press secretary. There's also at least one YouTube video of her making a presentation on it in an academic setting. All easy enuff to find on the innertubes.

And I, too, remain curious as to the identity of the person who purportedly originated the term (and advocated in favor of or against its practice?) who has now endorsed Bernie.

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3 users have voted.

@Wally . I'd seen Briahna Joy Gray in the news identified as Bernie's press secretary and liked her a lot, but it's great to see her in a longer discussion. She's fabulously articulate and charming. It's good to know Bernie still surrounds himself with great people. This is probably the talk you referred --

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzE9sUiAcP8]

She seems perfect for countering the idpol b.s. that's being thrown at him. Toward the end, she seemed either tired or distracted by something. It can't be easy doing that, esp. at such a young age. I'll look for her articles, thanks again!

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2 users have voted.

Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

@laurel Barbara Smith was who I was thinking of....

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1 user has voted.

@Wally https://twitter.com/bern_identity/status/1218285946048614400
It might turn out that Barbara Smith is more known for "intersectionality" rather than ID pol per se. It gets confusing to me. Whatever the case, from Barbara Smith to Joe Rogan the tent's spreading pretty wide.

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1 user has voted.
Wally's picture

@peachcreek

. . . in any origins story.

I came across this article entitled The Origin of the Term "Intersectionality" by Merrill Perlman in the Columbia Law Review which asserts:

“Intersectionality” was coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a civil rights activist and legal scholar . . . in a paper for the University of Chicago Legal Forum. . .

Regarding the origin of the term identity politics, Wikipedia notes:

One of the older written examples of it can be found in the April 1977 statement of the black feminist group, Combahee River Collective, which was reprinted in a number of anthologies, and Barbara Smith and the Combahee River Collective have been credited with coining the term.

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1 user has voted.

@lotlizard . Clearly there is a limit to how much a community can withstand from a sudden massive influx of outsiders. It's an assault on the peace, integrity, traditions that hold communities together, and this strains existing lives and relationships. l cannot believe that the "world planners" who seem to be driving this mess are not aware of its destructive potential.

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0 users have voted.

Lurking in the wings is Hillary, like some terrifying bat hanging by her feet in a cavern below the DNC. A bat with theropod instincts. -- Fred Reed https://tinyurl.com/vgvuhcl

I don't necessarily consider those to be identity politics issues. Systemic racism is an issue that affects all of is. Social justice includes economic justice and climate justice. Aside from that, I largely agree with you. Obama didn't win because he is black. He won because he had an aspirational message and gave hope to the country. People care more about what benefits them than making history. Making history is something that excites middle/upper class liberals.

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4 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

"got woke and went broke" list are obviously not anything to do with whether they are woke or not.

J.C. Penney isn't going broke because they got woke. They are going broke because brick and mortar retail is going broke--and retail generally isn't doing so great. It's so damned dumb to say that it's because Penney's "got woke." WTF!

Sense8 hardly "went broke" because it was "woke." Nor did Luke Cage. Cancelled fantasy and sci fi series are legion. They might as well say Firefly "went broke" because it "got woke." And anyway, like Firefly, Sense8 came back from "broke" BECAUSE a mass fan movement earned it a few more episodes to finish the story with. Now, what its definitely "woke" writer/director did with those episodes was pretty damned annoying, and I'd be happy to chime in with all these right-wing folks about that--but it's just stupid to say that fantasy and sci-fi series get cancelled because they're "woke," when you have no evidence except that they were cancelled.

Sometimes, what with my irritation at current "liberal" culture, I forget how irritating right-wing people who abandon logic and critical thought can be. Just as irritating as the liberal people who do that, actually.

"This thing is "woke" and failed, so it must have failed because it's "woke."

FFS. There's enough things that "went woke" that DID fail for that reason--Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters--wildly successful franchises that fell precipitately because they "got woke." There's no need to lump every failed thing with a liberal leaning into one pile and say "See? It got woke and it failed!"

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9 users have voted.

"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
I didn't go through most of that list.
I only took a sampling.

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0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gjohnsit

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0 users have voted.

"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

lotlizard's picture

in this report about criminal gangs and bombings.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/drug-gang-violence-in-swed...

To get a clearer picture of who exactly is behind the violence, one unfortunately has to resort to reading right-wing rabble-rouser websites.

Identity politics seems to oblige its journalistic practitioners to self-censor, so as not to go off-message re who are victims of injustice and who are perpetrators.

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3 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

and it's still poisonous and gross and often life-threatening.

But idpol is not particularly interested in stopping bigotry as far as I can see. Not this current iteration of idpol, anyway. It's a distortion of what I was trying to do in the 80s. Kind of awful to see, really.

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4 users have voted.

"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

because Tulsi got rid of her.

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3 users have voted.

"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

He just needs to talk about them the right way.

The guy who got a crowd of white West Virginians to cheer for Black Lives Matter won't be felled by talking about immigrants. He just has to be careful how he does it. Rather than advocating for no limits to immigration at the border, he needs to advocate for the government to stop separating families, putting innocent women and children in prison, abusing them and taking genetic material from them. This is the government being authoritarian. It doesn't matter who it's being authoritarian to--if it's authoritarian, it will come for everybody sooner or later, and, in fact, it is. Bernie is a good enough speaker, and trusted enough--even, oddly, by much of the far right, at least in the sense that they believe he's a good and honest person--that he can manage this with grace.

However, the stupid crappy idpol that's peddled on Twitter and elsewhere, including in the corporate legacy news? Yeah. He needs to stay away from that, big time.

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6 users have voted.

"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