The Progressive Insurgency in the Democratic Party has officially died

This is just sad.

Stinging from the disappointment of Bernie Sanders’ loss in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, supporters pumped millions into the powerful advocacy group Our Revolution to keep the progressive fight alive and prepare for another swing at the White House.

But after another defeat in 2020, the 79-year-old Vermont senator is unlikely to run for president a third time. And the organization centered on his fiery brand of politics is undergoing a rebranding.

Rather than insisting on “Medicare for All” — Sanders’ trademark universal, government-funded health care plan — or the climate-change-fighting Green New Deal, Our Revolution is focusing on the more modest alternatives endorsed by President Joe Biden. Those include expanding eligibility for the existing Medicare program and curtailing federal subsidies for fossil fuel companies. The group says it wants to make sure Biden keeps his promises on those and other top issues.

I have to admit that I was taken in. I'm guilty of believing in hope.
I know that plenty of people told me over and over again that it was pointless to try reforming the Democratic Party, and they were right. I was wrong.

With the midterms approaching, Our Revolution doesn’t plan to stop supporting progressives who challenge more moderate Democrats in primaries — even as the party clings to its narrow majority in both chambers.
“We want to have a united party going in, and that means mainstream Democrats have to make progress on our policy priorities,” Geevarghese said. “They can’t just talk the talk in the campaign and then get elected and then say, ‘Oh, it’s not doable.’”

Jimmy Dore exposed the progressives with Force The Vote.
Now it's becoming part of the brand.

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Lookout's picture

...don't feel bad it was by design. Be glad for your awareness of the total sell out of the dims, and if you want a political solution focus on the people's party.

Me? I'm too cynical to participate in this fascist farce of government. Take care of yourself. That's where we at IMO.

Take care!

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23 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cassiodorus's picture

@Lookout until the rank-and-file membership of the Los Angeles chapter of Our Revolution voted to leave the Democratic Party in May of last year.

https://peoplesparty.org/our-revolution-los-angeles-leaves-democratic-pa...

The People's Party concept has attracted a few Our Revolution chapters after said chapters realized, after May of last year, that the Democrats they were being asked to support weren't even progressives. What this diary is reviewing are the opinions of those in "leadership" positions within Our Revolution, the ones Our Revolution Los Angeles rejected.

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10 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

in the UMD bookstore. It was a text for some liberal arts course. it was a book of translations of Sicilian Proverns. I wish I had bought it.
I mentioned it on another blog and someone quibbled that "gallows" is English not an Italian punishment. All I know is the book said,

"The Law is for the rich.
The gallows is for the poor.
And justice is for fools."
My Sicilian grandmother would heartily agree. I've lived my life with a Germanic belief in abstract justice instead of concentrating, the Southern Italian way, on Honor, specifically L'Honore di Famiglia, instead of crazy constructs like Justice.

EDIT:
At least none of the men in my family would have rolled over like a sheepdog for Joe Biden or Her Heinous. They might not have joined the fight in the first place, but wouldn't have cut and run at the first sign of trouble.

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11 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness Nobody talks about the DEEP divides among what ought to be called "European-Americans" - you HAVE to talk about a fictitious "white race". You can't even talk about regional variations anymore. Richard Spencer hit the nail on the head: "Woke" neo-racism is all a "photographic negative" of 'traditional' rise-of-the-South white-supremacism (who counts as such? Even the near-translucent Irish didn't used to) that can only lead to a regime that will make people regret ever thinking Trump was so bad.

But THIS? This is (comparatively) real. This makes sense. CONCEPTS, NOT COLORS. People take for granted that "blue states" are all of a mind, but how can (e.g.) the German-dominated Midwest be sure they're on the same page - or even reading out of the same book - as the Italian-dominated Tri-State, if conflicts of values like what you're describing are so deep? It's not that people aren't acting in good faith, everyone's acting in their own idea of good faith, and getting shocked when others don't share their agenda at all. It's A Comedy of Errors. Personally, I'm extremely keen on "abstract Justice" and abstractions in general, and would never have been inclined to call it "Germanic" - what about the Greeks? The Middle East? India? Shinto? You name it. Northern Europe has its runes, sure, but since when was tribalism not alien to them? Who gave us "FIAT JUSTICIA RUUAT CAELUM", and handed down to Western Europe the BULK of its presently-recognized "abstract justice" but THE ROMANS? There's so much to discuss here, and we can hardly even begin. It seems there's no space for new discourses (if newdiscourses.com's own meta-preoccupation with the mind-strangling seemingly-dominant discourse is any indication).

This "Black VS White" paradigm? ENTIRELY a Deep South mindset, leeching through to the rest of the country via the same old bad-faith missionaries. Time to call it out as such. The worst thing that's come out of the past 6 years has got to be the rise of what I can only call "Attack of the Mad Casting Director", where people suddenly presume to TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE. It's like a North Korean barbershop where they've got a menu of options and call it "diversity" - but real diversity means there would BE NO MENU, because the possibilities are INFINITE.

At least with the regional differences, that's what we're coming OUT OF - we're looking for the Owl of Minerva who flies at dusk. The goal of learning from the past is to ESCAPE IT, AND BE FREE AT LAST...isn't it?

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14 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!

janis b's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

I enjoyed it in all its glory, maybe especially this ...

It's like a North Korean barbershop where they've got a menu of options and call it "diversity" - but real diversity means there would BE NO MENU, because the possibilities are INFINITE.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@janis b Sometimes I worry I'm going out on a dangerous limb, but (and maybe I'm doing a bit of typecasting myself here) you're the invariably-nice one; if YOU like one of my phillipics, I suppose I MUST be doing something right.

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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!

janis b's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

'Invariably-nice' is also a relative concept, no?

Although we all enjoy 'doing right', and the approval it brings, we basically just continue to strive.

Thank you for your appreciation and perspective.

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3 users have voted.

@The Liberal Moonbat

This "Black VS White" paradigm? ENTIRELY a Deep South mindset, leeching through to the rest of the country via the same old bad-faith missionaries.

During the World Cup held in Russia, a number of Western pundits, especially out of UK accused the Russian team of being racist because they did not have black players. Russian pundits were a bit perplexed and countered that they did not have only Russians on the team but players from other ethnic groups within the Russian nation. Everybody in Russia was reduced to "white" regardless of language, culture, geography, history etc. And these people in Russia could be safely understood to act like Southern white racists. The world and history is being neatly divided and modeled into the American experience of race relations. Black vs. White nothing else. I suspect the world outside the West does not work as an extension of American Southern history.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@MrWebster Come to New Mexico sometime; my father could tell you all about the local Hispanic-supremacy; a handful of decadent feudal families have been maintaining the status quo since before the United States CAME TO THEM, and anyone not 'in' is only so welcome. "Anglos" are an honored 'junior-partner', but it has to be Anglo, not just any Euro-American; anyone else is secondary.

As I've said before, I've lived my whole life west of the Rio Grande, and I am really starting to resent Eastern-half condescension, be it the malignant missionaries of the Southeast, the provincial arrogance and self-proclaimed boss-hood of the Northeast, or worst of all, the place the two logically meet: Virginia, birthplace and stronghold of American fascism.

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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!

@The Liberal Moonbat
I remember having a lunch conversation with my good friend Douglas Kennedy in Reza's Restaurant, an Iranian place on Clark street in Andersonville, a traditional Swedish area of Chicago. I was expounding on the similarities of Ireland and Sicily. Both island nations, dominated for centuries by foreigners. Both Catholic with an undercurrent of paganism. Both shadow ruled by a criminal organization that had originally had been a revolutionary movement (Mafia is supposed to be a contraction of the Italian words for "Death to the French in Italy"). Both internally squabbling with neighboring provinces/cities. I didn't mention it at the time, but both having very assertive women. Although, I've never seen a red-headed Sicilian.

Your comments on white diversity are much appreciated. I think your words about forcing all race relations into the Southern mold are spot on.
IMHO, that's an attempt to divert the proles from the real conflict while the banksters laugh all the way to the bank. Without the agitation by those who seek to divide us we would be one people with only rare evidence of genetic diversity. I noticed at the time that in my High school class that not only I but most of the Italian boys preferred Swedish and Polish girls, the lighter taller and blonder the better. And the Swedish and Polish boys preferred the Italian girls, the shorter and darker the better. Sorry to say, none of us really noticed what the girls preferred.

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4 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness ...it even became a "meme" or somesuch in Sweden:

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1 user has 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!

gjohnsit.

When I cringe at AOC's words, I know that something in me has been laid to rest.

Eternally hopeful me has left the building.

A few very hopeful things happened in NYC in the past few days, but it is a waste of my time and yours for me to explore them. They will vanish like all the rest will, when de Blasio leaves office.

The monster coming into power is all over, gloating about how he beat the Progressives. He's a Trumplike narcissist, so of course he thinks it is Him, the Giantslayer.

We who know better understand that the NYC Progressive group killed itself. Just as the larger countrywide Left has managed to do. Their supremely idiotic message of Defund the Police was the weapon they chose.

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NYCVG

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@NYCVG From what I've seen and the consensus I've perceived around me (and I'm not talking about C99), I wouldn't have thought "Defund the Police" would be a "supremely idiotic" message - not the most motivating choice, perhaps, but not especially noxious, either.

Where is the real consensus??? I seem to be one of the few people who always feels like I'm standing alone. Why does nobody else get that EVERYONE is alone? I think it's a pity the MMR vaccine DOESN'T cause autism.

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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!

@The Liberal Moonbat
lie in real consciousness. It’s not about finding a ‘group’ that we “identify” with, It’s about first recognizing our separateness, our essential aloneness, and spring boarding from that cognition to the recognition that the very notion of separateness is an illusion. We are all connected. It’s inevitable, whether we agree to accept the idea or not.

Our individuality is the clothing we put on each morning, and we are the kings proudly parading in our invisible cloak, who “strut and fret our hour upon the stage and then are no more.”

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4 users have voted.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@ovals49 ...after that, I couldn't agree less. It is very much the "connection/group" that is the illusion. The proof is that it can be changed, and there are myriad ways one can survive and even thrive despite the collapse of a system (something which will likely be damned important to recognize in the days ahead - Divided We Stand, United We Fall). We are all individual particles floating through chaos (Fun Fact: Did you know the word 'gas' comes directly from the word "Chaos/Kaos"? If you look at the matter-state at the atomic level, that's precisely what it is!)

I think the fallacy is much like the one that goes "You must be religious to be Good" - it's the same reasoning even in 'conventionally' religious people, I think; they believe in "God" (and note, at least in Christianity which I think was always a pretty sick religion to begin with, all the "greater Body of Christ" imagery - and from there, note how the same mentality is found in corporations and the military, the authors of contemporary Evil!) because they don't believe in Good.

I do - or rather, I DON'T "believe" in Good, because I don't need to 'believe'; it's self-evident. I am living proof. I am autistic; I have never been a 'we'; sometimes I've tried to be a 'joiner' because it looked like they were having so much fun, but it NEVER worked out. Like Data of Star Trek fame, I am and have always been "a culture of one, which is no less valid than a culture of one billion". I have never truly experienced love, save for my cat (RIP 1991-2009). To the 'social fundamentalist' set, this would have to mean I am a sociopath, or a nonentity (and notice how quick that lot can be, when pressed, to shift the goalposts from "it's impossible" to "it's immoral") - BUT I AM NOT. EGO SUM. אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה. 'I Yam what I Yam'. Respect my existence or expect my resistance, and all that jazz. My whole life, I have been tormented and held back by, and exploited for, my own pathological altruism, while I look out at the world and see people choosing Evil in the name of 'the collective' - individuals know better, but surrender their consciences in the face of the illusion of being outnumbered, an appeal neither to reason nor morality nor even particularly anybody's gain, only to muscle and irrational FUD. I've been familiar with "The Web of Life" at least as far back as 6th-grade, but I have NEVER understood how people can mistake that for meaning what you're talking about. "Apples and turkeys", as one of my former shrinks used to say (we agreed in some cases it's better to say 'apples and Ferraris' or something, since his version doesn't do the degree of disconnect justice for many things). Is the difference between mind and matter not supremely obvious? As my father once reminded me, distinguishing self from not-self is nothing less than a basic function of biology. I was fortunate enough to grow up with no awareness of this now all-consuming fallacy; there's literally no need nor use for it. Remove the concept, and a great deal of political conflict is immediately nullified.

CHAOS. All is Chaos, like the void of outer space in which the stars shine from internal power alone; let that be our model of peace.

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2 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!

I thought after basically the political defeat of Bernie in 2016 (dishonest as it was), he would carry on with MFA, student debt relief, free college, etc. All of that has been abandoned. Sanders has marginalized himself. The Black Agenda Report in 2015 called out Bernie as a sheepdog. I was skeptical of the claim. Conscious or not, Sanders did in fact sheepdog people into the democratic party in both 2016 and 2020. Now it is obviously conscious that he is trying to sheepdog people into supporting Biden with bullshit about Biden being some progressive.

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14 users have voted.

but am glad yo see no hope in reforming the Democratic Party. That is facing reality.
I hope for something outside of the 2 party system, and not necessarily something that happens at the voting booth.
I have both feet planted on the ground, knees slightly bent, leaning slightly fwd from the waist up...I am ready for most anything.

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11 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@on the cusp

I have both feet planted on the ground, knees slightly bent, leaning slightly fwd from the waist up...I am ready for most anything.

...

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7 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!

janis b's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

[video:https://youtu.be/EmC1KyxhEJU]

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3 users have voted.

Registered in Washington State.

You can be a defeatist or you can be a Real Revolutionary and join the People's Party and help them get registered in all 50 states.

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10 users have voted.

@Battle of Blair Mountain @Battle of Blair Mountain was not worthwhile. If the People's Party can get a ballot position with a good candidate, they get my vote.

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7 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Shahryar's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain

Its just more of the same, a fringe group that will have no influence on anything. It takes safely leftwing stances with no attempt at outreach to anyone who doesn't already believe.

The only real revolutionary is someone, not me, who is willing to fight. And as we've seen throughout history, even there the chances of success are slim.

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11 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Shahryar to characterize the People's Party as a monolith, don't you think?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@Cassiodorus He's certainly right that that there are discouraging signs of it going that way, and it is something that must be AVOIDED - on the other hand, it's to be expected that SOME of that would go that way, so rather than panic or despair about seeing those tendencies show up, let's just face it with sangfroid ('sangfroid' being a concept everyone - my generation especially - REALLY needs to learn and embrace; no more of this mandatory borderline-personality-disorder horrorshow that drives people to Trump-wing GOP like nothing else) and beat it.

I recall talking on another site with someone about how the People's Party platform regarding guns seems to be nothing more than a copy-paste of the Achenar-Party's, and that's no good. As I told the guy (a pro-gun sort who acknowledged that "gun culture" has its off-putting elements), gun-control has always been dead-last on my personal roster of well-known-political-issue priorities; I don't care for them, and I think (from a technology standpoint) they're actually INCREDIBLY overrated. Had I sufficient justification and opportunity to actually commit homicide, there are countless other weapons I'd sooner use than a firearm. It also helps to understand that American gun politics have long been a mere proxy for ethnic politics - and the Duopoly used to be the on opposite sides they are now; the Black Panthers brought the 2nd Amendment into the current era, and it was the Reagan Administration who gave us our present 'gold-standard' gun-control legislation (I think there was a bit more after Colunbine).

My point being, I'm now pretty disillusioned with a government monopoly on violence, and I suspect I'm in good company among people my age and younger. A party that aims to represent the future, the young, the preservation of the Bill of Rights against ALL who would throw it away, AND serious opposition to a status quo clearly determined to make peaceful revolution impossible MUST NOT be viewed as (much less actually be) "anti-2nd Amendment".

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5 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!

Cassiodorus's picture

@Battle of Blair Mountain I googled it and got nothing, and when I looked at the WPP page on Facebook there wasn't anything there. (Your results may differ: https://www.facebook.com/washingtonpeoplesparty/ ).

Also I trust you are clear that there is a "Seattle Peoples Party" already in existence, no?

https://seattlepeoplesparty.com/

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8 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Sima's picture

@Cassiodorus I'm on their email list and when I get some time, I'm going to do more locally, in my small town, for the party. I feel beaten down and hopeless at times, but I will try. I dunno, maybe I'm just nuts. Anyway, here's the website:

https://peoplespartywa.org/

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1 user has voted.

If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

As cynical as I am, I really have hoped to be wrong on my option of all this. This has proved to me once and for all change is not going to come from inside the Democrat party. Unfortunately, I don't know what the solution is either. I'm not even sure there is a solution other than doing the best you can locally, taking care of each other, etc.

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10 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

usefewersyllables's picture

among the young. It'll be the young who will fix it, if it is to be fixed.

I remember the 2016 caucuses here in CO all too well, when I was a Sanders precinct captain. Turnout was absolutely overwhelming- the caucus station hosted 4 precincts in a school cafeteria, and we were overflowing, and couldn't fit all the people in- at least a factor of 4 or 5 times as many people showed up as in previous cycles. I'd say that 95% of these new folks were 20-somethings. It was a great and hopeful feeling.

They are all gone now: most didn't come back after 2016. So we'll have to wait for a new crop of starry-eyed 20-somethings to age in, and hope that they will get engaged in the process, in order to save electoralism (if it is to be saved).

Not me, coach. I've had my turn in the barrel. I know that none of us who were delegates to the 2016 county convention, and watched the Party Hoohaws declare Clinton the winner (and completely shut down all debate) ever went back: my disgust at the party's outright and explicit reversal of the caucus outcomes was palpable. And let's face it: there's something truly final about embracing the realization that "No, your generation is *not* going to be the one to make all the difference!" at long last.

All the younger folks now get their turns to earn that epiphany for themselves. I wish them the best of luck. The dem party is too thoroughly corrupt to save. It'll be interesting (in the sense of the old Chinese curse) to see what the Trump/Cotton era will be like. I'm quite convinced that Cotton is going to get his chance to fulfill Heinlein's Nehemiah Scudder prophecy, just a few years later than predicted.

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9 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

@usefewersyllables
There is someone worse than Trump.

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5 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

in Elena Filatovas blog on Chernobyl about the people left behind that "hope dies last". But what comes after hope? Defeat? We know times were better, so they can be again, but we can't make it happen doing what we've been doing.

Year after year things get a little (or a lot) worse. We've gotten used to that. We vote and watch the pols one by one renege on campaign promises to get the lefts vote and later watch those same pols strut around telling the left to shut up, they lost. The worst is these same pols turn the lefts budding movements into zombie fundraising machines with no intention of carrying out it's promises.

I don't know what to do. We are being conditioned to not trust in anything, or expect anything good from our government, corporations, our legal system, so why fight? I guess right now I'm feeling defeated .

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11 users have voted.

He excited a whole generation of young voters and then just left them high and dry.

It's quite a tragedy and one that we will be paying for down the road for a long time.

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16 users have voted.

"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin