An Indignant Rant About Milquetoast 'Centrist' Right-wing Enablers

It's about 8 months after the electoral college handed Dipshit Dumpsterfire Trump the presidency (With the help of Hillary Clinton and the DNC) and the Democratic Party is still whining. Yet for all that whining, they can't seem to shake the very tactics, non-policies and toxic identity politics that led to their loss to begin with.

Let's go back to McResistance Womens' March in January: When you have people like CIA Plant Gloria Steinem and disgraced DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz as spokespeople, you know the damn thing is nothing but astroturf bullshit.

There were some genuine folks leading their own marches during this event, but because their names weren't Gloria Steinem or DWS, they were outright ignored by the corporate media. Kshama Sawant, for instance, spoke at one such march. And for me, this excerpt really drives home an important point:

Millions of us see Donald Trump as completely intolerable.

We have entered into a new period of radicalization of young women and working women who increasingly recognize that powerful collective action, civil disobedience, and mass strike action are what will be needed to stop Trump and the billionaire class.

As our other speakers have mentioned, this week the Republicans announced their replacement for the Affordable Care Act.

And at the same time they have announced their attacks on Planned Parenthood.

But my question is, why should the people of Washington State be held hostage to Trump and his billionaire cabinet? Why doesn’t the state legislature and the governor tax the rich, and fund a single-payer system in Washington State? Such a system would give guaranteed affordable access to healthcare to all women, to the trans community, to everyone.

California has already started talking about this. Imagine if Washington, Oregon, and California all taxed the rich, and set up single-payer, so we would have a West Coast-wide single-payer health care.

But you know what? I am not holding my breath that the Democratic Party will show any leadership on this. We will need to build a powerful independent movement on the streets and in the workplaces to make it happen ourselves.

It is good that some elected Democrats are fighting against Trump, but it is not sufficient. We need an opposition that is 100% against Trump, and against the billionaire class, not one that is looking to find “common ground” with Trump.

Unfortunately she is more correct than she knew with regards to the inaction on the part of the Democrats. Rather than initiate Single Payer systems in those states, the Dems have all but shelved the idea. For instance, out of California, Anthony Rendon shelved their single payer bill, calling it 'woefully incomplete'. Of course, anyone who looks into who this asshole's donors are will find out very quickly why he shelved the bill.

Anthony Rendon's Top Donors

Worst of all, the Democratic Party seems hell bent on killing Single Payer state by state. Similar state initiatives in Vermont, Montana, Colorado and New York were also shut down by the Dems.

Single Payer is not the only issue with which they are stabbing constituents in the back, however. Many local Democratic leaders are also killing 15 dollar minimum wage initiatives on behalf of their corporate donors. Baltimore is one example.

We also saw Cory Booker and other Dems vote against re-importation of drugs from Canada with the lame excuse that they didn't have as many safety standards as we did. Anyone who does any research into that knows they're lying their asses off. They were all simply kissing corporate ass.

Yet, even with all these betrayals, there are still some people who willingly go along with the McResistance and the anti-Russian narrative that doesn't even hold water.

First, there's this guy, who every other week releases a video on Monday titled the Facepalm Five:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEloSet48KM]

Of course, it's nothing more than incessant whining about Dipshit Trump with no real message or substance. It's always Trump this or Trump that, or Republicans latest attack on social issues while completely ignoring Democratic betrayals on the same and economic issues to boot.

There's also this lady.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2iSirBwak4]

Yeah, you're fighting the GOP all right. Meanwhile, in one of her 'hangouts', she went and said the economic issues Sanders brought to the table were 'bourgeois' concerns and that Sanders was toxic to the Democratic Party. One has to wonder what planet she's been living on, because from where I'm standing, the most toxic people in government right now are the Third Way and the Democratic Leadership Council. These organizations go out of their way to undermine and obfuscate economic issues while using social issues as a billy club to keep the voters in line.

Last but not least, there's this hippy turned hippy puncher.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukcb0i9aQU&t=0s]

If this guy looks familiar, that's because I flayed him last year with regards to his comments on how millennials are to blame for Trump. Here he is, months later, still bitching about Trump/Russia, just like the rest of what's left of the party faithful. And this guy is supposed to be a hippy? Yeah, agent provocateur is more like it.

So I have to ask, when was the last time the Democrats fought the downtrodden, the American worker, people of color, female bodily autonomy and so on? Because it seems to me that Democrats are doing nothing more than using these things as bargaining chips and passing, at best, token legislation while they do the bidding of the same donors as the Repigs.

"If you don't vote for us, those guys will do something worse", they say....Well, given the fact that they're blatantly governing against their own constituencies out in the open, I don't see the difference.

The information is out there and readily available, yet so many are still willing to go along with this crap. For the life of me I can't figure out why. And any time I try to explain this to anyone at all, I'm called a troll, a Russian puppet or agent, a right-winger or some other stupid shit they're calling us on any given week.

That's why I've given up on talking to any of them. I also recommend anyone who reads this to do the same. They're too addicted to the tranquilizing drug of 'gradualism' to allow for any real change to happen.

In closing, I'd like to remind the good folks here of something Helen Keller once said with regards to her membership in the International Workers of the World:

"The true task is to unite and organize all workers on an economic basis, and it is the workers themselves who must secure freedom for themselves, who must grow strong." Miss Keller continued. "Nothing can be gained by political action. That is why I became an IWW."

"What particular incident led you to become an IWW" I interrupted.

"The Lawrence strike. Why? Because I discovered that the true idea of the IWW is not only to better conditions, to get them for all people, but to get them at once."

In short, the milquetoast gradualist bullshit the people above 'fight' for simply won't cut it any more. Either we fight for both social and economic issues, or nothing at all. Because as easy as it is to skewer Dipshit Trump and his alt-right sychophants, there are more important battles to be fought.

See ya around,

Aspie

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thanatokephaloides's picture

Being the man who (as far as I an tell) first brought the word "milquetoast" up on Daily Kos, you can well imagine how it gratifies me to see you use it here! Give rose

I also used the term "milquetoast limousiners" over there. You can imagine how popular that made me! Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

The Aspie Corner's picture

@thanatokephaloides That site went to hell very quickly after Hillary announced her 2016 candidacy. You couldn't even criticize her legitimately without being called a right-wing plant. Especially when you have revolutionaries turned gate keepers like Denise Oliver Valez shitting on people like Cornel West because he called out Clinton for who and what she was.

Not to mention everything and everyone else was flat out ignored. Issues couldn't hold a candle to 'scary scary Trump'.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@The Aspie Corner

That site went to hell very quickly after Hillary announced her 2016 candidacy. You couldn't even criticize her legitimately without being called a right-wing plant. Especially when you have revolutionaries turned gate keepers like Denise Oliver Valez shitting on people like Cornel West because he called out Clinton for who and what she was.

Ah yes, Denise Oliver "When in doubt, race-bait!" Velez!

Another thing which made me a little odious over there was the fact that I would only accept as "Democrats" folks who would have been recognized as such by their issue stances in continuously loyal States in 1975. (Fuck the DLC and Turd Way!)

Not to mention everything and everyone else was flat out ignored. Issues couldn't hold a candle to 'scary scary Trump'.

"Issues? We don't need no steenkin' issues!!"

Bad

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Wink's picture

@The Aspie Corner
thing getting Hillary's granny panties in a bunch led to my second T.O. on there, it was when I LOL'd about someone calling Obama a Liberal that got me the bojo. Surprised I lasted as long as I did.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner That shit started in 2010.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

JekyllnHyde's picture

they can't seem to shake the very tactics, non-policies and toxic identity politics that led to their loss to begin with.

... and pander shamelessly to various constituency groups - as opposed to have coherent economic and social policies benefiting everyone - then, one shouldn't act surprised if certain groups feel left out. It is one thing to cater to specific needs of these constituencies. That's not what the Dems do. They are experts at putting the cart before the horse!

The Democratic Party has yet to figure out a way to appeal to the nation as a whole.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Bollox Ref's picture

@JekyllnHyde

Next to the garbage bins in the always wet, fetid alley. Good for dumpster diving, should you wish/need.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

travelerxxx's picture

@JekyllnHyde

That couple in the cartoon had been looking for the door marked FDR/New Deal Voters. Unfortunately, the Democrats long ago took down that sign and replace it with Corporate Donor$ Enter Here.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@JekyllnHyde Unfortunately, that comic can't show the fact that there's a trap door immediately behind each of those doors which flushes the unwary constituent down to a watery doom.

The LGBT folks have, up to now, had an Indiana-Jones-like savvy about not falling down the hole:

but if they're not careful with all this impeach Trump nonsense they're going to end up with "pray the gay away" Mike Pence.

LGBT leaders: Throw me the whip!
Democratic Party: Adios, senor.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

JekyllnHyde's picture

as opposed to have coherent economic and social policies benefiting everyone

Read: as opposed to having coherent economic and social policies benefiting everyone.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

smiley7's picture

and pander shamelessly to various constituency groups - as opposed to having coherent economic and social policies benefiting everyone

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The Aspie Corner's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7fVOSgh1eI]

In the video, he plays an infuriating audio clip from Dick Gephardt. Best healthcare system bar-none? My ass.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Big Al's picture

to change.

"Either we fight for both social and economic issues, or nothing at all."

Many on this site are not democrats so what the democrats do has nothing to do with us. I have no doubt the democratic party will continue to serve the oligarchy, therefore it has no interest in fighting for social and economic issues.

That would be up to those of us outside the democratic and republican parties.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Big Al

Many on this site are not democrats so what the democrats do has nothing to do with us. I have no doubt the democratic party will continue to serve the oligarchy, therefore it has no interest in fighting for social and economic issues.

Which, I do believe, is our Essayist's point!

Smile

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Big Al

Many on this site are not democrats so what the democrats do has nothing to do with us. I have no doubt the democratic party will continue to serve the oligarchy, therefore it has no interest in fighting for social and economic issues.

That would be up to those of us outside the democratic and republican parties.

It isn't so much that I want the party to change. Trust me, I'm well aware they won't. Up until last year when I registered to vote for Bernie Sanders. Before that, I was always registered NPA because in Florida there's nobody worth supporting within the duopoly.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Aspie Corner

…to kick the Democratic Party's ass and break it. It's returned politics to a primordial soup.

Great rant. I enjoyed every bit of it.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Pluto's Republic Like I said, I wish Bernie Sanders were toxic to the Democratic party. Something must be.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

the republicans swore they would make him a one term president. They filibustered and placed holds on every piece of legislation the democrats and Obama wanted to pass.
Obama let them play their game because it fit his agenda for not passing legislation that would have helped main stream Americans.

When Trump was elected, Schumer said that he was willing to work with him and the republicans.
This is how the game of congress has been played for decades.
The republicans can pass anything they want, but the democrats can't block them by filibusters or holds. Hell, the democrats changed the filibuster rules in 2013 when they were in the middle of losing seats.

It the Washington generals playing the Harlem Globetrotters. Kabuki theater and just a game for congress while it's literally life and death for many of us.

The fact that the republicans could even say they want to pass legislation that will see untold numbers of people being kicked off insurance should have the democrats shutting down business in congress until the republicans shelve their legislation.
And after they get done with this, they are coming for social programs that so many people rely on.
Just the fact that Trump wants to completely eliminate LIHEAP which is the program that helps low income people be able to live through winters by helping pay for electricity and gas.
This is how much just the food stamps program costs the government.

IMG_0839.JPG

All this is being done so the fucking rich people can get and keep more of their money.
This is all out war against the lower class, the disabled, elderly and children.
Suffer the little children indeed!

Your title says it all.

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

The Aspie Corner's picture

@snoopydawg Those guys will just try to skew statistics to say we're spending more on those programs than we really are. Just par for the course for a bunch of trust fund kids and inherited wealthers masquerading as a political party.

It's hard to shake the feeling these rat bastards infiltrated both parties years ago given how far right the Democrats keep moving economically. Hell, the whole WTF slogan was literally a Libertarian talking point: "What if we could have capitalism AND civil rights". Of course anyone can see the two are totally anathema, especially when profits are involved.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

movie buff's picture

Which I would take to mean: objectives very much in line with official Washington, but prone to hysteria and wild conspiracy theories.

The worst of both worlds, in other words.

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"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." --Noam Chomsky

dervish's picture

that even if we put a blue condom on the corporate member, that we're still going to get screwed just as badly?

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

dervish's picture

@dervish as their symbol, and replace it with the Blue Condom. That would be some truth in advertising.

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

@dervish

Or someone could simply put the blue condom on the donkey to create a meme.

At the least, we could get a lot of seriously bad jokes out of it.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

..and a kind of weird data point...
from your Kshama Sawant quote above:

California has already started talking about this. Imagine if Washington, Oregon, and California all taxed the rich, and set up single-payer, so we would have a West Coast-wide single-payer health care.

Apparently at today's town hall meeting in Springfield, OR Ron Wyden implied just that; a friend who went said he seemed genuinely excited about a west coast single-payer system.
I wasn't there, and I suspect this may be a pat-on-the-head incrementalism answer to appease the audience. I'll believe it when I see it.

But, then again, he brought it up, I think it's fair to ask at every opportunity in the future how that plan is progressing. We all know what is up in California, so his answer seemed surprising. It was the Dems that killed it there.

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WaterLily's picture

That's why I've given up on talking to any of them. I also recommend anyone who reads this to do the same. They're too addicted to the tranquilizing drug of 'gradualism' to allow for any real change to happen.

I'm a slow learner, so this one took me awhile. I was convinced that with enough reasoned, evidence-based arguments, I might change their minds.

Eventually I tired of banging my head against the wall. One of the best decisions I ever made.

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@WaterLily

I think they (privately) call it 'stalling', rather than (publicly) 'gradualism'.

'Incrementalism' is how they slowly bring fascism to a boil while the public waits for things to slooooowly get better without noticing that the heat's on.

And (publicly) Democratic Party is (privately) spelt with an 'Un' preceding it.

It's not that they mean to be deceptive, of course; they just don't understand the language very well. And it doesn't translate well into Lizard-People-speak, where human concepts have no meaning.

Hey, it's a theory!

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

enhydra lutris's picture

megaphones:

We will need to build a powerful independent movement on the streets and in the workplaces to make it happen ourselves.

Nothing ever happens without large public movements including street action. Look closely at the sociopolitical environment at the time of the new deal, the civil rights act, etc.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Raggedy Ann's picture

@enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris
"Nothing ever happens without large public movements including street action." I'm all over that one.

edited for usual typos, sigh.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Meanwhile, in one of her 'hangouts', she went and said the economic issues Sanders brought to the table were 'bourgeois' concerns and that Sanders was toxic to the Democratic Party.

As Gore Vidal once said, "Mangiare (would that it were so.)"

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver