Or do you feel that all such criticism is invalid at best and insensitive and possibly bigoted at worst?

Bryant

Lots of people were pushing that meme because they "just knew". But polls show it was immigration and terrorism. The media pushing the email crap hurt her more. The double standards where the most honest and transparent candidate was accused of not being as open as men hiding their taxes and medical records hurt her.

The economic message some here favored was fatally flawed- with huge tax increases. It didn't matter enough to help Feingold or Teachout.

And the economic message - i assume that means that if i say "Obamacare was at best half a loaf when the American people desperately need a full loaf in the form of single payer or some similar plan that guarantees health care for all" - that's fatally flawed?

Bryant

Nothing at all is exactly what you will get with Trump. Single payer was never going to happen, not under any Democrat. Democrats knew this and have always known it. As much as Hillary would have liked to see this, she knew full well that the ACA and making it better was the first step to something better in the future. And I for one appreciate that she never promised anything she knew she couldn't deliver. I also agree with Jennifer. I would rather lose with Hillary who ran her campaign on inclusiveness and love than win with bigotry and promises of bullshit. Thank you very much.

Who was your candidate in the GE?

That didn't stop me from being concerned that she wouldn't and wishing that we had selected someone else to represent the party.

Bryant

I said that to distinguish between those who thought she was a great candidate in the primary and those who voted for and supported her in the general despite not believing her to be the best of the candidates available. I didn't support HRC in the primary.

Bryant

It's not helpful to ignore that candidates like Teachout did a lot worse than HRC did.
I think it's fine to advocate for whatever policy you want but not to pretend it's an imperative from the electorate.
Sadly it remains a very hard sell- because taxes.

And account for why voters who prioritized the economy voted for her, why people making under 30k voted for her, why she got more votes than Russ feingold.

So in your mind trashing Bernie Sanders and those who supported him is ok, I assume? That's usually how this works.

Bryant

But I have to shut up about Hillary Clinton. Just making sure I understand the rules of this board.

Bryant

And it's quite obviously being allowed, within reason. Some idiot who thanked god that Hillary lost and wrote about 50 posts about it was understandably suspended a little earlier today. So, there's your limit.

Considering that the vast majority of discussion is about why Hillary lost, the dumping is currently weighted pretty heavily toward her, justified and otherwise.

Just because you think you're oppressed doesn't mean you are.

Don't bash Democratic public figures.
Why we have this rule: Our forum members support and admire a wide variety of Democratic politicians and public figures.


Given he was the runner up in the primary, I think that qualifies Sanders as a "Democratic public figure"

working against the only Democrat in the race. Makes him more like a parasite.

Oh, and he was the "runner up" because there were only 2 in the Primary with a chance of winning - even so that's being generous since he never really had a chance, even though he psyched some followers to believe otherwise.

who didn't win the primary.

In reality, nothing is ever easy. The issues are intertwined, but resolving one isn't going to magically make the others go away. Fixing income equality, for example, isn't going to protect Roe v. Wade or the Voting Rights Act or marriage equality.

There's no one-size-fits-all solution to *anything*, much less complicated issues.

No one thinks anything is a simplistic "answer to everything." That is just a convenient excuse to dismiss an ideological rival.

HRC was able to walk and chew gum at the same time. She never excluded one for the other.

And she did not even go to some areas in the rust belt at all. To reach people you have to actually show up, and in some cases she didn't. No matter how great her policies were, most of her ads didn't mention much about them. Trump was so horrible that there was so much focus on social justice because his campaign was an attack on social justice. Hindsight is 20/20...but she really should have focused a bit more on economic justice in the rust belt.

and on foreign policy.

Trump won on immigration and terrorism. Latinos and Muslims. Build a wall and throw 'em over it.

Those were the four issues most noted by exit pollsters. The assertion that she lost primarily because of economic issues is demonstrably false.

although, again those in the rust belt who prioritized economics voted for her.

Trump and the halt wit media drove the narratives.

....can tend to be boring.

This is DU, not twitter.

...of concern to Americans.

She also had probably the most detailed list of proposals along with solutions on her website.

Anyone who thinks she didn't cover any issue either wasn't paying attention or didn't care about her position on those issues.

it's easier to disregard them. That happened rather often. Still happening now.

but corporate media was focused on the orange clown. She worked hard getting the message out, corporate media worked hard squelching that message.

nm

But the person who "won" the election didn't care about either one. Oh, on the surface it seemed as if he focused on economic justice, but not really. He paid lip service to the loss of jobs, but it's obvious to the most casual observer that he didn't give a flying fuck about those who were impacted by the sending of jobs overseas.

Why is it so important to you to accuse people of believing such a horrible thing?

It's perfectly natural to have trust issues, but the vast majority of people who are calling for a slight change in emphasis don't want anything we are currently fighting for to be set to the side.

Where individuals call for less emphasis on fighting oppression, those individuals should be called out. I join you in doing so.

Where people honestly DON'T want that, try dialog. You could try working with them on how they might phrase things so as to allay your concerns.

We are all trying to get to a more progressive, inclusive, socially and economically democratic future here.

Sometimes, things could be communicated better, but nobody on this sight has actually been calling for the creation of a sexist, white-supremacist, homophobic program for this party or for the progressive spectrum in this country.

The biggest change I've seen advocated is to break from negotiating more of the type of trade deals we've had proposed for the last few years, like NAFTA in the Nineties and TPP recently. I'm honestly not sure how that would have any bad effect on historically oppressed groups in this country. Do you feel that it would?

And even Bernie's now-infamous speech(a speech I would have either totally rewritten or advised him NOT to give) was not meant to be a call to back down on the anti-oppression agenda. It was actually just a critique of the idea that having a visually diverse group of people in the Cabinet was, in itself, transformative(not that we shouldn't have a Cabinet or a Congress that actually looks like the country-obviously we should). His point, as I see it anyway, was that that sort of "diversity" didn't mean quite so much if that collection of people largely shared an elitist, corporate-establishment view of life. True diversity would mean including people with personal experience with poverty, unemployment, homelessness, powerlessness-people who have a true sense of life on the street, in addition to the people who will always end up being part of the power structure who, no matter what they look like, know little but life in the suites.

Do you actually disagree with that, seeing it phrased in that way?

the faster you understand that this is not true, and that i notice and experience the world differently because of demographic differences, the faster i can get over my 'trust issues'

And I didn't mean the term "trust issues" in a minimizing or belittiling manner.

I am not sure you have made a strong point here.

However, I suspect we are more allies than not. I hope you are well and are having a good night!

and i want justice to be fair and not racially biased

Post Removed!

That seems to be a common brilliant assertion today.

More just mud slinging between she and Trump.

its patently untrue that all she did was sling mud.

It wasn't HER fault.

Trump woke up every day and said or did something disgusting to some non-white, non-christian group.
The media spent the rest of the week babbling about it.
The democratic party and liberals rushed to their defense.
Republicans ran to his defense and banged on that group.
Every bit of air for any adult, meaningful discussion about policy got sucked out until Trump said or did something to the next group.

THAT is what happened, and pointing that out does make you some super secret hater of whatever all groups the jackass targeted and the hate filled idiots in this country gleefully got behind.

so when will it end? Isn't the horse dead enough? Are we going to lick our wounds until 2020? I feel the post mortem is making us all feel worse.

against baseless and senseless attacks/.

as anything other than an attempt to undermine the rights of the subaltern and force politics back to the time when only white men mattered. People who make that argument made a point of refusing to familiarize themselves with Clinton's economic policy positions, and they now draw upon that ignorance to insist that only their concerns matter while the rest of our lives are ancillary.

Note that the politician most prominent in making that argument about the 2016 election has been pushing that agenda for years, and the fact Clinton won lower incomes and Trump higher ones doesn't in anyway interfere with the agenda to elevate the first class votes above the rest of ours.

IMO, It's her history of supporting free trade agreements and her milquetoast "change of heart" on that issue that contributed to her loss in the rust belt. I don't think some Democrats realize how angry and frightened Americans are to see their jobs moving off to cheap labor countries. And I don't understand why these two issues are being pitted against each other. Can't we support social justice AND jobs for Americans?

1. HRC won the majority of those who make under 30K

2. HRC won the majority of those in the rustbelt and nationwide who prioritized economics

3. She got more votes in the same state than Russ Feingold, who is exactly the type of Democrat that a certain part of left is pushing for. Focused on promoting a social welfare state.

Hence, these arguments that WWC voted for her because of economics kinda falls through.

But I do think it was a factor in the rust belt. Not the only factor, no, but I'm from the rust belt so I had some exposure to what a lot of them were thinking. I personally know some people who normally vote Dem who wouldn't vote for her because of that. They didn't vote for Trump, they just didn't vote at all.

I actually believe the GOP stole the election, but if we're talking about areas where our side could have been stronger, the jobs issue strikes me as one.