"Hey, Hillary! Look over there! It's a UFO!"

paying the old "Look over there" trick.

Sanders attacked Hillary Clinton and trump directly and accurately quoted Sanders attacks. In the real world these are called facts and just like math these facts can not be ignored.Here is a good example Sanders really hurting Clinton. I am still mad at the number of times that trump used Sanders' claims against Clinton. Sanders' baseless charges that the system was fixed and rigged were used by trump to great effect and hurt Clinton http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rigged-system-donald-trump_us_5855cb44e4b08debb7898607?section=us_politics

Note in your excerpt that there is a HUGE sleight of hand. Bernie spoke of the system working only for the very rich ... something HRC picked up in her own speeches. In the article, this morphs into Trump speaking of undocumented immigrants!! It is true that Bernie spoke against the trade deals, but that is consistent with his position since trade deals started! Remember that HRC herself blasted TPP.

Trump won the republican primaries with the angry messages that this person is linking tO Bernie. Trump did not pick up Bernie's message - Trump continued with the message he had from the beginning. Note that Bernie referenced both FDR and various democratic socialist countries - there was very little in common with Trump. It also ignores that Sanders DID communicate to some of people who were unreachable by Clinton.

Compare this with the GIFT HRC gave to McCain - stating that both of them were qualified to take the 3 am call - and Obama was not. Or consider that it was Al Gore who first raised the Willie Horton attack on Dukakis. You could argue that Bob Kerrey attacked Bill Clinton's actions on the draft. Howard Dean attacked Kerry as a flip flopper (a theme Bush used as well - even though Kerry is more consistent than most).

That is what happens in primary elections. In fact, of the ones listed by Sanders, Clinton, Core, Kerrey, and Dean -- you could say that the attacks were easily found opposition research (Horton, draft) or generic (all governors attack legislators as flip flopping; all legislators note that Governors have no foreign policy) except one that subjectively questioned the ability of an opponent to be a CIC.

The fact is that Bernie Sanders never had a reputation for running ugly races.

Ignoring the facts will not make these facts go away. Trump repeatedly and accurately quoted Sanders and used sanders bogus charges to great effect

As for comparison of 2008 to 2916, do you want to look at the facts? Here is an accurate timeline that shows that Hillary Clinton actually worked to help President Obama while sanders delayed and hurt the party http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-aftermath-20160609-snap-htmlstory.html

That timeline is written in a confusing and biased way. The fact is that BOTH Sanders and Clinton continued until the primaries ended. The primaries themselves happened at different dates. Hillary stayed in for a few days after all primaries were over. Read the linked June 9th article -- Sanders did not suspend his campaign because he wanted his delegates to have leverage on the platform. This is not all that different than Clinton a few days after Obama clinched the nomination.

As to campaigning, the July 25th convention - where Sanders gave a great supporting speech, is essentially the same as July 27th when Clinton joined Obama.

You still ignore the 3 am attack -- which was pretty nasty.

Each candidate had approval rights over their delegates. The Clinton delegates were carefully vetted. The Sanders delegates were either not vetted or were selected on whether they hated the Democratic party. At the Texas Democratic Party Convention, a Sanders delegate was duly elected by his caucus but was removed and replaced by a BOB. The replaced Sanders delegate would not say that he hated Clinton and so had to be removed. Again, this was an action taken by the Sanders campaign directly.

The Clinton campaign had a "whipping infrastructure" and we saw everything that Sanders sent to his delegates and had reports of every meeting that Sanders had with his delegates. Sanders sent one text message to his supporters that was very weak and never told his supporters to stop attacking Clinton delegates. I was at the delegation breakfast where the younger sanders delegates marched in with linked arms to demand that we condemn Clinton and vote for Sanders. The next morning Sanders came to our delegation (this has been scheduled for a while) and did not apologize. Sanders spent the entire time talking about himself and only mentioned Hillary Clinton as he was leaving the room.

The claim that Sanders did everything to convince his followers to support Hillary Clinton is not consistent with what I saw at the convention.

Anyone who voted in the primary could go to a local caucus and stand to be a delegate to the state convention. In Burlington, there were enough slots for all of us to go to Montpelier.

Then anyone who wanted to be a delgate, ran to be a delegate. In Montpilier, each person running had a few minutes to speak, then everyone voted. That is how the majority of pledged delegates were chosen. The rest were local officeholders who ran their own contest. Added to that were the superdelgates.

All the pledged delgate votes were for Bernie. Bernie himself had no input in picking the pledged delegates. The people running Sent all of us who went emails explaining who they were and why they wanted to go. Neither Bernie or his VT staff recommended a slate or commented in any way.

Under party rules, each candidate was supposed to vet their delegates. The fact that Sanders refused to this does not surprise me given the delegates who came to the convention.

The Clinton campaign carefully vetted their delegates. Sanders was supposed to vet his delegates but the only vetting I saw was at the Texas State Democratic Convention where a Sanders delegate was duly elected by his Senate District caucus but removed by the Sanders campaign because the delegate would not state that he hated Hillary Clinton and was replaced by a BOB.

Again, Sanders did not come close to doing everything in his power to help the Clinton campaign or the party in the general election. Sanders was weak with his delegates because he did not want to hurt their feelings or do anything that might affect future book sales

You aren't fit to be president.

That kind of distraction.

Yes, DWS made some big mistakes in this election, and he was one of them.

people. Especially those who are not that well versed in economics, politics and reality. Many BS supporters had just started thinking about public policy issues for maybe 1 or 2 years. They were frankly, novitiates and easily moved by simplistic arguments.

But, there were other factors too, like the 25 year McCarthyist campaign against both Clintons and M$M's willing participation in selling the meme, Hillary the consort of the Devil. This appealed to many who were burdened by ignorance and a little too much confidence in their grasp of the situation.

If Hillary had run a Bill-type campaign on the fall. Nobody who wants the poor bashed and the police given unquestioning support has any views at all that aren't extreme right wing.

I'm sort of fed up with this half the story crap that's popular around here. No one was giving police unquestioning support except for fucking Trump.

it was always a war on drugs and black people.

Well, and to fill all of the privatized prisons, too.

For fucks sake I'm not fooled by anyone who doesn't know this crap. It's like their taking dictation from the Intercept and RT.

Hillary wasnt acceptable.

Many of these were young, ideological folks who dont truly understand how a two party system works and how voting 3rd party gets the other guy elected.

Some of these folks may not have voted at all without Bernie, but many would have and would have voted for Hillary given no alternative.

But when Bernie lost and Jill Stein and that other idiot were out there saying "Look at me, I am not corrupt like Hillary" (nor did she run a foundation that helps millions of people everyday, but some of the left dont seem to care about that) many who would have voted Hillary didnt, because Bernie did such a great job of showing where Hillary was more corporate friendly than they would like.

He was really no where to be seen. why didn't he HELP BRING DEMOCRATS TOGETHER IN UNITY.

I will not forgive what Bernie did to hurt Hillary

Sanders admitted that he was running for media coverage and money http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/03/bernie-sanders-independent-media-coverage-220747

This whole line that he was in it for coverage and money, and not due to ideology is laughable.

The antisemitic tropes hurled against Sanders on DU are more than pathetic

Why is that always ignored, as is the Comey, Putin effect?

It's just coming from a different angle. At its core, this is the "working class whites/too much identity politics/she didn't talk about economics" narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and never has. The very same narrative many Sanders supporters have been pushing.

So, the reaction to the OP is quite interesting.

As I wrote below, the narrative is bull shit whether it's coming from leftists, centrists or Trump supporters...all of whom, along with members of the media, have been promoting that dog whistle narrative for the last 2 months.

would help influence more, but he didn't come through for us in the general like he did for himself in the primary. His strategy wasn't really a unifying one.

He had far more speaking engagements trying to get votes for her, than she herself did!

I voted Hillary, but I think we need to give Bernie credit for his efforts then and now

Maybe you didn't see because he spent a lot of October on the ground in various states, perhaps not yours.

I wont be sad to see this forum leave though.

I am damn near ready to beg Hillary to run again if the Bernie stuff doesnt end soon.

It's just coming from a different/centrist angle. At its core, this is the "working class whites/too much identity politics/she didn't talk about economics" narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and never has. The very same narrative many Sanders supporters have been pushing.

So, yes, the OP is bull shit. But the reaction to the OP is quite interesting.

As I wrote below, the narrative is bull shit whether it's coming from leftists, centrists or Trump supporters...all of whom, along with members of the media, have been promoting that dog whistle narrative for the last 2 months.

Take a look a Jill Stein impact.

http://www.politicspa.com/did-jill-stein-cost-hillary-clinton-the-election/80274/
"
if Stein didn’t run as the Green Party nominee, Trump may very well have lost the Electoral College.
Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Wisconsin (10) were the three Rust Belt states that Trump was able to steal from Clinton, blasting a hole in her “Blue Wall”.
Today we learned that in each state the difference between Trump and Clinton was less than the total Jill Stein received.
In Michigan, Trump won by 10,704 votes. Stein got 51,423. In Wisconsin, Trump edged out Clinton by 22,177 votes while Stein received 31,006.
Today, the city of Philadelphia released their final results::

They started it doing this right after election day with any name that was brought up as a possible 2020 candidate.....save for Bernie, of course. It's his turn in 2020, don't you know? /s.

and another book called "Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents".

If Hillary had won in the EC, he would be writing columns demanding she leave the progressive wing of the party out in the cold and work with the GOP to make deeper cuts in the pitiful remnants of our social service network.

It's a (absurd) slam on Bernie so it MUST be true.

talking about who the argument is from to discredit it is a logical fallacy.

And that his agenda has always been to push all "center-left" parties as far to the right as possible.

It's just coming from a different/centrist angle. At its core, this is the "working class whites/too much identity politics/she didn't talk about economics" narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and never has. The very same narrative many Sanders supporters have been pushing.

So, yes, the OP is bull shit. But the reaction to the OP is quite interesting.

As I wrote below, the narrative is bull shit whether it's coming from leftists, centrists or Trump supporters...all of whom, along with members of the media, have been promoting that dog whistle narrative for the last 2 months.

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2017, 02:42 AM - Edit history (1)

We need to address race AND class, hate AND greed.

That doesn't mean proposing one-size-fit-all solutions to everything, but it does mean accepting that sometimes there can be common ground between hard-hit peoples.

When it's phrased like that, do you disagree with it?

(BTW, even with his communications flaws, Bernie was never arguing for making common cause with segregationists).

Sanders made a ton of proposals that had no chance of being adopted in the real world and justified these proposal with the silly promise of a voter revolution. In theory I like some of Sanders proposals but I live in the real world and knew that there would be no revolution and so most of Sanders' platform was pure fantasy. The Sanders revolution has been a bust http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-new-york-primary-213829

Guess not after 2016. So he is just another Centrist hack...thanks for the info.

The white working class/too much focus on identity politics (dog whistle) narrative is a load of bull whether it's coming from leftists, centrists or right wingers. Seriously, it's been debunked more times than I can count. Sanders supporters promote it, the article in the OP promotes it, Trump supporters promote it, members of the media promote it. But it simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

I want to know what his ties to Russia are.

But I don't hold it against Bernie. I don't even hold it against Trump.
I do blame both of their voters though.

hard-lines on crime are almost always a means of turning our attention to focusing on policing " the bad guys" and incarceration rather than looking at policies that actually address the causes of crime. That sort of language is pandering to the masses rather than lifting them and their ideals up, and it is pandering to the policing and punishment lobbies. No surprise that our prisons and the industries that feed on incarceration only got more and more bloated through the nineties and beyond. It is not a proud thing to be number one in total and per-capita prisoners in the world.

The purist label consistently misses the mark. I am fine with people who have differing opinions on policy. If the one disagreement we have is that money doesn't actually influence politics when it's the Democrats that get cozy with it, that's just too damn fundamental. Nothing gets fixed if you ignore the elephant in the room. It only gets worse...because whether we pretend its there or not, that elephant likes to fucking eat.

That is why I will never disavow a third party candidate who campaigns on principles I agree with, even if that candidate might negatively impact the Democratic candidate's chances.(doesn't mean I'll vote for that candidate;'I've never done so up to this point) If those voices weren't there, I'm not comfortable with what our democratic party might look like today. I'm not a whole lot more confident that we would have won more elections anyway, because being moderate is not a winning formula when it comes to getting the big-money to support you all the way into office, though it will absolutely garner you support when it comes to running against far more liberal candidates in the primaries.

Why would Clinton need to recenter in the fall...because of changes to economic policy? What is this article saying here? No Joe-publics voted for Trump because she was offering free college or talking about how prisons shouldn't be privatized. If the writer's point is that she was pushed left as in, to champion minority causes, well I would love to see where DU members stand on that. If that was a strategic error only born out of her need to compete with Sanders on the left while continuing to avoid taking the fight to the big money, well why didn't she just do that? If on the other hand, it was the right thing to do, then why, if this article is to be believed, she only did it as a response to Sanders, and if so...where's the credit on that one? heh.

The thing that should never be overlooked when reading articles like this is the presumptions that are in the language. What is "extreme flank" about wanting money to be taken out of the political process? Of course, to Time Magazine that is extreme, because Time is a pillar of the establishment. Thus, claims of extreme are stated simply as "fact," without any irony or self- reflection.

But I think we'd all agree that the party must NEVER go that far to the right in any future election...the1992 and 1996 results led to governance that failed on the bare minimum expectation level for a Democratic president:

A Democrat in the White House should feel obligated never to target the Democratic base for attack and to ensure, if there can't be actual gains, that there will be no lost ground for anyone in that base.

There was massive loss for working people across the country due to that Democratic president's successful fight to implement NAFTA, and there was massive loss for the poor due to his embrace of the classist and essentially racist Republican narratives about welfare, drug policy, and crimes.

And there was a period of long-term electoral decline for the Democratic Party throughout that eight years-a decline caused largely by the insistence of the party's strategists in that era NOT to fight for the interests of working and kept-from-working poor, despite the fact that there was no way we could ever expect high turnout among those groups if we weren't going to champion them and stand in solidarity with them.

But we are in this situation largely due to the "blur-the-differences" mindset Bill established in this party.

We lost the electoral college in 2000 largely due to that mindset(we'd have won if Gore had stayed with his "for the people, not the powerful" line, because Nader's vote would have collapsed).

At some point, you can't expect people to keep turning up to the polls if all you do is run a "keep them OUT!" campaign.

Hillary had a great platform, a platform which was improved by the Sanders language that was added. The campaign ads hardly mentioned it. Instead, the focus was almost exclusively on a "stop Trump!" message. This choice convinced a lot of voters that we had no positive proposals to offer. We did have those, but the ads didn't mention them and the stump speech didn't mention them enough.

All of that is the result of Bill's argument that the Right has won the argument on most issues and that Democrats must always campaign by promising nothing but Reaganism-with-a-human-skin-mask, that we can never run FOR, only AGAINST-and not even against that much.

We lost the 2000 election due to Nader and his stupidity re are some facts on this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065.html

It's just coming from a different angle. At its core, this is the "working class whites/too much identity politics/she didn't talk about economics" narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny and never has.

So, the reaction to the OP is quite interesting.

As I wrote above, the narrative is bull shit whether it's coming from leftists, centrists or Trump supporters...all of whom, along with members of the media, have been promoting that dog whistle narrative for the last 2 months.

As I've said in many threads, there is a big difference between saying that we need a message that reaches the white working class, and the media's smirking version of that, which tries to suggest that we should abandon civil-rights causes in favor of some ephemeral disembodied bullshit about "jobs,"a divisive narrative to be sure. That entirely ignores the corrosive influence of money in Washington and the galvanizing call for class-warfare to be waged back against that big-money. But of course the media would twist whatever it can to its own purposes, and do its part to take that target off of its corporate masters.

In spite of that, the media's version has never been what Sanders has been saying, and for that matter, most of his supporters. You may think his use of terminology has sucked, but he didn't mince words about what he meant when he spoke about identity politics or politically correct. He was using pre-charged language, already weaponized by the right, and morphing their meanings into something else as he talks to people that already think those things are bad. That's a verbal Judo, and we can talk about whether or not you think it is effective, since there have been obvious reactions from some Democrats.

There is nothing Sanders has said that can be construed as us needing to subsume civil-rights issues or ignore the rights of any marginalized people for the purpose of courting the white working class. I think the opposite actually, and his policies and history tend to reflect that fact.

I think the following quote from a Salon article is instructive:

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2017, 03:14 AM - Edit history (6)

and I've pointed out in those, why the economics conversation is the right strategy for dismantling racism. Nobody has taken my points to task.That doesn't mean they're strong...maybe people are like "don't poke crazy..." but until somebody shows me where I'm wrong I'm going to continue to promote these points. My argument does seem to have gotten at least some level agreement from FJT.

Here's one of the linked conversation I had with ForJusticeThunders, if you'd like to weigh in:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2677424


For the most part I think we agree with each other, except that I don't see a non-economic entry-point for dealing with racism. You have to admit that the impetus that made people in unions work together was in-fact economic. Of course proximity helps as well, and working with people and being integrated does go some way to helping people to see each other as people, but where that isn't happening, and even where it is, we still see these things persist...and that's not in small part because it is engineered to persist. Talk radio and media promotes racism, both subtly and entirely obviously depending on the outlet.There is a very good reason for that that extends beyond simple dispositions of the news folks.

As to why people might settle for that psychological superiority, I posted this in FJT's thread as well, but it kind of got buried. The intent was to address the suggestion that people will choose hardship if they also get to choose shitting on somebody else. I think that's not how it works.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2677483

Eh..editing again to add one more thing. I know it's on the late side.

I actually disagree with your clean definition of political correctness. Political correctness is rarely about not offending people who are marginalized. It is about not offending the majority opinion(or similarly, not offending any group that is politically valuable while also not offending that bigger group). If the majority opinion is that certain language that targets minorities of one sort or another is unacceptable, then avoiding it is being politically correct. If the majority opinion is that it's okay to shit on muslims or call suicide bombers cowards just because it feels good, avoiding that or even challenging it is NOT being politically correct. Maybe it is principled or decent or honest or thoughtful...but it isn't politically correct. Isn't that why "political" is in politically correct? Rather than say, coming "correct?"

"Nobody has taken my points to task..."

Read Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers... it accurately illustrates the major flaws in your premise. Or demand someone answer your questions if you simply want to screech...

Your choice, of course.


"political correctness is rarely about not offending people who are marginalized..."
You'll of course, provide objective evidence to support that allegation, or will you merely call it an opinion to avoid allowing it any real credibility?

message board, where everybody posts their personal analysis based upon their backgrounds and understanding.

I do actually appreciate your recommendation as such, and I will look it up, but on this message board, where people are posting their thoughts, it would have been nice if you had put in your own, even if that had been a snippet of a relevant passage from Paul Kennedy's writings.

Sure. do you remember Bill Maher getting drummed off of NBC due to public outcry that he dared to say it was ludicrous that suicide bombers were being blanketly labeled cowards, and made the additional mistake of suggesting that the way we fight wars would be more fitting of that title--that is if such a thing had any business being argued in the first place.

Do you remember the Dixie chicks losing their record contracts due to public outcry because of their statements against the war and W? Do you remember Obama having to field the ginned up outrage about people retreating into their religions and their guns? That all is political correctness. The term is just used far more often to mean not saying something impolitic about people of color or homosexuals exclusively. Of course people who take umbrage at insults to their religion or nationalism wouldn't see themselves as forcing political correctness on others. The operative word is "politically." That implies expedience, not righteousness. Why don't you refute me rather than hiding behind the need for me to prove my point against one you haven't yourself proven?

By the way, totally dickish and uncalled for to say that I was screeching here. Where is even the evidence for that.

No progressive economic message is going to overcome those "parochial beliefs and attitudes." Those beliefs and attitudes transcend class interests, and not the other way around. Reverend Barber in North Carolina is probably on the right track.

The Democratic Party's best hope is reaching out to those who never vote, as well as genuine swing voters, but the latter are few and far between (and not easily identified). The vast majority of those who vote Republican are unreachable. Again, I refer you to the article from my last post about rural fundamentalists, who make up a huge percentage of the Republican electorate.

Charles Pierce, following quotes from various Trump supporters, wrote the following: "There literally is no innovative political strategy, and there is no creative policy prescription, that would have convinced that woman to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is so deeply sunk in the mire of misinformation that she never will be pulled out again. Who is it, precisely, that doesn't care about her, and how was that manifested in her daily life? How, precisely, would Donald Trump care about her? The piece is replete with these kind of moments. What should the Democrats do to meet halfway the guy who believes the nation is being "pussified"? What's precisely the political outreach strategy that will bring back a guy who says this?"

We need to keep that in mind.

That said, I absolutely agree that the Democratic Party needs to do much more to transform the narrative regarding the mainstream media.

Gotta run.

First, I wanted to add one more point to my earlier post. I don't think anyone is consciously thinking or saying, "I know progressive economic theory is in my best interest, but I care more about hurting persons of color." But that *is* essentially the end result. Their beliefs and attitudes are what enable them to convince themselves that right wing economics is what's called for. Those beliefs and attitudes explain why people think Obamacare and the ACA are 2 different things. Those beliefs and attitudes explain why Trump supporters think it's totally reasonable to punish Mexico when a Japanese or German automaker wants to build a plant in Mexico, or why it's totally reasonable to think Mexico will pay for the US to build a wall. "Mexico," "Mexican" and "immigrant" are essentially code words to racists.

The argument over what transcends what (class over beliefs and attitudes, or vice versa) is, I think, the crucial piece in all this. Sanders has, perhaps, learned that "all lives matter" is not a proper response to black lives matter, but I think he remains too dismissive of the role racism plays in the US economic structure.

I posted the following last month:

Which of the following would get people to stop supporting Trump:

A) he continues to align with Wall Street and establishment types (no draining of the swamp)

B) he leads an effort to privatize Social Security, Medicare, public education, etc.

C) he doesn't destroy ISIS as he promised he would

D) he doesn't bring back millions of jobs that have been outsourced (and attempts to reduce the minimum wage to boot)

E) he doesn't withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal

F) he doesn't withdraw from the Paris Agreement

G) he does a 180 on civil rights and pisses off hate groups like the KKK (no mass deportations, no Muslim registry, full support of LGBTQ rights, full support of Black Lives Matter, etc.)

The answer is 'G' and nothing else comes remotely close. In fact, I don't think A-F would have any noticeable impact. A-F will get overlooked or blamed on Democrats. 'G' is the deal breaker.

Anyway...

Bill Clinton was able to win but he did great damage to the Democratic Party. The "It's the economy, stupid" and "The era of big gov't is over" ethic was not in the long-term interests of the US or the Democratic Party. Ironically, it would seem some anti-Clinton leftists are promoting a similar deeply flawed narrative from a different angle. Again, the response to the OP is disheartening. People are doing a complete flip-flop without even realizing it.

And the notion that Hillary Clinton didn't talk enough about economics or that she lost due to economic anxiety (on the part of a segment of white working class voters) is verifiably false. Also, the "establishment" did very well in the 2016 election. So, the anti-establishment narrative is also quite flawed.

You're more optimistic than I am about peeling people away from the dark side. With limited time and energy, I'd rather focus on engaging the disengaged and combating voter suppression, while being thankful that the country is becoming more diverse all the time. 40% don't ever vote, so let's figure out a way to reduce that number.

Regarding the media, we agree. The Republican Party has repeatedly hammered the "liberal media" drum for decades, and that's paid dividends. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party hasn't fought back hardly at all. I also think the following article makes good points: http://www.salon.com/2017/01/08/what-went-wrong-with-the-democratic-party-three-big-failures-that-led-to-the-current-debacle/

The Democratic Party also needs to do much more to defend and improve upon public education, including the promotion of classes in media literacy. Tens of millions of people in the US, including most Trump supporters, subscribe to patently false beliefs. Beliefs that are so absurd that they leave one speechless. Tens of millions of people. This is a serious problem that Democrats, when they go on the political talk shows, need to address. They need to draw attention to this matter and the role the media should play in combating the spread of absurdity. Instead of letting media members get away with their false equivalency game, their everything is a matter of opinion and all opinions are equally valid game.

Yes, the response is visceral. There's no critical thought. Jobs, trade, "economic anxiety", all of that is used after the fact to justify their visceral/racist response to "those people." They don't want to think of themselves as racist and know that it isn't socially acceptable, so they find means to justify why they feel the way they do.

The justification follows the racism, not the other way around. As I said, the disagreement over what transcends what is really the crucial piece in this discussion.

As I said, the "working class whites"/economic messaging/dismissal of "identity politics" and political correctness narrative is being promoted by leftists, centrists and Trump supporters. It's the same narrative coming from different angles/spins; I'm not saying Sanders is promoting the same policies as Bill Clinton did.

Which reminds me, regarding political correctness, what I was saying earlier is that term is used by many to be dismissive of what is really just basic decency. It's not political correctness that says you shouldn't be a racist, misogynistic asshole. It's human decency that says that. When Megyn Kelly read those quotes of Trump's regarding women, he and his supporters dismissed objections as "political correctness run amok."

were born racists. I say racism is a cultural phenomenon, and if you accept that, then how can racism be the root? It has to be instead, rooted in some other fundamentally human/mammalian qualities or behaviors.

I tend to lean towards a Maslovian philosophy on this. I'm not sure it can be called a science...the very fact that the hierarchy of needs framework seems to fit everything I see in humanity might suggest to Carl Popper that the model is a bad one for the very fact that it may have been designed to be unfalsifiable. Regardless, it seems to makes sense to me.

So the question is, what is it about basic human needs that has made us construct racist narratives? Isn't that all about fear, and survival, and maybe as we get more complicated as a species and we start to have internal and external narratives of good and evil, greed as well?

The idea that class interests will transcend racism if only the Democratic Party will change the way it addresses economics is what I dispute.

Bernie and his supporters never said we should stop fighting racism or even spend any less time fighting it. The actual argument, which was not always communicated effectively, was that we need to talk about class as well as race...that BOTH matter that addressing both could massively expand the progressive coalition, that there were issues people of color and low-income or no-income whites could find common ground on, and it's not possible to defeat either racism or corporate greed without defeating both. The implication that the Sanders position was ever that racism should be put on the backburner was and is a strawman, was and is fundamentally unfair, and since we are now in a situation in which it is unlikely that Bernie will ever seek the presidency again, there's really no good reason to keep using that strawman against his supporters, many of who actually pushed the campaign to take a more explicit stand on race and essentially all of who are with you on this point.

I truly believe that, whoever any of us supported in the primaries, we are all in agree that we need to keep fighting racism and fighting it just as much as we do now.

What I've never heard anyone explain is how it would be possible to defeat racism in isolation, without addressing class or economic power. We tried that in the Sixties and the white backlash won. BLM tried that and seems to have reached the point of diminishing returns.

How do YOU propose we center anti-racism effectively now, what would be the strategy you would lay out for that?

Read through the posts again in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2677264

Read FJT's posts. Read mine.

The whole "we have to address both equally/at the same time" is a simplistic misunderstanding of the point.

Bigotry, particularly racism, transcends class interests. No progressive economic message is going to convert the bigots. And Clinton didn't lose because she didn't speak enough about economics--economics dominated her campaign.

Bernie's positions on economic matters have the support of a majority of Americans, yet the candidates he supported most strongly underperformed Clinton in their respective states. That won't change unless we strategically focus on breaking down those "parochial attitudes and beliefs."

Reverend Barber is probably on the right track: https://thinkprogress.org/rev-barber-moral-change-1ad2776df7c#.swxy502a8

was and is on board with all of that, and so are those who supported that candidate, even if they didn't communicate this as well as they might have.

But we are through with 2016 and need to stop making assumptions about what people on the Left feel about addressing race based on which candidate they supported in the 2016 primaries.

From what I can see, we all agree about confronting racism AND about forming multi-racial alliances.

What would you have to see or hear to trust that that is the case?

Hillary Clinton. I wish people would just let this go. Next it will be anything that Trump does wrong will be Bernie's fault because Trump shouldn't have been president because Hillary should have been president because blah, blah, blah...

Bernie did not win the Democratic primary. It sucks.

Hillary did not win the general election. It sucks.

Trump won the electoral college. It sucks.

Basically, everything sucks. After what I've seen this week from the Democrats, I'd say Cory Booker needs to take a hike and Al Franken needs to team up with Elizabeth Warren and run in 2020. Those two have been doing the Dems proud with their grilling of Trump's nominees.

...as the outside event that clearly pushed the vote against the Democrats but is ignored when there's an axe to grind against the liberal wing of the party.

did Hillary do anything wrong to cause this electoral outcome or was it all a combination of Bernie, Russia, Comey, etc. ?

Last edited Thu Jan 19, 2017, 02:29 PM - Edit history (2)

...there's an argument to be made for ANY of them to be "the" reason we lost the EC and a howler monkey will be sworn in on Friday. Some were immediate to the election, some are longer-term strategic blind spots and bad calls.

They all deserve examination, but harping on any one of them to the exclusion of the others will just perpetuate the dysfunction.

And hey, let's not absolve the "responsible Republicans" who voted for Johnson just because they "could not vote for that woman." Both the Libertarian and Green parties got about 3x as many votes as they did in 2012 (L's a little more, G's just under). Assuming the swell was from the "rRs" for the Ls and the "Or Busts" (who'd already parted with Bernie) for the Gs, there were over 3 times as many Republicans who let Trump into office just out of spite and swallowing all the horseshit about Hillary promulgated by conservatives than there were strident lefties who effectively did much the same.

But hey, why would the author of the Time column look there when he'd have to pass up an opportunity to grind an axe, one whose fumes Time's audience can be pretty comfortable sniffing.

Had no right to run against her. The fact that he ran a clean, issue oriented campaign doesn't change the fact that he was wrong to oppose the DNC's anointed one. Of course he did actively campaign for Clinton in the general election (unlike Nader, who got over 90,000 votes in Florida). But it was irresponsible of Sanders to give primary voters a choice other than the one offered by the powers that be.

and voted for her in overwhelming numbers.

She got to be the GE candidate and still lost... to Trump.

If you need everyone to be in perfect alignment, say the right words, and never question their party's candidate (before or after the primary) in order to win against *Trump*, then I think there's a bigger issue.

(and of course it's not that simple with things like gerrymandering, Russia and Comey)

and in fact he did not have the right to run as other than independent, we gave him the "right" to run against Democrats.

Apparently Weaver convinced Bernie to go full blown negative for the New York primary. Not issues. Smears and character attacks. "Deal with the Devil" Even after Weaver lost NY, he kept the negative campaigning up.

Bernie supporter here, I have a huge amount of bitterness about how badly Weaver fucked this up.

I don't agree w OP's premise, but I'm not going to pretend Weaver didn't go scorched earth.

That wasn't his objective. His campaign was about raising awareness for his message, not about making certain the republicans are kept away from the White House.

He was about changing minds and policies. Not about strategically, how to beat a republican.

She knew policies don't mean jack if you don't win the job. His campaign helped undermine hers.

deal. So they deserved to be aired. That's called democracy.

Nice- welcome to DU

Welcome to DU

(1) Jill Stein was the Ralph Nader of 2016.

(2) The author puts a finger on one of the issues, but what about Comey, Russia, Wikileaks, Republican witch hunts? Let's not pretend that Sanders was more significant than those other causes. Moreover, Secretary Clinton beat Senator Sanders by 3.7 million votes, whereas she beat Trump by 2.9 million in a much larger election. It was never a contest after South Carolina.

(3) This is spit-take wrong: "Sanders liberals considered Clintonian centrism not liberal enough, not minority-sensitive enough, not pure enough." Not minority-sensitive enough? If the author means statements taken out of context from two decades ago, okay. But nobody believes that, especially since Clinton got massive POC support. She was getting nearly 80% of that vote over the age of 45 (i.e. people who vote). Finally, Democrats who only want to talk about economics are only "pure" on one subject: Economics. How does that make somebody pure?

Time to do an about-face and point your bayonets at Republicans, who could care less if you die.

How many "responsible Republicans" voted for Johnson just to not vote for either Trump or Clinton? Both the Libertarians and Greens got about 3 times as many votes as they did in 2012, but the Libertarian vote was three times the size of the Green vote.

Never let them off the hook. They elected him just as much as the people who voted for Kremlin Don.

What a ridiculous article.

Actually, sanders was on the ballot and preformed poorly. https://extranewsfeed.com/bernie-sanders-was-on-the-2016-ballot-and-he-underperformed-hillary-clinton-3b561e8cb779#.jbtsa3epl