General Discussion

...is that the posters talk about Sanders Democrats like we are a tiny minority of the Democratic Party. In California they are actually a slight majority in the rank and file delegates (not Super-delegates though). By treating a sizable chunk of the Democratic base as a tiny minority to be ignored is self-defeating.



In the op what I view as conventional Democratic Party leadership is characterized as:

"The "all that matters is the big donors" faction will always guarantee that the party doesn't take progressive positions on any issues other than those that don't threaten the rich and those that can't liberate anyone. "'

While that strategy worked for a while in the 80's and part of the 90's, it's seen diminishing returns since Bill Clinton won his second term. Part of it is seeing what policies result from listening primarily to the big donors at the expense of everyone else. "Ending Welfare as we know it" has been a disaster - but not to the "big donors". NAFTA was a disaster for American manufacturing jobs* - but for the donor class it realized an old capitalist dream of cheap labor and "mobile" factories. For the jobs that remained, working primarily for the big donors made sure that the huge productivity boom in the US went into their pockets - not their workers, former workers and pension plans.

Another part, perhaps the larger part, is smart phone video. It makes having a public policy and a (very?) different private policy increasingly difficult if not impossible. When you exclude Democratic voters from your speeches, and acknowledge the duo policy positions, it DOES NOT inspire trust. I'm not saying Democratic figures shouldn't give speeches to private organizations for speaking fees - just that those speeches shouldn't be kept secret. Even just releasing a transcript would help with transparency.


If cash is still king in elections ( yes I realize you need money to run a campaign) then the last election would have been Hillary Clinton vs. John Ellis Bush-Bush and the person with the best funded campaign would have won. "Jebbie" didn't even make it through the initial culling of the GOP primary. Money is not the only factor in winning an election. It has been for so long that it angers the inside the beltway crowd (and fellow travelers) that exists by and for conventional inside-the-beltway wisdom. It means new strategies and tactics need to be developed, and worst of all that what was reliable ("all that matters is the big donors&quot doesn't work in the way it used to.


*If the the majority of job loss was due to automation why are there manufacturing jobs in China? Why were those workers trained by Americans who used to do those jobs?