If memory serves, Hillary's operatives at the DNC tried to put some kind of fix in for her versus Bernie. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was involved, I believe. Small potatoes compared with the current GQP slow-motion "Night of the Long Sporks."
There was a faction within the Democratic Party that wasn't happy with Sanders running as a Democrat, since he had long and loudly proclaimed that he wasn't. That faction made some minimal effort to organize the election in a way that diminished Sanders' impact. It's not known how much, if at all, the Clintons were involved (probably too busy murdering and importing drugs in Mena, Arkansas) and anyway it didn't work. But Trump convinced the RNC to unite its fund-raising with his and he effectively owns them.
Again, if you're going to invoke the DNC's problems with the socialist left, intellectual honestly alone demands that you also invoke the RNC's problems with the libertarian right. E.g., if Sanders/Stein voters had a general-election moral obligation to vote for Clinton, then Johnson (LP) voters had the same moral obligation to vote for Trump.
And when you crunch those numbers (adding Johnson's totals to Trump's the same way you add Stein's to Clinton), guess what happens? Trump not only still wins, but with 19 more Electoral College votes AND a popular vote plurality.
If you don't believe it, here's a state-by-state list of 2016 results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... Just add the percentages received by Stein to Clinton (and Johnson to Trump) in MI, PA and WI, and Trump still wins.
Conversely, do the same for ME, MN, and NV (where the GP didn't qualify for the ballot), and that's three more states with 19 EV's that go to Trump.
Is it too much to ask for intellectual honesty and logical consistency? After all, had Johnson's voters done for Trump what you demand Stein's voters should have done for Clinton, Trump still would have won, only with more 'legitimacy'. You can thank the LP that Teh Donald didn't, however much you complain about the GP. (Btw, this is what probably would have happened if the '16 election had ranked choice voting)
This, as Ezra Klein made clear in 2017, is the Chris Cilliza version of Clinton's loss. As Klein points out, "If Trump won merely because Clinton was such a crummy candidate, then we don’t have to ask how someone like Trump could win, and whether it could happen again, perhaps with someone even worse." In fact, Trump's campaign was markedly worse than Clinton's, disorganized, rife with scandal, full of lying and grifting. He won because in 2016 a lot of Americans wanted a man like that to be President. More wanted him in 2020 but fortunately even more didn't and voted for Biden. Right now there are millions of Americans who would choose Trump again over Clinton, Biden, Obama, any Democrat, no matter how good a candidate s/he is. That's the reality we have to face: some people want fascism.
I don’t entirely disagree with you, in fact I appreciate your response. You’ve made me realize my that my anger and resentment were counterproductive and I have, just now, let a lot of it go. However, replying to “We could have fought better, harder and smarter” with “Well, they might have fought better, harder and smarter too”, (or whatever passes for that in Rethuglifascist land) is not really instructive. We need to fight harder, better, and smarter in the future. (And thank you.)
I take longer, more "meta" view of politics, with an emphasis on institutions and structures, rather than whatever personalities are chosen to represent them. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously wrote, "Great minds discuss ideas. Mediocre minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
To appreciate how the DP became the US's second Party, one must understand why the DNC turned its back on FDR and the New Deal, a process that began in 1968, when the anti-war and progressive left movements drove LBJ into retirement. The turning point was four years later, when these movements built a grassroots movement to make McGovern the nominee, which compelled the grandees of the DNC to deliberately throw the election to Nixon*. In '73, when the DNC reorganized, the purge of the prog-left began, and continues to this day, half a century later.
Since then, the DNC's core mission was to become GOP-lite, or the anthesis of New Deal liberalism.** Which ultimately led to the DLC's hijacking the DNC, and turning the DP into same kind of cult of personality that JFK did in 1960, only with the Clinton's. And to appreciate just how thoroughly Bubba destroyed the national DP, it helps to look at how he perfected those tactics and policies as governor of AR first.***
Long story short, the narrative arc of the DP since the mid-60's is one of renouncing the legacy of FDR and repealing the New Deal (more successfully than the GOP has), and becoming just what the GOP says it is: a wholly-owned and -operated subsidiary of Big Business (esp. Big Finance), aka, corporate logos, while the GOP is little more than a personal pet of fascistic billionaires, aka monograms. I can't simplify the distinctions are lower. Which explains why establishment Democrats regard Gore, Kerry and H. Clinton as martyrs, and Nader/Sanders/Stein as so many Judases. And act accordingly.
And I sincerely welcome your thanks. The problem is, we on the prog/socialist left have been 'fighting harder, better and smarter' for a long time (I started in 1968); and 55 years later, we're more marginalized and hated by establishment Democrats than ever.
As I explain above (with more links than most will even open, much less read), from the prog/left (and generic greens) perspective, the DNC is as much an enemy of the working class (and environmentalism) as the RNC, albeit for somewhat different reasons--the RNC because they are anti-union, anti-science fascists; the former because they are (willing) victims of corporate (elite donor class) capture.
My broader point is, economic populism has always resonated with voters (it's the reason why the authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights opposed universal suffrage by not specifying a right to vote). The problem is, the RNC is dedicated to advancing racist, socially reactionary and culturally regressive 'populism', while the DNC wages a war of extermination against progressive populism.
Again, this is the perspective from the prog/socialist left.
Progressive socialist left is exactly where I am, but I also believe we have to be pragmatic and that means voting for the most progressive person on the ticket (with the ability to actually win). When it was Bernie in the primary, I voted for Bernie. When it was Clinton in the general, I voted for Clinton. I agree Clinton was not that progressive, but she would have had the opportunity to appoint more left-leaning SCOTUS judges, maybe even a true progressive or two. We certainly wouldn’t be where we are today with RvW, and a massive loss of civil and human rights protections. The right wing have managed to move the Overton Window dramatically the last 55 years from Nixon and Reagan (who would be considered RINOs today) to Trump, a true fascist. We have to do the same thing or this democracy is going to die. I don’t have time today to present this more persuasively, but I know you get my drift. We have to work with the (fucked up) system we have and move it more progressively progressive.
Francisco Franco
I hear he's still dead?
If memory serves, Hillary's operatives at the DNC tried to put some kind of fix in for her versus Bernie. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was involved, I believe. Small potatoes compared with the current GQP slow-motion "Night of the Long Sporks."
I want my donation back.
There was a faction within the Democratic Party that wasn't happy with Sanders running as a Democrat, since he had long and loudly proclaimed that he wasn't. That faction made some minimal effort to organize the election in a way that diminished Sanders' impact. It's not known how much, if at all, the Clintons were involved (probably too busy murdering and importing drugs in Mena, Arkansas) and anyway it didn't work. But Trump convinced the RNC to unite its fund-raising with his and he effectively owns them.
Again, if you're going to invoke the DNC's problems with the socialist left, intellectual honestly alone demands that you also invoke the RNC's problems with the libertarian right. E.g., if Sanders/Stein voters had a general-election moral obligation to vote for Clinton, then Johnson (LP) voters had the same moral obligation to vote for Trump.
And when you crunch those numbers (adding Johnson's totals to Trump's the same way you add Stein's to Clinton), guess what happens? Trump not only still wins, but with 19 more Electoral College votes AND a popular vote plurality.
If you don't believe it, here's a state-by-state list of 2016 results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... Just add the percentages received by Stein to Clinton (and Johnson to Trump) in MI, PA and WI, and Trump still wins.
Conversely, do the same for ME, MN, and NV (where the GP didn't qualify for the ballot), and that's three more states with 19 EV's that go to Trump.
Is it too much to ask for intellectual honesty and logical consistency? After all, had Johnson's voters done for Trump what you demand Stein's voters should have done for Clinton, Trump still would have won, only with more 'legitimacy'. You can thank the LP that Teh Donald didn't, however much you complain about the GP. (Btw, this is what probably would have happened if the '16 election had ranked choice voting)
salt and vinegar, liberally and consistently applied for two years, at least. no digging required.
This, as Ezra Klein made clear in 2017, is the Chris Cilliza version of Clinton's loss. As Klein points out, "If Trump won merely because Clinton was such a crummy candidate, then we don’t have to ask how someone like Trump could win, and whether it could happen again, perhaps with someone even worse." In fact, Trump's campaign was markedly worse than Clinton's, disorganized, rife with scandal, full of lying and grifting. He won because in 2016 a lot of Americans wanted a man like that to be President. More wanted him in 2020 but fortunately even more didn't and voted for Biden. Right now there are millions of Americans who would choose Trump again over Clinton, Biden, Obama, any Democrat, no matter how good a candidate s/he is. That's the reality we have to face: some people want fascism.
I don’t entirely disagree with you, in fact I appreciate your response. You’ve made me realize my that my anger and resentment were counterproductive and I have, just now, let a lot of it go. However, replying to “We could have fought better, harder and smarter” with “Well, they might have fought better, harder and smarter too”, (or whatever passes for that in Rethuglifascist land) is not really instructive. We need to fight harder, better, and smarter in the future. (And thank you.)
I take longer, more "meta" view of politics, with an emphasis on institutions and structures, rather than whatever personalities are chosen to represent them. As Eleanor Roosevelt famously wrote, "Great minds discuss ideas. Mediocre minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."
To appreciate how the DP became the US's second Party, one must understand why the DNC turned its back on FDR and the New Deal, a process that began in 1968, when the anti-war and progressive left movements drove LBJ into retirement. The turning point was four years later, when these movements built a grassroots movement to make McGovern the nominee, which compelled the grandees of the DNC to deliberately throw the election to Nixon*. In '73, when the DNC reorganized, the purge of the prog-left began, and continues to this day, half a century later.
Since then, the DNC's core mission was to become GOP-lite, or the anthesis of New Deal liberalism.** Which ultimately led to the DLC's hijacking the DNC, and turning the DP into same kind of cult of personality that JFK did in 1960, only with the Clinton's. And to appreciate just how thoroughly Bubba destroyed the national DP, it helps to look at how he perfected those tactics and policies as governor of AR first.***
Long story short, the narrative arc of the DP since the mid-60's is one of renouncing the legacy of FDR and repealing the New Deal (more successfully than the GOP has), and becoming just what the GOP says it is: a wholly-owned and -operated subsidiary of Big Business (esp. Big Finance), aka, corporate logos, while the GOP is little more than a personal pet of fascistic billionaires, aka monograms. I can't simplify the distinctions are lower. Which explains why establishment Democrats regard Gore, Kerry and H. Clinton as martyrs, and Nader/Sanders/Stein as so many Judases. And act accordingly.
*https://newrepublic.com/art...**https://jacobin.com/2022/07... and https://www.salon.com/2016/...***https://www.lawcha.org/2016...
So I guess Wonketteers in 20 different states need to pony up $5 each for Asa so that he can stand on the stage at the debates and read PAB for filth?
Sounds like a bargain.
And I sincerely welcome your thanks. The problem is, we on the prog/socialist left have been 'fighting harder, better and smarter' for a long time (I started in 1968); and 55 years later, we're more marginalized and hated by establishment Democrats than ever.
As I explain above (with more links than most will even open, much less read), from the prog/left (and generic greens) perspective, the DNC is as much an enemy of the working class (and environmentalism) as the RNC, albeit for somewhat different reasons--the RNC because they are anti-union, anti-science fascists; the former because they are (willing) victims of corporate (elite donor class) capture.
My broader point is, economic populism has always resonated with voters (it's the reason why the authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights opposed universal suffrage by not specifying a right to vote). The problem is, the RNC is dedicated to advancing racist, socially reactionary and culturally regressive 'populism', while the DNC wages a war of extermination against progressive populism.
Again, this is the perspective from the prog/socialist left.
The most prevalent aroma in Kansas is "Eau of cattle feedlot".
Progressive socialist left is exactly where I am, but I also believe we have to be pragmatic and that means voting for the most progressive person on the ticket (with the ability to actually win). When it was Bernie in the primary, I voted for Bernie. When it was Clinton in the general, I voted for Clinton. I agree Clinton was not that progressive, but she would have had the opportunity to appoint more left-leaning SCOTUS judges, maybe even a true progressive or two. We certainly wouldn’t be where we are today with RvW, and a massive loss of civil and human rights protections. The right wing have managed to move the Overton Window dramatically the last 55 years from Nixon and Reagan (who would be considered RINOs today) to Trump, a true fascist. We have to do the same thing or this democracy is going to die. I don’t have time today to present this more persuasively, but I know you get my drift. We have to work with the (fucked up) system we have and move it more progressively progressive.
A rare case of a Republican showing some shred of integrity, so OF COURSE the party has to chastise him.
Rumor has it.
I'm in.