Might as well lay out my view. I voted for Hillary in Massachusetts. I urge every New York Democratic voter do the same today. I support her going forward, not simply as the likely nominee around whom we should rally, but because I think she will make a significantly better president than Bernie ever would.
Presidenting is much more than asserting the ideal campaign positions. It’s more than policy. Day to day it involves an enormous range of skills in management, listening, decision processing and more. And there’s the matter of winning the general in the first place. I think Hillary bests Bernie on most of what I want in a president — which is to say mine is an affirmative preference, not a lesser-of-two-evils judgment.
On positions and policy. First, the obvious: Based on the one data set that allows us to directly compare the two, they aren’t nearly as far apart as current rhetoric, especially the heated anger emanating from BernieBros and BernieSisters would suggest. I’d add that on several of the votes on which the two differed, ISTM that Hillary had the better of the argument.
We can argue about some specific positions: I think Hillary gets Wall St. regulation much better than Bernie at campaign levels of specificity. She’s right in an important way when she says Glass-Steagel doesn’t deal with shadow banking problems, and both the last crisis and the next one will take root in those shadows.
I guess I’d prefer Bernie’s approach to college finance in a perfect world, which this ain’t, but I’ve learned to value the oft-Obama’d incremental approach that Hillary’s college cash plan takes. More broadly, the fact that Bernie’s numbers don’t add up often enough troubles me, but I guess one could say he’s hardly the first to slip “a miracle occurs” into step two of his plan.
On war and peace: Hillary makes me nervous, but less so than she did before I listened to this speech. Am I completely sure she’s mastered the art of not doing stupid shit? No. But I’m even less confident of Bernie’s capacity to handle the extreme complexity of foreign policy in an age of the relative decline of American soft power.
Would I feel someone crazy for having a more sanguine view of Bernie on international matters and a more skeptical one of Hillary’s? No. But the point remains that the distinction between the two on policy is far less than often portrayed, and vastly less than it is between either of them on any issue, domestic or foreign, cultural or social, and any possible Republican candidate.
My sense of the real divergence comes when I ask whether or not each of them could actually be effective doing presidenting, instead of aspiring to a presidency.
Here, to me, there’s an obvious winner, by a wide margin. Bernie has spent a couple of decades in DC as a gadfly and a mostly invisible legislator. He’s been a valuable and reliable vote, and a useful voice from time to time, but he’s not advanced his cause through the levers of power anywhere near as much as, say, his much less experienced colleague Elizabeth Warren.
Seriously, folks. It’s not even close. My senior senator has had a huge effect on policy in the majority and in the minority, and has been an effective public advocate as well. Ohio’s Brown has been much more impressive than Bernie. And FFS — the Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, showed what can be done when you put your head down and do the work. Bernie isn’t in the same league.
Presidenting is a hard job. Obama is flat out brilliant at it — and he still has made critical errors, and it took him at least a couple of years, some would say more, to get the hang of it. Bernie hasn’t got the record that gives me confidence, nor has in this campaign shown much flexibility of mind, or the capacity to construct plan Bs when his preferred course might be blocked for any reason.
Hillary Clinton has a vastly different — and to my mind superior — body of experience; running State for four years is a whole other level of executive responsibility than anything on offer from all the other major candidates of both parties. That makes me think she has a vastly better chance of getting her policy views enacted than Bernie will.
That’s important because the only thing worse than a lost revolution is one that wins and then fails to deliver. We saw that in a sense in the response to Obama’s first two years: for all that was accomplished, the effects of those achievements were so masked that epic majorities became seemingly indefinite House minorities in a blink of an eye — and we all know how it’s gone since.
You want a sharper example? I could go all Godwin on you and point to the failure of the Weimar Social Democrats to deliver on their promises of a just society as the necessary pre-condition for all the woe that followed. There are lots of reasons that feed into that failure, both errors on the SPD government’s side, the intransigent resistance of the rump right, and circumstances beyond anyone’s experience (hyperinflation, the ’29 crash and so on). But for all the historical distance, I think this point of comparison bears considering: an inept revolution seeds its own collapse and likely leads to a sequel that will be grim indeed. Not Nazi grim, necessarily…but look at the other side, folks, and think about what hairballs they might cough up in 2018 and 2020.
I’ve got more. For example, I think Bernie would make a much less effective general election candidate than his current polling situation suggests, and I worry about his age and stamina in what is notoriously a killer of a job. But there’s only one more thing I want to say, in direct response to one aspect of Hillary R.’s argument below. She wrote:
…And who get that Black lives matter, Iraqi lives matter, also Honduran, Libyan, and Palestinian.
I wish we had more active Black FPers who could take that on, but that wouldn’t relieve me of the obligation I feel to respond.
Yes, anyone’s life matters, everyone’s does. But in American politics now, the fact is that Black lives are at risk in ways other groups are not. Black lives have paid a disproportionate price to achieve even the basics of social justice — the Social Security system that by design omitted the blackest jobs, for example. Black lives are constrained in ways that a middle-aged educated, reasonably well off white man like myself may be able to glimpse intellectually…but I have to rely on never complete accounts of those speaking from inside such lives to gain even a hint of what that means day to day.
All of which is to say that the one thing about Bernie and too many of his supporters that actually makes me angry, rather than just being political stuff on which one may differ, is the suggestion that yet again, the daily reality of Black life in America is a secondary issue, important maybe, but one to be addressed only in the context of the larger issues at hand.
That is, I’m tired of the view that the realities of Black life must wait while we, once again, reach for the promised land of revolution. Of course, economic justice is crucial for all Americans, minorities included. But we’ve seen how measures of economic justice have at once advanced that goal for many and left exactly those people behind who now say Black Lives Matter.
I don’t doubt anyone’s good will here. Not Bernie’s, not my FP colleague Hillary’s. But the subsuming of a specific cause in a preferred broader one is so seductive. And to me, at least, it repeats an old and bad leftist move, one that isolates exactly those who know best what’s really at stake in this and every election.
So, yeah. I’m for Hillary. I hope she does very well indeed today.
J. W.M. Turner, Dido Building Carthage, 1815. (The link to this post might be a little obscure, but in my mind it connects with a barely remembered tagline from The Aeneid: dux femina facta, a woman made it happen.) (That is, of course, a very loose translation.)
chopper
i can haz tbogg?
chopper
that aside, of the several posts in the last day regarding ‘who i’m voting for and why’, this is the most well-reasoned. then again i’m a hillbot.
Baud
And yet still no posts for Baud!
My exclamation point is drooping is sadness.
WaterGirl
@chopper: I agree with you, and I’m definitely no hillbot.
chopper
plus bernie has that two-panel tattoo of KISS going to the grocery store and then comparing their you-know-whats to the yams.
WaterGirl
@Baud: If only I were a front pager.
Johnnybuck
Very well reasoned Tom.
Thanks
Chyron HR
“Then let’s fight!” – Robert Downey Jr., Marvel’s Civil War In IMAX 3D
Starfish
I thought that you voted for Hilary Rettig and became a vegan when I read the title of this post.
LAO
@Baud: I looked for you on the ballot this morning but didn’t see your name. Was I supposed to ask for a secret ballot? Did I miss my chance?
ETA: and thank you Tom for expressing my thoughts more eloquently than I could have.
Mike in NC
A President Trump or Cruz would set the country back about 150 years and pretty much guarantee WW3.
Wiesman
Well put, Tom. I share many (not all) of the concerns others have about HRC but I think she will make a fine president. I look forward to voting for her.
Baud
@WaterGirl: When I’m President, you will be, WG. You will be.
Baud
@LAO: Ugh. The voter suppression in New York is unreal.
geg6
Ms. Rettig has lost me completely with that BLM diss and also by saying that feminism can’t achieve anything in the face of income inequality, which must necessarily come first. It’s such a bullshit argument and can only be made by someone who has never really faced discrimination that has no connection to economics.
srv
Well sure, you can make an argument that Sanders will lead to Hitler, but even I can see Sanders as being a moral, albeit naive, candidate.
Nobody can make an argument that Hillary represents a moral choice. Just another ‘experienced’ coastal elitist brick in the wall of the soul crushing establishment.
What small country will she throw up against the wall to make an example of? You all know there will be one.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: I think you’ll need to ghost-write it and forward it to one of the FP-ers.
That being said…I think I may just have to post a link to Tom’s post here on my FB page as my “once and for all time, bitchez, this is why.”
@efgoldman: good catch! I hadn’t seen it before this; bookmarked for reading later.
Trentrunner
Not that it’s a contest, but this is the most grounded and convincing of the endorsements made here today.
AkaDad
Tom doesn’t really support Hillary, he just doesn’t want to be “Vince Fostered.”
Baud
@Trentrunner: To be fair, it’s Tom Levenson. He’s kind of smart. He’s got a real job and shit.
Loviatar
I’m trying to teach my son that executing is just as important as having a great idea. Sanders has all of these great policy ideas, however I question his ability to implement anything.
—–
Said by a white person with no fucking clue.
jl
@Baud:
” And yet still no posts for Baud!
My exclamation point is drooping is sadness. ”
You’ve reached the ‘Baud?’ stage of the campaign?
I, for one, find the complete lack of vicious and false attacks on Baud? 2016? in this blog to be unforgivable and unfair.
A crummy performance from an almost top 10,000 full service political blog.
aimai
@srv: Of course we can make the argument that she is a moral choice. She is absolutely a moral person and would lead the country with reference to her moral compass which I find more than sufficiently moral.
Great post, Tom. You have put into words many of the things I’ve been thinking.
JPL
@Baud: Truth be known, everyone has shit..
Baud
@JPL: But Tom’s don’t stink.
Loviatar
@geg6:
Said by a white woman with no fucking clue.
JPL
@Baud: You know that how?
Baud
@jl: Exactly. How can people rally around me if I’m not subject to any unfair attacks?
Davebo
@srv:
You gotta love it! It’s like a short version of a Patterson novel. Incredibly popular, but still really bad writing.
Mike J
Dido? I thought this post was going to be about Cruz.
Baud
@JPL: That’s, um, a state secret.
aimai
To get back to the morality point, which I think I’ve scanted. SRV’s point assumes that there is only one kind of morality, or only one set of concerns that can be labled moral. But there are many, and many takes on them. There is a morality of cause and effect, in politics. What Weber would call an ethic of responsibility. I see both Obama and Hillary as expressing this ethic in the highest degree. It is an ethic that requires the politician to take into account the number of lives that will be hurt, as well as the number of lives that will be helped. it requires that all lives be valued and respected. It requires that the politician work not only to uplift the groups that require help, but not actively harm those who don’t require help. This is the argument that the status quo is not wholly evil, but contains a lot of value for people that can’t or shouldn’t be wantonly destroyed. People have health care right now through the ACA–lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to try to get something perfect when millions of people are newly insured under the ACA. Or: people have some assets–lets be careful how we treat the economy so as not to destroy the assets that people have amassed while trying to create new opportunities and wealth for everyone. Its the political equivalent of the Buddhist middle path–neither ascetiscism nor profligacy.
jl
@Baud: i’ve been trying. For example: I can state with confidence that Baud? 2016?’s shit stinks. Do we want that in the WH, which is not even his!!??
JPL
@Baud: Campaign slogan .. This shit don’t stink..
Baud
@jl: I appreciate everything you’re doing to build me up by tearing me down.
Technocrat
Wow. This is the post I wish I was articulate enough to write. The whole thing is good, but this part:
is where you just went Super-Saiyan. Well done.
lollipopguild
@JPL: Baud=Hitler on Steroids. Some people in our great country may be looking for that.
Mandalay
@aimai: .
Ah, so that explains Clinton’s support for the baseless, illegal and immoral slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents in Iraq.
Your post is arguably the biggest pile of drivel ever posted on BJ.
gogol's wife
@Mandalay:
You’re the expert on drivel.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: jl’s done his best attacking you; it’s just come up a bit flat.
Mike J
@Mandalay: What explains Sanders’ support for the slaughter pf innocents at Sandy Hook?
different-church-lady
@Mandalay:
Well, it’s early yet…
Exurban Mom
Nicely argued, and captures a lot of what I appreciate about Hillary. I was proud to vote for her in my state a few weeks ago. Though I was sorely tempted to write in Baud 2016. Sorely tempted. But I was afraid my vote would not be counted even for posterity’s sake, due to me not knowing Baud’s first (or is it last?) name.
Cephalus Max
Thumbs up on all points in this post, Tom. All why I was actually an enthusiastic — not least-of-all-evils — Hillary voter in my state’s primary.
Although I agree that one of the FPers really ought to endorse Baud 2016.
Betty Cracker
Bravo! Well said.
Major Major Major Major
The newest wing on the Library of Congress will be dedicated to how Baud! is the worst president of all time.
NR
@Technocrat: So Bernie Sanders has gone from literally Hitler to literally Von Hindenberg. BJers are good at mental gymnastics, if nothing else.
Daulnay
@chopper:
I agree, and I prefer Bernie, though this post moved me a lot closer to neutral. The age and BLM arguments are both things about Bernie that have made me pause, but I haven’t seen the Weimar SD argument before.
If the DLC faction of the Democratic party were not insouciant about the bad effects of deregulation, and so eager to prevent re-regulation (see DWS and the Friendly Payday Loan Companies), I could wholeheartedly agree that Hillary is the better candidate.
But Hillary and her faction of the party have and are relatively unconcerned about corporate malfeasance. We’ve had 30+ years of deregulation and business plundering the rest of us so fiercely that ordinary Americans have made, on average, zero economic progress. What that does is pit us against each other in a zero-sum game. In order for me to get better off, some other ordinary American has gotten worse off. That fact fuels white vs. black, male vs. female politics.
We need re-regulation of the American economy, and breaking up of the cartels and oligopolies that have formed. Hillary doesn’t seem to think economic concentration is a problem, and has no problem with our predatory banking industry. (I really want to read those speeches.) I’m convinced she’ll sign the TPP (a Davos-attending financier said he expected her to ‘become more practical’ after the election and sign).
When Debbie Wasserman Schultz is removed from her position and resigns her seat in the House, I will accept that Hillary will act in the best interest of all Americans. Until then, it’s very hard to believe in her good intentions. And intentions matter as much as capability; I don’t have faith that Hillary has any intention of dealing with the structural economic problems. While an incapable Bernie may not accomplish much, what will capable Hillary choose to do?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
You echoed my sentiments exactly Tom – have made the same points here many times. I think the tipping point for me was the results of Super Tuesday, and the overwhelming support of Clinton by the AA community, the most reliable faithful Democratic voters. She basically won that night, thanks to that rich delegate haul. I just can’t get past that we Democrats really need to honor those votes in some ways above all others, because in order to change anything in this racist and sexist as fuck country, we need to ally with each other. Income inequality is not the first cause, it’s a result of racism exploited by the oligarchs to cement their advantages, but they haven’t created racism. I’m convinced of this more and more.
singfoom
@Mike J: That’s some powerful “both-sides-do-it-ism”. Voting to use military force against a country that posed no threat against the United States and voting to grant immunity to gun manufacturers for crimes committed with their products seem like very, very different things to me.
The scale difference there is quite striking.
The funny thing here is that HRC has said she regrets that vote, and Bernie has come around and decided that the gun manufacturers don’t deserve immunity.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: My attacks have been truly vile. I blame the candidate.
Mike J
@singfoom:
Thank god we had Hillary to push him to the left.
Tom Levenson
@NR: Actually, Ebert or his immediate successor, but don’t let the details trip u up
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: I’d suggest that’s an improvement, YMMV.
Technocrat
@Cephalus Max:
Seriously, the anti-Baud partisanship is just…uncalled-for.
Jordan Rules
Excellent Tom! Thank you!
singfoom
@Mike J:
Now that’s some serious comedy. I guffawed. But it still doesn’t make those two votes like each other in the slightest.
hovercraft
I’ll provide a voice for some black women. I don’t think any real democrats don’t feel for the plight of oppressed people anywhere (we all feel for those other groups), but being black is here now and every day. I keep getting white people telling me I don’t understand my own best interest, apparently I’m too ignorant to see what’s best for me. When you walk into a store and they follow you. When you fear for the life for your loved ones when they go out, both from scared white people from the police. Just as any women can tell you you know it when you see it. So please stop telling me how income inequality is the biggest problem in my life, it’s not. Making it home in one piece is more important, being able to buy or rent a home in any neighborhood I can afford is more important, being able to drive while black, being judged for my qualifications not my skin color. These are the things that I consider to be my priorities, these things affect my vote. For all their faults the Clintons have been working with the black community for 40 years, sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad. But they were there we saw them, we didn’t always agree but they engaged with us they listened to us. This is what is called a relationship, no lockstep just a comfort level and an understanding that at the end of the day they are politicians. So as much as I respect the civil rights work way back when, you can’t go silent for 40 years and expect to get the same credit. And the you top that off by saying that our votes don’t carry the same weight as white liberals votes, well Fuck You and your Fucking Revolution. You do not get to come into my party shit all over the house and then bitch that you are not getting your hosts support. House guests are supposed to ingratiate themselves not wreck the joint. So I’ll stick with my imperfect longtime friend rather Johnny come lately who up until a year ago didn’t give a shit about me.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mandalay:
@Mike J:
OH FOR FUCKS SAKE COME ON! Does every post have to devolve into this kind of bullshit? Can we just put a moratorium on saying stupid shit just to poke each other in the eye with our fingers and try to stay civil?
Cacti
I’ve not hidden my preference for Clinton as the best available choice to not muck up the Obama legacy. Needling the Bernie kids has just been added bonus, because they take themselves so terribly seriously.
Bernie’s disastrous NYDN interview was a game changer for me though. It pushed my view of him from guy I didn’t want to win the nom, to guy who doesn’t pack the gear intellectually to be President of the United States. He couldn’t have bombed that worse if he’d tanked it on purpose. It was his Sarah Palin/Katie Couric moment.
So, count me as hoping the bucket of ice water gets dumped on the Bern with all possible haste.
Davebo
@Mandalay:
As much as it pissed me off, Clinton’s vote didn’t start the Iraq war.
That was pulled off by a little over 500 voters in Florida who were more than pure. Congratulations.
Technocrat
@NR:
NR, I know you know what “literally” means =).
Allusions have been made, is what one might say. It’s politics, man.
aimai
@Mandalay: Do tell.
Mike J
@singfoom: Guns kill thousands of Americans each and every year, and have for decades.
Greg
@singfoom:
For what it’s worth, I see the AUMF vote as a negative for Hillary because of her poor judgement in believing the Bush administration was serious about pursuing a diplomatic solution (with the AUMF as a stick). The actual consequences of the invasion, including all the deaths, are much more the fault of the idiots that planned it and the moron that ordered it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Though I’ll admit the hit about President Baud! talking to youths outside a liquor store was one of your bests. The slurred speech and the smell of day old alcohol emitting from the President was an extra special touch.
aimai
@hovercraft: Thank you for providing this much needed corrective to the discussion.
Baud
I really appreciate all of the negative comments. You guys are the best.
Davebo
@hovercraft: Well said.
Keith G
@geg6:
That seems to be a rather breathtaking assertion to make when I ponder the likely reality that you know nothing (or very little) of her life.
Ask her and find out. Or….
singfoom
@Mike J:
Ok, and the logic tying the two votes together is that…..guns kill people? Have I got that right?
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: On second thought, my vile attacks on Baud? 2016? are weak sauce compared to the favors bestowed on HRC and Sanders every day, right here. My attempts to help Baud? by defaming him have failed due to insufficient viciousness and spite. I can see that now. And I am ashamed.
Edit: but I am cheered at the prospect of having to choose between a soulless, insanely ambitious corporate sellout and a bumbling racist commie dolt for Democratic nominee this November.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@NR: More to being Hermann Müller.
rikyrah
@hovercraft:
Amen
VFX Lurker
@hovercraft:
Thank you for posting that. Posts like this make me wish this blog had a “like” button.
Roger Moore
@Mandalay:
You must not have been reading your own posts. In retrospect, this point should have been obvious to anyone trying to read them.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
R. Moore
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, all lives matter. But one has to be willfully blind to not see that some lives matter more than black lives. See Akai Gurley today.
redshirt
@Chyron HR: #TEAMCAP!
ruemara
Thanks, Tom. It’s a very good statement. This election has been an eyeopening disappointment for me. Sanders, a fellow I’ve heard speak so often over the years, is not who I’ve been told he was. I’ve always doubled checked on what he’s said, but chalked it up to brevity or not being entirely a process guy when speaking to an audience who’s a little more savvy in government. That Daily News interview would have shut any support right down, if I wasn’t already in the no column from reading his platform proposals and noting no intention of doing anything to get the key supports at the state & congressional levels his entire plan revolves around.
Hillary meant nothing to me, as I was a kid becoming an adult when she & Bill were in the WH. And if you think that crime bill was a negative, you’d be wrong. Even I was scared of a supposed generation warped by the introduction of crack to the inner city. I’m from NYC. We’d been fed a lot of crap about wilding teens back then. I wasn’t particularly interested in Obama in ’08, as I didn’t think his resume was as impressive as hers and I saw their platforms as rather similar, so I nominally chose Hillary as better candidate. She lost me with some pretty obvious Southern Strategy lite. I was completely prepared to detest her campaign and for it to devolve into an ugly mess. Instead, she’s surprised me by being far better this time around than I could have hoped for. Smarter, more empathetic, better policy positions over all and better sense of what she’d need in this election to do anything like what she promised. She’s gained a level of begrudging respect from me.
I didn’t think I’d be so pissed at Sanders and be more accepting of Clinton. And so damned disappointed in so many people, organizations and spaces. And I am so damned tired at “All Lives Matter” being the progressive rejoinder to Black Lives Matter. Or is it “ALL BIG BANKS BEING DESTROYED MATTER MORE SO SHUT THE HELL UP AND DO WHAT WE SMART PEOPLE SAY!” because that’s really how it’s felt.
@hovercraft: Preach. Don’t show now and try to be my bestie. And fuck the co-option of MLK to mean some college student protesting issues on his campus gets to be elevated to civil rights leader of prominence. Goddamn.
Davebo
@Baud: Come on, it’s been months since I’ve dogged Baud! 2016
Don’t make me print those bumperstickers…
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: True, you’ve only attacked him for being a drunk, possibly incompetent. That’s pretty weak sauce.
Cacti
@Daulnay:
I intend to be a lottery pick in the next NBA draft.
And that matters as much as capability.
I’m looking forward to my 8-figure salary.
Calouste
I was thinking about that, and Sanders hasn’t shown himself to withstand pressure well recently. I’m afraid that he will get dragged into something and make a serious mistake.
Davebo
@OzarkHillbilly: If nothing else the optics on that are bad.
Asian American judge gives no time to Asian American cop.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Baud: Ask and I shall deliver!
Baud has openly admitted he feels an affinity toward your city, but I happen to like this area. It might be a salubrious place to him, but to me it is one of the nation’s most delightful garden spots.
Baud has decided to be tractable — to indulge in unequivocal language, to eschew the use of outright lies in his speeches, and even to make repeated veracious statements.
My friends, have you ever accidentally dislodged a rock on the ground and seen what was underneath ? Well, exploring my Baud’s background is dissimilar. All the slime and filth and corruption you could possibly imagine, even in your wildest dreams, are glaringly nonexistent in this man’s life!
Baud’s parents not only permitted him to masticate excessively in their presence, but even urged him to do so. Most explicable of all, this man who poses as a paragon of virtue exacerbated his own sister while they were both teenagers !
Consider the other members of Baud’s family:
His female relatives put on a constant pose of purity and innocence, and claim they are inscrutable, yet every one of them has taken part in hortatory activities
The men in the family are likewise completely amenable to moral suasion
His sister, who has always been obsessed by sects, once worked as a proselyte outside a church
His great-aunt expired from a degenerative disease
His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the act in front of paying customers
Now what shall we say of the man himself ?
I can tell you in solemn truth that Baud is the very antithesis of political radicalism, economic irresponsibility, and personal depravity. His own record proves that he has frequently discountenanced treasonable, un-American philosophies and has perpetrated many overt acts as well.
He attempted to interest a 13-year-old girl in philately
He has declared himself in favor of more homogeneity on college campuses
He has advocated social intercourse in mixed company — and has taken part in such gatherings himself
He has been deliberately averse to crime in our streets
He has urged our Protestant and Jewish citizens to develop more catholic tastes
Finally, at a time when we must be on our guard against all foreign “isms”, he has coolly announced his belief in altruism!
I beg you, my friends, to oppose this man whose life and work and ideas are so openly and avowedly compatible with our American way of life. A vote for him would be a vote for the perpetuation of everything we hold dear.
The facts are clear; the record speaks for itself.
Kropadope
Presiding?
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: See the edit to my comment above. Maybe if we try, we can turn Baud? into a soulless, insanely ambitious corporate sellout, and bumbling racist commie dolt in one neat package. That would unite the Democratic Party, for sure.
Edit: but a president willing to cage smokes and cheap booze for the kidz outside the local convenience store, would help with the youth vote, and maybe legalizing it would bring in the libertarians too.
singfoom
@Greg:
That’s a fair viewpoint. I think that the blame deserves to get spread around more than you. Those idiots couldn’t have done the horrible slapdash job that they did without the authorization. But I can understand where you’re coming from…
Cheers
guachi
I’ll repeat what I said on one of the morning posts –
My biggest issue with Bernie as the campaign has gone on is his severe lack of support of the Democratic Party.
I’ve been a Democrat for 30 years since I was about 10, so I expect my Democratic candidates to, you know, support the Democratic Party.
Baud
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Fuck you. You crossed a line!
Keith G
@Baud:
Isn’t there a pill for that?
Kropadope
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I liked the word play throughout, though this particular criticism is an actual negative, as opposed to the attack that likely inspired your play on words.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
And I’m disturbed by his choice of advisers. I have no confidence that the guy who’s turned his campaign over to Devine and Weaver would appoint good people to his cabinet.
Technocrat
@aimai:
TBH, this crystallizes one of my big problems with this primary. I have always considered the Democratic Party to be a coalition of interests. But it feels like some of us want it to be a church. I don’t fault anyone for viewing the candidates through a particular moral framework. Not at all. But I reject any attempt to project that framework onto my own. It’s creepy, and Orwellian, and I want no part of it.
Elie
Amen, brother — well said, Tom…
Boy, I cannot wait until these primaries are over…
I try to look at who we are and what we are in this country by trying to see us from a distance — and I just don’t get all of what has been happening. Somehow, after a very effective presidency by the first black president, the republican party is in the midst of self destructing or at least injuring itself. The Democrats have two candidates who should have an easy job following such a strong leader but instead are wallowing in various problems. Hillary is by far the only one right now in either party, who can actually govern. I have no doubt that if elected she will experience as much shit as Obama — maybe more — who knows? I sometimes think that the world wide hatred of women might actually edge out racism. She really will not be and is not allowed ANY mistakes. Learning is gonna be fraught because every evolution of a position will be cast as nothing good. She suffered more for her vote on Iraq than the asshole who actually executed the policy as President! She got necklaced for a crime bill that her husband passed and that BERNIE also voted for — but somehow, it was HERS. sigh. She is the better candidate but I know her road will not be easy and I pray for her and us.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Baud:
Oh you would say that because you are a a flagrant heterosexual who preambulated his own son on the street!
jl
@Baud: Bringing in stamp collecting is really over the line and disgusting. Might save your campaign. Depends on what you get high on while you do it, though. There is a difference between eating paste and huffing high octane glue that has sadly escaped the Baud? 2016? campaign, at least so far.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: It appears that Schlemazel (parmesan rancor) is up to the task. I’m not worthy!
Kropadope
@guachi:
This is probably the strongest criticism I see of him, though often overstated. I do wish he tried to take more of a leadership role much earlier in his career. Still, though, going after someone who objects to our system of campaign finance for not doing enough big dollar fundraisers seems a little…unfair.
geg6
@Keith G:
Anyone who can make the argument that civil rights for minorities and feminism can’t possibly be tackled without income inequality being solved first is clueless as to the real lives of real people. Either she’s never faced any situation that wasn’t a result of income inequality or she has and is too blind to even see it. Either way, it’s a stupid and offensive argument.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It was the mastication, wasn’t it?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Kropadope:
I take homogeneity to mean congruity and oneness but I know it could be taken as exclusionary
lollipopguild
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Can we get you to run instead of Baud?#$%
Tokyokie
I live in a relatively early primary state, and I voted for Bernie, because I wanted to keep the pressure on HRC from the left. However, I agree with Tom’s analysis of the candidates’ relative strengths as administrators, and were I voting today, I’d support HRC. And I’ll happily vote for either one of them come November.
Kropadope
@Elie:
If true, she’s definitely going to be working in a less toxic political environment than Obama, who was reviled even for unequivocal successes.
Well, like it or not, she is a politician in the party that has long disapproved of that misbegotten war which, hopefully, continues to be the biggest foreign policy blunder of my lifetime.
rikyrah
I wish some people would stop trying to dismiss the repeated telling to you by Black people that we don’t believe that Bernie understands our concerns.
Don’t think that Black people didn’t watch the Economic Crisis caused by the Bush Years and go WTF?
But going around yelling BANKS BAD does nothing for me.
IF you want to come to the Black community and talk BANKS..
there is a language that you can use..
it includes
REDLINING
PREDATORY LENDING
DISCRIMINATORY LENDING
DENYING CAPITAL TO BLACK ENTREPRENEURS
There has been a script written for anyone who wants to talk to Black people about Banks and the adverse effect on our community.
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote it. Just read what he wrote about it, and take wholesale from it.
But, Bernie never rose to the occasion.
Black people and ‘revolution’ never wind up good for us.
The original ‘revolution’ wound up having is being property and being counted as 3/5 of a human being.
We’ve always wound up on the short stick of ‘revolution’.
Our practical, conservative nature might not be exciting…
but, we’ve learned things over our 400 years of survival in this country.
guachi
@Kropadope:
It doesn’t have to be “big dollar fundraisers”. He could have been putting links on his website for candidates in states that were having primaries, having rallies with candidates he backed, anything.
But, no. All the money goes to Bernie.
OzarkHillbilly
@Davebo: I can not imagine a situation where I did something as stupid as that, and got the same result. And I’m a white man in a very white county. I, as a gun owner, just can’t imagine stupidity such as that, and it was stupid stupid STUPID being given a slap on the wrist.
Darkrose
@hovercraft: Yes, to everything you said.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I wish I could take credit for all that but in fact it is ragged bits of memory from a longer list MAD magazine published. I memorized it so that I could deliver it to a class assembly. It was a huge hit, in large part because most of the kids didn’t know the words and only thought they did
lollipopguild
@Baud: Which line? Mason-Dixon? The line of no return? The line to buy tickets for “Hamilton?
FEMA Camp Counselor
@Mandalay:
Dude, at least let mclaren come back and write another thesis at us before you say that.
jl
@efgoldman: They damn well better be.
My suggested front page post endorsement of Baud? 2016?: Well, hell, I just recovered from a black out from something or other, and I don’t remember the other crooks’ names.
I can submit one for HRC too: Her vision of a soulless corporate machine civic life has crushed my spirit and narrowed my vision, and it feels so damn good!
And Sanders: He said I get all the rich man’s stuff. I’m sharpening the pitchfork and pitching my torch!
Elie
I will also add, in this macho nation, Hillary, the first woman hopefully to be elected President, cannot leave any doubt that she will both show the stick and use it if she needs to. That to some degree I believe informs her aggressive positioning in statements that she has made. She cannot come off as being in any way hesitant to use ALL the powers of the presidency and that she has the temperament to be able to the tough stuff. Elizabeth I had to go through this a bit and the Spaniards underestimated the woman under the English crown — also a smarty pants. This sounds like ho hum, well yeah, but for the first woman of the last remaining superpower in very turbulent times, she cannot afford to send any other message either here at home or internationally.
JPL
I’m glad that Obama didn’t wag his finger at Hillary.
@hovercraft: I’m embarrassed to say this but I wish that the BLM movement would have added the word too. MSM turned it into a movement that only black lives matter, which wasn’t the intention. For so long, blacks lives have been ignored in our country. It’s sad. Your comment was great and thank you.
ruemara
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Please Baud, say this isn’t so! Philately?! I feel ill. From all the glue.
Calouste
@Roger Moore: Yes, and there is that. I would expect Clinton to keep a large number of Obama’s people, specially at below cabinet levels. Sanders, who knows.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@lollipopguild:
If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve. I am really only fit to be dictator for life, a job I would actually be very good at. My distaste for compromise precludes me from a job that requires me to get others to do the work.
I am working a an actual dish I will call Parmesan Rancor & hope to post the recipe on the Friday exchange
Elie
@rikyrah:
Yes, this and the rest you wrote:
jl
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
” If nominated I will not run, if elected I will not serve. I am really only fit to be dictator for life ”
Yet another BJ commenter running for the GOP pres nomination? Must be half a dozen of you people getting on the bandwagon by now.
Technocrat
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I don’t know. The parmesan is certainly common enough. But 5-meter space monsters are a fairly hard-to-find ingredient.
Kropadope
@geg6:
I can’t really think of any examples of someone making that specific argument, though income inequality does have a huge amount of interplay with other forms of inequality. For starters, if you’re a member of an oppressed group, it is most likely reflected in your paycheck. Unwarranted profiling by law enforcement puts people in jail unfairly, lack of resources to pay for fees and adequate representation keeps them there. Also, economic insecurity exacerbates the fervor of bigoted viewpoints and often can lend a false aura of credibility to certain bigoted arguments (They took our jobs!!!!).
The racial angle can’t be ignored, but it certainly isn’t the whole enchilada.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Does it include tire rims and anthrax as ingredients?
Joe Bauers
Nearly 1400 words, and not a one about money in politics. Tom, you’re nothing if not verbose, I’ll give you that.
You’re free to set your own priorities, like the upstream dickbags beating on Hillary Rettig for not being sufficiently obsequious to BLM. If you think Sanders hates black folks, then I guess you’re like the median commenter at BJ. I don’t think he does. YMMV.
I think that if there isn’t a massive change in our politics and soon – maybe in the next 10 years – then all of these words won’t make a damn bit of difference. All of the anger at the way the game is rigged in favor of the rich and connected is going to spill over sooner or later. And when it does, it isn’t going to matter what letter the current occupant has after their name, because we’re all going to be in a world of hurt.
amk
Tbogg is having a series of wet dreams. And the week isn’t over yet.
lollipopguild
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): How very General Sherman of you.Would you happen to know who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?
satby
«looks around» is it over yet? Have the polls closed?
Kropadope
@Technocrat:
You could use the more mundane definition of rancor and create a parmesan dish that somehow fights itself.
Major Major Major Major
@Technocrat: Were I a het’rosexual, which by the way is how I’m pronouncing that today, I’d make some comment about Carrie Fisher in that outfit from that scene. But I’m not, so I can’t! :(
@Kropadope: Your definitions suck. Typical Bernfeeler.
Cacti
@satby:
Nope, 1 more hour.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope:
I can see that, but the world is what it is. Bernie has shown himself to be in denial of that fact. It is one thing to say, “IT SHOULD BE BETTER!!” which I would agree with, and another to say, “I WILL MAKE IT BETTER THRU IGNORING REALITY!!”
japa21
@Ella in New Mexico: Well said.
Although I disagree with you completely on the Clinton vs Sanders debate, I think there were some words said in anger earlier today that were over the top. And once one of those balls get rolling it doesn’t stop.
Sometimes I think there is the “I can insult you more than you can insult me” mentality going on.
Technocrat
@Kropadope:
Wow, talk about indigestion.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@jl:
Nah, I have a heart and a brain so I am not qualified for the GOP nomination.
aimai
@Kropadope: Not unfair at all. If he wants to be leader of the party he needs to be fundraising for the down ballot races. All of them, not just the ones where he might get a kindred spirit in to replace a perfectly good dem. Its not an unfair criticism of him in the slightest. Its part of the job he is running for.
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: I am speechless.
Chyron HR
@Joe Bauers:
You guys are really mad that the fake photos of Bernie marching at Selma got debunked, huh?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@BillinGlendaleCA:
that will be the side dish specifically for Republicans. The party begins when we force feed them
aimai
@rikyrah: I can’t upvote this because we don’t have upvotes, but I would be hitting the thumbs up bar all day if I could. I could not agree more. There are many, many, many specific issues where Bernie could have,and should have, offered help. But this was all dismissed as small bore, or “identity politics” or something. Like the problems of black people, women, immigrants, etc… would vanish away once the right banking laws were in place.
Kropadope
@JPL:
“Black Lives Also Matter” has a much funner acronym.
Elie
@Kropadope:
Well I think it interesting that you think she will somehow have it better than Obama, but ok, we will see. I surely don’t have a chrystal ball..
As for Iraq as the single worst policy blunder (foreign), I agree. I still don’t see that she should carry all of it and I don’t think that that particular bad decision will make her unable to use force in the future. It can’t be like that. As for your need for the continuing judgement of her, I think she (and I as well as others), have to discount such an unreasonable stance. Who knows what is ahead? She nor any president should be hampered forever by one bad outcome. I guess you would like her to say she would never ever authorize force again forever? That is just wrong and you know it… its just your leverage point to punish a candidate you don’t like and its a nice easy example to use that many so called leftists will agree with. (except for Putin who gets an ok for any aggression from Bob, you know, because)
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@lollipopguild:
My buddy Ulysses. If you think I am Shermanesque now wait till you see what I do to the South if they try to pull any shit during my reign!
Mr. Mack
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Have to assume we have reached peak Baud?
Technocrat
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
So, Atlanta will be Berning?
hovercraft
@rikyrah: Amen, it’s so patronizing telling me that I just don’t understand.
Joe Bauers
@Chyron HR: Um, no, don’t give a shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
Stupid me scrolled back up to the picture to find the dildo.
aimai
@Joe Bauers: I’ve been thinking a lot today about the totalizing, catastrophizing, millenarian thinking that the Bernie voters are expressing and I find it tragic, but not surprising. It used to be that we, as liberals, made fun of the hair on fire/end of the world language that fox news promotes. We pointed out that terrorizing voters was the way the Republican party got its votes and that they needed to be constantly ginning up hysteria and fear to get anywhere at all. We prided ourselves on not appealing to the darker, more fearful side of our voters. Our voters, we thought, were more mature and reasoned than that. Conservatives and authoritarianism, we thought, were kind of a pathology.
But again and again I see self identified Bernie people talking about the imminent demise of the entire country, the rage of the dispossesed leading to a crack up, etc…etc…etc… Its not that I don’t think things are dire. I’m very concerned about racism, sexism, the situation of minorities and illegal immigrants, climate change and income inequality and the future that my two children face in a world without good jobs and high debt. But I just don’t think that good political decisions are made from fear and its natural best friend: rage. I also don’t think its necessary. And despite the fact that Trump has made his mark appealing to the crazed lunatics and resentment zombies of the far right I don’t think that we on the left have to match them, rage for rage. Again: I don’t think its necessary and I don’t think its wise.
gene108
@Daulnay:
I believe a whopping five Democrats are siding with Republicans on this. Unfortunately for the optics, on of the five is very, very high profile.
On issues like this the Democrats are usually the good guys, with a few exceptions.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Technocrat:
I like that!
Of course I first read it as “Atlanta will be Berlin” And though . . . 1945 . . . hmmmmmm
But it is not fair to point at the South, Kansas is on my list as is Utah and the great empty space between Minnesota and Portland. I many not be the dictator you need but I will be the dictator you deserve
pat
Tom, thank you thank you thank you for so effectively reading my mind.
I’ll be pounding the pavement and the doors for Hillary, as I did for Obama.
Major Major Major Major
@Mr. Mack: How dare you!
Daulnay
@geg6:
It’s possible to @geg6:
Absolutely right. We can and should work hard for civil rights, even if income inequality isn’t addressed (much less solved). But addressing income inequality will make civil rights much more palatable for people who now worry that advances for minorities means that they will become absolutely (not relatively) worse off. For middle and working-class people, economic progress has been a zero-sum game for the last 30+ years (thank you Saint Ronnie). It’s much easier to sell people on letting others catch up, than it is to ask them to go backwards and meet others halfway. Also, when change happens, people hate losing what they have much, much more than not gaining as much as they’d thought.
Amaranthine RBG
If only there were some way to compare and contrast what the two candidates have each done to advance African Americans’ rights over the past 50 years
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
Assertions that Bernie doesn’t support the party or its candidates continue to be false. He has been endorsing Democratic candidates for office since the 80s, has directed his donors to direct donations to downballot races despite his smaller war chest, consistent supporter of the DSCC (Warning: autoplay)
AND he’s a more reliable vote for the party’s initiatives than many registered Democrats.
This claim has been debunked time and again and I find it distressing that some people cling to that notion so bitterly.
Andrey
@Kropadope:
“And who also get the basic point that, absent economic justice, there’s no true feminism. (Or other human rights.)” – from Hillary Rettig’s front page post. That’s clearly the specific instance that geg6 was addressing.
Joe Bauers
@aimai: I believe that if the situation is dire, then there’s nothing to be gained by acting as if it isn’t. I don’t think you’re right, but I hope you are.
I’ll be voting for Hillary in November if she’s the D nominee not because I think she’s the best choice, but because I think it buys us more time. Respect. Peace.
Elie
When are the polls supposed to be closed…when can we get us some returns?
ruemara
@Kropadope: yes, BLAM as an acronym for a group protesting deaths at the hands of cops should be much funner.
I didn’t read all the prior posts and I’m happy to ignore the threads, based on what’s being repeated here. But I will say this. Income inequality will not and will never, resolve racial justice. And Sanders does not “hate black people”. He is dismissive of black people, has chosen to isolate himself from even the relatively small amount of that group in his constituency and holds very generational views of them (that our little cop death issue would be solved by black youth “having jobs and not being on the street corner” is one of the most motherfucking jawdropping statements I’ve heard and if he was a conservative, all of y’all would be mocking the tone deafness). He has dismissed our participation rates, his surrogates have called us low info and far too many on the left have meandered into a paternalistic racial myopia thanks to possibly breaking their hands patting themselves on the back for their “woke”ness. You’re not going to get anywhere without a healthy dose of listening. You don’t even have to understand, you just have to accept that another person is experiencing this world & this life as completely different than you, and then you hold your tongue on it.
lollipopguild
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): We go to war with the Dictator we have rather than the Dictator that we want/need or deserve.
aimai
@Elie: Well said. On the question of whether she will have it somehow easier than Obama–for fuck’s sake she already endured the first eight years in a White House besieged by Republican hatred. The Clintons were the dry run for the spite and hate that was doled out to the Obamas. Everything they said about the Obamas was said about the Clintons, subbing in class hatred for race hatred. The Clintons were also treated as interlopers, supposedly unable to “handle” the white house staff like the upper class Bushes had. The Clintons were accused of bringing in trashy outsiders to run things–just like the Obamas were attacked for their choices of administrative staff and support staff. Both Clintons were attacked for their dress, manner, style just like the Obamas. Hillary Clinton will come in for a ton of sexism and misogyny–just like Michelle Obama. She will be criticized for her hair, voice, manner, and her sexual orientation (both women were attacked as quasi masculine perverts. Hillary has long been targeted and accused of being a lesbian and a murderess, while Michelle Obama has been targeted and accused of being a man in drag, a transwoman, sterile (the children aren’t hers), ugly, savage, ape like, marie antoinette, selfish, etc..etc…etc…
Hillary Clinton will come in for the worst of everything that was doled out to both Obama and Michelle, and her whiteness won’t save her they will simply shift the attack to class, as they did with her husband.
Technocrat
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Well, someone has to bring civilization to the wilderness. it may as well be you.
“Schlemazel Khan”. You should consider it.
gex
So much this. I loved hovercraft’s comment on this too.
Since early on I’ve just had a bad feeling in my gut about this. I haven’t cataloged it all for regurgitation here, just that things that he’s said in interviews, the way the campaign is behaving, and definitely the way a subset of his supporters have talked to (at?) my black friends have left me feeling cool to Bernie.
And I say that as someone he had every chance of winning over early on. Finding him wanting, I actually started giving Hillary a closer look and then it was over. While I still have some issues with Hillary, the Sanders campaign has me very happy and enthusiastic to support her. So maybe that’s a good thing
*Also I should note the Bernie people were really obnoxious at the Senate District Convention in the 59th District in MN at which I was a delegate. After subcaucusing, I was in a non-viable police reform subcaucus. The Bernie bros made such an aggressive pitch for us to join them that people from Clinton subcaucuses held them back so we could discuss where we wanted to go. We eventually split and joined two different Clinton subcaucuses in a way that gave each an extra delegate.
chopper
@Calouste:
this. I don’t worry about sanders wanting to go to war, I worry about sanders getting fooled or tricked into getting into a situation where we have no other options. he really comes off as the mark at the table.
lollipopguild
@Technocrat: Schlemazel Khan what?
Daulnay
@rikyrah:
And Bernie doesn’t use it. He sometimes seems to be barely trying to get the Black vote, and he’s certainly shown he’s tone-deaf.
Elie
@ruemara:
Yes, M’am –Preach!
Kropadope
@Andrey: Does that argue that feminism can’t be tackled without solving economic inequality first? Or does it argue that economic inequality is a vital component to feminist issues?
It sounds much more like the latter to me. Nuance, how does that work again?
Technocrat
@ruemara:
To be fair, I thought it was funnier also. Until I read your post. /CRINGE
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Technocrat:
Oh man, yes! THANK YOU!
@lollipopguild:
Schlemazel Khan whatever a Schlemazel can
aimai
@Daulnay: Are you arguing that the income inequality argument applies only to white people–that Bernie is explicitly arguing that unless a “rising tide lifts all boats” white people can’t and won’t get behind a liberal agenda? I mean, I think its true in some sense that we can’t have nice things as a country because of white supremacism (the butt hurt side of white racism) but racism isn’t some kind of false consciousness that vanishes as soon as people have enough money to breathe freely. Racism is endemic to this society and has been since before the founding. It serves a purpose for the conservative party but it also serves a perfectly good function for its bearers. People on Staten Island aren’t voting for Trump just because their wages are stagnating. They hate minorities and they pretty much always have. There will never be enough to go around for some people. You can grow the pie as much as you want and there will still be racism and racists.
Elie
@chopper:
He is over bold and over opinionated at the git go. That sets him up…. He does not understand “soft” power — the power of waiting, of silence. He HAS to say what he thinks right away and it is aggressive and bold. In bridge, he would be a perfect set up — you tease him with a low trump card and he has to show you what he has….
Daulnay
@gene108: “On issues like this the Democrats are usually the good guys, with a few exceptions. ”
Unfortunately, nearly all of those exceptions have been from Hillary’s faction of the Democratic party. That’s why I mistrust her — her faction has been giving the Republicans ‘bipartisan’ cover for decades.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kropadope: Dude. Put down the shovel, O.K.?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
I am going to need the attention of one of the folks with the keys to this place so I can change my nym
Schlemazel Khan
Technocrat
@Daulnay:
I suspect that in this cycle there won’t be a ton of trying to assuage the GOP. If her own lived experience weren’t enough, she’s seen Obama’s multiply-rebuffed attempts.
Personally, I’m a little worried she’ll flip Ryan the bird from the inauguration podium. (assuming she wins of course)
Elie
@aimai:
I basically agree… she will have quite a challenge but I expect she will have a few tricks up her sleeve learned from the combined experience of her own and the Obama’s stay in the WH BTW, we will have to just see because there could be quite a clown show in the Congress due to whatever catastrophe befalls them in this election… (From my lips to God’s ears!)
chopper
@Kropadope:
see now that’s comedy right there. bravo.
aimai
You know what I would like Hillary to do? I would like her to create something. Not a cabinet level post because I think that is hard to do but a place within the White House structure for a high powered group of African American activists to plan and execute public policy and legislative ideas aimed at the issues that Rikyrah and BLM have been pushing to the forefront. I’d want the people sitting on it to be a mixture of people like the mothers (or spouses) of the murdered, seasoned activists, people like Michelle Alexander, and connected political people like members of the Congressional Black Caucus and–if she would do it–Michelle Obama or President Obama. It would have to have people on the board who are so politically connected and savvy that they can draft legislation and push it out to the House and Senate (like an AA version of Alec) and also situated close enough to the new President that they can integrate their agenda with hers. That is what I would like to see HRC offer as a novel way to begin to make the BLM agenda a front and center agenda in the next administration.
smith
@Daulnay:
Sorry, but this analysis doesn’t wash either historically or psychologically. The Civil Rights movement began pre-Reagan when the middle class was doing quite well, thank you very much, and comfortable white Americans did not look on indulgently as black citizens asked for a chance to catch up. Ditto for second-wave feminism. The zero-sum game in the minds of racists and sexists is not only about money, but also about dignity, power, and status. And studies of people’s attitudes toward economic status consistently show that relative status is more salient than absolute status. It would be great to make wealth more equitable in this country, but if you did that absent efforts to combat discrimination, you’d just have a more fine-grained pattern of inequality based on gender and race.
chopper
@chopper:
or not?
Daulnay
@ruemara:
And this is why Bernie, when first interrupted by BLM activists, lost the Black vote. And he deserves to. It will be why he loses the nomination, too.
tones
After the debate I can not bear Hillary’s smarmy , condescending tone.
She was horrid, and lost the debate on every single question in my opinion.
The only complaint they have is Bernie won’t just give millions to DWS to spend on conservative democrats and Dinos – which is what she has been doing with all of that money.
I don’t want him to donate to them , either.
I wouldn’t.
I register Dem but we don’t need any more fake dems, corporate dems, war hawk dems – basically we don’t need anymore republicans in dems clothing.
Like The Goldwater girl from the board at Wal MArt.
no thanks.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
When you put it that way, my word choice may have been poor, but “BLAM” rolls off the tongue better than “BLMT” and gets the point across in a pretty convincing way.
So, I just shouldn’t be allowed to express my opinion on this vitally important topic. Got it. Next time a young black person suffers an unjust death and the media and half my facebook feed are busy defending his/her killer, I’ll be sure to hold my tongue because some black person somewhere may disagree with my take on it.
ETA: Also, who is being continually told by whom that their opinion doesn’t matter and that they should just shut up?
Technocrat
@chopper:
I see you read the followup also.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
It may be time to reassess whose supporters are more unreasonable.
According to NY exit polls: 15% of Sanders’ voters won’t vote for Clinton. 18% of Clinton’s voters won’t vote for Sanders.
ruemara
I’m out. Look, even the people I disagree with, I wish you well. I support the same goals as most of you here. Nothing in the world would make me happier than no war, a well funded social system, excellent medical care, etc etc. My short time in local gov taught me just how onerous government is, though. And despite it’s onerous, slow, nature, it also taught me how important it is that it be so. It’s a Catch-22. I can’t change your minds, you can’t change mine. And some y’all true & pure ones have no idea how you come off. Good luck with that, may you find the right sort of diversity, a mirror to keep things comfy.
How about we do a state by state breakdown of everything that isn’t a presidential candidate and what you need to vote in the election or primary, if that’s still to come? I’d much rather progressives and dems shut their mouths about this season’s best friend contest and do something to actually get Congress and some state legislatures back. How about that? Because, at the end of the day, it will move what everyone wants who could align themselves on the left just a few notches forward. We can all mutually co-operate on that, right? Have a good dinner. I’m gonna go take a walk or something.
Kropadope
@Elie:
It was less of a prediction and more of an observation that if Hillary is only attacked for her mistakes, that would put her in a better position from Obama who was often berated for his successes.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: “VOTE BERNIE: 3% MORE REASONABLE THAN HILLARY”
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Well said, Tom. Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Daulnay
@aimai:
There will be racists and racism in America for a long time. But it will be far easier to pull some of the whites out from the white supremacy camp if minority economic progress isn’t actually hurting them. As it is now, all of us outside the upper 20% are faced with a zero-sum economy. It’s so much easier for the white supremacists to paint minority gains as a loss for everyone else in the working/middle class when it’s actually true.
The U.S. is going to have problems as long as the Confederates have power in one of the two major parties. I hope Nixon is burning in hell.
Roger Moore
@Daulnay:
I think this is more or less backward. Income inequality is sustained by poor racist whites voting against their economic interests because they don’t want blacks to catch up to them. As Davis X. Machina famously said:
Until you can convince those people to team up with the black/gay/Hispanic/liberal/whatever to get more from the MotU, we’re never going to solve income inequality.
Technocrat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Three thoughts:
1) PLOT TWIST
2) That’s embarrassing.
3) Clintonites have fee-fees too
joel hanes
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
In fact, it is MAD Magazine’s Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech
written by Bill Garvin and published in MAD #139, December 1970
http://gis.washington.edu/phurvitz/outgoing/bustagut/Non-SlanderousPoliticalSmearSpeech.htm
Society in those days was a lot less accepting of thespianism, mastication, and homogeneity.
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
And all this time, I’d heard that it was Clinton, alienating the uniquely indispensable Sanders voters.
Cacti
@tones:
What’s this “we” shit?
You speaking on behalf of a mouse in your pocket?
aimai
@tones: Thanks for showing up to let us know.
Kropadope
@The Thin Black Duke: Excuse me, I acknowledge my mistakes, incidences of poor word choice, factual errors, etc. I’m not the one who digs in and defends every stupid little statement because “the other side must always be wrong and I hate them.”
Are you seriously arguing that there isn’t an economic component to the injustices facing women and minorities?
aimai
@Cacti: I’d like to point out that NY’s exit poll is, by definition, different from exit polls in previous primary states because it was a closed primary. So the Bernie Sanders voters who are exiting and are being polled are also already registered Democrats, probably long time registered Democrats. So you’d expect the answers of regular Democrats about supporting the eventual nominee to be “yes” (with a few exceptions). This really doesn’t tell you about the median or maybe I mean generic Sanders voter elsewhere, in other states, where the voting population may be composed of independents/greens/naderites or other people who, being already disaffected from or not associated with the Democratic party, have no tradition of supporting its nominee. I have no explanation for the Hillary voters who are saying they won’t vote for Sanders. I’m shocked, actually. I didn’t even know that was a thing.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Technocrat: It’s really no surprise. Clinton supporters did the same fucking thing in 2008.
Technocrat
@Kropadope:
There certainly is. I think the argument is that there are more components to injustice than economics alone.
That being said, I think it goes way too far to even allude that Bernie is some sort of racist/sexist.
Daulnay
@smith:
You are misunderstanding the argument. There are working-class and middle-class whites who are not white supremacists. There are working-class and middle-class men who are not MRAs. But when the last 30 years have been a zero-sum game, it’s easier for the white supremacists and MRA types to paint minorities as an economic threat. Addressing economic inequality will go far to relieving white middle-class anxiety about the future. As things stand now, only Trump is addressing it by promising to tilt things back, against women and other minorities. (Ignore the kleptocrats at the top, the %^&**^ are the cause of your problems.)
aimai
@Daulnay: It feels like you are arguing thtat the Reagan Dems, the ethnic white working class, can or will come back to the Democrats if we can just offer them enough stuff. I don’ t think that is likely. And I don’t think its necessary. Clinton lost them, Obama lost them, and I’m pretty sure Hillary will lose them and still get into the White House. And then the Democrats, as usual, will try to do their best for everybody and still get kicked in the teeth for it. Just look at Kentucky! They benefitted enormously from Obamacare under the name of Kynect, they signed white people up for it like crazy. People who had never had access to modern health care in their lives were finally getting to see a doctor. And with the very next election they chose a Republican governor who vowed to destroy the system. And all along, while praising the care and attention they were getting, they were complaining about the evils of Obamacare. There is absolutely nothing to be done here. “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”
Kropadope
@Technocrat:
Which is precisely the argument I made. I also pointed out that Hillary Rettig, per the provided excerpt, was not arguing that economic inequality had to be solved before addressing other issues. They just can’t stop beating that straw man though.
Technocrat
@Daulnay:
In theory, addressing the income inequality for whites should address it for minorities. But there is a racial gap:
So the question is, will addressing income inequality – raising incomes – provide more benefits to whites than to blacks? If so, it actually exacerbates income inequality. If not, then somehow minorities would have to benefit more, to close the gap. This second option implies a focus on race (and presumably gender) inequality. And that focus seems to be missing.
Or something like that.
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
Of course there’s an economic component to the injustices facing women and minorities. It’s just that the economic injustice is a result, not the cause, of them being seen as second class human beings, and we won’t solve the economic inequality without first solving the social inequality.
Technocrat
@Kropadope:
Yeah, I don’t think you had a particularly myopic stance. There’s a lot of room for debate on the whys and hows.
pluky
@hovercraft: Preach!
lollipopguild
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Can can? kinda like a woodchuck chucking wood. or peter piper picking peppers .@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Oh HELL yes!
Daulnay
@Roger Moore:
Historically true, e.g. Reagan Democrats. Don’t think they quite realized how profoundly and permanently they were voting against their interests, until lately. There’s an opportunity to lure some (not the Confederate ones) back into the Democratic fold, and it’s going to be squandered.
ecomcon
Tom,
What the Hell, another clueless brain dead post from you. You’re full of shit and will be proven wrong very soon.
Davebo
@ecomcon:
That’s some elevated debate right there!
different-church-lady
Is it over yet?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@joel hanes:
It scares me that i remember much of it but not why I walked into the kitchen!
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@ecomcon:
Do tell. Wrong in what way? How?
aimai
@Daulnay: Why do you think the opportunity is going to be “squandered?” Despite Fox News’s assertions gains for AA and Immigrants don’t come at the expense of white folks and never have. So anything good the dems do for their voters accrues to white citizens too–if they are willing to take it. I’m not saying that some portion of the white population isn’t gettable by the democrats. There are plenty of white democrats/liberals and there is some hope for millenials. But racist whites who voted for the Republicans because of a toxic mix of big gummit fears, racism, misogyny, jingoism, and religious paranoia are not coming back. They didn’t move over because of sheer economic issues and they aren’t coming back.
lollipopguild
@different-church-lady: Close. people who come late to the thread do not get fruitcup.
Daulnay
@aimai: “Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”
I think that the South (incl. Kentucky) is a Lost Cause; we’re not going to see most white Southerners accept a race-blind society, because white supremacy is baked into the culture. I don’t expect any Reagan Democrats from the South to become Democrats again. Outside the South, Obama won 50% of the white vote. In the South, the white vote went overwhelmingly for the Republican, over 90%.
In other words, the Reagan Democrats (and white working class) are not monolithic. Outside the South, many of them could become Democrats again. Enough to help elect Democratic candidates win. As long as their economic well-being is under siege, it’s going to be a lot harder to pull them back, and a lot easier for Repubs to stir them up to vote.
opiejeanne
@lollipopguild: Doggone it. I’m too late for fruit cup.
These talking heads on tv are idiots, except for Rachel and a couple of other people.
opiejeanne
@different-church-lady: Too close to call, except for Trump.
Ruckus
Tom
Bravo. BRAVO.
Can’t and won’t argue with any point you’ve made.
opiejeanne
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): He seems like a real sweet guy.
Brain dead, really?
joel hanes
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I can do “The Walrus And The Carpenter” and “Jabberwocky” and about four Firesign Theatre albums from memory, but I’ll be damned if I can remember the name of the person to whom I was just introduced.
Kropadope
@Roger Moore:
I wouldn’t say so much a result as a manifestation. A manifestation which, by the way, is materially hurting working families across the U.S. Pay and hiring disparities (along with policing disparities) also differ from other manifestations of sexism and racism in that they are problems that our government can realistically address.
We can create policies that give people the power to fight pay and hiring and housing disparities. We can create citizen review boards for questionable police decisions and fix sentencing guidelines that inordinately harm minority communities.
Can we pass a law that mandates people truly respect marginalized groups? No, because we really can’t force people to change what is in their hearts or minds. But solving the problems we can solve will help these marginalized groups in material ways that can improve their quality of life. It will also help integrate society, giving more people opportunities to move to better neighborhoods or improve the ones they already live in. It will give parents more time to be with their children. And ultimately, integration, I believe, is the fundamental component that will solve the hearts and minds issue. Maybe you’ll never win over the lifelong unabashed racists, but growing up around amidst diversity will make it harder for those ideas to take hold in the children.
If you’re saying either the economic part MUST be solved first or the social part MUST be solved first, I disagree. They need to be addressed in tandem using the tools we have.
Joe Meinhart
To those who think Bernie can’t be President because bhe has ideas but no detailed plans, just remember… Gandhi didn’t have a detailed plan. Hitler did.
Daulnay
@Technocrat:
The alternative, not addressing income inequality, leaves 80% of us in a zero-sum game. That’s very, very bad for American society (exhibit 1: Donald Trump). We have to do both, and at the same time.
Second, the top 1% is very heavily white and male. Addressing income inequality will probably help the racial/sexist average/median income gap.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@different-church-lady:
No Hitchcocken suspense for you.
lollipopguild
@Daulnay: I agree. One thing Dems should not be doing is attacking voters in the South or any part of the country. People have a right to vote for whoever for any reason. If we call them names we just feed their feelings about the Democratic Party being elitist and out of touch. The flip side is that if voters vote for someone who promises to take their Social Security and Medicare and then does so once elected, those voters have no one to blame but themselves and we need to remind them that they voted for the person who took their checks and benefits.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@opiejeanne:
You grabbed the wrong post – I’m still waiting for econmom to edumikate us all
lollipopguild
@joel hanes: Welcome to The FUTURE! We are glad you are here.
Daulnay
@aimai:
Wish that were true. However it’s math, not politics:
– for the last 30 years, the average real income of the bottom 80%+ of the American population has not changed.
– because of how averages work, that means that whenever any member of that bottom 80% gained, other people lost. If they hadn’t lost, the average would increase.
– when a group within the bottom 80% gains, some other groups will necessarily lose (or the average will increase).
If AAs or women or any sub-group within that 80% gained over the last 30 years, other people in the 80% lost. It’s been a zero-sum game. The Republicans scream “don’t look behind the curtain, blame the minorities”, and it works, because there’s a half-truth in it.
opiejeanne
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Oops.
Well, Trump was just introduced as the next President. I may go throw up.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@joel hanes:
Porgie Tirebiter, he’s a spy and a girl delighter
Don’t crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers
OY!
Jacque Cousteau told a story of his father on his death bed. He had been unconscious for several days when he sat up straight, gave his doctoral dissertation verbatim & then died. I have this nightmare of being surrounded by my family when I come to at the end:
You are a fluke of the universe, you have no right to be here and whether you can hear it or not the universe is laughing behind your back.
Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you are in need of sleep.
Rotate your tires.
Speak glowingly of those greater than yourself,
And heed well their advice, even though they be turkeys.
Know what to kiss, and when.
Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do.
Wherever possible, put people on hold.
Be comforted that in the face of all aridity and disillusionment,
and despite the changing fortunes of time,
There is always a big future in computer maintenance.
Remember The Pueblo.
Strive at all times to bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate.
Know yourself. If you need help, call the FBI.
Exercise caution in your daily affairs,
Especially with those persons closest to you –
That lemon on your left, for instance.
Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most souls
Would scarcely get your feet wet.
Fall not in love therefore. It will stick to your face.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
And let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
Hire people with hooks.
For a good time, call 606-4311. Ask for Ken.
Take heart in the bedeepening gloom
That your dog is finally getting enough cheese.
And reflect that whatever fortune may be your lot,
It could only be worse in Milwaukee.
You are a fluke of the universe.
You have no right to be here.
And whether you can hear it or not,
The universe is laughing behind your back.
Therefore, make peace with your god,
Whatever you perceive him to be – hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.
With all its hopes, dreams, promises, and urban renewal,
The world continues to deteriorate.
Give up!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
He coulda had class. He coulda been someone. He coulda been a contender. Instead, he’s a bum with a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@different-church-lady:
Well, no, that’s not really the takeaway here. I think Sanders is much more unreasonable than Clinton and it’s one of the many reasons I support Clinton. The takeaway here is this directly contradicts the story that’s been sold here for months by the junior Clinton campaign operatives.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@opiejeanne:
President of the local chapter of the American Bund perhaps
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Wow. thanks for that.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Yikes! Even the hipsters turned against him.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
New Yorkers voted in a landslide for an unqualified woman to take a man’s job.
Really hard to accept.
What has this country come to.
Shaking my head.
Thanks Obama.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
His base of white intellectuals have gone wobbly.
opiejeanne
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: You always crack me up with your contrarian comments.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Sanders smacked with worst case electoral scenario (ie Clinton Landslide).
Major Major Major Major
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: One exit poll (margin of error infinity) is hardly worth pulling up as evidence here.
Also, look at the same results for 2008 at this point in the race. Both sides have and had dumb people.
What this poll tells me is that New York Democratic primary voters are real Democrats–they’re more likely to support the opponent than the national polls say.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@opiejeanne: sure, go ahead and laugh as Hitler goose steps into the White House.
I, on the other hand, will not help to crucify our future socialist paradise upon her cross of gold.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: You ever heard of “quitting while you’re behind”?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Well really once you let a black guy in its pretty much ruined anyway.
Was it the Jackie Robinson thing on PBS where the town allowed blacks to swim on Mondays and Tuesdays then drained & cleaned the pool on Wed so that whites could use it Thursday, Friday and Saturday? Yeah, like that
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Joe Meinhart:
LOL. Bernie is not Gandhi, and Hillary is not Hitler. Stop with the mythical Bernie and mythical demon Hillary. This isn’t a video game.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: You know what? fuck you. It’s just another excuse to not address what I’m actually saying (of which you have made plenty in the last day or so).
I’m gay and I would never DREAM of telling another that they should just shut up and take my word as gospel because they don’t have the same life experience I do. It’s anti-American, aside from being just plain wrong.
I said a dumb thing without thinking at the beginning of the thread and when it was pointed out to me I immediately agreed that I was wrong and tried to correct it. I don’t think there is anything particularly controversial about my observation that both the social and economic aspects of racism need to be addressed and, if I was wrong, ruemara didn’t try to tell me why. She just repeated her beloved anti-Bernie screed about how dismissive he is as she was actively ignoring and dismissing the comment she replied to. Certain people on here will never accept a single factual criticism and will respond to opinions by blithe dismissal or trying to shame the other person into silence. This is wrong. That is what ruemara did to me and tries to do to people on a frequent basis.
Engage my argument, don’t tell me I’m not allowed to make it.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Defensive much?
Protip: If one person strikes you as an asshole, maybe that person is, in fact. asshole. If *everyone* around you strikes you as an asshole then maybe…wait for it…maybe *you’re* the asshole.
Davebo
@Major Major Major Major:
From 538.
Tom Levenson
@ecomcon: you mad, bro? (Or sis?)
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
How could the most LIBERAL state in the country vote against Socialism?
It can’t be. It just can’t.
Hillary must have rigged the voting machines.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
New thread
https://balloon-juice.com/2016/04/19/open-thread-and-where-im-leaning-when-the-primary-gets-to-pa/
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: That being said, I apologize for yanking your chain. Because I *know* that I’m an asshole.
JWR
@hovercraft: A great big Very Well Said to both yours and Tom Levenson’s original post.
PS. Hilz 60-40 over Bern, with half of all precincts reported..
opiejeanne
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Great wide-ranging rant. Nice reference to W.J. Bryan’s famous speech.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: Not everyone strikes me as an asshole. Just the specific ones I call on for it. And I know I’m an asshole, but if I’m directing my assholishness at you, you more than likely earned it.
columbusqueen
@rikyrah: Amen, sister.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Oh, sigh. Well, carry on with your hearts and minds campaign, big guy. I’m just gonna be basking over here in the NY primary results, have a nice evening.
opiejeanne
@Miss Bianca: Noooo! You’re not an asshole! Never!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@opiejeanne: I love you too. UR a great contributor to this site.
KS in MA
@ruemara: Well said. Thank you.
J R in WV
While I was fixing dinner today, for Mrs J’s birthday dinner (crab imperial, etc, sparklilng wine, etc) we got a phone call, a pollster.
She was calling from near Tampa FL, and had a ton of questions, some about presidential politics (solid supporter of Hillary!) and the local governor’s race. I told them who I was for, and then she went through a long list of, hmmm, fraudulent statements about both Dem and Repug candidates, asking after each declaration if that statement changedmy voting intention.
I stuck to my guns, with Hillary and Booth Godwin for Gov, he’s a recently retired US prosecuting attorney. The statements attempting to sway me were absurd, and I guess now that they were trying to find a statement that would change voters’ intentions.
Strange times we live in, today.
Glad Hillary did well this evening.
KS in MA
@ruemara: This.
opiejeanne
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: I am? I always feel like my comments are a bit dim compared to the wit displayed by the posters here. .
I’m in awe of posters like Omnes, but don’t tell him that.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@opiejeanne: Of course you’re not dim. You’re active member of a high information site, with well rounded topics.