Before the election, some pundits were predicting that a Trump defeat would cause the Republican Party to split into at least two discrete new parties — one representing the old GOP’s business establishment, the other for the populist firebrands of the Tea Party. As the fight over gutting Obamacare reveals, those factions are in an uncomfortable marriage. But a full-fledged rupture doesn’t appear imminent.
A bigger story, one the corporate political writers aren’t focused on, is on the left. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democratic Party split in two.
In my imagined scenario, the liberal Democratic base currently represented by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren file for divorce from the party’s center-right corporatist leadership caste. What next? Led by Sanders/Warren or not (probably not), prepare to see a major new “third” party close to or equal in size to a rump Democratic one.
I even have a name for this new 99%er-focused entity: the New Progressive Party, or simply the Progressive Party. Since this is ahistorical America, no one remembers the Bull Moosers.
Today’s Democratic Party is evenly divided between the Bernie Sanders progressives who focus on class issues and the Hillary Clinton urban liberals who care more about identity politics (gender, race, sexual orientation and so on).
In the short run, a Democratic-Progressive schism would benefit the GOP. In a three-way national contest I guesstimate that Republicans could count on the roughly 45% of the electorate who still approve of Trump after two months of hard-right rule. That leaves the new Progressives and the old Democrats with roughly 27.5% each — hardly a positive outlook for the left in the first few post-schism elections.
But as the cereal box warning goes, some settling may — in this case will — occur…and sooner than you’d think.
First, some “Republicans” in the Trump coalition — those Obama and Sanders voters who switched to Trump — will migrate left, attracted to a Progressive left-nationalist economic message that puts working-class Americans first minus the racism and nativism of the anti-NAFTA Trump right. Doesn’t feel like it this second, but bigotry is finding fewer adherents.
Second, demographic trends favor any left-of-the-Democrats party. Slightly more than half of Americans age 18 to 29 oppose capitalism in its current form. Some Millennials will move right over time, John Adams style — but most will not, mainly because the capitalist economy isn’t likely to reward them with better-paying jobs as they age. A strong Progressive Party — and 27.5% of the vote is strong, guaranteeing access all the way down the ballot to minor races and a spot on the national presidential debate stage — would be the natural home for America’s long-disenfranchised political left.
Third, the Progressives would attract sustained media attention. Excitement generates enthusiasm.
Finally, it isn’t a stretch to imagine that some mainstream Republicans disgusted by a Trump/Tea Party-dominated Republican Party might scoot over to the old Democrats — whose current politics are Republican Party circa 1980, so it’s not like it would be an uncomfortable fit — adding to their numbers.
Granted, this is all very back of the envelope. But my instincts tell me we’ll probably wind up with three surprisingly evenly matched parties before too long.
To be clear, a Democratic split isn’t inevitable. It may not even be more likely than not, not in the next few years anyway. But 10 or 20 years out? The further you extend the timeline, I’d bet a tidy sum that the left will finally hear what the Democratic Party leadership has been telling them for half a century — we don’t need you, we don’t owe you, we won’t do anything for you — and walk.
Why am I so convinced that today’s Dems will go the way of the Whigs?
Still controlled by center-right Clintonistas, the Democratic National Committee continues to snub progressives and leftists despite the fact that Bernie could have beaten Trump.
Throughout the campaign, polls showed Bernie would outperform Hillary in the fall. Still, the DNC cheated on her behalf. And they sleazily lined up the superdelegates for her.
She never considered him for veep. She didn’t even promise to appoint him to the cabinet. Big mistake.
She didn’t adopt any of his signature platform planks.
After the debacle Democratic leaders blamed everyone but themselves: WikiLeaks, Russia, the FBI, the media, even Bernie voters. They didn’t think they did anything wrong.
In the race for DNC chair and thus for the soul of the party, they picked the establishment choice over the progressive.
If you’re a Bernie Sanders Democrat, you have to be a complete idiot to believe that the Democratic Party has learned the lesson of 2016: lean left or go home. Even after it became clear that Trump was putting together the most right-wing administration in American history, Democrats were still voting in favor of Republican appointees.
I can’t predict how the great split-up of the former Democratic Party will play out. But given the escalating rage of the party’s progressive base in the Age of Trump and the absolute refusal of the DNC leadership to grant them concessions, it’s hard to imagine this restive crowd staying calm and keeping Democratic.
The tsunami is coming. Lefties have a choice: get washed away, or grab a surfboard.
(Ted Rall is author of “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” an examination of the life of the Republican presidential nominee in comics form. You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.)
46 Comments.
The Democratic Party isn’t going to “split.” Not quite. I submit that the Dems are undergoing evolution.
Darwin’s evolutionary theory? I think it’s the single greatest accomplishment of human intellect in two thousand years. It presents the idea that we, the people, are NOT in control, but rather driven by a physical force of the same scope as gravity: unseen, not understood, simply THERE.
Quick, why did the modern Democratic Party come into existence? What was the evolutionary event that allowed it to emerge and thrive?
Capitalism. Specifically, bourgeoisie-controlled capitalism. The individual worker was getting fucked. Factory owners held all the cards. The Dems emerged as the party of the working class. And the party thrived right up until the Moron Reagan, First of his Name, came to power and broke up the unity of the unions (the air traffic controllers got arrested, and the rest of the unions quickly started singing spirituals and picked cotton faster than ever before).
Reagan was the ultimate puppet. A good–not great, but good–actor, he knew exactly how to work the cameras. His improvisational skills were exceptional because he was an actor for decades before going into politics. Imagine if the presidency required no fear of heights. The major political party would be the Ringling Brothers. All the senators would come from the field of high-rise construction. As cameras became inescapable, Reagan’s type of abilities, through evolution, became fundamental for survival.
What doomed HRC?
The cameras. She looked like a goddamned cadaver with a rictus of a smile and two dead eyes glimmering out of her skull. She looked like a eunuch at an orgy. Her species no longer is the best adapted for survival. Her branch on the tree of politics is reaching extinction. Her type can be kept alive in the artificial environment of the zoo (or Berkeley, or New York City), but in the “real” world, people want real solutions to their very real problems.
The bottleneck for 2018? Obamacare. It won’t work, it can’t work. It must be replaced by single-payer universal healthcare, but the people in charge of the Democratic Party (the ones who are going extinct) are still thinking that their brie-and-white-wine approaches will work. And they won’t.
If I were a Democrat, I’d be most scared of Trump’s handlers figuring all this out and implementing single-payer healthcare. It’s the only issue that can be used for the 2020 elections. And if Trump is able to deliver it? We could actually have a monopolar political system.
“What doomed HRC?”
*
No it wasn’t the cameras and her cadaver-like appearance. It was her close ties to Wall Street and the likes of Wal-Mart and Monsanto, which the People decided was not in their best interest. At least, that’s what it was for me, a Founding Member of “Ready for Hillary”!
In the beginning, I was all for her moving into the Oval Office and taking the reins of government, because I have met her and Bill personally and lived next-door to the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock when he was governor. The more I learned about her politics, the more I retreated from any support for her as U.S. President.
Her political framework is what killed it for Hillary, nothing else. 🙁
> the cameras and her cadaver-like appearance…
Gentlemen, I would like to suggest that you are both right. If she was as pretty as Reagan, maybe she would have won. If she was as compassionate as Sanders, maybe she would have won. If she was as honest as … uh … Abe … ?
Anyway, it’s rarely one thing that does a candidate in or one thing that gets them elected. It’s all their traits considered as a whole – and Hillary failed on several of them.
Her close ties to Wall Street didn’t help her. But it was her wooden — um — performance when asked about it that really did the damage. Over and over, people kept saying she was committing an unforced error. And she was. Lots of other politicians have close ties to Wall Street. Donald Trump probably has every Wall Street big wig on his rolodex. But Trump looked relaxed in front of the cameras.
And HRC’s political framework? You’re absolutely right. It killed her. Perhaps we can say her performance during the election was like she took poison, kicked the chair away, and then tried to shoot herself in the head.
Any one of them would have been enough …
“…I’d be most scared of Trump’s handlers figuring all this out and implementing single-payer healthcare. It’s the only issue that can be used for the 2020 elections. And if Trump is able to deliver it? We could actually have a monopolar political system.”
It’s a great point, but that runs counter to everything for which Trump and his people stand.
Bow to the strong, pick on the weak. That is the bedrock of their moral philosophy.
Yep, It’s also the projected fantasy of millions who voted for the con man – believing as all of the conned fall prey to – that this man was here to deliver what we so desperately need. Don the Con.
I remember now and then hearing him mentioning something offhand and thinking – wouldn’t it be cool if he really was like that. But then I would think: reality star “billionaire” real estate guy who has only ever worked at scamming people — Nope.
Remember when he said that he didn’t get along with rich people (as a way of explaining his many rude behaviours) that he actually got along better with taxi drivers and doormen? Don’t see a lot of humble folk in his Cabinet do ya? LOL
> Doesn’t feel like it this second, but bigotry is finding fewer adherents
I have great hope for the Millennials. They get it. They don’t understand what all the noise concerning gay rights is about, they were raised in a society where homosexuality was no big deal. Same for women’s rights … what’s the big deal? Of course women have equal rights. Other races, other religions … who cares? They’ve seen war for most of their adult lives, but without all the nationalistic whitewash we were subjected to. They know damn good & well we’re not in the Muddle East fighting for ‘freedom,’ capitalism and intolerance are the obvious causes – they see the results of those diseases every day. They care about the future of the planet because they hope to live there in the future.
Should we survive long enough for the Millennials to take over, we just might survive until the 22nd century.
“Throughout the campaign, polls showed Bernie would outperform Hillary in the fall.”
*
I’d like to read your take on the hypothesis that Bernie should have:
1) run as an Independent, or
2) stayed in the race and let the delegates decide upon their candidate, or
3) accepted Jill Stein’s invitation to join the Green-Party ticket at the top.
What doomed HRC? The fact that she is a genuinely detestable trollup. Now, about the development of a major third party in America? At least one third of the people who are registered Democrat have done so because they find being a Repug even more distasteful. About half of the people registered as Repug have done so because they can’t stand the Dem standard of corporate surrender. I do believe that both disenfranchised (and equally disenchanted) populations could find some kind of common ground in a third major party, if for any other reason, just to shake shit up.
But then? The long knives would come out … and not just metaphorically.
DanD
Interesting that most of the comments in this thread gravitate towards blaming HRC for further dragging down the ball-and-chains that is neo-liberal (domestic) politics.
Perhaps this is why the corporatists think they can continue on this path with minor PR adjustments and avoid a repeat-performance of 2016. Or a split with the Sandernistas.
Remember, Obama took that ball-and-chains … and soared. Indeed he’s still flying high (both his approval ratings and he himself while kite-surfing on some hippie-wanna-be billionaire’s pleasure yacht).
So the corporatists may figure: had, i.e. Joe Biden competed with HRC, would Bernie have gotten level with him? So next time, use the primary process as intended to identify Obama version 2.0. This will buy time to slowly defuse the split with the left by throwing some bones to them as a last resort (as long as it is good for business, which most of Sanders’ platform is, saving capitalism from itself FDR style). Nothing corrupts like power.
The real split to watch out may be within the Sandernistas, between those who want to split 😉 and those who want to have another go at the Democratic primary. After all, they drew almost level on the first attempt. For the second attempt, the playing field will be a lot less skewed (i.e. now there is enough time and name-recognition to register voters in NY, etc.) and the demographic winds are strongly in their backs. According to this logic, Sanders would win a repeat-performance against HRC in 2020. But it is impossible to know whether an even older Sanders – or a younger, less known candidate – would win against an older Biden or whoever the corporatists can muster (no new Obama seems to be on the horizon though, but who knows). Why couldn’t the Clintons produce a good-looking son like Trudeau?
As a third option, perhaps Warren will run in 2020 with an establishment VP. This might be something that both wings can live with for now, if grudgingly. Perhaps only a full betrayal of a Warren/DNC presidency could actually produce the split Ted is channeling already. Even that would give progressives enough time to run candidates at state levels in the meantime, if we’re really that strong. There is more than one way to take over a party.
The upcoming test of strength for the New Progressive (wing of the Democratic?) Party is whether we can mobilize enough people who have long since abandoned ballot box politics to change the rules of the game so we do not have to wait for a generation for demographic changes to slowly kick in.
That “new-blood?” In 2020 M. Hussein Obama will attempt to become America’s first female Black president, at least, this is how BarryHO set the pins up during Kankle’s electoral implosion. Just as how that special Mulatto candidate literally exploded on the PC scene, Michelle will try doing a better job of coat tail riding in the footsteps of her husband than poor Hillary was able to (not) accomplish. Once again, progressives will get sucked into a candidacy that will not really be all that progressive.
DanD
Now that is an interesting possibility. Maybe Michelle will run for a Senate seat ‘cuz name recognition, accomplish nothing there, and subsequently run for president.
But seriously, dude – if you want to speak to progressives you’ll have to refrain from the racism. Which is more important to you? Overthrowing the duopoly or denigrating brown people?
@ DanD –
In my estimation “… America’s first female Black president….” is more likely to be Oprah Winfrey. Michelle, I believe, is not at all interested; Oprah is weighng her options and saying, “If Trump can do it, why not?”
😀
hm. Now, Oprah’s an interesting possibility. Like Trump, she has no previous government experience; but unlike him she has both a heart and a brain.
We could do worse. Oh, wait – we already did.
CH,
It’s “racist” for me to focus on a primary physical attribute that actually made BarryHO more electable? If Obama had been a blue-black, the only way he would have seen the inside of the White House was by taking a tour.
Not just his physical appearance, but also in his self-presentation. As a child, he lived a much “whiter” life than the average African-American. he is the epitome of Black-man lite. It’s also that race-shield that has made Michelle’s husband so much more immune to being castigated for his drone-slaughter history against other “people-of-color.”
Oprah for president? Only if her running mate is Paul Reubens.
DanD
> It’s “racist” for me to focus on a primary physical attribute that actually made BarryHO more electable?
In a word “yes,” especially when you use derogatory language to do so. It’s not like anyone who’s reading this needs to be reminded of his heritage, nor does it make your point any stronger. Quite the opposite, it detracts from your point.
The idea that his racial heritage made him more electable is flat out ridiculous. Did you vote for him because of his race? Or did you vote against him while telling yourself it had nothing to do with race?
Actually, during those heady days of Dubya’s waning pResidency and the prospect that more-of-the-same Banker’s genocide was coming had the repugs continued, I actually believed BarryHO’s bullshit about less war, closing GITMO, more dignity in the presidency, reducing the government’s tendancy to commit horrible war-crimes and over-the-top murder … I voted for the motherfucker. I thought, “Wow, a man of (lighter) color who maybe even does know how the underdog 90% feels. And then he became the greater-evil as he surpassed the extensive war-crimes of his predecessor on a whole new level of impersonal mass murder. Virtually all of America’s Black population voted for him simply because he was (and still is half) Black.
You don’t think that race politics was a decisive factor in his first contest?
DanD
I admit I am pleasantly surprised by your vote, and so I must retract my taunt. I was taken in as well, however I did figure it out before his second term.
But blacks still only comprise 12% of the population, and there are a lot more people who voted against him because of his color than those who voted for him because of his color.
It helped that the GOP was kind enough to run jackasses against him.
@ DanD –
“You don’t think that race politics was a decisive factor in his first contest?”
*
No more so than the celebrations I witnessed among elementary-school teachers in Little Rock who danced around and screamed “Hallelujah!” when O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder.
Politics encompasses fickle numbers. America’s Jewish population is 3%. Currently, the number of Jews in the Senate is 8%, and Congress 5.6%.
As you have stated, American Blacks are around 12%. Since 1870, well below 200 black Ameicans have served as senators and representatives. During the same time, more than 200 Jews have served in Congress. As an admitted fact, whenever AIPAC says “Jump!” , America’s Christian Zionist government asks how high, and how long.
Racially, the vast majority of America’s Jews are Caucasian (Zionist Jews like to “racially” characterize themselves as “Semites,” though Semitism is a language classification more than a racial one.)
After Dubya opened the fascist floodgates in WDC, America’s neo-con dominated political masters had determined that it was time for a “Black” man to become president, so they nominated a black man-lite to fulfill the job, and America’s wanna-feel-good electorate went along for the ride. To insure this propaganda experiment’s success, America’s neo-con predisposed, Repug party masters nominated a total jackass to oppose him. But this sounds too “conspiracy-theor-ity,” so let’s move on along … nothing to contemplate here.
DanD
@Dan – you would be well advised to remember Molly Ivins’ first law of holes, “When you’re in one, stop digging”
Okay, so I’m totally wrong in assessing that BarryHO did out-Bush Dubya in the adopted war-crimes dept, and poor little Zionland is not expansively committing ethnic cleansing and war-crimes in Palestine?
DanD
«Okay, so I’m totally wrong in assessing that BarryHO did out-Bush Dubya in the adopted war-crimes dept, and poor little Zionland is not expansively committing ethnic cleansing and war-crimes in Palestine?» No, DanD, in just that, you are spot on ; alas, you don’t confine yourself to these facts. You fail, for example, to note that Mr Obama, for all his many and grave faults, was much less the creature of AIPAC and Likud than Mr Trump and his minions are proving to be (I suspect Ms Clinton would here have been closer to Mr Trump’s position)….
Henri
And as I’ve said before Henri, while I’m not a fan of T-Rump, I’m even less of a fan of the Clinton/ BarryHO/ Kankles network. Nothing the Don does goes unobserved. On the other hand, Hillary’s neo-con evil would have been totally invisible.
Zionists are even less tolerant of “Colored” folks (whether Gentile or Jewish) than are the Klan (I believe the Klan originally adopted its hateful attitudes more than a century ago from recalcitrant Scofield-empowered proto-Christianite Zionists). Understandably, BarryHO was (is?) less-than-enthusiastic of Kazarian-Klan intrigues. In that, he’s been very brave in his less effusively cooperative expressions of surrender. Even so, he’s still complicit in the weapons gravy-train to Zionland.
DanD
I must confess, DanD, that I have some difficulty viewing Mr Trump as a heroic Perseus, but for those so inclined, here an image….
Henri
Oh, the hyperbolic understatement of it all ~
DanD
«Remember, Obama took that ball-and-chains … and soared. Indeed he’s still flying high (both his approval ratings and he himself while kite-surfing on some hippie-wanna-be billionaire’s pleasure yacht).» I submit that Andreas here points to something of great significance ; were candidates’ policies the sole, or even the main, determining factor in US – or for that matter, other countries’ elections – dear Ms Clinton, who represented essentially the same (dangerous) polices as her predecessor, who himself managed to win the US presidency twice, would have won in 2016, and not merely in California. Sure, there were many (like myself) who abhorred her policies and hoped that Mr Sander’s, whose domestic – and to some degree even foreign – policies we found far superior, would prevail, but it was, I suggest, her personality, both that which had come to the fore under her many years in politics and, not least, that which was revealed under the campaign, rather than her polices which did her in. A likable Joe, like Mr Biden – even with policies identical to those espoused by Ms Clinton (as they would have been) – would, I submit, have trounced Mr Trump….
To return to Ted’s thesis : is the US Democratic Party going to split ? To my mind, as a foreigner looking in from the outside, that would be the best thing that could happened to US politics – in the event that the split takes place upon policy, rather than personal lines. The people of the US deserve something more than Tweedledum and Tweedledum-lite, which has effectively been the choice before them during these last decades, let us say since the late sainted Ronald Wilson Reagan occupied the office. In the event of a split and a new party on the left, I doubt sincerely that the US will get anything much better than say, the Social Democratic Party here in Sweden, but given the current situation over there, even that would constitute an improvement….
(I hope that you other posters here will cut me some slack and pardon me for daring to express an opinion with respect to politics in your country ; were it not for the fact that when your government says «Shit !», mine (and many others as well)- asks «How much ?», I should gladly refrain from, as it is called nowadays, «interfering with your democracy»….) 😉
Henri
@ Henri
I agree, If nothing else, having an established party to the left of the Dems would force them to make actual concessions, which having a leftist trend within their tent apparently does not (yet). Or at least on the national level, though maybe at the states and community levels some candidates may get nervous.
While I take your point about meddling, at this juncture I would not worry about apologizing for outside influence on U.S. politics on the part of concerned individuals ;-). It’s not like the U.S. government is apologizing for influencing all of our lives…
«It’s not like the U.S. government is apologizing for influencing all of our lives…» Andreas, they’ve not (yet ?) apologised to me…. 😉
Henri
I basically agree with all of this. I’m including a recent letter to the editor I wrote (which did not get published for some reason), just as an FYI:
http://craigabalos.com/articles/art004.php
There are quite a few of us who are thinking along the same lines. I know I’ve read at least one or two other articles that were saying basically the same thing: that the DNC is turning its back on the left and little or nothing will change that.
I think that any opposition within the DNC is good, but it would be best if we could all gather together somehow under “one tent” if only in name.
Lately I’ve been thinking that we can beat them at their own game if we opt to be “Independents.”
The literal Independent party is very small, and could be swung leftward.
It would also help the disgruntled righties avoid the stigma against “progressives” that they’ve learned over the years.
Nice letter, rougy.
I’ll note another part of the problem: that is that somehow the GOP has convinced many working class folks that they are the party of the working class. Lookit all the rust belters that voted for Trump.
I think it’s because the GOP panders to the bigots and exploits the ignorant. Most of the GOP working class voters are bigoted against blacks, Muslims, or gays, and many of them are too ignorant to really know what’s going on.
Climate change is a really good example of GOP ignorance. They never really look at the problem, and choose instead to repeat the half-truths and lies that they hear on right-wing media.
And thanks for the compliment. 🙂
rougy,
When I wrote my comment, below, I hadn’t clicked on the link. I am insanely delighted that the link jumps to a picture of a woman with a noose around her neck, holding a bottle of poison, with a gun pointed at her head.
A marvelous bit of coincidence. Many thanks for that.
That’s cool. I actually find it comforting that many of us on the left are basically seeing the same thing: that the DNC as a corporate party is more detrimental than the DNC as a social-issues avenger.
I’m all for fighting the good fight on social issues. The fight must continue.
But the reality is that corporate control is what’s undermining any real progress for the working class.
OMIGOD!
This video is a “must-see” commentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6SzF5hA1eg
Mein verehrter Lehrer, Mr Cousins also has some pertinent things to say about Mr Tillerson’s latest brilliant idea….
Henri
“[W]hen we’re the country that goes out there and starts a fight, why would the rest of the world respect us anymore?”
🙁
On the other hand, some people – among them, I suspect, both Mr Tillerson and Mr Trump – confuse «respect» with «fear»….
Henri
Wishful thinking Ted. But the 2 Party mess (I won’t say system) is so calcified now even Bernie ran as D.
There needs to be something pretty major to change that. Not saying it couldn’t happen. It would be wonderful if it could. But it needs to happen soon as there are a lot of institutions of power that are deep in the system that force D or R. As a Canadian I was amazed when I first learned of the state run primary system. In Canada a party does it’s own thing. It can be very democratic or not. But the point is that when you vote it’s democratic because you get to vote for whoever is willing and able to run. In the US you literally have an official party system that, to get outside of, is swimming upstream from the get-go. In Canada, there are things that work against a 3rd party but they are not enshrined in the way that elections are run. We do get new parties now and then. Parties evolve. Yet in the US the D and R have even switched sides from Left to Right and still keep the same name. If you’re going to do it that way (have official parties) you should go full on and have EVERYTHING in the party be up to public democratic voting. Frankly that’s all just another layer of government and you should go the other way and make the party system open to all, you know that competition principle you Americans supposedly espouse. You need parties that compete on the merit of their ideas and the people behind it instead of some strange ultra-gerymandered primary system.
>A bigger story, one the corporate political writers aren’t focused on, is on the left. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democratic Party split in two.
This would be the best thing that could happen to the country. The “progressives” could continue their masturbatory search for the (non-existent) politician that can get them the things they want on the ludicrously short timetables they find acceptable; meanwhile, those of us who understand how things actually work could begin the work of making progress in this country without fear of temper-tantrums resetting the clock back to 0.
>Throughout the campaign, polls showed Bernie would outperform Hillary in the fall
Polls by the same outfits that gave Hillary a near 100% chance of winning do not suddenly become credible because they deal with Bernie. Pull the other one, its got bells on.
Should the DNC been more even handed? Of course. Did what they did affect the election outcome? That’s never been proven. And until it has, saying the DNC “cheated” is a huge stretch.
Besides, a very good case can be made that Bernie would’ve lost not just the electoral vote but the popular one as well: http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044
>She never considered him for veep. She didn’t even promise to appoint him to the cabinet. Big mistake.
Proof? Out of all the other Bernie supporters I talked to once it was clear he wasn’t going to get the nod, the VAST majority of them considered him wasted in a cabinet position and even more wasted as VP. No, they wanted him to stay in the Senate.
>If you’re a Bernie Sanders Democrat, you have to be a complete idiot to believe that the Democratic Party has learned the lesson of 2016: lean left or go home
You have to be a complete idiot to believe that THAT was the lesson of the ’16 elections. History clearly shows that with a couple of exceptions the message of EVERY election since the early 70’s is: it’s literally impossible for you to move left far enough, fast enough to suit me, so if you want to stay in office, you’re going to have to make those votes up by tacking right.
The Democratic party will not move left until you show them that tacking even a little bit left wins elections. “Progressives” have been showing them the complete opposite for 40+ years. I just hope the country has enough time left for “progressives” to learn their lesson.
> Did what they did affect the election outcome? That’s never been proven.
Not in the sense of asking each and every voter whether it did. But when you catch someone with a smoking gun standing over a dead body you have a pretty good idea what happened.
Speaking of proof, there’s always your ludicrous hypothesis that voting right will move us left. There’s not a shred of evidence to support your claims, but a hell of a lot of evidence pointing the opposite direction.
So, I’m guessing that you failed grade school arithmetic. You keep insisting that 1% of the voters have more political power than 49%. The plain, simple truth that you refuse to acknowledge is that the overwhelming majority of leftish voters have been following your “plan,” and it’s done nothing more than to turn the Dems into ‘republican light”
If you want to blame someone, look in the mirror. Blame the Pavlovian conditioned majority who would have voted for Trump if the DNC had backed him instead. Blame the DNC who we know damn and good backed Hillary. And oh, here’s a crazy idea – why don’t you blame the candidate herself? I’m pretty sure that SHE had more to do with her own shortcomings than the 1% of use who envision something better.
«This would be the best thing that could happen to the country. The “progressives” could continue their masturbatory search for the (non-existent) politician that can get them the things they want on the ludicrously short timetables they find acceptable; meanwhile, those of us who understand how things actually work could begin the work of making progress in this country without fear of temper-tantrums resetting the clock back to 0.» Are we to draw from the above, «Whimsical», the conclusion that «those of [you] who understand how things actually work» don’t masturbate ? Perhaps the resulting sexual tension helps explains the tone in which your diatribe is couched….
Henri
@ CrazyH –
@ mhenriday –
As I read through the total nonsense posted by “Whimsical,” I was formulating in my mind how I might respond.
Fortunately, I was spared the effort, because you two did it perfectly.
Thanks!
🙂
“Should the DNC been more even handed? Of course. Did what they did affect the election outcome? That’s never been proven. And until it has, saying the DNC “cheated” is a huge stretch.”
I don’t think so. Between the Super Delegates and the way the DNC brass kept short-sheeting Bernie…that was less a primary than a coronation.
I think we need to stop using cloudy words like “left” vs. “right” and start using concrete terms like “workers” vs. “corporations.”
The DNC is supposed to be the worker’s party: it’s not.
> Between the Super Delegates and the other thing…
I object to the Stupor Delegates just on first principles. But the way they made endorsements long before the people voted was downright Machiavellian. They had far more sway than New Hampshire, which usually gets far more than it deserves.
NH Dems voted 14 to 9 for Bernie, and in the past that would have really started the ball rolling in the right direction (“left”). But because of the Stupor Delegates the press could report “it stands now at 579 for Clinton, vs. 38 for assorted others.” (but there’s no proof that they interfered with the election in any way, shape, or form 😉
CrazyH,
I realize there’s no concrete proof that Super Delegates influenced the primaries, but it’s hard to believe they didn’t.
When it appeared that Clinton was wiping the floor with Sanders right off the bat, I can’t help but think a lot of people didn’t even bother to vote.