[Discussion] What comes next? Liber-all

American liberals and progressives now face their biggest challenge in a generation: What do we do with 4 years of a trump presidency, a republican congress, a likely conservative supreme court and most states under complete republican control?

This thread is not meant as a forum for discussing HOW or WHY democrats got destroyed in the 2016 election. It's meant for finding a way forward.

boogle wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I'm confused, what part of the banking industry was calling for Dowd Frank?

Dodd*

Every time I do that.

OG_slinger wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I was always a bigger fan of heavy regulation going forward than criminal prosecutions, but to play DS's Advocate, sometimes when you lose in a court of law, you win in the court of public opinion.

A political PR payout might not have been contingent on actually winning the cases. Sometimes just showing people that, win or lose, you're willing to fight for them? That might have been good enough.

No, it wouldn't have been. And for multiple reasons.

First, the people that were truly hurting from the Great Recession--the people who lost their jobs and were in the process of losing their homes--wouldn't give a f*ck that the government was trying to convict a banker or Wall Street broker or two. Doubly so because the best the government could say is that they'll try really hard and maybe (*maybe*) they'll get a conviction in a couple years time. Those people wanted to know what the government was going to do right the f*ck now to help them feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads.

I don't know. People can be pretty hateful. I wish people were better and smarter than that, but from what I've seen, people do dumb, cruel things with their votes.

Second, the government *had* to win any prosecution they attempted. It's not a good visual at all if the federal government can't get a conviction. A not guilty verdict would be a very public confirmation that Wall Street was more powerful than Uncle Sam. Hell, even a guilty verdict with what the public perceived as a lax punishment--say six or twelve months in Club Fed--would do more harm than good.

I disagree. I don't think a very public confirmation that Wall Street is more powerful than Uncle Sam is necessarily bad PR when you're looking for votes.

And, finally, there'd be a counter PR push to the prosecutions from both the industry and Republicans: the Democratically-controlled federal government was conducting a Wall Street witch hunt and those efforts were preventing the banks from making loans and getting the economy moving again. You can't refinance your mortgage and a business owner can't get a bridge loan because Democrats are putting politics ahead of the economic recovery of America.

They could try, and it might work. It might also backfire and confirm that they're the party the Democrats are saying they are.

And that counter PR push would be allowed to say whatever it wanted for the years and years it took the prosecution's case to play out in court, all while the government couldn't really say much except that it's working hard to lock up a banker or two.

Which is a great thing to be able to say. The churn of litigation is a much more interesting daily news item than an abstract PR push.

Demosthenes wrote:
boogle wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I'm confused, what part of the banking industry was calling for Dowd Frank?

Dodd*

Every time I do that.

IMAGE(http://tshirtsonfilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/The-IT-Crowd-%E2%80%93-i-read-your-email-T-shirt.jpg)

wouldn't give a f*ck that the government was trying to convict a banker or Wall Street broker or two.

Bullsh*t.

Doubly so because the best the government could say is that they'll try really hard and maybe (*maybe*) they'll get a conviction in a couple years time. Those people wanted to know what the government was going to do right the f*ck now to help them feed their kids and keep a roof over their heads.

Now you're just making sh*t up wholesale. You're minimizing the cases that they could have brought to make them seem like nothing, when they most emphatically wouldn't have been. And you're making it sound like they couldn't make it stick, when they almost certainly could -- if no other way, than through new laws and new regulations.

Instead, they deployed unimaginable amounts of money to protect the banks from the consequences of their actions. The banks got to keep all the profit from their risk-taking, but we got to pay all the costs.

The Democratic government was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banking cartel. And Clinton would have continued more of the same.

So of course people are pissed off. Bailing out the billionaires and leaving the man on the street to die is not what Democrats are supposed to be about.

...in what way is defending safety net programs and even helping expand them with the ACA leaving the man on the street to die?

We get it, you hated the bank bailout (we've had this conversation way too many times at this point, I think), but you seem to go from there to "Democrats don't care about/help the people" without much in between for that logical leap and I'm totally confused how you got there.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I disagree. I don't think a very public confirmation that Wall Street is more powerful than Uncle Sam is necessarily bad PR when you're looking for votes.

Well, there's your problem.

When Obama took office it wasn't about "looking for votes."

It was "How the f*ck do we stop a million plus Americans from getting laid off *this month*?" and "How do we get any sense of liquidity back into our economy so everything doesn't seize up and explode in a more spectacular fashion than it already has?"

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

They could try, and it might work. It might also backfire and confirm that they're the party the Democrats are saying they are.

Dude, look at the FUD Republicans cranked out about Obamacare and, very unfortunately, how much that poisoned the well of public opinion. And that was just over most people's fears that maybe their health insurance might change a bit.

You can say a lot worse and still be believed when people are pants-sh*ttingly scared and are desperately looking for anyone to throw them a life preserver.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Which is a great thing to be able to say. The churn of litigation is a much more interesting daily news item than an abstract PR push.

Yes, the abstract PR push of layoffs, foreclosures, the financial ruin of friends and family members, the steady drumbeat of negative economic news, and the panic that goes along with everyone not understanding what in the hell was happening or when things would just stop getting worse.

Demosthenes wrote:

...in what way is defending safety net programs and even helping expand them with the ACA leaving the man on the street to die?

We get it, you hated the bank bailout (we've had this conversation way too many times at this point, I think), but you seem to go from there to "Democrats don't care about/help the people" without much in between for that logical leap and I'm totally confused how you got there.

They didn't do all that much extra. They helped some, but their primary focus was on saving the institutions that got us into the mess, not the victims OF it. And note that I wasn't even a victim; I didn't particularly suffer from the blowup. I'm not pissed because I got screwed personally, I'm just pissed because of the incredibly bad decisions that were made.

In essence, by defending all the existing institutions and systems, they ensured that we'll have the same problem again. They deployed truly nutty amounts of money, trillions of dollars, to actively stop the underlying issues from being fixed. It'll take awhile longer to build back up and start failing again, but the same basic problems are lurking out there, and the Republicans sure as hell aren't going to fix them.

Not only is Too Big To Fail still part of our government system, those institutions have gotten even bigger, and they have done so at public expense.

The Democrats are a wholly-owned subsidiary, and they have sold us down the goddamn river. Trillions of dollars on the banks, a few billion to help homeowners. Something is deeply wrong with this picture.

It was "How the f*ck do we stop a million plus Americans from getting laid off *this month*?" and "How do we get any sense of liquidity back into our economy so everything doesn't seize up and explode in a more spectacular fashion than it already has?"

But you don't do that by making the underlying problem worse, which is what happened. They didn't solve anything, they just kicked the can down the road.

OG_slinger wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I disagree. I don't think a very public confirmation that Wall Street is more powerful than Uncle Sam is necessarily bad PR when you're looking for votes.

Well, there's your problem.

When Obama took office it wasn't about "looking for votes."

It was "How the f*ck do we stop a million plus Americans from getting laid off *this month*?" and "How do we get any sense of liquidity back into our economy so everything doesn't seize up and explode in a more spectacular fashion than it already has?"

My response was to yours of:

OG_slinger wrote:

Second, the government *had* to win any prosecution they attempted. It's not a good visual at all if the federal government can't get a conviction. A not guilty verdict would be a very public confirmation that Wall Street was more powerful than Uncle Sam. Hell, even a guilty verdict with what the public perceived as a lax punishment--say six or twelve months in Club Fed--would do more harm than good.

If you want to criticize what I said from another basis, that's cool, but I was responding to a very different question you put to me.

As for the one you're putting to me now, sure--but it doesn't mean you can't do both.

OG_slinger wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

They could try, and it might work. It might also backfire and confirm that they're the party the Democrats are saying they are.

Dude, look at the FUD Republicans cranked out about Obamacare and, very unfortunately, how much that poisoned the well of public opinion. And that was just over most people's fears that maybe their health insurance might change a bit.

You can say a lot worse and still be believed when people are pants-sh*ttingly scared and are desperately looking for anyone to throw them a life preserver.

JUST over most people's fears that their health insurance might change a bit? The reason that FUD worked is because of how hard it was to understand everything that was going on. Even Pelosi said that they had to pass it for people to know what was in it. "We're going to go after the bankers" is a lot simpler for average people to understand than exactly why the ACA is going to make their lives better.

Nope, shoe's on the other foot here: the Republicans are the ones trying to explain the complex theory, while the Democrats are the ones who get to run around and yell about 'death panels'.

OG_slinger wrote:
cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Which is a great thing to be able to say. The churn of litigation is a much more interesting daily news item than an abstract PR push.

Yes, the abstract PR push of layoffs, foreclosures, the financial ruin of friends and family members, the steady drumbeat of negative economic news, and the panic that goes along with everyone not understanding what in the hell was happening or when things would just stop getting worse.

Yes. The abstract PR push that somehow going after the bankers is responsible for all that. Like I said, shoe's on the other foot: the Republicans are the ones having to make the involved explanation while the Democrats are just appealing to the bloodlust of an angry populace.

Malor wrote:

Now you're just making sh*t up wholesale. You're minimizing the cases that they could have brought to make them seem like nothing, when they most emphatically wouldn't have been. And you're making it sound like they couldn't make it stick, when they almost certainly could -- if no other way, than through new laws and new regulations.

No, Malor. I'm not making sh*t up wholesale. Financial crimes are ridiculously difficult to successfully prosecute even in the best of times. Prosecuting them during a time when experts couldn't even adequately explain what the f*ck happened would have been even more difficult.

What I most definitely know, though, is that we couldn't have convicted bankers and Wall Street brokers for their part in the Great Recession by passing laws that retroactively made their actions criminal. Clause three, Section nine of Article one of the Constitution clearly states "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."

Malor wrote:

Instead, they deployed unimaginable amounts of money to protect the banks from the consequences of their actions. The banks got to keep all the profit from their risk-taking, but we got to pay all the costs.

They deployed a large, but finite, amount of money and tremendous amounts of political capital in order to keep our economy limping along and not collapsing entirely while they figured out how to safely euthanize the weakest financial institutions.

It's nice to throw out lines like "the Democrats protected the banks form the consequences of their actions" until you realize that that the consequence you're talking about is a bank serving millions of Americans and thousands of businesses disappearing overnight and the absolute chaos that would flow from that. Doubly so knowing that one bank going down like that would take out many others.

In the trade off between the government not prosecuting some dickwad banker back in 2008 and me not having to barter for groceries because the bank behind my debit card doesn't exist anymore (along with my checking account), I'll take eating every time.

Malor wrote:

So of course people are pissed off. Bailing out the billionaires and leaving the man on the street to die is not what Democrats are supposed to be about.

Nor is the Democratic Party supposed to be about tearing down our entire economy just for the chance that billionaires might feel some mild discomfort.

Though I tend to lean more towards Malor's views concerning the big bank bailouts, I do want to add that it wasn't just the Democrats catering to the banks, but also Republicans. I remember very specifically writing to my two Republican senators at the time...expressing dissatisfaction to one who went along with the bailouts and thanking the other who opposed the bailouts.

The thing that concerns me the most now though is that 45 is planning to overturn the few protections that Obama managed to put into place to try to keep the same financial collapse from happening all over again. We need to strengthen these as well as restore Glass-Steagall.

I do want to add that it wasn't just the Democrats catering to the banks, but also Republicans.

Well, of course, but I expect that from them. With the Republicans, that's on the tin.

It's nice to throw out lines like "the Democrats protected the banks form the consequences of their actions" until you realize that that the consequence you're talking about is a bank serving millions of Americans and thousands of businesses disappearing overnight

That's such a pile of sh*t. We have a huge system in place to prevent any such chaos. It's called the FDIC. You might not have realized it, but some banks DID FAIL during the crisis, and the FDIC ensured that they continued operations smoothly. Putting all those banks out of business would have been a far superior solution to what we actually did, which was to preserve everyone at those banks, largely doing the exact same things in the exact same ways. They just went off to play different speculative games instead. They're still speculating, just on different stuff.

For all those trillions we threw at the problem, we could have gotten something for it, instead of just kicking the can down the road. It was an immense transfer of wealth from the public purse to private pockets, and it set the stage for far greater episodes of looting to come. We didn't just get nothing, we spent trillions of dollars to buy a bigger problem!

And then you're totally eliding past HSBC, which was knowingly laundering money for drug cartels, and all that ever happened to them was a small fine. It was basically... the government saw that they were breaking laws massively, and stuck their hand out for a small part of the take. No other serious consequences, just some money extracted from current-quarter profits.

The banks are not expected to obey the law in this country. If a big bank f*cks up, nothing will happen to it. There will be no prosecution, no jail time, and the government, if necessary, will step up waving its checkbook to make sure that only the American public loses any money from their terrible and/or illegal decision-making.

This is a f*cking crock of sh*t.

So of course people rejected Hillary as corrupt, because she's the epitome of everything wrong with the Democrats.

So of course people rejected Hillary as corrupt, because she's the epitome of everything wrong with the Democrats.

According to Fox News and the constant bullsh*t spewed by the Right for decades.

There is almost zero evidence of corruption outside of a lot of "well doesn't that look suspcious"... occasional bits of smoke, never actually any fire.

THAT is the actual "f*cking crock of sh*t" as you put it.

Seriously, a lot of Democrats bought into the ad nauseum repeated bullsh*t of the Right to give themselves an excuse to hate her enough to act like she wasn't worth their vote because she was corrupt when she was running against DONALD f*ckING TRUMP.

Seriously, she was willing to shut down an organization that has (and now continues to) help millions of people... she was basically willing to sell the f*cking peanut farm... meanwhile, Donald J Trump divested himself of nothing but some bowel movements so far.

Like, I get it, gotta have perfect, can't have good.... but seriously, this topic is ridiculous when you look at who she was up against. And if we have to have perfect to fight awful, we might as well all just take our Quietus now because nothing's ever going to happen while we wait for Democrat Jesus.

There is almost zero evidence of corruption outside of a lot of "well doesn't that look suspcious"...

She supported the TPP. She supported the bank bailouts. She had no criticism that I saw for letting HSBC walk.

She's no more corrupt than the rest of the Democrats, but she's ultimate party insider in a party that's been captured by the financial elites.

For the Republicans to beat the drum about her is disingenuous bullsh*t, but that doesn't change the fact that the Democrats aren't really serving us anymore, and haven't for a long time.

Whether or not they're better than the other guys is immaterial. That doesn't make them good. I'm not saying that you should support Trump, because he's clearly worse, as is damn near any Republican you could name, but Republicans being worse excuses nothing on the part of the Democrats.

When the choice is between a sheriff that'll slaughter every Native American in the local tribe, and the sheriff that'll beat up drunks and harass poor people, clearly you'd vote for the second sheriff..... but if those were your only options, you screwed up bad. Beating up drunks for fun is still wrong, even if the other guy would be committing mass murder.

Former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner talks about the recent DNC election as well as the future of the Democratic Party. She was one of the people there voting and supported Ellison. I think she makes a lot of good points, but she did emphasize the point that much of the election was symbolic as in representing the Democratic party's choice of direction, and not so much because people have a personal dislike of Tom Perez. A lot of her discussion also concerns the decision to take money from corporate lobbyists, something that President Obama had gotten rid of, but now they've put it back, so there's a big philosophic difference there between the more corporate side of the party and the more progressive side, and she said that vote took place before the vote for the DNC chair and seemed like an omen to her concerning the direction the Democratic party was deciding to take for the future.

I don't even think most of the people who were enthusiastic about Hillary thought she'd do much to prevent the rich from getting richer and labor from falling further and further behind when it comes to income.

I think it's relevant to the question of What comes next? to ask whether success depends on Democrats not just protecting the safety net and being strong on social justice issues. They've also got to communicate that they're going to, well, make America great again when it comes to income inequality.

For as much of a clown as Trump was, he kept talking about how we need growth. What was that Piketty equation that was super hot a couple of years ago? r(eturn) > g(rowth). He at least had the scaffolding upon which people could project their dreams. Sure he's corrupt, but he's promising to grow the economy enough so I won't care if he gets richer. Am I telling myself a lie? Sure! Hey though, a lie of hope and change is better than no hope for change at all.

Democrats don't have to be perfect, but maybe they've got to be perceived as good enough in those three different suits. One can't substitute for another.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I don't even think most of the people who were enthusiastic about Hillary thought she'd do much to prevent the rich from getting richer and labor from falling further and further behind when it comes to income.

I liked the Democratic platform that Bernie created with her. It was mostly his platform to begin with along with a few compromises, so I was able to live with it and support it despite Hillary not being my preferred candidate. Did I fully trust that she would hold to it once she actually got elected? Nope, not really, but I decided to be optimistic and believe that if there was a good chance of her doing it, it was still much better than the alternative with 45. So I was happy enough to support her and campaign for her before the election.

I think it's relevant to the question of What comes next? to ask whether success depends on Democrats not just protecting the safety net and being strong on social justice issues. They've also got to communicate that they're going to, well, make America great again when it comes to income inequality.

For as much of a clown as Trump was, he kept talking about how we need growth. What was that Piketty equation that was super hot a couple of years ago? return > growth. He at least had the scaffolding upon which people could project their dreams. Sure he's corrupt, but he's promising to grow the economy enough so I won't care if he gets richer. Am I telling myself a lie? Sure! Hey though, a lie of hope and change is better than no hope for change at all.

Democrats don't have to be perfect, but maybe they've got to be perceived as good enough in those three different suits. One can't substitute for another.

As far as what comes next, I have many more doubts now that the Democratic party is going to represent the change that people want and need. I'm sticking with it for now because there really isn't a good alternative, but I'm not particularly happy with the party as it stands right now. While I think unity is a pretty good thing, I don't want to unite behind corporatists. The Democrats being in the pockets of the corporatists were a big reason why I remained an Unaffiliated voter despite voting for more Democrats than Republicans, and usually due to social issues. Economically, they seemed more like two sides of the same coins. Considering the results of the recent DNC election, I'm not sure that's going to change, though we'll see.

I'm encouraged by all the grassroots activity through groups like Indivisible, OurRevolution, WomensMarch, BlackLivesMatter, MoralMonday, Flippables, etc. If there's going to be real, positive change, I think it's going to happen through this sort of activism and not through the Democratic party. I'm even thinking that it's basically going to leave the Democratic party behind, maybe even at some point with a very strong, progressive third party (and I don't mean Green party...yuck), or maybe just through primarying Democratic (and possibly even Republican) candidates so that we have candidates that represent us rather than the corporate donors of both parties. Maybe political parties in general will get left behind if more and more people support good candidates than parties.

I'll certainly be keeping my eyes open as things move forward, but I'm not putting all my eggs in with the Democratic party. Again, we shall just have to see what happens.

7 Bad Ideas Plaguing the Democratic Party

If Democrats are going to be an agent of change that takes the country back from financial and corporate elites, they're going to have to think differently.
The Democratic Party, with Thomas Perez as its new chair, vows to seek unity, transparency, Trump resistance, grassroots participation, and most importantly, "make sure we talk about our positive message of inclusion and opportunity... to that big tent of the Democratic Party."

But this message is shrouded with myths that must be challenged if we are to take back the country from financial and corporate elites....and from Trump.

Myth #1: Party Unity

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost. For the sake of unity, the Sanders rebels should moderate their relentless attacks on the super-rich and runaway inequality so that the party can concentrate its fire on Trump.

The goal must be to win back the moderate suburban Trump voters who may soon suffer from buyers' remorse. Now is not the time to scare voters with anti-corporate rhetoric and broad social democratic programs like free higher education and Medicare for all. Uniting against Trump is all that matters.

Myth #2: The moderate middle is the key to victory

The party establishment is still clinging to the triangulation model perfected by Bill Clinton as he cuddled up to the Wall Street. Ever since, the Democratic Party has tried to tailor its program to independent suburban voters and wealthy donors.

Myth #3: Economic empowerment.

The mantra of the corporate Democrats is economic empowerment -- making sure that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. Their position is based on the following assumptions, all of which are wrong:

There is no essential tension between corporate/financial elites and working people. All boats will rise when we come together. Unfortunately, for 40 years this has failed spectacularly. Financial/corporate elites have strip-mined the economy at the expense of the rest of society.

Myth #4: The Sanders Program is too radical for America

Sanders-style socialism will not be accepted in America. It will be red-baited to death, leading to the defeat of any politician who supports such programs. So the Democratic Party should not promote the Sanders agenda.

The Cold War is over. Young voters could care less about the socialist label. The Sanders campaign out-polled Hillary among every shade and color of under-30 voters.

Myth #5 Americans really don't care about income inequality

Americans cherish the idea of getting rich, admire those who become so, and therefore don't want to upset the income ladder.

Myth #6: The Party needs donations from the wealthy

To compete with the well-healed Republicans it is imperative that the Democrats curry favor with wealthy donors. They have no choice.

Myth #7: Write-off the white working class
Will Tom Perez and the Democrats break through these debilitating myths? The jury is out.

...reminder that I'm reaaaaaaaaally socially liberal, a socialist, etc...

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost.

Disagree that they need to recognize that they lost the Primary overall, this is a suggestion of wrongness of their ideas which I disagree with the premise of (like the premise that their primary loss means their platform is wrong, I disagree with that whole notion).

They do, however, reaaaaaaaaaaaally need to look at where they lost and how they lost. At this point, being my socialist self, I feel like I'm the only one in my group of friends who seems to remember BLM having to crash a rally to get Sanders to even put up anything in his platform about racial equality... then a buttload of Sanders supporters talking like Fox News correspondents for a week about how BLM has no respect for anyone, blah blah blah.

Financial/corporate elites have strip-mined the economy at the expense of the rest of society.

For a group that doesn't like broad brushstrokes, they reaaaaaaaaally like broad brushstrokes. *headdesk*

The Cold War is over. Young voters could care less about the socialist label. The Sanders campaign out-polled Hillary among every shade and color of under-30 voters.

I say this having only just exited that group, that group suuuuuuucks at voting. The writer needs to stop acting like that doesn't matter. Also, there's still several generations living who have been taught to fear that label from a young age who have very little experience with its programs (or thinking of the programs that embody it as socialism).

Telling the older half of this country to just "get over it" while complaining about how they tell younger generations to do the same on other topics strikes me as noooooooot helpful.

Americans cherish the idea of getting rich, admire those who become so, and therefore don't want to upset the income ladder.

A. Part of that is just patently NOT a myth. That is a pretty common observation by world economists NOT from the USA when observing us. We generally don't have have-nots so much as have-not-yets.
B. ...didn't Hillary specifically talk about raising taxes on the rich? Did that just get forgotten too?

Myth #7: Write-off the white working class

Amusingly, to my understanding, Clinton and her team actually acknowledge this was a mistake themselves.

Demosthenes wrote:

They do, however, reaaaaaaaaaaaally need to look at where they lost and how they lost.

Age:

African-Americans have been sharply divided along age lines during the Democratic primary, with black voters under 30 narrowly favoring Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, while older blacks overwhelmingly backed the former secretary of state. (LINK)
Edison conducts entrance and exit polling for American elections and has conducted polls on primary voters and caucusgoers in 20 states so far this election.

Brown said, by some measures, Sanders actually leads among black and Latino voters.

"Among African-Americans, who are 17 through 29, Bernie Sanders is actually leading that group, 51 to 48 [percent]," he said. "Among 17- to 29-year-old Hispanics, Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton 66-34." (LINK)

Sanders leads Clinton among younger minority voters, as he does among younger whites, according to a new USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times poll. Among Latinos under age 50, Sanders led 58% to 31%, the poll found. Among all younger minority voters, he led 59% to 32%. Clinton’s lead was large among older voters -- 64% to 20% among minority voters 50 and older, according to the poll. (LINK)
Demosthenes wrote:

At this point, being my socialist self, I feel like I'm the only one in my group of friends who seems to remember BLM having to crash a rally to get Sanders to even put up anything in his platform about racial equality...

I feel like I'm the only one who remembers when Clinton was saying things like:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Demosthenes wrote:

then a buttload of Sanders supporters talking like Fox News correspondents for a week about how BLM has no respect for anyone, blah blah blah.

You could have said the same thing about the PUMAs back in '08.

Face it: when Clinton was running against the young good looking black guy, she was selling herself as the voice of white working class America. When she was running against the old crazy looking white guy, she was selling herself as the opposite. That doesn't mean she's corrupt, that doesn't mean she's a nasty women, that doesn't mean she's uncommitted to social justice, but it does mean the Clintons are ruthless politicians, and don't get caught up in thinking there's no spin in the narratives they throw your way.

And realize that a lot of the narrative of Bernie vs. Hillary on the internet is...more about the kind of people you find arguing simplistic narratives on the internet than about reality when the narrative gets complicated.

bekkilyn wrote:
Myth #1: Party Unity

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost.

You know, thinking about it (this may wind up be a rehash, but I thought it was worth putting directly), of course every group has its zealots who will never be reasonable. I wonder, though, if the reaction to Perez is not about him, it's about a Democratic establishment that has done all this losing, and STILL thinks it should be in charge.

Like, the establishment lost. Over and over, for years. We wound up with Trump. Maybe if there's a guy outside the establishment that is nevertheless getting support from establishment figures that's an early front runner, that's NOT the time to mount your own challenge to keep control of the party?

In other words, maybe a lot of it isn't about Perez, it's about the fear that the establishment doesn't have the self-awareness to think 'hmm, maybe we should step back and do more helping and less leading for a while'? That's scary. We need the establishment. If they're showing this little introspection...that's scary.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:
Myth #1: Party Unity

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost.

You know, thinking about it (this may wind up be a rehash, but I thought it was worth putting directly), of course every group has its zealots who will never be reasonable. I wonder, though, if the reaction to Perez is not about him, it's about a Democratic establishment that has done all this losing, and STILL thinks it should be in charge.

Like, the establishment lost. Over and over, for years. We wound up with Trump. Maybe if there's a guy outside the establishment that is nevertheless getting support from establishment figures that's an early front runner, that's NOT the time to mount your own challenge to keep control of the party?

In other words, maybe a lot of it isn't about Perez, it's about the fear that the establishment doesn't have the self-awareness to think 'hmm, maybe we should step back and do more helping and less leading for a while'? That's scary. We need the establishment. If they're showing this little introspection...that's scary.

For as much as 45 is beyond terrible, he got it. Despite being part of the donor class that owns both the Republican and Democratic establishment, he didn't run his campaign that way. He offered his supporters something they wanted and needed. Yes, most of it was lies, but he still gave them something to stand for other than business as usual and they bit like crazy at that bait, and many of them are still biting. Just like many on the anti-establishment left are still biting for Bernie. I suspect that a number of people who voted for 45 would have voted for Bernie because they liked Bernie. They voted for 45 though because they weren't going to vote for any establishment candidates no matter what. They hated the Clintons and the Bushes and the same old same old. Many had voted for Obama because he promised change, and when that didn't really happen, they turned to something else that might, and even if it didn't happen, they could at least send a big FU to the establishment by voting for 45 even if they didn't like the guy or even really believe he'd do what he said. (Michael Moore predicted as much before the election.)

Heck, he got rid of the TPP though, and was probably the only other person besides Bernie who would have actually done it. That's big in itself.

I don't think people hate Perez as a person, but they do hate what they perceive he stands for, and very possibly for good reason. Being the hand-picked choice of the establishment arouses suspicion at the very least regardless of whatever personal qualities he may possess or what he may say he will do. He also was a supporter of the TPP and had a soft stance on Wall Street which isn't very attractive to progressives either. He seems like a pretty nice guy, and unlike with 45, I don't get the impression that a young woman finding herself alone in a room with him would be in danger of getting molested, but symbolically he represents "The Enemy" and it lost the Democratic party a lot more goodwill.

Edit: Also just saw this tweet showing that there wasn't a single progressive elected to the DNC in any of the official positions.

https://twitter.com/DarbyKathleen/st...

Yep.... the Democrats are trying to put down an insurrection, not figure out how they need to change.

They're more worried, I think, about the challenge to their internal authority than winning elections.

(edit: reworded somewhat.)

Demosthenes wrote:

...reminder that I'm reaaaaaaaaally socially liberal, a socialist, etc...

For the Clinton Democrats, party unity means that the Sanders forces recognize that they lost.

Disagree that they need to recognize that they lost the Primary overall, this is a suggestion of wrongness of their ideas which I disagree with the premise of (like the premise that their primary loss means their platform is wrong, I disagree with that whole notion).

They do, however, reaaaaaaaaaaaally need to look at where they lost and how they lost. At this point, being my socialist self, I feel like I'm the only one in my group of friends who seems to remember BLM having to crash a rally to get Sanders to even put up anything in his platform about racial equality... then a buttload of Sanders supporters talking like Fox News correspondents for a week about how BLM has no respect for anyone, blah blah blah.

I'm going to jump in here and it may be a buzzsaw. I live in one of the suburban districts that ping pongs between red and blue and I joined the local Indivisible group nearly immediately after the election. The guy who founded the group ended up being someone I know because he worked on Obama's primary campaign and I worked on Hill's back in 2008. We hit it off and he asked me to take on marketing and messaging.

The group has grown a little to several hundred participants already, which is good; but what is bad is that there is a sub-group that is trying to take over and has started bullying people out (my view). They have already asked me to step down because they do not agree with my strategy and I openly hold some conservative views (but am undoubtedly a liberal): basically I'm trying to guide our group to confronting arguments. For example if 45 claims that refugees are causing security problems then we tell them how accepting refugees creates security my pointing at instance of refugees joining the military and refugees defending our country (Tammy Duckworth recently did this); in addition to talk about the moral repugnance of 45's refugee stance. That way we can confront their argument and make our own (irrefutable) argument. My overall argument is that liberals have allowed conservatives to direct the conversation for too long, partially because we have thought their views too silly to acknowledge and partially because we were arrogant and could not see their viewpoint.

The sub-group disagrees and believes we should shock and put down Trump voters and those leaning to their side. They are calling the Republican party the "Nazi" party and trying to shame people. After Ellison lost they were very vocal about third party runs and breaking from the Democratic party. This strategy is undoubtedly stupid and will only alienate those who the Democratic economic platform can really help but voted 45, and is driving away those who don't fit their ideological purity test (like me).

So yes there is an insurrection going on inside of the Democratic party and some of the other groups popping up and I hope they die down. My problem has been the ideological purity demands and the faith in if Bernie was nominated he would have won (we simply do not know that). I liked Bernie, and I supported Ellison but for some that is not enough. I'm not outlining every internal insurrection but only what is going on in my little part of the world.

So in my case this sub-group claims to represent the progressives (I don't associate them with progressives) but what they want I firmly believe will be a disastrous and alienating message. They may win because a lot of liberals are angry (I'm trying to maintain a semblance of calm and reason but am scared as f--k) and I feel if we get as angry as the other side not only can we not compete we'll lose the moral high ground. I may be wrong but I'm not sure I have found a counter argument.

Stay strong, FG. I fully anticipate my meeting next week to go the same way.

Some of those people may end up going third party, but it may not really matter if good candidates are running and have strong support. I suspect many will stick with the Democratic party (or Unaffliated in some states) because it's the only way they would be able to vote in primary elections and get progressive candidates to win those primaries and primary out the DINOs.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a Democratic platform anymore other than #nottrump, so that's a problem that needs to be solved before people can come together to support it. When you have things happening around the country like 6 Democrats joining Republicans to vote against the minimum wage hike in Maine (I think), and similar things going on all over elsewhere, it's no wonder a lot of people end up feeling betrayed by the party, or have no interest in joining the party. Many don't see the Democratic party as being the party of the working people anymore, but a party that wants to cater to moderate Republicans and corporate donors and big money elites. Even if the perception is wrong, and I'm not sure it is, it's legitimately there for various reasons, and as long as it's there, there's not going to be the unity a lot of people are begging for.

While we do need to put down 45 and his extremist Republican administration, that can't be the end of it. The Democratic party needs to come out with some sort of new, New Deal that clearly supports us rather than corporate donors, with candidates that don't represent business as usual, and until that happens, Democrats are going to continue losing elections to any crazy alternative that promises something different.

But yes, stay strong. Groups like Indivisible are doing GREAT and you don't have to serve a particular political party to be a strong part of the resistance. There's a lot of unity there even if it's not happening within the Democratic party specifically. So what if there's a strong faction of Green Party participating (just using an example that may or may not be the case), if they're going to the town hall protests with everyone else, that's still a good thing. We can work with that.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a Democratic platform anymore other than #nottrump, so that's a problem that needs to be solved before people can come together to support it.

The party platform

Like, I don't even know where you'd get the idea that there isn't a party platform... I could see viewing the #NotTrump actions as only resisting Trump, but thus far, those actions have largely had ideological basis to them too.

Resting Trump's Muslim Ban because we are a nation of immigrants and cannot discriminate on the basis of faith because that is anathema to what we stand for as a country. Yes, that involves a resistance to Trump's EO, but also involves defending an American value of diversity, of joining this country via free will, etc...

Now, how effective are they with that right now? Meeeeeeeeh? Like if you're thinking "Well, they're not doing anything..." True, but they're also not in control of any of the 3 branches of government right now so... I don't know what they could be doing right now other than resisting, trying to highlight injustices and get pressure on them for the GOP to have to deal with them. :\

Flintheart Glomgold wrote:

That way we can confront their argument and make our own (irrefutable) argument.

This is the drum I keep trying to beat. It's easy to be outraged and talk about how stupid so many of the ideas are, but that doesn't sway people to your view.

Okay, so if the 2016 platform that Hillary ran under still applies, then why aren't they all out there talking about it and supporting it every chance they get? (As well as all the resistance activities, of course.) It seems like Bernie's the only one out there continuously bringing up many of these issues, and as I've been clearly informed by so many people, he's not a Democrat and needs to just go away. (I'm not implying that these types of comments are all happening here on GWJ, just in general.)

Democrats really need to make it very clear to people why they should be voting FOR them, because now that the election is over, it's been extraordinarily weak.

Seven Democrats just voted to confirm Carson for the HUD appointment, for goodness' sake!

I think there is a strong Democratic platform besides #not45, but it is not being announced properly. Some of this is organizing against something is easier than trying to get people to support something. I do think that things will calm down (somewhat); and when the Democrat's get back together they will need to have a firm platform ready to go, or enough to move forward with support from all sides otherwise they will look like fools. Most of my conservative friends (not the Trumpkins) feel like they have been abandoned because the Republicans not only threw their beliefs in the toilet but they have been against everything for the past eight years but have not thought about what they would rather have.

Democrats cannot make that mistake.

bekkilyn wrote:

Okay, so if the 2016 platform that Hillary ran under still applies, then why aren't they all out there talking about it and supporting it every chance they get? (As well as all the resistance activities, of course.) It seems like Bernie's the only one out there continuously bringing up many of these issues, and as I've been clearly informed by so many people, he's not a Democrat and needs to just go away. (I'm not implying that these types of comments are all happening here on GWJ, just in general.)

Democrats really need to make it very clear to people why they should be voting FOR them, because now that the election is over, it's been extraordinarily weak.

Seven Democrats just voted to confirm Carson for the HUD appointment, for goodness' sake!

I'd recommend, if you're not, following a few other Democrat politicians and their social media.

To start, I'd recommend...
- Al Franken, who talks about a good chunk of that platform on a nearly daily basis. For someone that was kind of a nearly-Bill Maher kind of schmuck with political comedy, bordering on being basically the Anne Coulter of the Left, he's turned into an amazing politician and is quite progressive.
- Elizabeth Warren, for obvious badass reasons.
- Tammy Duckworth

The larger issue is that, outside of their own promotion of their issues, their actions largely go unnoticed because our media does tend to focus on big events rather than, here's Al Franken meeting with VFW vets to determine how to best handle their mental health upon returning from combat, or here's Elizabeth Warren supporting a group pushing to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Like, that sh*t doesn't make the news because it's not terribly interesting or attention grabbing. :\