US Elections: Children of the Revolution

[OnionAhaiReborn]

35 minutes ago, Fez said:

Its not about articulating a theory. Its about promoting that theory as a catalyst for social change. And that's what Jacobian does and that's what Chait had a problem with.

Do you read Jacobin? Have any examples of what you're talking about? Because Chait fixates on a column (the only Jacobin article he quotes from) about Trump protesters that doesn't even feature the word "class," much less any discussion of class warfare, so I'm not sure what specific acts of class warfare are being promoted that you have a problem with. I think we are operating from a fundamentally different understanding of what class warfare entails (and I believe Marx's term was "class struggle")- as I've put it, the "warfare" can come in the form of political activity like contesting and shifting the distribution of wealth, as with Republicans pushing for slashing safety net programs and tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy. Conversely, pushing for progressive income taxes and downward redistribution of income is "class warfare" in the opposite direction. Whether or not Marx's theory of class warfare's role in history is broadly correct, I think it's obvious that the theorized existence of class conflict itself is on the mark, and some forms are desirable while others are not.

[Swordfish]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yes, that's true.

It's also true that she has heartfelt positions. Not all of them - but definitely some. As I've said before, she has routinely supported women's rights when it was and wasn't popular to do so, she has routinely supported healthcare reform when it was and wasn't popular to do so, and she has routinely supported LGBT rights when it was and wasn't popular to do so. To say she doesn't stand for anything is once again completely ignoring actual facts in favor of a narrative - namely, that she will change her mind at the drop of a hat.

As much as Sanders supports economic reform, Clinton supports women's rights. And yes, she has taken money from governments that do not support these rights - and she's also come out and publicly knocked them for their actions. 

And again, if you hate her for being an 'establishment' politician, you should really hate Sanders, who has been in the establishment for almost 40 years now. Who switched from Independent to Democrat. 

If you don't like her positions because of her wall street connections I guess that's fine. But that isn't what I'm talking about when I say 'hate'. When I say hate, it's when people literally have a visceral, hate filled reaction to her. Who cannot talk reasonably about her or bring up any of her accomplishments without comparing her to reprehensible people. Who believe that her and Trump are equivalent in their buffoonery and believe that the world will be laughing at the US because Trump and Clinton are the frontrunners - and think both are equally amusing and sad. 

I know... It's a crazy disproportional burden to have to be walking among the unwashed, uneducated masses all the time, isn't it?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Not to interrupt the Hillary Clinton circlejerk that seems to erupt spontaneously in every politics thread, notwithstanding the pages upon pages of legitimate criticisms of Hillary's record that have been written, but there are two distinct liberal lines of attack against Hillary Clinton that boil down to two categories of objections.

The first is that Clinton is a bad liberal - or that she has been a bad liberal in the past. Most of these objections are based upon Hillary's support and advocacy for her Husband's domestic agenda while he was President (plus, of course, her vote for the Iraq war). I think that these are, for the most part, perfectly legitimate criticisms of her public policy positions on things like superpredators, welfare reform, NAFTA,  the wall street bailout, etc. The simple reality is that Hillary Clinton began her career in politics as a relatively conservative Southern Democrat and as part of the "third way" Democrats that sold out the working class for the Neoliberal economic agenda. The Democratic party, emboldened by Obama's two-term presidency, is swinging back in the other direction, and Clinton is running leftward to catch up. But she's still running to catch up. 

The second is that Clinton has undesirable personal characteristics - she's unscrupulous and power hungry, has no core beliefs and is a political 'empty suit,' and is more than willing to chuck other women under the bus to protect her womanizing Husband's political career (and her own political aspirations). I think there's plenty of support for these charges as well, although I tend to think that people tend to weight these personal characteristics more heavily if they're already disinclined to like the person for political reasons. 

It's actually quite refreshing to hear some liberal express their open dislike for Clinton, if only because in this age of extreme political polarization, most people of any political persuasion would prefer an unscrupulous President of their own party than an honest, scrupulous President from the other party. And hey - I'm certainly one of those, too. I'll vote for Clinton over almost any Republican, no matter how honest or noble. But I'm kind of glad there are liberals out there who wouldn't.

[DanteGabriel]

What the fuck is the circle jerk part? People saying "Clinton isn't as bad as Republicans have made her out to be" is a circle jerk? Who is singing her praises?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

Again, has it mattered? How many delegates went to Clinton because of DWS? How much money in the form of donations? (In fact, Sanders has many times outraised Clinton.) If you* can't specify just how this has significantly impacted the race, this complaining feels like a constant attempt to justify a grievance. 

*The rhetorical you, not you, Tywin.

Outside of the way the DNC scheduled the early debates, no they haven't actually done much to help Clinton. That's why I specifically brought up the perception angle. Often times in politics the optics matter more than the reality, like it or not. And it's pretty hard to deny that having the head of your party be a vocal supporter of one of the leading candidates can cause some people to foster mistrust in the party and the process.

1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

YES. They can't usually name bad things Clinton has done, but whatever those things are, they are terrible. Or else they're blaming her for something her spouse did, complaints you rarely hear about male candidates.

See, I'd avoid this type of smugness. Just because there are a lot of bogus claims about Clinton out there doesn't negate the fact that some people have serious grievances with her. Here's a perfect example:

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Or that she's going to be this adventurous warmonger - and point at Libya or Iraq - without pointing at their own supported candidate's war record. 

Kal just hand waved away a very legitimate concern some people hold. They're very nervous about Clinton's willingness to engage militarily on a number of fronts, and have reservations about her judgement in this arena. Trying to ignore this by pointing out that Sanders isn't perfect is only going to push Sanders supporters away when party unity is what we need most right now.

So TN, when you encounter someone peddling BS attacks on Clinton, swat them down. But when people air their legitimate concerns about her it would be unwise to treat them like they're irrational. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

What the fuck is the circle jerk part? People saying "Clinton isn't as bad as Republicans have made her out to be" is a circle jerk? Who is singing her praises?

Circle jerk is a slang term for an echo chamber. In terms of how it manifests itself in the politics thread in regard to Hillary Clinton - it's typically when the same small group of posters regurgitate another iteration of "Dimestore Psychoanalysis of the Real Reasons People Dislike Hillary Clinton" in which all of the actual reasons that people put forward for not liking Hillary Clinton are summarily discarded in favor of unqualified analysis of their "real" motivations and/or lengthy one-sided dissertations lighting an endless string of anti-Hillary strawmen on fire. 

[DanteGabriel]

Just now, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

Circle jerk is a slang term for an echo chamber. In terms of how it manifests itself in the politics thread in regard to Hillary Clinton - it's typically when the same small group of posters regurgitate another iteration of "Dimestore Psychoanalysis of the Real Reasons People Dislike Hillary Clinton" in which all of the actual reasons that people put forward for not liking Hillary Clinton are summarily discarded in favor of unqualified analysis of their "real" motivations and/or lengthy one-sided dissertations lighting an endless string of anti-Hillary strawmen on fire. 

As far as I can tell, the defenses of Hillary Clinton and psychoanalysis of her detractors mostly come up when Altherion tries to rationalize his support for Trump with nonsensical justifications. But sure, if you think that qualifies as a circle jerk, I suppose Raidne 2.0 Nestor Knows Best.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

16 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

As far as I can tell, the defenses of Hillary Clinton and psychoanalysis of her detractors mostly come up when Altherion tries to rationalize his support for Trump with nonsensical justifications. But sure, if you think that qualifies as a circle jerk, I suppose Raidne 2.0 Nestor Knows Best.

Obviously. 

[Kalbear]

To disambiguate here - there is a difference between disliking Clinton for her policy choices  (which I think is a perfectly reasonable thing) and actively hating her. There are a lot of things to dislike or be worried about with Clinton. I know I am. And Tywin is right - that it is a legitimate concern that she will support interceding, because this is also one of her core values. Or you can dislike her Wall Street connections, or dislike her record in the 90s on crime, or dislike her views on late term abortion. I get that. 

 

The difference, nestor, is that I don't understand where the actual hatred of her comes from. And there are a lot of people who seem to hate her who otherwise like democrats. 

 

And that requires as you put it armchair psychoanalysis, because it isn't a rational reaction. 

 

If you feel that my inequating dislike and hatred is unwarranted that's on you. I'm not trying to figure out why she isn't everyone's preferred candidate. I'm trying to figure out why to many she is as bad or worse as trump, and how they regularly say how much they hate her.  

[Myshkin]

8 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Y'all should contribute to the Sander's campaign, 

I might if I didn't think most of my money would got straight into Tad Devine's pocket

5 hours ago, aceluby said:

Again, this thought process goes much further back than this latest fiasco.  My state's DNC did openly support Clinton months before voting.  The head of the DNC ran the Clinton campaign in 2008.  The DNC has literally done nothing to appear that it's not biased towards Clinton.  This is the reason why these ridiculous conspiracy theories keep popping up.  This is why there are so many Sanders supporters who are saying they won't vote for Clinton.

It would really behoove the DNC, Hillary, and their supporters to try and bridge that gap.  They are doing a frankly shitty job of it so far and posts like the above that try to make these people look dumb isn't going to draw a ton into our big tent.

I guess once you have supported Hillary Clinton you have a moral obligation to forgo any hope of moving up within the party structure. A new rule should be added that states that any person who has ever supported anyone who might plausibly run for President one day should be disallowed from holding any leadership position within the party. 

As for bridging the gap, I don't know what else can be done. I mean I don't see large groups of Hillary supporters threatening to hold the country hostage if they don't get exactly what they want, despite the will of the majority. I do see lots of Bernie supporters demanding that Hillary address their concerns, but every time she does just that those same people complain that she's stealing Bernie's positions, and they won't be fooled by her pandering. There is a small but vocal group out there who absolutely refuse to be appeased no matter what Hillary says or does. 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

13 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

As for bridging the gap, I don't know what else can be done. I mean I don't see large groups of Hillary supporters threatening to hold the country hostage if they don't get exactly what they want, despite the will of the majority. I do see lots of Bernie supporters demanding that Hillary address their concerns, but every time she does just that those same people complain that she's stealing Bernie's positions, and they won't be fooled by her pandering. There is a small but vocal group out there who absolutely refuse to be appeased no matter what Hillary says or does. 

What exactly do you mean by "holding the country hostage" ? 

[Kalbear]

Awesome. Sanders is suing the DNC for how they handled the data breach that the Sanders campaign made. To be fair, this is basically a lawsuit so that they can potentially do it in the future, because they had 3 days to do something or have to drop it.

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Just now, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

What exactly do you mean by "holding the country hostage" ? 

Bernie Bros have threatened to kidnap the next Bachelorette if the DNC doesn't stop playing favorites.

[Myshkin]

7 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

What exactly do you mean by "holding the country hostage" ? 

I mean the Bernie or Bust crowd. The people who have pledged never to vote for Clinton if she's the nominee, and who are actively trying to convince all Sanders supporters to pledge the same. The only objective of such a pledge is to force their preferred candidate upon the majority by using the threat of a Trump presidency.

[Altherion]

I don't see how you could possibly force anything using the threat of a Trump presidency given that Clinton leads Trump in current polls. That said, I googled Bernie or Bust and found this article which almost perfectly expresses how I feel:

Quote

Eight years ago, Barack Obama glided to victory on a progressive platform that promised real change. But after eight years of brutal compromise and frustrating stalemates with the GOP, Gitmo remains open, American troops are still in Afghanistan, the criminals that engineered the financial crisis are at large, and race relations have deteriorated rather than improved. Now Sanders supporters hear Hillary Clinton promising to continue wherever Barack Obama leaves off, and they wonder what the point of four more years of the same would be in an increasingly desperate country and, indeed, world. To the Bernie or Busters, half-measures no longer cut it. It’s why they’re for Sanders in the first place.

The "almost" is because I believe that writing in Sanders' name is a futile gesture and, depending on what alternatives to Clinton are still in the race and have a chance to win, there might be better uses of one's vote.

[Myshkin]

17 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I don't see how you could possibly force anything using the threat of a Trump presidency given that Clinton leads Trump in current polls. That said, I googled Bernie or Bust and found this article which almost perfectly expresses how I feel:

The "almost" is because I believe that writing in Sanders' name is a futile gesture and, depending on what alternatives to Clinton are still in the race and have a chance to win, there might be better uses of one's vote.

I didn't say the threat would ultimately prove successful, only that they were using it. 

ETA: The quote you posted from the article makes some strange suppositions. Like implying that the deterioration of race relations is ultimately Obama's fault for not doing enough, rather than the fault of the Republican controlled houses of congress, or more accurately Republican control at state and local levels. It also completely ignores Obama's actual accomplishments. I wonder if gay people who now have the basic right to get married feel the same about Obama's presidency as you. Lastly it expresses frustration at the stalemate with the GOP which has led to compromise, without ever mentioning that a President Sanders would face the same stalemate should he be elected and would also have to compromise if he wished to get anything at all done. 

[karaddin]

I don't think the DNC has done anything substantive to actually help Clinton, but I do think they've failed to make it look like they aren't very much hoping for one particular candidate to win. It may seem unimportant, but it fosters a feeling of unfairness in supporters of the other side, and it wouldn't have cost them anything to fucking try and it wouldn't have impacted Clinton's chances in the primary. What it might do is impact her chances in the general if the negative blowback pushes too many to stay home. So really just suck it up and get the appearance right at least.

Kal - Thanks for that link, I was initially suspicious it was just going to be a Clinton puff piece but was reassured on seeing Samantha Allen that any credit on that topic would need to have been earned. Especially important to note this stuff after the shit in NC this week, candidates that are genuinely trying to improve things because it's right is a big deal for me.

Got an update from my exes cousin in Arizona, he registered months ago. There's no valid excuse for that, either there was a huge cock up on the database version in use, or actual database corruption (if it was showing people as R who had never been R) or there was actually shady shit going down rather than incompetence. 

It's not the first time in this primary season that the primary/caucus organisation has been exposed as unprofessional horse shit, and it really reflects poorly on the integrity of the Democratic process. I really hope it's a wake up call to fix this shit before the next presidential election but I won't hold my breath.

[TrackerNeil]

5 hours ago, Myshkin said:

As for bridging the gap, I don't know what else can be done. I mean I don't see large groups of Hillary supporters threatening to hold the country hostage if they don't get exactly what they want, despite the will of the majority. I do see lots of Bernie supporters demanding that Hillary address their concerns, but every time she does just that those same people complain that she's stealing Bernie's positions, and they won't be fooled by her pandering. There is a small but vocal group out there who absolutely refuse to be appeased no matter what Hillary says or does. 

I suspect that, if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination, most Sanders folks will back her, just as most Clinton supporters eventually went over to Obama. (Except, of course, for champion-of-the-people Lynn Forester-de Rothschild.) And I have no desire for Sanders to drop out before he's ready, because if his campaign achieves nothing but pushing Clinton left, it has done enough.

What I don't get is the Clinton hatred. Look, I loathe Marco Rubio, but 1) I am aware my hatred is out of proportion; and 2) I have legitimate, logical reasons to want him to never win another election. A good deal of Hillary hatred is completely unselfconscious and totally irrational, and I can't understand it. Oppose Clinton for her record? Sure. Dislike the way she views policy? Knock yourself out. Fail to recognize that she and Sanders are very close on many, many issues? You're* just deluding yourself.

*The rhetorical you, not you, Myshkin.

[lokisnow]

 

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

Naturally, she comes from a family in which one person has already held the office she is seeking.

I think this is always interesting when it comes up, I cannot think of any domestic political spousal examples that did not first depend on the male spouse dying and the female spouse then taking up his mantle to finish out a term. Jean Carnahan did it most recently, and I think, historically, the first female senators were appointed to finish out their husband's term. 

But a Dual career household with both respective parties having separate careers and both being elected to high offices?  That is singular in history, as far as I can tell.

Perhaps there are other examples worldwide where spouses (both from non-political, non-oligarchic family heritages) both pursue separate and rather different career paths in elected politics?

And perhaps in these instances there is evidence of the existence of an extraordinary and terrifying dynasty?  

I don't know worldwide politics very well, how many terrifying dynasties have been formed by a spouse of an elected politician also having an elected political career?

oy.

***

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-24/donald-trump-s-tough-but-plausible-path-to-winning-the-white-house

What is interesting about the above article is that democratic strategists are working on the assumption that Donald Trump's path to an electoral college victory is in the Rust Belt. That by flipping Ohio, Pennslyvania, Wisconsin, Michigan,Iowa etc, Trump can win without having to worry about winning Florida or Virginia.

Setting aside the plausibility of this, as it is fairly plausible, all of those states voted more republican in 2012 than in 2008, the democratic strategists are saying the Democratic Party plans on investing heavy resources in these states, which it has not done for years, at least not to the extent that they seem to be planning on doing so.

What is VERY interesting about heavily investing resources in these states is that four of the senate seats being targeted by democrats for flipping are in Ohio, Pennslyvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, and they are only favored to win the Wisconsin one, as the fundamentals of the races in the other three states favor the republican incumbants.

Heavily investing resources in these states to prevent a trump victory means increased turnout operations, and that could have a large downballot effect, enough of one to possibly flip these three relatively safe seats. I don't think democrats ever invest in Iowa for the general election, but a heavy push by democrats in Iowa by trying to prevent a Trump victory could very well result in Judge unseating Grassley in the senate seat--particularly as democrats already have a strong party infrastructure within the state due to the iowa caucuses.

Democrats do not try to win senate elections as a rule, and democrats and are not smart enough as a party to heavily target this region on their own recourse.

Having the coincidence of Trump targeting these states result in motivating democrats to try to win elections in these states is truly remarkable. Who would have guessed that states he most needs to win are also the states democrats most need to win senate elections in, thus creating a new battleground for this election?

Here's the map I think will happen this year if it is Trump v Clinton:

http://www.270towin.com/2016-senate-election/Ml7QO2

electoral college:

http://www.270towin.com/maps/qgnvL

 

 

[ThinkerX]

I find myself wondering...

...suppose the Green Party were to take a leaf from the Tea Party's playbook. (This assumes somebody with organizational competence in the Green Party.)

Green Party operatives go to districts the Democratic Party has effectively given up on, the ones that are assumed to be so solidly 'red' they mount only a token effort.  The Green Party very quietly picks candidates for these districts, but runs them as democrats, not greens.  DNC reaction: 'Never heard of so-and-so, but its a lost cause anyway, so who cares?'  Unlike the DNC, the greens mount an intensive, quasi stealth campaign for these candidates.  They go the internet route - Facebook, Twitter, all that.  Focus on younger people. 

Result 1 - The Green Stealth campaign works - they win a number of congressional districts, with candidates who are Green Party in all but name.

Result 2 - These Green Democrats start making demands on the Democratic Party overall, much as the Tea Party does with Republicans.

How big of a mess could they create?