Oh, I do think the folks who voted for trump were expecting huge changes in our form of government. ‘Drain the swamp’? Folks voted for trump because he was considered to not be an insider in DC and whatever he did would be a radical change from what we have had in the past. Well, we have gotten our change… but wait the 1% have even taken that.
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But but but… this doesn’t right every single wrong in human history instantaneously! How could it be a viable voting strategy? /s
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It’s the stupid first-past-the-post voting system that guarantees the oligarchy of the two-party system in the USA. In such a system, third parties end up working as spoilers. You could have a set-up kind of like in UK, where the two big parties vary regionally, but the FPTP system inevitably leads to a two-party system. Ignoring this ugly reality, and pretending that third parties are viable and only held back because of the media or whatever, is futile.
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I will take a “right-wing” Democrat who can be whipped to vote with the party on important issues (like judicial nominations) over the ACTUALLY-RIGHT-WING Republican who will win if we insist on running Elizabeth Warren clones in Arkansas.
We have a single party in control of all three branches of government, and it’s decided to try government by bad faith and incompetence. Putting somebody who doesn’t have an ( R ) after his or her name in as many state and federal seats as possible is my only goal for 2018. We can play ideological pattycake when Donald Trump and his enablers are no longer in office.
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This just reminds me of what happened in the UK with ‘New Labour’ (supposably left, but fundamentally right) everyone fell for it, then ‘Gulf War 2’ etc. If you think about it, if one has nefarious ambitions, a provable tactic is to pretend to be the opposition of the norm, win, then continue in a ‘business as usual’ mode of conduct.
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You guys were pulling for Hillary. If you wanted to get on the Bernie Train, that train has left the station. You’ve made your bed, now lie in it. Hillary was as centrist as a candidate got. If you supported Hillary you might as well have voted for Trump, she didn’t stand a chance.
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If only we had this much enthusiasm in 2016, maybe Bernie would be president instead of Frankenstein’s monster that was dipped in chetto dust. I remember people acting like I was a communist for wanting Medicare for All.
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The other problem with the establishment Dems:
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Why is anyone surprised? The Democratic Party has been moving steadily to the Right for at least thirty, arguably fifty years. On every significant policy point Reagan would represent the center-left of the Dems. Nixon would be unacceptably Liberal, and Eisenhower would be “Loony Left” by the DNC’s standards.
That’s what all this “triangulating”, “Centrism”, “New Democrat” Clintonista/DLC untreated effluent comes down to:
- Kiss the feet of a slightly different group of billionaires
- Be just slightly less bad than the Republicans
- Stamp down on grassroots movements or at least completely co-opt and neuter them.
- Keep Progressives out of all positions of power
- Permit no challenges to neo-liberalism
Trump provides a wonderful opportunity for the Dems. They can get away with anything as long as they’re not actually supporting Nazis. And I don’t doubt most of them will go there just as soon as they think they can get a few Fascists to vote for them in exchange for driving away a few liberals.
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No.
I believe that US imperialism and militarism is a bipartisan effort, and that the influence of the military-industrial complex on both parties is already dangerously excessive.
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Well, you should probably hesitate before following the wacky-right-conspiracy nuts into shrieking hysteria. There are many paths into the CIA in the US, and many of them align well with progressive values. (One of the common routes is through the State Department, often portrayed by the right as a communist nest.) I’ve known several people in various parts of the intelligence community, many were politically well to the left of the Clintons, all were highly educated and cosmopolitan in worldview. In the wake of Trump’s attacks on the intelligence community and State Dept, it is hardly surprising that ex-employees who believed in the value of their service would get motivated to throw their hats in the ring to oppose the GOP, especially in right-leaning districts where their service might play as commitment to the country rather than the party.
Added: the candidates should be considered on their merits, like any other candidate who once held any other job. For example, do you have a particular worry about the first person in the list you posted, Emily’s List endorsee Abigail Spanberger?
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To cite a bit more Stockwell:
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I haven’t looked in detail at any of them.
My issue is not with the individual people; my issue is with the actions of the military/security state in general, stretching back over a century.
Imperialism and nationalism are not incompatible with liberalism, and the US strain of liberalism is notable for heavily featuring both.
Given that many of these candidates proudly promote their involvement in the Iraq war and other conflicts, I do not think that they are Stockwell-style critics of US foreign policy.
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Yet you are condemning them en masse with the oooh, scary tweet about their running for office.
You didn’t raise the issue as part of an argument that US imperialism is bad, which it is and hardly needs mentioning on BB, but as a cheap attack on the Democratic party.
In the US in the last 30 years the military has been one of the best ways for socioeconomically disadvantaged people in the US to carve out a new career. The fact that someone has been a soldier is probably evidence in their favor as a candidate, that they understand the problems of the poor and oppressed.
Many of them are proud of their service. Some of them might even think our policy in Iraq is correct. That doesn’t make them part of a “hive of scum and villainy”.
Quoting Stockwell from 40+ years ago, when the world (and rank-and-file makeup of these organizations) was very different, or Eisenhower from even further back, doesn’t help your argument. Why not quote Andrew Jackson while you’re at it?
I’m not going to defend intelligence leadership (or pro-intelligence corporate or political leadership) either from recent years or from the dim history when Stockwell wrote his book, but the idea that these former rank-and-file members of the military/intelligence community/StateDept somehow remain agents of some deeply-entrenched cabal is the stuff of Alex Jones.
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Condemning? No. Criticising and drawing attention to? Yes.
And “en masse” is appropriate here. My issue is not with individuals, it is with the systemic influence of the MIC on the US government. A large cohort of new politicians drawn from the intelligence services is obviously relevant to that.
That is a common idea, but it doesn’t sit neatly with the recruitment statistics:
Those are enlisted figures; I would expect the officer corps to show an even stronger middle-class bias.
The key difference between the CIA of Stockwell’s day and the current incarnation is that the modern version is much worse. The IT revolution massively expanded their reach, the fall of the USSR eliminated their only counterbalance and the WoT heavily amplified their abuses.
It’s a good thing that I never said that, though.
No conspiracy is required in order for the election of candidates from the US intelligence community to be a dangerous thing. Ex-military politicians are similarly problematic, albeit to a much lesser degree.
Barring a Stockwellian (or Smedley Butler) conversion, people who devoted their lives to the service of maintaining and projecting American power are very unlikely to be sympathetic to any policy they view as reducing that power. More spies, more surveillance, more killing, more wars.
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Now you’re citing Heritage Foundation position papers at me? I suggest instead Lutz, Amy. 2008. “Who Joins the Military?: A Look at Race, Class, and Immigration Status.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 36 (2) (especially pp 184++) And as a scientist you should appreciate the difference between my statement (that the military is an important way for socioeconomically disadvantaged people in the US to improve their life) and the Heritage statement about enlistee income level, even if it is true.
Another major difference is the degree of political oversight, and so the degree to which the problems with the agencies are due to politicians and not to the agency operatives (who BTW Stockwell praised as people of great integrity).
This is just a matter of speculation on your part, a kind of blind faith in the inherent evil of anyone willing to serve in this capacity. If you want to excoriate this group of Democratic candidates, half of whom are women, most of whom are under-50, many of whom have articulated strong support for progressive causes, on the basis of your prejudices, I can’t stop you. But I’m glad you can’t vote against them in their quest to unseat unambiguously despicable Republicans.
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I can’t fathom how anyone can look at US politics today and say “both parties are the same”.
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What a shame… /s
She won the popular vote by 3,000,000 votes despite an incompetent campaign. I would say she “stood a chance.” Not taking historically reliable dems for granted should be a lesson for future elections.
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