As an outsider, I’m almost glad that I don’t get a vote in this primary, or this election, even though it affects the rest of the world as well.
Look at yourselves. You’re all so pissed at Trump that you’re pissed at one another too. Well, get it all out of your systems now. All the re-fighting 2016, all the hurt feelings at being unable to out-campaign a toupeed shitweasel with a five-second attention span, and all the really repetitive blame-gaming.
Because when it comes to the actual vote, you are going to need all the energy you are wasting in this circular firing squad bullshit. You’re going to need it all focussed not just on stopping your tiny-fingered discount mussolini, but on actually electing a a president, and a congress and a senate, and thousands of state-level posts that can start saving your country, and our planet , and get the world off of this dystopian time-line that it’s rapidly hurtling along.
And I really hope you do it, but hope is not exactly in plentiful supply right now.
I kinda felt like the racial justice platform he offered, the marches for equal rights he attended, supporting $5.5 billion federal jobs program for young people of color in cities etc. were a pretty strong acknowledgement. It seems to me he has made more clear statements about his ideas on ending racism and the acknowledgement of systemic racism being a real problem than any other candidate. Or do you know of a candidate who has posted an entire racial justice platform online?
But more telling to me, is the time he spent as a equal rights activist actually fighting the fight. Or, as Dr King said
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
It would be easy to remind you what HRC was doing at the same time but instead I’ll just ask… are we asking for the same commitments from anyone else and why are we pretending all the time and effort Sanders has put into the issue of race never happened?
Yes, this is why I tried to focus on what his supporters in this thread and elsewhere thinks he thinks, as opposed to what Sanders actually thinks himself.
I think that Sanders himself is myopic on this issue but can potentially be brought around if he starts listening (and thinks before he speaks!). The problem is that there’s a wider cult of personality around him that seem dismissive of the issue, and they push much more dubious perspectives into the discourse.
The extent that this sense about Sanders underlies his support (see also the mention of him appealing to Real America) is one of the more toxic aspects of his candidacy and one of the reasons I can’t just see him as merely ensuring progressive ideas get more of a say.
I don’t know if referring to who he would possibly run against is “Rehashing 2016” but, my bet is he’s going to be running against Biden of which he has very similar policies to HRC.
I am allowed to identify as an individual member of the demographic you keep marginalizing and lumping into one indistinct globule.
You can keep ignoring the actual content of my comments, but that only serves to demonstrate my point.
PRECISELY.
Depending upon someone else’s vague interpretation of ‘equality’ without including explicitly specific practical applications is a fool’s folly. I refuse to rely on anyone’s supposed ‘better nature’; as far too many people in power have willfully demonstrated that they don’t possess one.
Some people have mentioned a lack of trust; perhaps that’s because politicians in general don’t have a really good track record of following through once they get into office.
I think he protested when others didn’t. I think he’s probably a good guy.
It won’t matter if he looks like he takes Black people for granted, this year.
Look at the Republicans. They rely on Evangelical voters. There were plenty of candidates who go to church more often than Trump, and have been Evangelicals all their lives. He convinced people that he would make them a priority, and that was more important to them than his beliefs and porn-star lifestyle.
People vote to express what they want to happen, and what change they want to see. He needs better than, “I don’t think he’s bad.”
From the viewpoint of “conservative” voters chumps, I believe the phrasing of latter is more likely to have taken votes from . Bernie may have been more savvy about the political climate around 2015 than many give him credit for.
The evidence is that Sanders in particular has an issue with racial justice. He is a Senator in a 94% state and managed to give his name to a three day gathering (December 2018 in Burlington) and exclude local racial justice activists. Progressive people in his state don’t feel marginalised by him and that is not a good look.
This is not about individuals declaring allegiances. This is about a politicians track record of working with / collaborating long term with communities. Sanders’ track record is not good on this one.
The Jacobin thing is weird. I have just googled Sanders and POC (after continuously following this subject for two years) and it seems every article today on Sanders and racial justice is linked to the Jacobin, I had to scroll to the bottom to find the above links. This is bloody weird, given that every African American journalist, activist, community leader has been discussing Bernie and racial justice for the past two years. When did the Jacobin become a thought leader on racial justice?
Rather than offer you a list of candidates I find favorable, with all of whom we could both find fault, I would rather address the idea that you mention in reference to Obama, which applies to all candidates. I see it this way. Neither of us will ever be lucky enough to have a candidate who does everything the way we would like. In fact, as with Obama, I can guarantee that each candidate will disappoint us in some minor or major way. This is the unfortunate reality of politics in a 2 party system and a 50/50 country, but it should not drive us to refuse to support the candidate who most represents our views, and at the same time, has the best chance of actually being elected and actually accomplishing something. That requires a broad coalition of support.
Obama disappointed me on his prosecution of leakers and his acceptance of the drone program, but he also is the first President in many, many years to shepherd through a significant change in health care coverage which has positively impacted millions of us, in spite of unbelievable opposition. He didn’t get us single payer or eliminate the private insurance system (both of which I would have preferred) but he made a significant step in the right direction. My point here is that single issue voting is a mistake. We have to push for what we want from our candidate and our party, while accepting that the constituency is broad and not necessarily aligned with all of our wishes.
We can’t get any part of what we want if the wrong side wins. I’m going to vote my conscience in the primary, but any Democrat is preferable to another GOP win in the general.
It just feels like it’s creating miscommunication. I think people who like Sanders for his policies who are asked to defend Sanders on race issues will become understandably confused, and unsure of what it is they are being asked to defend. I think characterizing the support of a politician who has more support from women than from men as “Bros” is weird.
I don’t expect people to like Sanders platform. I don’t like people co-opting the voice of black people as a group to speak against him. That’s a questionable practice when someone actually has less favourability among black voters. It’s outright bizarre when the candidate has considerably higher favourability among black voters than white voters.
. Bernie may have been more savvy about the political climate around 2015 than many give him credit for.