Unfortunately, the Dems haven’t been building consensus with the country; they’ve been trying and failing to build consensus with the GOP, who represent a minority of extremist bigots.
Finding common ground doesn’t work when you’re dealing with the Klan.
He wasn’t a democrat before this election either, but why does that matter?
Why does it matter? You really dont understand how it might actually matter? That he joins the party just for the primary. That he clamors for CHANGE-CHANGE-CHANGE while he (nominally) is in the Democratic party. That he then leaves the party immediately after he loses in the primaries. Yeah, this guy really cares about invigorating the Democratic party. If he’d at least kissed us and given us cab fare after he fucked us, I wouldn’t be so hard on him.
Quite frankly the fact Clinton nearly lost to a ‘Party Outsider’ should be cause for some reconsidering of him
Sure, Hillary is a flawed messenger. But her message isnt flawed. Its too bad you and others (both Democrat and Republican) focus on her personality rather than her issues. She’s 80% aligned with everything Bernie was aligned with – but that’s not enough. You demand a whole loaf, so instead of half a loaf, you get no loaf. You get nothing, you lose, good day, sir.
Enough with this sad repetition of how Bernie “should” have won and the fact that he didn’t shows something was “wrong” or that Hillary was flawed. Primaries happen. Someone has to lose. Often, the competition will be very spirited:
My point is that the left is incompetent when it comes to battling bullshit stories and even worse when they try their hand at it. It’s part of where the perception of the Democrats being a party of elites that will tell you how to live your life comes from.
The Democrats have clearly been building consensus with the Black electorate. See article. But when a significant section of your electorate, i.e. Black Voters, is either disenfranchised due to incarceration and ID requirements or their vote is diluted through gerrymandering than you are screwed–to put it bluntly.
The far more interesting question, based on the data in the 538 article is: Why has been there such a shift in the white electorate. One, not unreasonable hypothesis is, that the DNC has built too much of a consensus with the Black electorate and the white men don’t like it. So there.
It’s a real shame he is all but forced to work with the democrats.
I have no interest in arguing what is an accurate analogy. I would have voted for Clinton. I object to saying that a person who wouldn’t vote for her is somehow without conscience when a conscience is exactly what would paralyze a person into inaction in your analogy as well as mine.
You analogy simultaneous absolves the hostage of their responsibility for the outcome (it’s really the masked gunmen who are creating the situation) and insists that they are complicit whether they take part or not. It’s a very good analogy for American (and Canadian) democracy.
Yeah, he’s really abandoned the Democratic Party. That’s why he’s still there, being one of the loudest voices against Trump, why he’s now the top-ranking minority member on the budget committee, and the chair of outreach efforts.
Meanwhile Clinton is…?
You stated you had no interest in doing just what you then proceeded to do, FWIW, which kind of sums up my feelings about this whole thread. While I have a few dozen paragraphs I could waste, I can’t see a reason, so I’ll bow out.
Which is fair enough. I wish people wouldn’t go from “I’m angry that Trump won” to “People who voted Green have no conscience,” but it doesn’t matter that I wish that, and I know it.
FWIW, I wasn’t rambling on so much because I’m mad about the horrible outcome (which, granted, I am), but out of a concern with a whole class of faulty reasoning that seems to have enabled this kind of outcome over and over that abandons a concern with consequences for a (confused and self-defeating) concern for purity. In the end, though, I think more and more that voters usually have all kinds of horrible things playing into their vote (when they’re allowed to vote and aren’t dissuaded), with reasons largely coming along for the ride as justifications/rationalizations, in which case arguing about things is pretty pointless.
Well, we straight up disagree on the facts. 
Trump did pretty much just as well, “I’ve got to vote for this candidate because they are the only one who can prevent the unacceptable outcome of the other candidate winning.” That kind of thinking is no defense against Trump at all, and may very well have won him the election, since he was badly trailing in the “I like the candidate” department.
I started with that as an account of a prior position, but immediately explained that I’d changed my mind, so while we do disagree, that’s not really what we disagree over. But as I said, I think this one is probably pointless (or at a minimum not worth the time), so I’m out, and really this time.
I hadn’t really considered this until now, but how much of this repudiation of “identity politics” is about giving cover to the leftier-than-thou folks who gave Jill Stein spoiler-sized margins in WI, MI, and PA?
Don’t give me any garbage, HRC would have not nominated anyone as grossly incompetent as Ben Carson to head HUD, a department that affects quite a few people who don’t have the luxury of setting aside their identity for the ideological greater good. It is this indifference borne of particular ideological zeal that was identified in the Brocialist class as being racist in effect, if not intent, and yeah, it hurts to be called out for that indifference, but it is vital for us moving forward.
Is it just me, or is this word like three weeks old?
http://sjwiki.org/wiki/Brocialism#.WEbxGXfGxTE
Last update September 2015.
And there’s a trigger warning at the top. How cute.
(I haven’t seen this wiki before; don’t know whether to trust it.)
I think that you’ve hit on a certain inchoate critique of progressive movements-- the disturbing feeling that something is about to change in society, and not only did no one consult you, you weren’t even aware of the proposed change until it was too late.
That article is begging for an update.
I worked with someone who had emigrated from Russia and had embraced conservative politics here in the US. She was complaining about Obamacare, I think this was in the run-up to it actually going online. “How could they screw this up!? It’s so easy, just make it free like they have in Russia.” I couldn’t even formulate a response (at least not in the timeframe of that particular encounter).
