This, I think, is speculation, my impression was different, but we will never know for sure.
Sanders never got to the “gloves-are-off” stage of the election. My impression was that there was enough material out there which Trump could have / would have pushed. But admittedly, this is speculation.
This is where we fundamentally disagree, and this bit is important, because it feeds into future strategy. There are different schools of thoughts on this. My take is that the “Deplorables” are and were unwinnable. The strategy for the future needs to target voter suppression in legal and political ways and focus energy on getting the vote out, especially those of POC. Disenfranchisement of BME needs to stop (e.g. Ex-Fellons).
Which then comes back to your first point:
Clinton is the most successful female politician in the US. She was secretary of state and a popular and effective Senator aside from being a working First Lady. It is crucial to talk about her if we are serious about women in politics and doing something about the cultural expectations which hamstrung them.
Good luck with that. I am writing from Germany and history has taught us here that you can’t counter a right wing populist movement with a liberal populist movement. Right wing fascists always win the populism contest.
44 of them; there are no “half-people” in existence, and please believe it that the people who care most deeply about the concept of ‘race’ consider Barack Obama just as Black as Idris Elba.
Your point about colorism among even enlightened White folks is valid, I just had to make the distinction.
I will try to ignore the patronising tone and engage in a conversation with you, as I have with others on this thread.
There is a total muddle of facts and conjecture in what you write: The only actual fact in all of this:
Hillary Clinton lost. She lost to Trump.
The rest are conjecture culminating in blaming the Democrats for the GOP destroying itself and US politics as we know it.
This is not a fact, this is your world view. You are entitled to it, but you are not entitled to declaring it as some universal truth while at the same time accusing me of claiming to have
I do not claim
but I do read articles and analysis which challenge my views, trying to get a sense of a bigger picture. That is all. Since
my strong impression is that you are not particularly interested in an exchange of ideas.
It’s all good; you wouldn’t believe how many arguments I’ve had with other Black folks about “who gets to decide” what Black is, regardless to skin tone, parentage, or how mixed Black folks choose to identify. (Think Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s fiancee.)
There’s a lot of confusion, resentment and self-hatred to sort through.
But at the end of the day, race is still a manufactured social construct, so regardless to how anyone of mixed heritage may see themselves, society sees them as ‘Black’ and treats them that way.
Second article: No, she literally did ignore the working class, and claiming she didn’t is a flt out lie.
Third:
She suffered a crushing defeat among white evangelicals—losing them 16 percent to Trump’s 81 percent—and she lost white Catholics by an almost 2–1 margin, 37 percent to 60 percent.
That’s a white supremacy problem, and those voters weren’t going to vote for Sanders over Trump.
Fourth: You can repeat the phrase “Bernie Bros” until you’re blue in the face, it won’t make it true.
Just more endless delusional blame-everybody-but-me HRC garbage.
Counties that went solidly for Trump in the election went to Sanders four to one or more in votes versus Trump during the primaries. In every primary poll, Sanders was favored over Trump by double digit margins. You can claim that reality doesn’t fit your premise, but it makes you look pretty foolish.
In other words, completely your imagination. Very useful statement.
Ask Romney about the 47% he didn’t care about, and ask him how well that strategy worked.
She is a carpet bagger Senator who has never been elected to another office in her life. She has had everything she’s ever gained handed to her on a silver platter of white elite neoliberal feminism.
Yes, the gutless “well they won’t come after me after they take care of those gauche and noisy Communists” worked out great for you guys.
No. American society traditionally is a tolerant society that seeks to embrace everybody, and that tolerance requires many of us to set aside differences. I know some will never come around, but you never write off anybody in the manner you suggest. In fact in what you describe there is a seed of exactly the decisive culture that Trump has attempted to cultivate - and be embracing it even in its converse you justify what they have been attempting to create.
But I agree - ending voter suppression and disenfranchisement go hand in hand with a tolerant society.
And NO. The justness of clearing the way for women to participate fully in politics is not cause for us to put forth Clinton as candidate again. The baggage that comes along with her, right or not, undermines everything you say you wish for. Let her go.
I don’t think they do. You had a bad time of it in Germany, but it does not predict the outcome in every future.
There is a big difference between a “Trump voter” and a “Trump supporter”. Many people dislike Trump and don’t support him, but voted for him because Hilary was worse. The people I know and see who still support Trump do not have an income of $70,000. Just look at the polls.
As for a liberal populist movement, that’s technically a contradiction since liberalism historically is an elitist position despite all attempts to dress it up as an average person’s ideology. In reality what needs to happen is a push to the left in terms of social AND economic values. And I speak as someone born and raised in Kansas (in the US). The right wing here (especially the business right) has sucked the marrow from the bones of much of the midwest and great plains states to such an extent that many of the states in those regions are seeing sizable migrations out to the coastal states. I only wound up in Minnesota because it’s close enough and I could afford it. If I could’ve afforded moving to New York or California I would’ve done it in a heartbeat (and I may still do that considering how batty the Christians are in Minnesota).
Basically, the US is poised for another major shakeup of the political wings. We’ve seen the shift to the hard right nativist bull but the reality is that there’s still plenty of people who want to go hard left as well (like legitimate socialist left). So it’s really a question of organizing a takeover of state parties to see that happen. I doubt we’ll see such a change until 2020. 2018 might see some smaller offices taken over at the state level or maybe city level but I’d be surprised to see a genuine socialist in the House of Representatives before 2020. But I’ve been wrong in terms of the acceleration of change before. I thought Trump was going to be laughed out of the primaries but he won that and then won the Presidency. So, it’s really up in the air from what I can see.
You were admittedly preaching, I’ll admit that I was pushing back against that, and perhaps I should’ve chosen better phrasing. That said, you set the tone, so I don’t feel particularly defensive for engaging you on an even playing field.
In failing to nominate a candidate capable of beating a brazenly dishonest, cartoonish billionaire rapist, the Democrats not only set our country back but put the entire planet in significantly greater danger of catastrophe.
I’m sorry but I fail to see the conjecture. The DNC failed to nominate a candidate that could beat Trump. Absolving them of accountability does nothing to change that.
The clock is closing in on midnight. Our government is now headed by an utterly lawless egomaniac. We’re about to build a shitload more nukes. Our foreign policy stance has shifted from tacit to overt support for the fascist despots of the world. We gave the richest of us a big, wet, trillion-and-a-half dollar wet kiss, shortening the timeline for the next global economic collapse. For the next four years at least our energy policy will unlock an outright psychotic amount of carbon at precisely the point in time when we need to be trapping as much of it as possible. So yeah, I think it’s a fact that the world is in greater danger than it was a year and a half ago.
The rest of what I said was pretty blatantly my opinion.
If anything, I wish that I had clarified Democratic Party/DNC, as opposed to Democrats generally. It’s not my mom’s fault the party spent the last eight years collapsing, culminated in just about the most epic fashion imaginable.
If you wish to not be accused of possessing the holy truth, perhaps don’t go around accusing others of believing myths in your sermons. (And the “veneer of intellectual superiority” claim was levelled at the DNC, not you.)
My strong impression is the Democratic Party isn’t particularly interested in the exchange of ideas, but what do I know? I don’t challenge my worldview by reading things I don’t agree with…
You’ve heard how trump got like 10x+ media coverage during the primaries compared to all other candidates from both parties?
There’s a rumor around the HRC used her connection to make that happen, in that she wanted to run against him and giving him the opportunity to run his mouth would make it an easy win in the general for her.
If true that was a big miscalculation on her part. She could’ve easily beaten Jeb Bush or even Marco Rubio but Trump was clearly resonating with some segment of society enough to tip the scales in his favor. Like it or not, our society is very bigoted toward politically tough/clued-in women. It’s that “well she’s a b----!” meme that keeps many folks from voting for a candidate that best fits their interests. I really hate the fact that meme keeps persisting.
That’s probably true, but I suspect there are a bunch of voters who would vote for a tough-minded woman, but not this particular tough-minded woman. I know of one such voter for sure.
