A top down take over of the party we are told we must fight at the grass root level.
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It’s a fair point. But the DLC takeover, orchestrated from above, was only possible because they were very well organized and the rank and file were vulnerable, demoralized, and splintered. The architects of the DLC, people like Al From and Dick Gephart, were politicians who cut their eye teeth in the civil rights movement, people who earnestly believed they were true heirs of the 60s movement (and thought of themselves as progressives), and when they came to talk to the state parties the liberal base was ready to believe that the possibility of a presidential victory more than compensated for what they perhaps naively perceived as only slight differences on a few policies.
Had the DLC instead tried to win their power by simply having the fiscal conservatives caucus together in Washington, without targeting the state and local party base, they would have failed. Really, it was a brilliant political move; From was a genius. However, one of the most important lessons is that it is not that hard for an organized group to get influence in the local and state party, which seriously does hold most of the power even if it doesn’t seem that way from the outside.
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I’ve used the term “BernieBro” and, speaking as a ‘mainstream” democrat, this is what it means to me: there are a lot of Bernie supporters, young and vocal, who act like they invented income equality, universal healthcare, affordable higher education, etc. that have been part of the party’s platform for decades. Love the enthusiasm, but get over yourself.
The “bro” part comes from the fairly transparent misogyny that many, not all, displayed in their disproportionate hatred of Clinton and the scadenfreude they displayed when she lost.
Sanders is a great senator and an important progressive voice in our country. I’m still not convinced 1. He could have come close to winning the presidency or 2. That he would have been successful if he had. However, I think we can all agree that either Bernie or Hillary would have been better for the country than Trump is.
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Were there misogynist douchebags amongst the millions of folks who supported Bernie? Yup. Of course. It’s inevitable in any group of people that large.
OTOH:
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In my experience, the prevalence of misogyny was much higher than one would expect from self-styled “progressives.”
Ok, read the linked article now. Sorry, but I find myself unconvinced by that word salad. It’s tough to make the jump that a journalist who has that much trouble putting together a coherent paragraph has also done the work to research their story.
RIght off the bat.
‘Apologize for the clusterfuck that was the last electio and your part in making it EASIER for these chucklefucks to get into office…’ Then I would turn to EVERYONE ELSE in the progressive/liberal camp. ‘Trump is not the problem to the exclusion of everyone else. You are not helping due to playing right into the stereotype strawmen far FAR rightwing nutballs keep saying we are.’
And now? WIth all that said and my grumbling at nobody being clean or blameless even if the GOP is so beyond laughably worse/deserves more blame for the mess?
I’m glad these people are now speaking like they want to do more than go ‘we aren’t those guys.’ I want to stand FOr something instead of simply ‘standing against that thing.’
A restoration of social services as non/zero profit institutes that are REQUIRED for a healthy country is as good a cause as any.
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Still the middle class has much more resilience to this. If you make 100k a year 500 isn’t going to break you… if you make 25 it very well could
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