And maybe I’m just being ignorant, but what’s the huge outrage here?
As far as I can tell, a child of a presidential candidate that is on the board of a progressive think-tank gave a sizeable donation to a like-minded progressive non-profit – possibly in exchange for an endorsement for said presidential candidate?
Is there something illegal or unethical going on here? Maybe I’ve just been so bludgeoned by huge controversies with regard to election fraud and illegalities on the right that this just isn’t registering with my bullshit detector. Am I just missing something?
I didn’t read your “Yes” as an affirmation to @LurksNoMore’s question. It read to me as more of a lead-in to the next statement. I’ll own up to my reading comprehension fail here.
That’s fair enough. I’ll own up to ambiguous writing and edit it so it’s clearer.
As far as I can tell, a child of a presidential candidate that is on the board of a progressive think-tank gave money to a progressive non-profit – possibly in exchange for an endorsement for said presidential candidate?
Yes, you basically got it (specifically the org gave the donation). It is an outrage when combined with the fact it was preceded by the controversy over the endorsement vote where leadership got weighted as 50% of the entire vote and then they wouldn’t release the tallies. Also it is combined with the alleged circumstance that the WFP was broke. So it all comes together to look like leadership overriding the will of the membership in exchange for funding, which is pretty uncouth for a progressive organization that is supposed to represent those members better than other orgs.
Full disclosure: I do not have any faith in either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to save us from the hell we are trudging towards. I tend to side with Marx, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg on what is to be done. But I am also pragmatic and recognize someone who is able to create better conditions to organize and buy us more time than the other.
Well, to make analogy to other events in the news, suppose Demos decided to support WFP, then Warren’s kid said, “We should hold that money for a bit,” and they held it at the kid’s direction. Then Warren’s kid phoned up WFP and WFP asked about the money and then Warren’s kid said, “Yeah, but could you do us a favour, though…” and asked WFP to support Warren. I’m not sure that would be criminal but it would be damn shady.
But, I tend to agree with you, the fact that non-profit funded by the think tank run by* the candidate’s child supports the candidate is not something that raises my eyebrow without some specific evidence that something shady is going on. It all comes across as unsurprising. If instead of a non-profit that was already aligned with Warren policy-wise it was Oliver North endorsing Warren after getting $45k from Demos I’d have my eyebrows much higher.
* I’m not saying Warren the younger runs the place and can direct money like this, but even if they did and could.
Thanks for clarifying. If you spin it the right way the optics can make it feel kind of sleazy, whether or not there was any true impropriety.
I find it pretty hard to feel any real outrage here. It seems like all the parties here are aligned towards common goals. It’s not like some far-right “American Patriots for American Values” organization suddenly throwing their support behind Warren. Given that, my knee-jerk reaction is that this all feels a lot like angry Bernie Bros trying to find a way to smear Warren because they felt Bernie should have got that endorsement instead.
I see Sanders and Warren on stage and they seem to get along. I really hope their supporters can get along too. I like Sanders’ 8% wealth tax more than Warren’s 2% wealth tax, but I’d enthusiastically back any candidate asking for any tax on wealth (not that my backing matters since it is illegal for them to accept anything of value from me, good thing my opinion on the internet is of no value).
Does this discussion presuppose that Elizabeth Warren exercises any form of control over her grown daughter and is to be held responsible for any sins that the daughter commits?
(Yes, I apply that standard both ways; to me, it’s been amply demonstrated that Trump’s children are also his toadies. Not all families work that way.)
Yeah, but conflict of interest rules pretty much universally extend to immediate family. If a politician’s child, parent, sibling or spouse is bribing people on their behalf (not saying that’s what happened here) then the politician is not going to come off looking good, and is put in the very awkward position of either shouldering the blame or strongly disavowing their family member.
IF there was arm-twisting from the Warren campaign to garner the WFP endorsement in exchange for funding from Demos, then regardless of legality, it would represent corruption. My support (both emotional and monetary, as the case may be) for Warren would be shaken, maybe lost. You can’t reasonably expect to fight corruption from a place of corruption.
That said, I still don’t see any evidence of such corruption. The statement from the 2016 plan still refutes that influence was brought to bear from Demos to WFP. There is just some eyebrow-waggling about the timing and circumstances. I would want to see a more direct line from the Warren campaign to the Demos statement in 2016 to start buying into a corruption narrative.
ETA: Even though I know it’s just part of the political landscape, it still pisses me off that the system in the US is structured to be corrupt. Everybody knows everyone else, and hidden deals are the norm rather than the exception. We can do better. We can be better.
Yes, definitely! That was just a blunder on my part. I’m usually pretty good with keeping track of the right personal pronouns, but even after all this time sometimes slips like that happen. (Part of the reason, I think, is that we don’t have gendered pronouns in Finnish, so it doesn’t come naturally.)
I’m a little surprised that you would make this statement, coming from Europe. As @anon73430903 would point out, there is a broad array of left, progressive, socialist, communist, radical, revolutionary, and anarchist politics that gets largely ignored or just flattened down into an amorphous “liberal” pancake in the US. While, even on that scale, Sanders and Warren are pretty closely aligned, there are still some pretty significant differences in their positions. Sanders is more blue-collar, unionize, organize, and tear down the existing structure that favors capital while Warren is more top-down, policy-based, fix the disease that’s plaguing capital in order to save it. Those differences only seem small when compressed by the weight of a political climate that sees anti-fascism as a controversial political statement.
Don’t do this. Folks my well vociferously defend their positions. Telling someone not to get “upset” and tone policing on that basis is a classic derailing tactic.
To all:
That being said, while I understand people having strong opinions, your right to voice those opinions ends where you become insulting or rude to others. Don’t do that either, and if you believe someone has violated our community guidelines in this or any other regard, flag the post. Do not respond and rik derailing the conversation further.
If political trajectory follows its usual course, the one Dem candidate should be seeing very vociferous backing from the losing candidates: Veep/Cabinet positions and such to be filled and possibly favors.
