Did We Learn a Lesson From Jill Stein?

[McCamy Taylor]

Even if the vote count was fair, Russia's candidate, Jill Stein took enough votes from the Dems to throw several states to Trump. It could happen again in 2018 in key Congressional races. If right wing elites pay faux leftists to primary Dems, our candidates will be forced to spend their money before they get to the general. Plus, they may be forced to take positions in the primary that will come back to haunt them in the general. And finally, the paid third party splitters will then be able to finance a third party general election run, which will allow the GOP/Russian to switch about 2-4% of the Dem vote to the "leftist" candidate--which could change the outcome of some close elections.

The truly sinister part of Citizens United is that any single corporation---foreign as well as American can finance a candidate for the sole purpose of being a third party splitter. And if the people behind the "corporation" are rich enough, they can buy hundreds of these "Jill Steins."

Which means that Democrats must be very careful in the primary. And the general. We must demand that our candidates reveal donors. Any candidate who won't or can't say where the money is coming from must be presumed to be a Russian backed third party splitter.

Follow the money trail. It won't be easy. But it can be done.

[rusty quoin]

1. The worst Supreme Court decision in my lifetime was Bush v Gore.

The second worst was Citizens United, which happened because of the worst.

[SunSeeker]

2. Yep. nt

[byronius]

5. + one googolplex.

[Ferrets are Cool]

13. Great post and oh so true

[VOX]

14. Nicely said and darkly witty, well done!

[joshcryer]

3. No.

[Hortensis]

12. :) But maybe those who COULD? Of course, many cannot

and never will. I just wish people realized those are not us and cut them loose.

It might be a partially positive sign that those on the left who spent the past year calling to repeal-and-replace the ACA, happy enough to piggyback on the GOP's propaganda that it doesn't work, went quiet as the right's phony call for repeal-and-replace moved to actual destroying.

Of course, the previous leader had gone quiet on the subject some time ago, but it still seems likely that, much as groupthink despised it, some of them just aren't radical enough to hail actual destruction of the ACA as a positive step toward single payer.

Maybe nostalgia will even lead to a small measure of new appreciation for something Democrats accomplished and thus for Democrats. And the GOP's going after SocSec and Medicare in 2018.

[Hekate]

4. I sure as hell hope so. Your essay should be required reading for all non-Republicans...

...because people can sure have short memories.

[arthritisR_US]

6. I learned shes tRump in drag.

[Ken Burch]

7. Are you claiming that any primary challenge to Dem is a right-wing plot?

That it's not possible that any Dem incumbent could merit a challenge?

I don't actually think it's a good idea to have challenges this year(though we will have to be ok with them at least in SOME point in te future)but is it necessary to equate the very idea of any primary challenge with disloyalty to the party?

That sets up an internal political culture in this party in which rank-and-file Democrats have no way to hold Democratic officeholders accountable. We can't put the officeholders above the party. Doing that serves no greater progressive good.

I agree with you that no one should have voted for Stein...but nobody within our party could ever be the equivalent of Stein.

[Demsrule86]

8. She is a Green Ken...and we lost 16...lets learn from out Mistakes...the Greens are

the devil's spawn...Trumpian...and they don't give two shits about environmental issues either.

[Ken Burch]

16. And I SAID I thought people shouldn't vote for her.

I wasn't defending Stein.

Never have.

The ONLY things I've taken issues with-because they are wastes of time and effort, are

1)The fixation with denouncing her over and over again(far better simply to ignore her);

2)The insistence some have with demanding that those who voted Green in the past make public admissions of error, as if they are heretics who must recant;

It's useless to demand that people admit they were wrong on past votes. What matters is getting people to vote for us NEXT time.

We can't change minds by shaming people.

That is ALL I'm saying.

[NurseJackie]

22. She's a CANCER. It's not smart to "ignore" cancer.

1)The fixation with denouncing her over and over again(far better simply to ignore her);

She's a CANCER. It's not smart to "ignore" cancer. The only true "fixation" I see is from those who continually defend and protect her or from those who run interference for her.

[Demsrule86]

9. Money should not be used to go after Dem incumbents in a time when we have no power anywhere...

Anyone involved in such an effort gets no money, no time and their candidates will not be supported by me in a primary. It is time to disband the circular firing squad which has almost destroyed our party and this country ...and go after Republicans ...not Democrats.

[Ken Burch]

21. And I'm not asking you to SUPPORT anybody's primary challenge.

Last edited Fri Dec 22, 2017, 03:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Nor, at this moment, was I planning to support any primary challenges myself.

My point is simply that it can't be progressive to demand that there be no debate and no accountability within this party until we've retaken Congress.

Free speech and open discussion are not our enemiesm, and it doesn't harm us for their to be some way of holding Dem politicians to at least some standards.

And sorry, but our national strategists don't always know best. We lost the chance to retake the Senate in '16 largely by running the sort of bland, timid "it's enough that we're not THEM" campaign that always leads us to defeat.

[Demsrule86]

10. And most of us will always wonder about 16...what if?

[Ken Burch]

17. What if what?

1) What if Stein hadn't run(obviously, we'd likely have won-I agree with you on that and spent much of the post-convention period, when I wasn't out doorbelling/canvassing or at party HQ phonebanking for our ticket on social media pleading with people not to vote Stein)?
There's no disagreement between you and I about the negative effects of Stein's candidacy.

2) What if Bernie had been barred from the primaries? The results would only have been negative. It wasn't Bernie's fault that HRC's candidacy didn't connect with enough voters. You appear to think it would have changed the outcome if only HRC had started running attack ads about Trump earlier in the game, or had run further to the right. I'm not sure why you think that when no anti-Trump attack ad ever worked for any of Trump's opponents in the GOP primaries and when none of those ads in the general election campaign every produced an increase in HRC's support in any polls in the fall.

Also, the polls taken before Bernie entered the race showed HRC with 49% support nationally. She ended up winning 49%. Therefore, Bernie didn't cost HRC any votes. It's not as if there was some additional large bloc of voters somewhere who'd have voted for her if only her platform was 15 degrees further to the right and her message from the start was "I'm not a liberal". There simply weren't any swing voters between her and Trump on the issues that broke for Trump.

Why focus so much on vilifying people for '16 rather than focus on finding a positive way to win more votes for the party in '18 and '20? We can't change the past and making people admit things shouldn't have happen can't undo the past.

Finally, if, as you seem to argue, we can't afford to have real debate and real contests for Democratic nominations, how do you account for the fact that the last time we took the White House from the GOP, we did so after a presidential nomination contest that wasn't settled until a month before the convention?

We can't win by telling everyone to shut up and reducing our message to "Stop Trump!" We need to run FOR, not against. And given that most of the country is against everything Trump's doing and for something more progressive and positive instead of what he's doing, we have nothing to fear from TRYING to win the argument.

[NurseJackie]

15. Nobody is saying that. Nobody is suggesting that. Nobody is hinting at that.

7. Are you claiming that any primary challenge to Dem is a right-wing plot?

Nobody is saying that. Nobody is suggesting that. Nobody is hinting at that. Your entire post is WAY off the mark. It's as if you didn't bother to read the OP. Did you mean to reply to something else?

[Hortensis]

11. Realizing the right is funding fringe-left candidates is an advance.

These haven't been faux leftists, though. They're real enough in their way. It's their faux excuses for their behavior that aren't. Not that those given to fringe reactionism understand where they go wrong. They are the righteous elite who understand what we cannot.

Fact is, the more radical and extreme leftists become, the more they identify the huge, diverse Democratic mainstream as America's "real" problem. As we see every day here.

Also, the more radical leftists become, the more they agree with their counterparts on the right, who feel exactly the same way. And as we saw in 2016, they can all "righteous" themselves right off the edge, a spiraling down into a strongly overlapping extremism where left and right become easy prey for dangerous manipulators.

[Ken Burch]

19. It's not as though most of the "diverse Democratic mainstream" is against more progressive policies.

The polls show they're actually to the left of most white Dems on the issues.
They tend to be pragmatic about always voting the Dem presidential ticket, but that doesn't mean they OPPOSE the idea of the party adopting more progressive, egalitarian ideas.

They preferred HRC over Bernie on past history and the belief that she was on their side, on greater knowledge of her than of him, and on the fact that he made the cataclysmic mistake of never tailoring his message to historically oppressed communities. They had a right to their views and I respect their choices.

That simply explains why the primaries ended as they did. It doesn't mean white leftists are closet white supremacists in the way that that post implied(if you're on the Left, you're simply going to be anti-oppression.)

And it doesn't mean that the Democratic base is somehow eternally anti-social democratic or something, OR that that base is just fine with continued military intervention in non-European countries.

[aikoaiko]

18. The lesson we still need to learn is why lefties don't vote Democratic.

Dropping our eff-off attitude toward greens and other third-party voters would be a good start.

[Ken Burch]

20. Thank you. That's what I've been trying to argue for years.

Why does anyone think we can insult these people into switching to voting for us? Or that it achieves anything to make the people this is aimed at admit they were wrong to vote Green in the PAST?

We don't demand repentance from the imaginary "centrist independents" or "moderate suburban Republican" demographics some of our strategists are still obsessed with winning over. We don't do that with the Dems who voted for either Bush, Reagan, or Nixon. Why do it ONLY to those who voted for third-party presidential candidates in the past?

Why single THEM out?

It's not as though we were simply owed their votes.

[MichMan]

23. Maybe the lesson should be not to donate $$ to those who may have cost us the election

Stein voters (whatever their motives) siphoned away enough votes from Hillary to give the election to Trump. While not all of those voters identified as Democrats, most all of those who donated $$$ to her for the fake "recount" were gullible Democrats.

Hope they are happy with themselves for enabling Stein to do more of the same in the future. Why aren't they called out for helping to finance her putrid actions?