Remember when Hillary won the primary and we lost a bunch of obnoxious voices here

[pnwmom]

to a site named JPR? I'm glad that group is gone.

I got curious about their new site these days. It's still in operation, and now they're posting stuff like this:

The Biden Administration does not want peace or a cease-fire, and Zelensky is their puppet.
He’s also no doubt intimidated by all the Nazis surrounding him in the Kiev regime. The Jews used to have a word for that back during the Holocaust, but I forget what it is.

Never let your morals stop you from doing the right thing.--Isaac Asimov

March 18, 2022 at 4:10 PM#477475


Biden and Zelensky want to fight to the last Ukrainian.
Once I thought there was a little humor to that remark – now it just seems like a statement of fact.

As my Ukrainian wife in Poland said, “If he is such a “generous uncle”, let him take this weapon and go to war, he set Russia on Ukraine, like a dog teased, teased, and eventually hid in the bushes.”

Both Ukrainians and Russians continue to be killed on a far too regular basis, and Ukraine itself continues to be destroyed. Biden just doesn’t care.

The fact that the US just continues to send weapons to Ukraine makes me wonder why. Does the military-industrial complex run State Department policy?

I do not know of any other group that would benefit from sending weapons to be destroyed or capture and distributed elsewhere in the world.

[Hoyt]

1. Bad memories.

[Scrivener7]

7. When did Hillary "acknowledge she is toxic"?

[Hekate]

11. Never. The toxicity is all on the other side, which will continue to invoke her name ...

… even after she is in the grave.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

13. I am curious about this also

[pnwmom]

8. This isn't about Hillary running again. It's about a site that appears to be a Russian asset,

whose member base was drawn from DU.

I think they were here, trying to turn DU their way, and when they failed they set up another site.

[Demsrule86]

15. We also lost many great Duer's because of them.

[iemanja]

65. Anyone with a functioning brain stem

knows that Hillary isn't running again. Pretending otherwise is an excuse for their hatred.

[Hekate]

10. I don't think the OP is about Hillary at all.Mentioning her places the discussion at a point in time

Then the OP refers to a group of former DUers active at that point in time. Then moves on to “what are they doing now?”

It’s of interest to those of us who were here then and had to suffer through their tantrums. Turns out — yet again — that the breakaway group was never about Democratic Party or Democratic principles.

[Demsrule86]

17. Yup...tantrum is the correct word.

[pnwmom]

19. Exactly, Hekate. You've read my mind! n/t

[mcar]

22. You got that right, Hekate

somehow, they managed to spew their toxic filth here for far too long. IIRC, they left of their own accord after HRC won the primary, mainly because they wanted to be able to call this good woman the C word.

[Demsrule86]

14. She did no such thing...she barely lost and won the popular vote...don't get me started on why she

lost...let me just say I will never forgive the 'but her email crowd' who foisted Trump on us.

[mcar]

18. Stop. Just stop.

HRC is not "toxic." The misogynistic a-holes who hate her and lie about her are toxic.

Also, this has nothing to do with her running again. Not everything is about that.

[spooky3]

20. +1

[FakeNoose]

3. Wow that's some twisted logic there

[yardwork]

46. What logic is that?

The OP is making an observation.

[pnwmom]

79. I think maybe the poster was referring to the quotes from JPR. n/t

[TwilightZone]

4. There were never very many of them.

And they have made themselves further irrelevant by their actions then and since.

My advice is to ignore them. They're not worth the time or effort.

[yardwork]

47. There were dozens of DUers who signed up on that site.

I thought it was funded by Russian money back in 2016. Looks like I was right.

[AZProgressive]

5. Last time I looked they were pushing Ivermectin

Also Russian propaganda was posted there all the time. I haven’t looked since, I refuse to give them clicks.

[Bleacher Creature]

9. Yep, some did a full Glenn Greenwald/Jill Stein and are essentially Trump supporters now.

[iemanja]

66. OMG

[Scrivener7]

6. I've looked in there, though rarely. There are the terrible voices, but there are one or two

who I remember as sane people who for whatever reason didn't like Hillary.

But when I've looked in there, those apparently sane ones seem to have become totally bat shit crazy.

It's sad.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. I have been ignoring that site for a while

I still remember when a good number of posters on that site cheered the booing of John Lewis at the 2016 national convention. One poster on this board collected the postings of the assholes on JPR cheering the booing of John Lewis https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028476265

For those incensed by Trumps tweet re John Lewis

… you should be aware that the self-proclaimed True Progressives ™ at JPR are not only in complete agreement with Trumplethinskin’s assessment, but feel that he didn’t go far enough in discrediting the civil rights icon:

”You sold your legacy of police beatings and marches for civil rights with MLK to align yourself with the biggest corporate sellout loser candidate the dems have ever run. So when you take to the stage and claim that Trump isn’t a “legitimate” president, not only are you wrong, you’re also to blame for his having been elected in the first place.”

”He went from Civil Rights Icon to Civil Rights Sell-out. Despicable.”

”He actively worked to take down the people's candidate and helped sink his the campaign of a fellow civil rights champion. His support of $hillary who was illegitimate in so many ways, greatly weakens his charges against Trump. Lewis helped sink the most legitimate candidate we have had in my lifetime. His opinion on who is legitimate or not does not move me.”

”Well, he supported a white supremacist and a white supremacist got elected. So I dunno what his problem would be.”

” How's his Super Delegate shit working for him now?? And his low life arm twisting …oh yeah…he is throwing his temper tantrum now!! tough shit!!”

I was a Clinton delegate to the 2016 National Convention and the Clinton campaign had a "whipping infrastructure" in place for the Conention. My whip warned me by text of these stunts well in advance. The booing of John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, Jim Clyburn and others were all planned stunts by a large group of Sanders delegates.

It sounds like the same assholes who left this board are still active on JPR. I do not miss these posters.

[pnwmom]

23. I agree -- DU became a much better place when they left. n/t

[LetMyPeopleVote]

26. I looked and I had saved another post from that site on John Lewis

Here is a post that is still on that site under the current management
https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/the-irony-of-honoring-john-lewis/

The irony of honoring John Lewis
while his successors in the civil rights movement (the real one, BLM, the one that is fighting for Black rights and against brutality) are getting beaten and jailed by police and federal thugs. Obama saying all his pretty words while ignoring the carnage across America. Biden saying nothing. The CBC saying nothing (to my knowledge). The Democratic party is no better than the Dixicrats of the 50’s and 60’s as far as working for Black and other POC’s rights.

John Lewis went from hero of the civil rights movement to shining example of the Black Misleadership Class.
As the Black Agenda Report calls him and others like him. He got into Congress and was assimilated by the oligarchy and became a good little drone for them. The politicians and media honoring him now would not be doing that if he had stuck to MLK’s economic principles.

The hatred and bigotry on that site continued even after the so-called new management took over

[pnwmom]

80. That's really gross.

And what is this Black Agenda Report? Some Candace Owens vehicle?

[mcar]

16. Good gad, they're still around?

and still loving Putin, I see. They were never anything but trolls who got away with poisoning this place.

[Mosby]

21. The same group goes back farther than jpr.

To PI and OET.

There is one who trolled us for years and then JPR. Actually got TSed by JPR. She goes by clarity of signal.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

29. I remember that poster

She was unabashed Russian troll

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. I took a look at the successor to PI, "the Bell Forum", a few days ago

to see what they were saying about Ukraine. It's now just one poster (an ex-DUer), posting long, rambling round-ups of apologism for Putin.

God, I remember clarity of signal and the associated sockpuppets. Full of Russian talking points about the Maidan Revolution in 2014.

[yardwork]

86. I remember all those posters defending Russia in 2014. I'm glad they're no longer here.

I also remember all the BREXIT pushers on DU. The BREXIT propaganda segued into the horrible 2016 primary propaganda - I'd never seen or heard such meanness, and I remember the 1968 presidential primary.

It was all propaganda, financed by Putin and his partners the Mercers and other rich sociopaths.

[ymetca]

24. I read something recently

where all this political finagling with Facebook by the Mercers' little project of siphoning off all our data, gave them really, really, precise "intel", for lack of a better word, to "nudge" just enough people in targeted counties to vote a certain way. It's a mass marketing strategy, only aimed like a laser at every last detail of your personal foibles. Distrust "big government"? Check. Like guns? Check. And so on.

You only need a small percentage out of millions to make the tactic pay off.

I wonder how many folks get "tipped" and never come back to any kind of rational balance on the subject. Sure, Joe Biden may be your classic "neo-liberal", but does that make him The Devil that is TFG? You might as well vote for Cthulhu at that point. Which, of course, was the other option you were being nudged toward taking, a la Stein or Gabbard.

It's why they keep foisting candidates like Herschel Walker, and so on. They're betting you are just "low information" enough to take the bait.

Now if you can get paid for foisting such stuff, all the better, right? That seems to be where that group has gone now.

[yardwork]

87. Thanks for posting that! It's terrifying.

They haven't stopped, either. Lots of people have lost their lives because of that devilish propaganda. They didn't get vaccinated against Covid and died. Their babies and children died too.

Putin, the Mercers, Peter Thiel - these people are sociopaths. And I'm looking at you too, Mark Zuckerberg.

[Hortensis]

106. Folk over at JPR often slur Biden as a neoliberal, to mean a hard-core

business supporter, akin to "laissez faire," in league with the RW. If you meant to attribute that deceit to them, it got left out and you might want to amend your post.

An easy way to tell extremists/antagonistic populists/authoritarian followers in the end -- but far better in the beginning! -- is to vet their statements for consistent honesty and decency. Car salesmen or political partisans, there's something wrong with those who can't be honest, and also those who prefer to be mean.

[Scrivener7]

117. Cambridge Analytica. They slinked off into oblivion after they manipulated

our election, but they have just changed their name and are out there doing that very "nudging" that you describe.

These two videos will curl your hair:

[betsuni]

122. I have Christopher Wylie's "Mindf*ck, Cambridge Analytica And The Plot To Break America"

and need to read it again, to scare myself all over again.

[Scrivener7]

125. And we aren't talking about it any more! It's astonishing!

I'll have to get my hands on a copy of that one. Thanks!

[Ocelot II]

25. Apparently they have gone full Tulsi.

At some point the right and the left loop around to form a circle.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

28. The horseshoe theory of political extremes has some merit

The JPR assholes prove that the members of the extreme left have a great deai in common with the extreme right

[AZProgressive]

30. I think they make the rest of the left look bad

There are plenty of people on the far left on Twitter that push back against these types. The centrists don’t notice this but when it comes to the far left there are factions. The posters at JPR lean right on social issues you can probably do a search for identity politics and get a lot of hits. Also there are posters that like Tucker Carlson.

Link to tweet

[yardwork]

88. I've never thought the JPR members are really "left."

Maybe they are, I don't know. Their approach was one of resentment and want. "I want this, I want that, I resent that others have this or that... Hillary has so much, I hate her..."

It's not politics, it's the whimpering of unhappy people who are being manipulated by propaganda and gaslighting. It's what propaganda does - reduces people to their personal fears and resentments. It's what creates mobs.

[betsuni]

91. True, it's not about politics. Pessimism, cynicism, needing to be a victim, resentment, emotion.

Manipulated by propaganda. Not unusual to see DUers (especially women) being accused of being wealthy old centrists who have "got theirs" and don't care about anyone.

[yardwork]

92. Misogyny absolutely played a role. "Who does she think she is..."

[jcgoldie]

96. Misogyny was the central basis of JPR in my opinion

The irrational hatred of HRC was completely grounded in it. If it wasn't that then how on earth did they drive themselves from Bernie Sanders to Donald Trump? There is no policy overlap and if you truly despised Clinton for the reasons they claimed some connection to the financial machinery and wall street, then Trump is surely 10 times worse. It doesn't surprise me that those fools now embrace Putin.

[yardwork]

97. They do seem to like authoritarian men, eh?

[Hortensis]

114. Bingo! We now know a lot of Sanders' were LW authoritarian followers,

extremely similar in behaviors and attitudes to tRump's, capable of great loyalty to the leader, supporting almost anything their leader calls for. Liberals, like Biden, are the anti-authoritarians and can't satisfy these peoples' needs for strongman leaders to make decisions for them.

Except to let them down by joining Biden to fight off fascism instead causing trouble and stealing elections for them -- Sanders lost a bunch of them with that, but some are still dribbling off while they wait for a new charismatic leader to attach to. Or him again. Sound pretty demoralized, expectations probably aren't high right now.

Left-wing authoritarians share key psychological traits with far right, Emory study finds
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2021/09/esc_left_wing_authoritarians_psychology/campus.html

Large study indicates left-wing authoritarianism exists and is a key predictor of psychological and behavioral outcomes

Left-Wing Authoritarianism Test
https://www.idrlabs.com/left-wing-authoritarianism/test.php

[bobacatt]

107. Half misogyny, half "misogyny, once removed" I think

Misogyny was the basis for the Republican-led attacks on her when she was First Lady for 8 years, and that continued as she made her own career in politics.

Then people who were not intentionally woman-hating just accepted the often-repeated attacks about her character and abilities and clung to them and repeated them because they believed the nonsense. People who weren’t misogynist and had no problem w other women in politics just really believed she was a bad person, bad politician, etc.

I think this happens a lot in the world and I wish we as a society examined it more. Like, you look at Germans of the 1930’s: I’m certain that while a healthy minority just hated Jews “because they are Jews”, most others were led into it (by calculating Jew-haters) because they were told that Jews were the bad minority group who had ruined Germany etc. They really believed this stuff and they felt it was right to hate Jews just like we think it is right to hate the KKK and Islamist terrorists.

A more modern comparison: You can look at the hatred of Israel and Zionism. The history of Israel is one of Arab antisemitism and Islamism leading to massacres, refusal of peace, needless wars of conquest, refusal to share the land and alliance with Nazism. Today’s Arabs are completely misled about what happened to form Israel and they repeat propaganda, and some are Jew-haters too. But the average American college kid or leftist who says “Israelis are evil!” is not intentionally antisemitic, just hating in ignorance without realizing who manipulated him.

Or, maybe think of all the Russians currently hating Ukrainians for what they have been told that Ukrainians did to Russia or plan to do to Russia.

[betsuni]

111. They swore up and down they loved Elizabeth Warren, would totally vote for her.

A progressive hero. Then she ran for president and suddenly they hated her, she was Hillary 2.0, a Republican, capitalist, lied about being Native American (called her Pocahontas). I remember reading through JPR comments and writing down a long list of her sins. Overnight!

[AZProgressive]

113. I have seen Native Americans critical of Warren for that

This article isn’t from a Progressive.

https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/the-white-supremacy-of-elizabeth-warren

I’m just glad that I didn’t have to defend that.

[betsuni]

115. JPR called her Pocahontas, just like Trump.

The point is that they suddenly hated her even though her policies were the same as always. It's not about politics.

[bobacatt]

128. They only liked her as long as she played handmaiden to Bernie

At some point she became a threat to his candidacy and she also directly criticized him. I think she related a personal story that he had patronized her and told her not to run for President.

JPR members immediately hurled misogynist slurs at her. They basically seemed pissed off that the little woman didn’t know her place.

[betsuni]

129. "I think you called me a liar on national TV."

The "I think" is unnecessary, should be "You called me a liar on national TV." Not at all surprising.

[pnwmom]

78. They certainly do.

[ms liberty]

27. It's the past, and that is where I leave it..

I'd rather not concentrate upon division and strife, thanks.

[pnwmom]

31. We need to learn from the past. It's not like Putin has stopped trying to spread propaganda here. n/

[yardwork]

93. Unfortunately, it's not safely in the past.

In our microcosm of DU we saw part of the global manipulation and struggle that is going on right now. I have no doubt that Russian funding supported JPR and thousands of little sites like it. The purpose was to create division and get Putin-friendly politicians elected. The purpose was to get BREXIT. The purpose was to get far-right candidates elected in Italy, France, Germany. It's all ongoing and unlikely to stop anytime soon.

We have to recognize it before we can stop it.

[Hortensis]

105. LW authoritarians are still as real now as trumpist authoritarians are.

And a very important election is coming up.

We're not talking about the people who made a tragic mistake in 2016 that they regret. Like tRump's version, they regret their leader couldn't steal the election for them. They haven't gone anywhere or had personality transplants. They are what they are, and in this era of razor-thin margins they can cause far more damage than they would in a healthy political environment.

As we know and they hope.

[Itchinjim]

32. They drove me off DU for about 6 months. And as bad as that time was,

IMHO the Obama/Hillary battles in 2008 were worse.

[pnwmom]

104. I think it was worse in 2016, because Hillary had endorsed Obama within 4 days

of his becoming the presumptive nominee, having secured the required number of electoral college votes. After Hillary's June win, Bernie vowed to keep campaigning till the convention. Though he finally endorsed her a few days before, a large group of his supporters came to the convention to protest, determined to overturn the results.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-aftermath-20160609-snap-htmlstory.html

[Elessar Zappa]

108. 2008 was pretty bad though.

We had people threatening to vote for McCain if their candidate didn’t win.

[betsuni]

33. I like how awkward it is for the pro-Russia anti-America (meaning anti-Democratic Party) crowd

now, the ones insisting Russian interference is a hoax. JPR types furiously typing conspiracy theories blaming Democrats, still love Tulsi Gabbard. No puppet, no puppet, you're the puppet.

Always backing the wrong horse, always wrong, only against things. Negative article about Democrats, comments all nutty CT's and lies about Democrats. Positive article about someone they like, comments all nutty CT's and lies about Democrats. They always insist everything's about policy when it NEVER is. They aren't interested. It's about hate.

[Cha]

35. It's important to be reminded of

who and what the Enemies of Democracy are.. So it Doesn't Happen Again!

💙💛

[bobacatt]

36. I am curious about the trajectory of JPR

It's funny you posted this today pnwmon. I just joined DU today for the express purpose of asking DU people what happened to JPR.

I got interested (OK, addicted) to DU during the 2016 primaries so I was watching from the sidelines when JPR launched. For a while I read both sites. Each had its own drama. Initially JPR was growing and thriving under the leadership of 3 mods. One was named Manny Goldman, another had the screenname MaryM. It was pro-Bernie of course, and obsessed with hating Clinton.

I spectated at JPR for the first couple years. There was a crazy minority from the beginning - the kind of people who posted faked videos of Clinton having a seizure, and speculated gleefully that she was dying of brain cancer. At one point, poor MaryM ruled that people would no longer be allowed to post made-up stories about Clinton's supposed ill health, because those posts were making JPR look the refuge of fringe nutters. But they weathered that bump. They weathered the end of primary season and the election of Trump. There was healthy discussion and argument. The site seemed to be growing and people were enthusiastic about their favorite politicians and ideas. I had the impression that several thousand people were posting.

At some point, there was a big to-do over the PizzaGate conspiracy theory. The mod MaryM stated that people would no longer be allowed to post crazy shit about Hilary Clinton and foreign royals running a pedophilia ring out of a pizza joint in DC. This created animosity and cries of "JPR is silencing the truth! JPR is now as evil as DU!" Some people departed and went off to create their own little private site. That was the first big hit that JPR took to membership. But a lot of people stayed in the group, and JPR marched on.

Then, Manny Goldman departed. There was a rumor - never confirmed by him I think - that he left after pointing out that Jew-hatred was prevalent and permitted on the site whereas all other racism was shut down. I don't think he ever explained his reasons. There was a hint of backstage drama; then he was just gone.

Then, MaryM departed. At that point the site was having recurrent technical problems - freezing, crashing. MaryM left a goodbye post in which she stated that "Starting JPR was the most important thing she had ever done in her life."

At around that time I stopped checking in on them (or on DU) regularly. But I still popped in every year or so. There were fewer posters but still maybe a couple thousand, many of them familiar to me from the 2016 era. Discussion was still lively. However, there was a funny trend of various formerly-loved politicians getting repeatedly thrown into the doghouse as years went by. Some people were starting to claim that God Sanders was a sellout. And the Young Turks had dared to criticize some other darling. And various "Justice Democrats" and "Squad" members had proved their perfidy. Etc.

I checked there during the early COVID era and posts had dropped off sharply. Members seemed to be arguing over whether it was okay to post home remedies, whether other members were idiots or slaves of Big Pharma etc. Seemed to be a bloody schism going on, related to COVID theories.

And just in the last week I checked in to see the JPR take on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There are maybe ten people still posting in what is basically empty room. Nine out of the ten are quoting Putin propaganda and dismissing every news source that challenges Putin's claims. The tenth guy puts up articles about suffering in Ukraine. The other nine shout, "Lies! All Lies!"

Anyway. All this to say: WTF happened to the JPR that was mostly made up of pretty normal people with passionate pro-Sanders opinions? I'm sort of dying to know.

[AZProgressive]

37. Most of the sane people left

It became a lot worse after the primary ended and in December 2020 when Jimmy Dore was attacking the Squad as sellouts for voting for Pelosi as Speaker. They don’t have an original thought in their heads. They drove away most of the sane posters. They are very toxic if you disagree with their narratives.

I wish this site was more welcoming to progressives so they don’t have to go to other sites filled with toxic people.

[pnwmom]

40. This site IS welcoming to progressives, as long as they're not advocating

deserting the Democratic party if their fav loses the primary.

[SunImp]

43. There is also a group of obnoxiously hostile anti progressives here too

Even in threads just praising a Progressive Democrat these people feel the need to trash & downplay anything good that progressives have done or want to do for the Country. Many good & intelligent Duers have left or stopped posting here because of how abusive these people tend to be.

[pnwmom]

48. I haven't seen that here -- and DU is a progressive site.

If there are anti-progressives, they don't belong here.

But most DUers don't believe in deserting the Democratic party if their favorite progressive candidate doesn't win the primary, because that helps the R's win. Some people who pose as very "progressive" -- like Jill Stein -- are happy to help the R's win.

[yardwork]

94. I don't agree with everything I see on DU or anywhere else.

I will say that the behavior of certain politicians in 2016 hasn't been forgotten. For instance, how on earth did Bernie Sanders allow his delegates to boo John Lewis at the 2016 DNC? And Delores Huerta was attacked, too.

When people of color who spent their lives fighting for justice - literally putting their lives on the line - are attacked by a bunch of young middle class white people who call themselves progressive - well, that's going to leave a bad taste and some of us have long memories.

So to me it's understandable that some folks are a little suspicious. Personally, I like AOC and I think she's becoming an excellent politician. She's learning that in politics, you have to compromise, you have to bring different factions together.

[Scrivener7]

38. JPR was always an altar to demigods. It was formed specifically to worship one politician.

It never got any more rational than that.

[bobacatt]

109. Ah. That is true. Makes sense.

Though it may be even more true to say it was formed specifically to hate one politician, and her party.

[pnwmom]

39. My guess is that some people who were normal Bernie supporters got suckered into

joining a disinformation site heavily populated by trolls.

But that's just my uninformed impression.

[betsuni]

41. It was never about policy or political ideas. Turned into something else.

It didn't have to, it was damaging for the country. No large policy differences/ideological goals: go after character, demonize as immoral evil corrupt, a dangerous enemy of the people. JPR was the place to go to indulge in hatefests with fellow pessimistic negative club members who knew all the slogans and buzzwords and conspiracy theories. Identity. Sane people eventually catch on after the initial high of being in the club wears off. Now it's the nutty remnants.

"To many observers, the Democratic nomination was not primarily a story of social identity. The story was the fight between the progressive and centrist wings of the party. Sanders supporters were supposed to be well to the left of Clinton supporters on taxes, trade, health care, and so on. But that was not the case: Clinton and Sanders supporters were mostly similar on these and other issues. The choice between Clinton and Sanders depended little on policy battles and more on identities grounded in partisanship and race.

"But although Sanders voters tended to describe themselves as more liberal than did Clinton supporters, the two groups differed little on economic policies. This was true when VOTER Survey respondents had been interviewed earlier, in December 2011. People who became Sanders supporters were no more likely than people who became Clinton supporters to favor government-provided health care or tax increases on the wealthy -- although they were somewhat more likely to favor government regulation of business. Combining the three questions into an economic policy index showed Sanders and Clinton supporters to be only 0.02 points apart on a 0-2 scale. ... In both surveys, Sanders supporters expressed somewhat less positive views of the economy than did Clinton supporters. ... Sanders supporters were also more likely than Clinton supporters to say that there was little or no opportunity for the average person to get ahead and that it was harder to 'move up the income ladder.' Of course, those are sentiments that Sanders had been expressing for months, which may mean that Sanders supporters in this survey were merely echoing him. But regardless, differences in concern about the economy and economic opportunity did not translate into distinctive policy preferences.

"The political scientist Daniel Hopkins found at best small differences on policy issues between eventual Clinton and Sanders supporters when they had been interviewed in earlier years. Hopkins argued that the factors behind Sanders's support 'do not suggest that it is grounded in enduring liberalism.' The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, who were the first to describe the findings from the January 2016 survey, wrote that 'Mr. Sander's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologies.'"

John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, "Identity Crisis, The 206 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America"

[Spazito]

42. JPR is where the trolls went...

when they were called out on their divisive rhetoric. It couldn't die fast enough for me.

[Demovictory9]

81. what does "JPR" stand for?

[jcgoldie]

95. jackpine radicals

Named after the founder's username on DU I believe.

[Demovictory9]

98. Oh i remember that name

[Spazito]

99. Actually jackpine radical had died, he wasn't the founder...

Unlike the founders of that putrid site, he was a good DUer and would never have supported it but they decided to misuse his name anyway.

[jcgoldie]

101. Thanks my mistake

.

[Tom Rinaldo]

49. I never left DU but I also posted at JPR for a while during its first 6 months

I mostly posted the same OPs there that I did here, pro Bernie, but not anti-Hillary. It didn't take long to conclude that the clear majority of active posters there were strongly anti-Hillary. For awhile I was tolerated there anyway for my pro-Bernie contributions, but chided for not being hard enough on Hilary. When Clinton won the nomination most of JPR was still obsessed with hating her. At that point I almost left, but decided instead I could serve a greater purpose by shifting my content there to pieces attacking Trump. I left JPR for good after I got a private message from the moderator Mary asking me to please broaden my focus off of only attacking Trump in all of my posts. She wasn't a bad sort overall. I am convinced that she held her views sincerely, but that didn't matter. If it upset people there that my only interest in being there was to make the case against Trump, I had no business staying there.

There were a few good posters on JPR who had gotten booted off of DU and thus needed an online political home. Two names I remember who fit that description were Cali and Armistad. I lurked there on occasion until shortly after the 2016 election. By the way Many G. finally decided that Hilary was the lesser evil and that he would vote for her over Trump. Far as I can recall he did not get much positive reinforcement for that position. I haven't checked in over there in years.

[pnwmom]

53. Thanks for sharing this, Tom.

That is telling, that you got admonished for posting only anti-Trump posts.

[Ocelot II]

102. I visited JPL a few times, too, but quickly got bored and annoyed.

I supported Bernie at first, switched to Hillary as soon as she had cinched the nomination because I was always going to support the nominee no matter who it turned out to be. Once Hillary had clearly won the primaries, a bunch of disappointed DUers founded and/or migrated to JPL, presumably to strategize about how to get more of Bernie's positions integrated into her campaign, so I checked it out (but I don't remember if I ever actually posted anything). It soon became apparent that all they really wanted to do is complain and whine about how Bernie wuz robbed and Hillary is terrible, and before long a lot of the comments became really toxic. It seemed so pointless and stupid that I gave up on them and haven't looked in on that site since before the 2016 election. I suppose it was inevitable that it would eventually become a closed loop of angry haters.

[Scrivener7]

118. Manny really trashed Hillary relentlessly here, though. And anyone who supported her.

He was obnoxious.

[Tom Rinaldo]

120. He waited until the very last moment to state that he was voting for Hillary against Trump.

He had noting positive to say about Hilary there even then, only that voting for Trump endangered our democracy more.

[Scrivener7]

121. SMDH. I think he had a following. Which means he may have lost us votes. And anyone who

can't decide till the last minute between tfg and ANYONE else is a moron.

[betsuni]

123. Like The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur and Michael Moore, the types who spent all year

warning about a dangerously corrupt fictional Hillary villain worse than Trump who rigged elections, then said they were voting for her. But their followers had believed them. Why would they vote for such a monster?

Cenk said he was shocked when they polled the TYT audience and 80% were Never Hillary. That's what you told them! Then you turn around and say, well, just kidding. Don't know how some people sleep at night.

[Scrivener7]

126. Seriously. It's so irresponsible. And it was all sexism, pure and simple.

[taxi]

100. Imagine a fly on a modius strip

Beginning with

It was pro-Bernie of course, and obsessed with hating Clinton

and ending up knowing Hillary was right all along and Bernie wasn't doesn't make anyone either a hero or villain, nor does it mean that either or both of those statements are true for a user.
So maybe what you say makes sense. They could have used an intruder response system, if it were not designed to begin with.

[JI7]

44. That's the same shit they were posting when they were here

[herding cats]

45. Ah, yes. The good ol' days when RT was argued as a valid source here.

I miss none of that, or them.

[Xolodno]

50. Well, I also remember another forum called...

HiliaryClintonForum which was very anti Obama. That bled a few folks here. Sure, Obama supporters were happy they were gone, but it did not push forward what mattered on policy, just the cult of personality.

JPR, is very radical left, but, at the end of the day, they vote with us. So, we should not shit on them, lest we become like the current Republican Party. The larger the tent, the more diverse opinions. That's how Republicans were able to make their gains, now, they have abandoned that approach and are digging trenches.

Just an observation, but as a whole, work with them where we agree. And leave the absolutism to Republicans...which sadly, works with them.

Once we do purity checks, as a whole it falls apart. And with that said...

"I don't belong to any organized political party, I'm a Democrat" - Will Rodgers

[herding cats]

51. I disagree with this, "at the end of the day, they vote with us."

I saw people there brag about voting for Trump or writing in a candidate other than our nominee.

Their validation for voting for Trump was he'd break the nation so badly their candidates would have a better chance than a more moderate one next time. That's just madness.

They're are a few impressionable people there who may mean well, but there are others there who are bad faith actors leading them around by the nose. JMO.

[iemanja]

62. They insisted Trump was better than Hillary

They didn't all use the justification you note. Some just plain hate Democrats.

[pnwmom]

52. Many on JPR do NOT vote with us at the end of the day. My impression is that the majority don't.

And they seem to be fine with trashing Biden -- at the end of the day they'd be unlikely to vote for him or anyone who doesn't meet their purity standard.

Examples of anti-Biden and/or anti-Democratic posts that are left on the site unopposed:

March 19:

I don’t believe a word of what Biden says. His policy has been consistent with Trump’s anti-China policy. It was Obama that commenced the so called pivot to Asia. If the Chinese took Biden at his word, they’d be fools. I don’t think they are fools.

March 19:
Russia’s military action is a direct response to US/NATO expansionism and aggression, along with the threats posed by US weapon systems in countries bordering Russia. You’re not going to do the Ukrainians any good by incessantly yammering about “Putin”.

Dec. 2021

I will never vote for a Democrat, any Democrat, ever again. I will not send any of them any money ever again. Neither should you if you are to the left of Joe Manchin.

. . . Move on to what, you ask? That’s a fair question, and I’ll do my best to provide some answers, and maybe even some hope, in the future. Thank you for reading. Stop sending money to Democrats if you haven’t already. Good night, and good luck.

[herding cats]

54. 👍🏼

Thanks for these more recent quotes as proof.

I admit other than a fleeting thought I've not bothered with them in ages. But, your quotes help prove my memories of them from 2016. In the end they'll twist themselves into a pretzel to not vote with us. Frankly, I think they hate us and how our Democracy is structured here in the US and would rather see us all fail to prove their point of how broken we are. Be damned the people who get hurt, it's all about the chaos.

[Xolodno]

57. Well, I'm not completely happy with Biden either..

I'm not happy he hasn't expanded the ACA

I'm not happy he has basically punted on Student Loan Forgiveness

..and I could go on, but I also know Biden is better than the alternative.

Furthermore, I am happy what he has accomplished.

And I also know he is limited on what he can do given a very divided Congress.

But the attitude on DU as of late is like George W. Bush, If you are not with us, you are against us. Cherry picking some comments isn't data, in fact, you proved my point. Some may just be GOP trolls, but the rest may be legitimate. So you have to ask, why did they stop voting or worse? What turned them off? Not having them as voters for the Democratic Party doesn't help, when at one time they did.

I don't get bent out of shape when I get harassed here for expressing an unpopular opinion, I've received praise and been insulted by experts, so I just laugh. Doesn't matter to me. But over time, I've seen some bullying for not towing the line. For example n2doc used to post political cartoons on a regular basis, then that person makes one unpopular post...and the knives come out.


In the end, I'm not going to my grave with the title as an aspiring DU commentator...just pointing out we may very well be shooting ourselves in the foot with the absolutism. But everyone can fire away, at this, it won't bother me...and you aren't getting rid of me either. LOL!

[pnwmom]

59. I don't think most of them were ever Democrats. Some of them were even trolls.

They were people who had latched onto Bernie for a variety of reasons, but not because they were Democrats.

And what bothered many here was THEIR absolutism. And they proved it by leaving the party after their nominee didn't win the nomination.

[Willto]

69. Disagree

("But the attitude on DU as of late is like George W. Bush, If you are not with us, you are against us." )

Wow do I ever disagree. I monitored this place for a long while before I joined. I remember visiting here during the 2016 primary. The allegation you make which I quoted above is 100 times more of an accurate description of the people who broke away and went to JPR than anyone who stayed here. It is perfectly fine here to not agree on all issues. It is perfectly fine to support different candidates during the primary season and strongly make your case for them.

It is not okay however to become so bitter that your candidate lost or is losing that you start advocating that people stay home and not vote. Or advocate pissing your vote away by giving it to the likes of Jill Stein. It is not okay to repeat false and thoroughly debunked Republican talking points to slur the Democratic nominee. And not just Republican but sometimes Russian talking points as well. It is not okay to use the jury feature here to ban Hillary supporters for no better reason than they were Hillary supporters. It is not okay to refer to people voting for the legitimate Democratic candidate as "Vichy Democrats". At the end of the day the name of this place is "Democratic Underground". And quite frankly I don't believe a lot of the people I am talking about were actually Democrats. When 99% of your comments are a slam of the Democratic party. When you say things like, "I hope Trump wins so it will burn everything down and bring on the revolution". I have a hard time seeing someone that wants to burn the Democratic party down as actually being a Democrat.

If there is a purity test here it's just very broadly that 1.) you need to actually be a Democrat and 2.) support democratic candidates in the general election. With the JPR crowd you have to agree with them 110% on every issue or you are Satan.

[betsuni]

73. Thank you.

[yardwork]

89. I agree. Well said.

[Hortensis]

124. Yes. That's them.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

70. You are WRONG-Biden has no power to forgive student loans

President Biden does not have the power to cancel student debt

Link to tweet

Advocates of debt cancelation by executive order point out that the Higher Education Act gives the Secretary of Education power to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired.” This provision would seem to give the Secretary broad power to cancel student debt.

But as financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz notes, another part of the statute limits the secretary’s authority. He only has the power to cancel obligations owed to the U.S. government “in the performance of, and with respect to, the functions, powers, and duties, vested in him by this part.”

In other words, the Secretary of Education only has the power to forgive student debt when Congress gives it to him.

When President Biden has canceled student debt, it has always been under the authority of a specific program authorized by Congress. Borrower defense is one example: Congress gives the Secretary of Education authority to cancel debt after instances of outright fraud. Congress also allows the secretary to cancel debt when borrowers experience a total and permanent disability. Borrowers who work in public service for ten years can also receive a loan discharge.

In each of these circumstances, Congress created a specific provision for loan cancelation, and required borrowers to meet certain conditions before receiving forgiveness. If the Secretary really had the broad authority to cancel student loans whenever he saw fit, Congress wouldn’t need to create specific programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The very existence of those programs proves the limits of the executive branch’s authority.....

The debate over whether the President Biden can cancel student debt with the flick of his pen is a distraction. He can’t, but there are better solutions on the table. Congress and the Department of Education should work together to put them into practice.

Biden needs Congress to act to have authority to forgive student loans in the real world. These attacks on Joe Biden are simply WRONG

[pnwmom]

75. The problem with the comments I "cherry-picked," as you say,

is that no one stood up to oppose the negative comments about Biden or other Democrats.

I could understand the occasional troll or Democrat-hater; but why is no one standing up for Biden in these cases?

It's because it's not really a Democratic site. It's an anti-Democratic site, from the left, that's holding hands with the anti-Democrats on the right.

[iemanja]

63. They had no problem voting for Trump

and continued to defend him well into his presidency.

[betsuni]

55. See post #49. Attacking Trump, saying you'd vote for the Democratic nominee not popular.

They hate Democrats. It was all about anti-Hillary, then anti-Biden, anti-Democrats in general. Bernie Sanders or policy (no difference between "progressive" and Democratic policy goals, just strategy) wasn't the point. It was to convince people to not vote for Democrats. Third party or Trump.

Some made the mistake of thinking a high number of third party voters in 2016 was because the country (including the white working class in swing states) was becoming more democratic socialist. Nope, anti-Hillary because of propaganda. That's why "I have news for the Republican establishment. I have news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us." was wrong in 2020. Anyone who attacks Democrats as corrupt, not progressive, with the same economic policies as Republicans is wrong.

[iemanja]

64. They were ground zero for the Russian anti-Clinton propaganda

There was none of it they didn't promote. Now they are doing the same with Ukraine.

[Crunchy Frog]

56. I checked them out right after the 2016 election, when DU was down.

I was hoping I would find a place for at least commiserating about TFG's win, but way too many posters seemed to be happy about it, and some admitted to actually voting for him.

That was just my impression of them. It was sad because there were posters there who I had respected when they were at DU.

[StevieM]

58. I lurked at HillaryClintonForum.

Many people there were upset with what some of us felt was the sexism that HRC had to endure in 2008. Not just people screaming "iron my shirt," but people interpreting her words and actions in a way that was completely unreasonable and based on standards that no candidate could have lived up to.

Of course, the misogyny was even worse in 2016, when a phony story about an email server, complete with a bogus FBI investigation, was somehow turned into Watergate.

Many on HC Forum wound up giving Obama a chance. Towards the end it changed its name to Common Ground Politics.

[pnwmom]

67. Hillary led the way to having her supporters switch to Obama.

She didn't prolong the agony. Once it was clear Obama was won, she emphatically endorsed him.

That made a big difference.

[StevieM]

72. Absolutely true.

She made a big difference in that election.

Ironically, one of the bizarre attacks made against her in 2019/2020 actually claimed that she didn't do much for Obama in 2008 and that Sanders was more supportive of her in 2016.

[pnwmom]

74. Well, that's certainly a bizarre attack. As I'm sure you remember,

he waited for months after her win before he finally endorsed her. And he didn't start campaigning for her till September.

[betsuni]

76. I still see that, saw the other day: Sanders campaigned harder for Hillary than Hillary did.

[pnwmom]

77. What a crock. Sanders waited till September to have his first campaign event for Hillary.

He was busy writing the book that he had to have completed by then.

[betsuni]

83. Yes. Writing a book about the revolution.

[iemanja]

61. Radical Left?

They promoted Trump. They're raging right-wingers.

[Willto]

71. I don't Believe that

("JPR, is very radical left, but, at the end of the day, they vote with us. " )

I don't believe for one minute that most of the people at JPR ultimately vote for the Democrat in the general election. In fact they openly ecourage their members not to.

[W_HAMILTON]

82. LOL, no they don't vote with us.

They are Jill Stein's target audience.

There's a reason they split to begin with and it ain't because they support Democrats.

[yardwork]

84. Based on my occasional visits to JPR, their members voted for Trump.

While they may self-describe as "far left" I think their politics are not progressive at all. I would call them regressive. They were unhappy with their personal lives, for the most part, and seeking to be part of something important. Trump's movement provided that. If they've moved on from JPR, I suspect they joined QAnon.

[Scrivener7]

119. No. They don't vote with us. And it is a point of honor with many that they don't

They are the Jill Steiners and the Trumpers and the abstainers who dependably vote against us.

[iemanja]

60. Nothing has changed

They were spouting Putin's propaganda years ago. The worst of them was Sabrina. She was a piece of work. A misogynist and Putin worshiper, which I suppose go hand in hand.

Oh, that site promoted Trump. They are fascists, so naturally they support a fascist like Putin.

[pnwmom]

68. I'd forgotten that name, but I remember it now that you mention it.

I was glad to see her go, that's for sure.

[Scrivener7]

116. OMG! I had forgotten all about her!

But that Gnome guy also went over there. I liked him. That was disappointing.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

85. Looks like a Trump-Putin-GOP troll farm to me.

Complete with a few gatekeeper "moderators" whose main function is to fuel hatred for the Democratic party, in order to benefit the pro Trump-Putin-GOP anti-democracy fascist element in the US.

I imagine more than a few of them were cheering for the Insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.

[yardwork]

90. That's what I thought it was at the time.

Some decent people got sucked into JPR but they left pretty quickly. The ones who remained were the gullible targets and the paid shills.

I suspect there were thousands of little propaganda nest sites like JPR created in 2015 and 2016, funded with Putin money, designed to give Trump the election. And not just Trump - Democrats surprisingly lost the Senate in 2016, as well as many state legislatures. It was a coup.

[MineralMan]

103. Not Everyone Left DU, I Believe.

That's my sense of it.

[Elessar Zappa]

110. I think many of those JPR-types were/are Russian trolls.

I supported Bernie in 2016 (I liked Hillary too) along with a few of my friends and none of us voted for Trump or sat out the election like the JPR idiots threatened to do.

[AZProgressive]

112. I agree

I didn’t come here at all in the 2016 primary so I missed all the drama that led to the site but I voted for Hillary Clinton & Biden in the General election.

[Tree Lady]

127. Same with my friends

Every Bernie supporter both times voted dem in the final election.

I switched from Bernie to Elizabeth last time but happy with Joe. He's doing a great job.

I find it interesting that people think this site is mostly moderates, I find its about 50/50 and we accept each other. The ones that don't generally are the ones that leave.