"Why Bernie Didn’t Get My Vote"

[Onlooker]

A very good article from The Nation talks about the problem with Bernie's focus on economic justice, at the expense of gender and racial justice.

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-bernie-didnt-get-my-vote/

 By Katha Pollitt

... Bernie didn’t ask for my vote. Oh, you can go to his website and find a page of boilerplate setting out his general commitments to women’s rights: He’s in favor of equal pay, reproductive rights, the ERA, the Violence Against Women Act, childcare for all, and so on—a laundry list, indeed, of the causes dear to the heart of those often derided by his supporters as bourgeois feminists content with incremental change. I am aware, too, that Bernie has a good voting record on those issues in Congress. But there’s a difference between someone who votes the right way, and someone who introduces legislation and champions the issue. He never convinced me that gender issues, specifically the persistent subordination of women in every area of life, were of much concern to him. There were all those little tells. Pooh-poohing Planned Parenthood and NARAL as “establishment” when he didn’t get their endorsement. Arguing for parental leave because it allows a new mother “to stay home and bond with her baby” instead of as something that benefits fathers as well, and something that women need in order to work and advance on the job. Doubling down on the idiotic quip by his surrogate, Killer Mike (“A uterus doesn’t qualify you to be president of the United States”), with the pseudo-lofty pledge “No one has ever heard me say, ‘Hey guys, let’s stand together, vote for a man.’ I would never do that, never have.” Is there a word for someone whose entitlement is so vast, so deep, so historically embedded, and so unconscious it includes the belief that they got where they are by a resolute devotion to fair play? It’s not reassuring that his senior campaign staff, like his long-time political inner circle, is almost entirely white and male.

...

The problem is less that Bernie focuses on class and economic inequality than that he doesn’t seem to understand that the economy, like society generally, is structured by gender and race. Equal pay is great, but if women and men are funneled into different kinds of work by race and gender, with men’s jobs valued more because men are valued more, and if women are hobbled economically by doing most of the domestic labor and having to contend with prejudice against working mothers to boot, equal pay alone doesn’t solve the problem. It would have been great if Bernie had given a major speech about his plans to make women’s lives better—safer, fairer, less dominated by men. Instead, he gives every sign of believing that his basic program—a $15 minimum wage, free public college, breaking up the big banks, single-payer health insurance—is quite enough.

...

At 74, you are who you are. Bernie is a traditional class-based leftist for whom feminism is a distraction. Abortion, as he told Rolling Stone, is a “social issue.” Women’s mental and physical health, their economic survival, their ability to determine the shape of their own lives as men do, is a social issue? The clear implication is that reproductive rights (like guns and LGBT rights, which he mentions in the same breath) are secondary considerations, impediments to winning broad support for his populist economic proposals.

[bvf]

1. You left out the best part, from the opening paragraph.

Unfortunately for electoral democracy, I neglected to read the instructions on my absentee ballot, which clearly stated that it had to be postmarked the day before the actual primary, and thus missed my chance to vote.

For someone who cranks out political essays and verse for a living, you'd think she'd be sufficiently engaged to have read the goddamned instructions, for chrissake.

She isn't in much of a position to lecture anyone on "focus" after that screw-up.

[RelativelyJones]

2. A lot of people see this also

That's why Bernie is not going to be the nominee.

[Sky Masterson]

3. I smell bullshit.

This person would have never voted for Bernie.
" Feminism is a distraction" no you fucking twit,you are just in the tank for the Neocon.
Diplomacy seems to be a distraction for Mrs. shoot first justify later

[Vattel]

4. comically stupid article

[My Good Babushka]

6. Then point out the candidate

who wants to raise the pay for domestic workers and treat care-taking employment with respect and dignity. Is it the person who says $12 is good enough? Where is the proposal for a stipend or subsidy for homemakers, and who has the answer to make up for lost retirement benefits for women who take time for motherhood, or for caring for sick family members, if that is indeed honorable work? I don't see it in anyone's platform.

[msanthrope]

7. Get under the bus Katha....nt

[Bluenorthwest]

14. On the contrary, Katha was unable to figure out how to cast a valid primary vote so she voted

for no one. That's exactly what I'd like to see out of Hillary supporters in CA, blustery verbiage coupled with an inability to actually cast a vote. It's also perfectly definitive of Clinton Culture, this Katha, she could not manage to vote according to her own State's rules but she still preaches and lectures others about how others are not paying attention. That's high irony. It's also very, very funny.

[NCTraveler]

8. This is highlighted by the hopes of some that the Pope had endorsed him.

Economics only.

[Jitter65]

9. Bernie really didn't ask for a lot votes from several groups. The votes were foisted on him from

folks who knew and still know little about him but they just wanted an outlet for their rage against Obama and their hate for Hillary. Bernie was almost as surprised as Trump with his success. After a few notable blacks like Belafonte and West (known Obama haters) voiced their preference for Bernie...it was easy...Bernie didn't have to ask for anything and for a while looked like deer in the headlights as Killer Mike and few others publicly announced for him.

It is more about not liking Hillary than liking Bernie.

[Doctor_J]

10. A lot of feminists are voting for Clinton just because of her gender, and ignoring the fact that

she is extremely conservative. It's unsurprising that ms. Pollitt is one of them. I guess it's interesting that pollitt ignores TPP and ttip and mass incarceration and Hillary's offer to curb reproductive rights, but not surprising. Her argument seems to be, "Bernie wants to help everyone, not just women, so I am voting for Clinton".

[Onlooker]

12. A lot of men have been deluded into thinking Hillary is extremely conservative ...

... Frankly, she's not extremely conservative. If all you knew about Bernie was that he was silent on the overthrow of Qadaffi and Honduras when speaking up would have mattered, that he voted for regime change in Iraq in 1999, that he voted for war appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2001, that he supported the Kosovo war, that he was a big proponent of the stealth bomber, that he favors giving gun manufacturers liability protection that other manufacturers do not get, that he supported the anti-immigrant vigilante Minutemen, that he voted against the Amber Alert, and that he voted against a law making digitized child porn illegal, you might have as distorted an opinion of Bernie as you have of Hillary. Try reading about Hillary. Read Wikipedia. Her record is liberal, and she's done far more good works than Bernie has.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. You, like the author you link to, don't understand the basics. Abmber Alerts already existed

when that vote was taken so that bill was not 'for or against' Amber Alerts, one aspect of the law created a National Amber Alert staff.

That law Bernie voted No on was also voted against by John Lewis, Barney Frank, Barbara Lee, Bobby Scott, and virtually every progressive member of the Black Caucus. Casting shade on the no voters is casting shade on John Lewis. I'd recommend getting your facts in order before smearing what was obviously a line up of minority progressives voting no, black, gay and Jewish no votes. Which you take great issue with.....

[Onlooker]

15. You missed my point completely ...

... Of course, even Bernie's objectionable votes and behaviors can be explained on rational grounds. I'm not suggesting that Bernie wanted little children to be successfully kidnapped, what I'm suggesting is that the answers are always quite complex. So, for any of the major positive or negative votes or actions by Hillary or Bernie, I can make a case that they were operating under a more complicated frame than just right wing or left wing.

You just did that for Bernie. Very good. But, I don't think you try to do it for Hillary. My impression is that you have never made a serious effort to try to understand her actions. It seems like you have internalized her almost in a two-dimensional way.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. No, it's you who is just blathering, smearing John Lewis as you do so, smearing Maxine Waters

because she and Bernie cast the same vote you want to portray as sinister. It's dishonest as hell. And instead of correcting your factual errors or discussing what I have said you launch into personal insults about your 'impressions' of me. Cheap, nasty and vapid tactics you use.

[Onlooker]

18. It's really just an analogy to the smear of John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Harry Reid ...

... on the Iraq war. But, obviously you're not even thinking about what I'm saying, and I don't ask you to. When people like you start correcting the factual record with regard with to Hillary maybe people like me will do the same. Bernie and Hillary are both imperfect, and each of them are in different ways better than the other.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. Hillary Clinton also did not get the author's vote. This author preaches but can't practice....

She admits almost instantly: "Unfortunately for electoral democracy, I neglected to read the instructions on my absentee ballot, which clearly stated that it had to be postmarked the day before the actual primary, and thus missed my chance to vote."

So she is a basically uninformed person who obviously does not seek out the basic facts about even simple ballot return rules much less about the candidates and their positions. The author can't figure out how to cast a valid ballot but insists they have a strong grasp on more complex issues? It's hilarious commentary.

[Turin_C3PO]

17. That's a fair analysis.

I love his focus on economic justice but he should have listened to what POC and women's groups were telling him and put civil rights on the front burner, alongside his great economic positions. He views racism mostly as result of class issues. I think he's partly correct but it goes much deeper than class. Look what type of bullshit Obama's gone through and he's a Harvard-educated President.