2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIt's not Bernie's fault his supporters think the system is rigged-the SYSTEM IS RIGGED.
(on edit)And by "the system", those supporters don't just mean the nominating process..they mean the whole political and economic structure of this country and this world.
They would think the system was rigged even if Bernie hadn't run.
They would distrust HRC even if she had run unchallenged.
And there is nothing Bernie could say that would make those people, particularly the young, think they should trust the existing order.
It's up to those of us who want young people to work, at least partially, within the system to listen to what they are saying and acknowledge the truths their words contain.
Those who don't want young people to feel the system is a con need to step up and change the system.
That's what being a progressive is supposed to mean...working FOR change.
To use the truest words anyone said in the Sixties, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".
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onehandle
(51,122 posts)
Raster
(20,998 posts)We had the rethuglican party crawling toward it's death bed, but now, lo and behold, it shall rise and be as noxious as ever, newly fed and renewed. I even expect Flush Limpballs to recover... Thanks, Hillary.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I don't want her to be a status quo centrist and to fail(which is what being centrist on anything would mean). I want her to prove that she can be trusted.
She needs to be doing the kind of work now to connect with the young.
She needs to find the ways to say "yes, you are right. There are massive problems with corruption, arrogance, militarism and lack of compassion in our current way of doing things. I will work with YOU to change that, and I accept that what you all do as activists is just as valid a way of serving this country as what I hope to do as president".
This is why releasing the transcripts now would help.
It would send the message "I can handle you folks knowing the truth. I'm tough enough to let you know what I was saying and why I was saying it. And I accept that you had good reason to be suspicious of my motives in making all those speeches and am willing to change and grow in response to that".
That would read as courage and leadership.
Her obsession with secrecy always hurts her and always makes her look worse than she needs to. She can only look stronger by letting go of that and letting it all hang out.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)I hope my personal life will be good enough i can overlook the shit swamp the larger picture will become
randome
(34,845 posts)And that's because if you were specific, then you'd need to actively work as part of a team, gather consensus and work toward a specific goal.
But that's too much trouble for you, isn't it? It's much, much easier to shout "Change!"
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
Armstead
(47,803 posts)It might be in politics, businesses, social services, environmentalism...or some combination.
You're just mouthing the dismissive conservativ e meme that everyone who wants change doesn't do anything about it.
That's malarkey and just empowering the powers that be.
randome
(34,845 posts)"Break up the banks!" tells us nothing. There needs to be a coherent, focused message combined with a leader who actually works well with others. Sanders failed on both those accounts, imo, which makes my comparison to OWS apt.
I hope whoever follows in Sanders' footsteps will learn from this.
And for all those who are actively working for change in their own spheres, as you said, more power to them. I hope they can coalesce around the kind of leader we need. And soon.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)JCanete
(5,272 posts)and under Obama. Obama softened the hateful rhetoric in Washington, and I think started to make it okay for people to care about other people again, and to look at their neighbors with less mistrust(crazy backlash against his presidency be damned), and I think that his Presidency has made new messaging possible to some degree because of that,but the mechanisms that entrench that mistrust, i.e. the economic insecurity, and the longer hours and greater stress all make scapegoating and fear-mongering that much easier to employ when driving wedges between people, and the money that keeps flowing to pay for that messaging and the politicians who sell us and our nation out from under us hasn't been staunched at all.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)nobody believes you. It actually is a complete turn off for those of us that the SYSTEM was DESIGNED to OPPRESS. No. The system has not changed just because Bernie is running. It is and always has been rigged agains women and minorities, so crying oppression and 'it's rigged' just makes you guys look stereotypically privileged. He is a white man. The system was designed in His favor, just like it has been in American since day one.
It's basically like you are saying blacks and women and minorities are oppressing you because you did not win. Sad ass shit.
Number23
(24,544 posts)It's basically like these people are WHINING that they are being oppressed because minorities and women did not do as they demanded. They insulted and screamed and demanded and ordered and we all smiled, nodded and voted the fucking way that we wanted to without giving them or their demands even a second thought.
This election has minorities and women flexing some serious muscle and God knows, that muscle ain't going anywhere anytime soon. They may as well get used to it.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)
I told them the demographic timebomb was hitting soon. Shoulda been paying attention to me begging and pleading with them to knock that shit off.
Arazi
(6,829 posts)He IS a minority. A historically hated minority across all spectrums, including AAs.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280152392
You do not have a leg to stand on here
bravenak
(34,648 posts)
Arazi
(6,829 posts)
This is a discussion board. Your delusions of grandeur amuse me though. You think you're that special?!
bravenak
(34,648 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)
Arazi
(6,829 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Obama didn't make excuses, and neither has Clinton.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)HRC will be ok as president, but unless she opens up to facing the structural issues, she can't be transformative. And if she can't be transformative, she can't be a success as president.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)Not very.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He lost those votes, in significant measure, because an endless campaign of lies and smears about Bernie's passionate antiracist commitment was successful.
Bernie never dismissed the need to fight institutional racism. He never treated the antiracist cause as less important than economic change(he always linked the two), and there was no reason for John Lewis(a person I admire in many respects)to say he didn't remember Bernie being in the freedom movement(and therefore to imply that Bernie was lying about his civil rights work-which was years of work as a full-time organizer, not just attendance at one march).
I get it that HRC had a "relationship" with the older, more conservative parts of the AA community(though not with any of the young who are actually out there putting themselves on the line for freedom now), and I appreciate that a fair amount of the AA community believed she was more "electable"
although her collapse in the polls discredits her claims on that). If the case for her had been left at that, it would have been legitimate.
But there was never any excuse for anyone to keep claiming that Bernie didn't care about fighting racism. There was simply no reason ever to say that. And David Brock owes Bernie and apology for all of that.
If HRC does get elected, I think we both know that within six months of being sworn-in, she will throw most of the AA community under the bus(as she and Bill did throughout the Eighties and Nineties), the first people joining the AA community in rising up to protest that betrayal will be Sanders supporters(a group that has become a massively diverse people's army for justice). We will be standing with you, marching with you, working with you to help you win everything you thought you were going to win.
TwilightZone
(25,451 posts)supporters hop right on the bandwagon. That's a lot more immediate than Bernie's history with the Civil Rights movement. You can't really blame voters for looking at what he and his campaign are doing *now* vs. what he did decades ago. That's kind of how the world operates.
I know...it's so much sexier to blame David Brock.
Armstead
(47,803 posts) bravenak
(34,648 posts)We were scared away by his revolutionaries. I bitched and moaned and complained and begged for you all to stop targeting blacks with spam and dumb questions and harassing us about welfare and prison like all we are is poor hopeless jailbirds and drug addicts. Did you guy listen!?!? Even once?!? Fuck no, just blames mysterious forces for scaring us away when it was you yourselves.
I told you. I got harassed, run off, doxxed, time outted, searched and mailed evil letters, facebook harassment to the point that my FAMILY was getting nasty ass threats from folks saying they were on YOUR team. Did you guys stand up for us? No! Piled on, joined, laughed, and said we made it up and we using the race card.
Well, calling us confederates and watching quietly while we were innundated with bullshit might have felt good, but IT MADE U LOSE.
Stop blaming other and start taking blame for your own failures and that of your candidate if you don't want to be called privileged. We took our lumps. All YEAR!
If he gave a fuck about fighting racism he would have started fighting the shit coming from his own damn ranks, to ignore it or justify it is not fighting it. We saw him. We did not see him ssy a DAMN THING to his troops. That is why we never trusted him. He said NOTHING. Not to Weaver. Not to Devine. And certainly not to his revolution. He shoukd hav hired black folks in the top tier of his staff, he did not and failed to understand the first thing about us. First thing to know is we check to see who is on your staff, if you will not hire us we will not COME.
barrow-wight
(744 posts)
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)Beautifully stated!
bravenak
(34,648 posts)the other side said and did.
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)... Bernie was there for you. He just can't remember when or how.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)I am an INGRATE!!!! Woe is me. He was gonna save us black folks from prison and give us more welfare, cannot believe I declined that great gift.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)... saved
bravenak
(34,648 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There has never been a case in this country where the less-progressive candidate was better for POC.
Politicians allied with the rich don't want racism to end.
redstateblues
(10,565 posts)Probably didn't help that one of Bernie's advisors used the N word when talking about our Democratic President
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Here's what I think the main factors were:
1) They(the people running Bernie's campaign in Burlington) didn't have the criminal justice reform proposals on the website at the start of the campaign. They should have.
2) They didn't have a specific enough appeal to AA voters at the very start(this was developed as the campaign went on).
3) The creation by Clinton's surrogates of a previously nonexistent divide between "social justice" and "economic justice" advocates(accompanied by a false claim that "economic justice" was somehow only "a white thing" and a claim that people who support economic justice didn't care about fighting racism, sexism and homophobia-which was weird, given that are a lot of people in the economic justice movement who are female, POC, AND LGBTQ)
4) The behavior of the "bros" most of whom were NOT actual Sanders supporters, but for whom Sanders and those working for him were blamed again and again, even though there was nothing we could possibly have done to stop them);
5) The claims, right before Super Tuesday, that Bernie was exaggerating his involvement in the freedom movement(which were accompanied by claims that all Bernie had done was to go to one rally with 250,000 other folks, when in fact he was a full-time organizer for CORE for years), and the John Lewis "I don't remember Bernie" comment(which really shouldn't have had that much of an effect, since there was no possible way Congressman Lewis could have remembered everybody who put it on the line against Jim Crow), which drove Bernie's AA support levels in the the Super Tuesday states from over 30% down to about 15%.
6) HRC's claims that Bernie's free college proposal was meant to be implemented at the expense of not carrying out HRC's program to improve primary and secondary schools(there is no reason both couldn't have been done, and free college was never just "a white thing"-it would lead to a massive increase in POC getting a graduate or post-graduate education, and nothing but good would come of that.
Those factors are far more important, from what I can see, than Dr. West's poor choice of words(a choice none of us defended or had anything to do with).
bravenak
(34,648 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)All this is about for you is making sure we nominate the most conservative, pro-corporate power, pro-war person we could have found this year...even though the voters aren't demanding that we be subservient to corporations or casual about getting into more Middle East wars to win(nobody WANTS us to be "bear any burden, fight any foe" anymore...at least nobody who would actually vote Democratic, and nobody in the corporate world wants racism or sexism or homophobia to end, because those hates are too valuable to the rich to be allowed to die out).
It's impossible to control what anonymous people say on the internet, or even to be sure people are who they say they are.
Most likely, most of the people bravenak is talking about are either Rand Paul/Ron Paul infiltrators or trolls recruited by David Brock.
There was never going to be anything the Sanders campaign itself could possibly have done to stop such people and you know it.
And Bernie, whatever actually happened on the internet, was never dismissive of the need to fight racism. Nor did he deserve to be accused of exaggerating his involvement in the freedom movement. He was an organizer in CORE for years-he didn't just to one rally and that was it.
NanceGreggs
(27,813 posts)I would caution you against telling me, or other HRC supporters here, what it is "all about" for us. It's something you do repeatedly, and it makes you look ridiculous - not to mention arrogant in pretending to know what is in other people's minds.
"It's impossible to control what anonymous people say on the internet."
Agreed. But surely Bernie KNOWS what has been said by his "supporters" on the FB pages and websites of people like John Lewis, Al Franken, Gabby Giffords, Sybrina Fulton, Howard Dean, etc.
Where and when did Bernie speak up about that? Where and when did he say, "This is NOT in keeping with my campaign message, so please stop saying such things in my name"?
He didn't. Ever. Instead, Bernie allied himself with the likes of Cornel West, who called Obama a "niggerized president" - among other equally disgusting things.
So what is Mr. "I'm qualified to govern a nation's" excuse for NOT speaking out - or, even worse, not knowing what's going on for the past year?
Bernie has had every opportunity to speak on the topic - and has remained silent. The obvious conclusion is that "silence is consent".
greatauntoftriplets
(175,729 posts) Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I doubt most of those who did were actual Sanders supporters.
The actual "revolutionaries" were fighting for your community as well as everybody else.
POC don't benefit from corporate control of politics.
And Bernie DID tell people to knock shit off. But you can't really control what anybody does over the internet, or have any way of knowing who most of the people on the internet even are.
Those were probably Rand Paul/Ron Paul crazies or David Brock troll recruits you ran into.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)And again and again. That's FIGHTING. He phoned it in and we noticed. Besides. That was not even about harassing black folks that he said something. It was not for us. Find where he said to stop harassing black folks. Please! Cause I am still being followed on this very thread and nan one of you are going to tell that poster a damn thing. Like usual. Just ignore it and act like I should too. Fuck that, Ken. You guys should be the FIRST to say stop.
But you dont and we think it is because we dont matter except for votes. Just like everybody else, but they don't pretend to be this great antiracist revolutionary.
He should be BETTER than her, not worse, and he is. Worse I mean. Says NOTHING. Neither do his supporters. They just pretend black folks are playing the race card and if we have an issue they bully. In this very thread. (My bad its the other thread, but still, my point stands)You have not even noticed or said thing one to them to stop it.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)uponit7771
(90,323 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)His record in politics has always been more antiracist than HRC. As an opponent of corporate power(a leftist, not a wishy-washy white liberal)is always going to be a committed antiracist.
Fighting against racism and fighting against corporate power are always linked.
If she governs as a centrist(as she will)HRC won't do anything strong in power to fight white supremacy. Her record in the Eighties and Nineties(when she pushed the Democratic Party away from being antiracist)proves that.
We respect the AA community(a lot of Sanders supporters ARE AA, especially among those 30 and younger), and Sanders supporters will be there marching with you when you have to fight HRC for abandoning you.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)... that came from Sanders own mouth inclunding him having a person who called Obama a form of nigger last year stump for him in front of mostly white people.
You can act as if folk didn't see this but it's a part of the reason he's lost the diverse coalition of people his messages was suppsoed to be reaching
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And that most people who used that term("ghettos"
were in solidarity with POC and were trying to create an anti-racist country where injustice, hatred and, yes poverty no longer existed.
He wasn't meaning it as an attack or an insult.
Is there really any difference in saying that word and saying "the 'hood".
What WOULD have been an acceptable term for Bernie to use there?
You are obsessed with a couple of fairly small bits of word usage, one of which Bernie had nothing whatsoever to do with.
I could understand being relentless about this if John Lewis or Jesse or somebody had run this year as a primarily antiracist candidate and you were arguing for them(possibly I'd have supported that candidate myself), but why are you going to all this trouble in the service of a candidate who has always been hostile towards the very idea of activism(HRC used to talk about how she couldn't approve of civil disobedience, for God's sakes). Why go to all of this effort in the service of a candidate you have no reason to trust? Whatever you feel about Bernie, why would you spend all of this energy in the cause of electing HRC? Do you really expect to get much from her? Or anything, really?
She's never been strongly loyal to your cause.
And the polls now show she's no more electable than anybody else we could have nominated.
What's it really about?
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)uponit7771
(90,323 posts)bravenak
(34,648 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I agree that the system is rigged against POC and women. Every Sanders supporter does.
It's not exactly a victory POC for HRC to win the nomination, though(especially since the new polls prove her claims of electoral superiority are now extinct, and "electability" was the main reason POC preferred her). As the Eighties and Nineties proved, the Clintons will always throw POC under the bus when they think its expedient to do so.
If HRC does get elected, and she does betray POC and non-wealthy women(as is likely)those of us in the Sanders movement will be heavily involved in the protests, marches and organization activity POC and non-wealthy women(and probably non-wealthy LGBTQ people as well)will be launching. We will be standing when everyone who thought their support of that candidate would be rewarded.
I doubt you'll see many white HRC supporter in those marches(though they would be welcomed if they did show up).
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Why would you, as a POC, defend any part of the status quo?
It's not like you or your community benefit from corporations getting a veto over who gets elected in this country.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)... rigged until the PD's went out of reach.
If he would've started his campaign with it being rigged and was consummate with it then maybe ... but yes
He's whining
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)CrowCityDem
(2,348 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Some people haven't chosen to listen.
randome
(34,845 posts)Maybe if Sanders could have come up with something more than platitudes and screeching, "Break up the banks!" we might have had the basis for a discussion and he would be on his way to winning the primary.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
reddread
(6,896 posts)what difference does Citizens United make when Bernie Bros can raise enough to survive this primary, set records, and remain unentangled with overseas weapons deals and "donations"?
so the whole Citizens United thing IS vastly oversold,
and Hillary should be able to work with Superpacs to make our country great still.
Now if you want to argue that Ralph Nader rigged the system in 2000,
you might get a better reception.
but this is 2016, and we have implemented lots of voting reforms since then.
its their own fault if they cant jump through the hoops in a timely manner.
and if someone else changes their registration or wipes them from the rolls.
they have good reason for keeping voters honest.
suppression?
whiners.
so quit disparaging the greatest of Republics and its tradition of democracy.
get a job.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Politically:
1)The Electoral College distorts democracy by giving small(and at the same time almost always reactionary)states a disproportionate say in who gets elected president. The EC artificially pushes the system to the right and causes our politics to stagnate(as they have since the 1970's)by forcing people to choose between two and only two parties. It also nourishes regionalism(regional chauvinism, to be more exact), in a country where regional divisions have never produced anything but misery. The Electoral College should be either abolished, or made proportional by overall state vote.
2)The size of the U.S. House of Representatives(supposedly the "people's chamber" in Congress)has been capped at by law at 435 seats since 1929(The Reapportionment Act of 1929). In 1929, the U.S. population was 171,984,130. The U.S population is now over 321 million people. The artificial size limit means the chamber is no longer representative in any real sense, and means that some states have lost congressional representation even though their population size has remained the same or grown. In addition. the House is elected by the first-past-the-post system, rather than through a democratic method such as multiple-member districts, a method which would be much less vulnerable to the effects of gerrymandering.
3)State legislatures are given control over the drafting of not only congressional districts, but the districts state legislators are elected from. Party political control of reapportionment is why we have gerrymandering and have a least a dozen states(by my count)in which a party controls one or both houses of the legislature even though it lost in the popular vote to the other party).
4)While Bernie's campaign has created a new model for campaign fundraising, the complete lack of campaign spending limits and the
all-but-totally deregulated campaign funding system we have in this country still gives the 1% an effective veto over the political agenda and the range of candidates who are electable, in the vast majority of cases, above the level of local governments and state legislatures.
(Will discuss the economic rigging later. Anyone else who wants to jump in and offer examples on that is free to do so).
haikugal
(6,476 posts)vintx
(1,748 posts)Seriously WTF
All I can do at this point is laugh. I don't know if these people are paid trolls or just fucking clueless but fucking hell...
Renew Deal
(81,851 posts)So he is directly to blame. He can always come out later and state he lost fair and square.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They are about our inherently unjust economic system(a system the Clintons unquestioningly support in its current form)and the post-1980 Democratic party(a party in which everyone but the wealthy have been left out in the cold).
Whoever gets elected, only massive change can save us as a party and a country. Tiny increments(accompanied with cuts in services, more tax breaks for the rich, and more wars)can't do anything.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Time to push the mute button on your asinine horseshit. Bye bye!
Zynx
(21,328 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's the whole political and economic structure of this country...both of which desperately need to be radically democratized.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)That long predates Sanders.
Here's a present for you.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Raise huge amounts of money from a large base of ordinary people who make small donations. The implications of that are "yuuge" if you think what could be done if applied by the Democratic Party institutionally.
He'd also appoint judges to revoke Citizens United....and probably continue from there to push for more public funding, greater transparency etc.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)were elected.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)So big corporations love you and would care if you are unemployed, am I being correct? Capitalism is warm and fuzzy, eh?
You gotta be pretty naive or sheltered if you think that it is nothing more than a conspiracy theory.
uponit7771
(90,323 posts)
desmiller
(747 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)We need a radical democratization of the political and economic systems in this country.
And achieving that would only HELP the cause of feminism and antiracism...neither of which can achieve any significant victories by tinkering around the edges of the status quo.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)uponit7771
(90,323 posts)
KingFlorez
(12,689 posts)When you opt to not utilize retail politics, you lose.
Not really a people person, is he?
Compare the demeanor of the candidates in the pictures and you get the answer to why the primary worked out like it did.
reddread
(6,896 posts)ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And Bernie is one of the most approachable people you can find in politics. He's not a cold fish.
KingFlorez
(12,689 posts)Retail politics means that you get on the ground with the people and meet with them. You listen to them and actually take an interest. It's got nothing to do with schmoozing or having low principles.
The man opts to hold huge rallies over small and more intimate events with people, so he ain't approachable. Clinton went the retail route and kicked his ass all over the map. Maybe he can run in 2020 or 2024 or 2028 or 2032 or 2036 with a better strategy.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)And to some extent, it is not fixable. It's like trying to fix gravity so no one will every fall down. You can find ways to protect people from injury, make life safer, but you can't turn gravity off.
99Forever
(14,524 posts) 
dubyadiprecession
(5,702 posts)So now BS has the republican nominee sticking up for him.
Todays_Illusion
(1,209 posts)as a Democratic, as an independent or Green he would have significantly drawn down Democratic voter numbers.
laserhaas
(7,805 posts)
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)Watch Requiem The American Dream and try saying the system isnt rigged. Its not about race or gender. Its about wealth and power. I dont know why this is hard for people to understand.
