As if the whole party were just sitting on their hands until Bernie and his revolution came to town

[bigtree]

Martha Jackovics ?@BeachPeanuts 2h2 hours ago
This. Bernie's rhetoric erases the accomplishments of the Dem party, POTUS while he wants to claim credit for it https://t.co/A7ZmutMKAv


___ As you can probably guess, most Democratic Party insiders were really hoping Bernie Sanders would formally drop out of the race this week and offer Hillary Clinton a fulsome endorsement. But they also recognize that he’s stopped attacking her, is promising to work against Donald Trump, and has basically accepted that the race is over — so if he wants to fade away slowly, they are happy to live with that.

The aspect of Sanders’s speech that really set them off last night was something entirely different. Not the fact that Sanders said he wanted his supporters to continue to influence the direction of the party but the specific way he characterized this direction:

"I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party so that it becomes a party of working people and young people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors: a party that has the courage to take on Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the fossil fuel industry and the other powerful special interests that dominate our political and economic life."

It’s incredibly frustrating for people who’ve been working in mainstream Democratic Party politics to hear their party described as something other than a party for "working people." Clinton won the votes of millions of working-class Americans, primarily people of color, throughout the 2016 primaries; and in the 2012, 2008, 2004, and 2000 election cycles there’s been a pronounced tendency for lower-income voters to back the Democratic candidate and higher-income ones to back the Republican...

It’s one thing to disagree with people about policy substance or political tactics. But something Sanders has done throughout his campaign and very pointedly did here is straightforwardly challenge the good faith of the vast majority of his colleagues in Democratic Party politics. It’s worked pretty well for him on the stump, but it doesn’t win you a lot of friends. And to be honest, it’s simply wrong — you can raise a lot of objections to Obama’s approach to Wall Street or climate change, but the fact is that the financial services industry and the fossil fuel industries have been fighting him every step of the way...

A lot of the people who’ve fought for those things agree with Sanders that they didn’t go far enough in important ways, or even that key people in the party didn’t push hard enough or strong enough for them. But a lot of Sanders’s rhetoric seems to simply erase these battles, as if the whole party were just sitting on its hands until Bernie and his political revolution came to town.


read: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/17/11962476/bernie-sanders-enrage-insiders?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

[HumanityExperiment]

1. FACTS.. game...set...match

This guy is a super delegate: Rajiv Fernando

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/clinton-donor-sensitive-intelligence-board/story?id=39710624

too bad they don't have a 'mic drop' emoji

[tonyt53]

2. When most of Sanders supporters have never followed politics, they fell for his lines.

The Democratic Party has been the party of working people. it ha snot stopped working for the same causes. Bernie has convinced his followers that the Party is working only for a certain few - news to most of us lifelong Democrats. Bernie has also convinced them evidently that by electing him president, that he can do all that he is talking about. Never mind the fact that it also will take at the very least a Democratic majority in the Senate. I am certain that his followers do not know better, but Bernie????

[geek tragedy]

3. the High Sparrow has little regard for these pesky things called 'accomplishments' nt

[LisaM]

4. This, this, so much this.

I am so tired of being attacked from the fricking left. I've been progressive my whole life. Just because I don't support Bernie Sanders does not mean I've given that up.

[greatauntoftriplets]

18. +1,000

[niyad]

5. k and r

[TwilightZone]

6. Well, many of his supporters are new to politics, so they may not have much understanding of

political history. To them, this is all new territory so Sanders seems like some kind of political (as opposed to spiritual) prophet.

That seems fairly evident with some of them. They're often the ones with the catchy soundbites, but little factual understanding behind them.

To those of us who've been around the block a time or two, we understand the current era's place in political history and how it compares contextually. It's hard to understand context if this election cycle is one's sole political experience.

[Android3.14]

7. A single phrase illustrates the stupidity of the party leadership

Last edited Fri Jun 17, 2016, 05:47 PM - Edit history (1)

"keeping your powder dry"

[LisaM]

8. Huh?

The OP makes a lot of very good points. Some of us are tired of being denigrated, and we should be.

[Android3.14]

13. My bad. I misread the opening paragraph

I've rewritten y post to reflect that.

Thanks for the heads-up.

[Triana]

9. If the Dem establishment doesn't like hearing their party described as...

..."something other than a party for "working people"" - maybe they ought to stop acting like "something other than a party for "working people""

You don't veer to the Right/Center, become a party that is primarily for (and purchased by) the wealthy and corporations, while calling yourself a party for "working people" - The Democratic Party can walk its talk or it IS going to get called out on its pretentious hypocrisy - something I used to say is the Hallmark of Republicans. But now...it's becoming the Hallmark of Democrats, too.

Poor babies - they gotz a sad because voters - led by Sanders - aren't buying their pretentious bullshit anymore about how they're for the "Middle class".

You know what? NO PARTY right now is for the middle class or the so-called 99%. We have Z E R O representation in the United States government. NO voice. NO control. Nothing.

And that is because the US government - Dems and Repubs have SOLD OUT. It's too damn bad that they don't like Bernie Sanders calling them out on it. If they don't like what they've become then they need to CHANGE IT and go back to being what Democrats are supposed to be. Otherwise....whether Bernie Sanders says it or his supporters and other voters do - it's going to get said, noticed, called out, AND ACTED UPON and in very effective ways in the future.

Because THAT IS WHAT REVOLUTION is. It's unfortunate that it's necessary. The Democrats can join in, or be left out and keep their Oligarchic form of gov't next Republicans. It's up to them. But if they're not going to WALK their TALK about being for "working people" then they do NOT get to whine when they're called out by Bernie or anyone else because they don't.

That game is OVER.

[PowerToThePeople]

10. Neoliberals are as much, if not more

an enemy to working people than Republicans.

They are the wolf in sheep's clothing.

WJC did more damage to working Americans than any President durring my lifetime.

[Triana]

11. Bingo.

We've been HAD.

[forjusticethunders]

14. So, I'm going to assume you're 8?

Bush was president 8 years ago.

[Demsrule86]

17. One word

Ginsberg and honestly you should really do your homework. President Clinton did a fine job...and we were all better off for his having been president...you GOP lovers giving Bush a pass ...why are you here even?

[Live and Learn]

19. +10,000 nt

[zappaman]

12. who?

[vintx]

15. Hell no they weren't sitting on their hands. They were busily compromising

before they even got to the negotiation table and otherwise ading the constant drift to the right which this party has been enjoying for decades.

Or at least the wealthy politicians and their pals have been enjoying it, as well as the deluded bourgeois middle class suckers who buy into their bullshit. The rest of us, not so much.

Not all of them, mind you - but enough to make the constant drift happen, and that's what matters.

[Live and Learn]

20. +10,000 nt

[Demsrule86]

16. This is what make me so mad

I have worked to elect Democrats and for liberal policies my entire life...GOTV...you name it. And now I get to hear Sanders and his condescending supporters sneer at what I have done...and pretend he invented liberal issues. And he doesn't care one bit about issues that matter to me Abortion and contraceptive rights, equal pay, LGBT and other social issues. It just infuriates me...he is not very likeable. No wonder he has no support in the Senate.