Bernie Sanders' Economic Inequality Town Hall Draws 1.7 Million Live Viewers

[JCanete]

267. We agree, post primary vote D, assuming its still worth believing in something.

But sadly, you've already decided that groups criticizing democrats and running candidates against them within those primaries are passes for you on tools of that accountability.

I do agree with you that it was a horrible miscalculation(or if we're being cynical, a power grab-take your pick but so far I'm leaning the former) for people like West and Nina Turner and Sarandon, etc. to support the green candidate over Clinton, but ONLY because pressure from the left got the democrats and Clinton to listen and respond to them. That was a foot in the door. That was something to hold our democrats feet to the fire on. If on the other hand the party and Clinton had shown no interest whatsoever in issues that are truly killing us, on issues that make all of the other issues that they do talk an okayyy game about totally intractable, then no, voting for the D over third party may not have been the right decision. If they'd said, we hear you loud and clear progressive left, now shut up and do your job, fuck no we shouldn't have voted for them.

But this really comes down to a question of, and probably a disagreement on, what ails us. I grant to you, Republicans can do in 1 year, let alone 4, damage at a catastrophic scale, some of which there's not even coming back from. I grant you that enough years straight of republicans in every branch of government and we can kiss anything like a democracy goodbye along with the planet.

But I'm just as certain that when democrats shy away from some of these root issues, PARTICULARLY money's influence on politics and in direct relationship to that, any policies that may rile big donors or potentially stoke fierce(r) financial opposition, this first, affects the quality of the fight the democrats bring and affects whether or not the American people think they are being championed by democrats, and second, doesn't help to define for people the real things that ail them. It keeps them obscured, and this makes them far more susceptible to a narrative with a villain, namely democrats and immigrants and people of color and LGBQT, etc., and we lose elections...not because of the hold-outs on the left. but because of a fairly muddled and confusing performance. This is what relegates us to minority party status. The problem with it is that it seems to me,(and boy do I hope I'm wrong), some of our democrats are quite comfortable operating from this place, where their hands are tied and they just HAVE to compromise with the GOP, oddly enough, always by giving away all their leverage.

I've got to say, when it comes to some of our elected democrats, I'm still feeling damn confused, but I think I'm starting to settle on rage. You just can't tell me that some of the things they do is in the name of anything good. You cannot tell me the banking deregulation has an upside. That is utterly inexcusable in today's climate, but its the same shit enough of our own have been doing for decades.

right now I'll take somebody who correctly diagnoses and promises to fight for the right cure. Then when that person fails to do what that person promised, at least that is a clear breach of social contract and we can start looking for a primary challenger.