When will a Hillary Operative show up on DU?

[BainsBane]

109. What I would like is to see people argue FOR something

or at least FOR someone. Thus far, the posts have been all about projecting the ills of capitalism and American politics onto Hillary Clinton. It is largely projection. Part of the problem is that we don't actually have any candidates yet, so we don't even see anything as rational as I prefer A because of x, y and z. I personally don't see why fantasy presidential elections need to go on years in advance of any actual elections but the fact is too many seem to care about nothing else. They rail against corporate media but advance a view of politics entirely shaped by that media. I wish people actually cared about something--some issue or cause--and argued about that. Instead, we see inane arguments about what people imagine Clinton or someone else to represent, notions that often times are not borne out by actual positions she has taken.

To say you want to move Clinton to the left doesn't say much to me because people have such different ideas of what that means. I see a lot of people here who I see as fairly conservative proclaim themselves to be "the left" and then insult anyone who disagrees with them as Third way. If people wanted to effect policy on a particular area, they could use this space to organize around that. But accusing people of being corporatist or claiming themselves more leftist doesn't amount to much of anything.

Then there is the fact that what you or I write here has exactly zero influence on Clinton or anyone else in the party. There does seem to be some influence on the membership here, who increasing aggregate around the group think, but you shouldn't imagine that it actually amounts to anything other than arguing with one another here.

So absent actual candidates or debates on issues, people project onto Clinton a set of notions consolidated through group think. It amounts to a whole lot of noise. It doesn't really matter what I think or say about it. It's going to go on, and the only potential impact will be to convince some of the members here that voting is pointless, or they will vote Third Party and a few may even vote Republican. I suspect the numbers aren't large enough to have an impact on the outcome of the election.