2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Party loyalty is a means of control. I vote for those who will represent me, period. [View all]BainsBane
(53,031 posts)I expect nothing else. Meanwhile, we have Sanders leading the great and noble struggle of the upper 20 percent vs. the 1 percent through proposals for a flat tax. http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/18/politics/bernie-sanders-payroll-tax-hike-family-leave/
This is his second tax proposal that benefits the upper-middle class.
Sanders is full of rhetoric but lacking substance. He makes one empty promise after another (I will overturn Citizens United as soon as I'm elected; I will pass a law for public financing of elections. Neither of which are within the purview of the president, and SCOTUS holds the power in regard to both. Then his outright BS insisting "I don't have a super pac," playing to the ignorance of the public on campaign finance. There are in fact Super Pacs for him as well as PACS he authorizes, while no candidate "has" or "takes money" from Super Pacs). I don't see that he offers anything, and in fact many of his views are outright conservative, not just those I mentioned in my OP (support for corporate welfare for the MIC, scapegoating the mentally ill, immunity for gun corporations, voting against the Brady Bill, voting for the Minutemen and blaming Mexican immigrants for youth unemployment) but now proposing flat taxes,which are regressive. Those are all steps backward.
Why the hell shouldn't employers pay for family leave? Why do the working poor have to pay for family leave and the education of the upper-middle class, when their own kids attend shit schools that don't prepare them for college? There is nothing socialist about Sanders, and one socialist group after another has denounced him. He is a populist, in the tradition of W J. Bryan and the Longs. That ain't socialist, and it ain't about the people.
I am NOT insinuating you look down on anyone. My point was about the oft repeated comments, not by you, of people who say black folks only support Clinton because they are uninformed or suffering from stockholm syndrome. The same people who declared Black Lives Matter a Koch conspiracy, who relentlessly harass black activists, or anyone who says anything critical of Sanders or shows any pleasantness toward Clinton. Some are people who call women w...es. and c...ts, or defend the use of those terms. That is who you have decided to ally yourself with. You don't like the company Clinton keeps. I don't like the company Sanders keeps. I'll take Clinton's company over them anyday.
It's not your vote in the primary I object to. I respect anyone's right to support any candidate they want, regardless of what I think of the candidate. But it's your statement you will not vote for Clinton in the context of a lecture against party unity, which clearly means the general election. In all likelihood, your choice will be between Clinton and Trump/Bush/Rubio, etc, one of those characters. Any suggestion that Clinton is anyway like them is wholly absurd.
Isn't this your first presidential election as a voter? Mine was 1980. I saw Ronald Reagan elected that year, when I voted for the conservative Democrat Jimmy Carter because he was the nominee. I only became a Democrat in 2001, however. Previously I had often voted for Democrats but also third party candidates (never Republicans). George W Bush dashed my adolescent notions that the two parties were anyway the same. After voting for Nader in Florida, in Palm Beach county on the butterfly ballot, I wised up. Now I'm supporting the Democratic Party because I don't want to go back to the fucking 19th century. Seriously. The difference between the two parties has never been greater in this country. History shows as much.