Summary: Bernie Sanders’ supporters have been modeling the five Elisabeth Kübler-Ross stages of grief as their candidate’s momentum begins to fade. Those five grief stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sanders supporters have been confronting the first two grief stages, denial and anger. The Sanders camp will soon divide into two factions. One, composed of reasonable people, will make their peace with Hillary Clinton as the nominee of the Democratic Party, accepting her primacy and working to get her elected. Senator Sanders himself appears to be a member of this group. The other group, the irreconcilables and the intransigents, will never reconcile themselves to Sec. Clinton as the nominee of the party, and so they will pitch a fit and migrate into the camp of that other insurgent candidate, Donald Trump. The Democratic Party would be well rid of them.
In the wake of recent East Coast Democratic primaries in which Hillary Clinton scored a number of substantial victories in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York, one can sense a certain shifting of the tide.
The insurgent, once-imagined-to-be-unstoppable, campaign of Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders seems to have encountered a metaphorical roadblock or two. The so-called path to nomination has materially eased for Sec. Clinton but has narrowed significantly for Bernard Sanders. It now appears, if not inevitable, certainly strongly likely that Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the nominee for president of the Democratic Party.
And as the tide begins to run in Sec. Clinton's favor, supporters of Senator Sanders find themselves modeling Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s well-recognized five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and ultimately, acceptance.
But right now, what we're seeing from the Sanders campaign is an almost perfect recapitulation of the first two stages of the grieving process.
First, we’ve seen a great many Sanders supporters engaging in vociferous, vehement denial both of Sec. Clinton’s electoral momentum, and in some extreme cases, of her essential legitimacy as a candidate.
For example, every time Bernard Sanders has been victorious in a small state caucus ---with a largely white electorate participating in a fundamentally undemocratic process--- Senator Sanders’s victory in such a caucus has been spun by his campaign as a game changer, as an event of earth shattering magnitude demonstrating his manifest entitlement to the Democratic nomination.
By contrast, when Sec. Clinton has won fair and square, supporters of Senator Sanders have come out in droves to attack Sec. Clinton and to assail the legitimacy of her electoral victories. When Sec. Clinton was victorious in the Arizona primary, the Sanders team and his supporters pitched a fit, claiming that Hillary Clinton had been personally responsible for an unprecedented campaign of voter suppression, going so far as to post a petition on change.org demanding a “do over” of the Arizona Democratic primary.
The same howls of dismay were heard in New York State when Hillary Clinton trounced the Senator there by double digits. Moreover, many supporters of Senator Sanders fell back on the risible “rotten borough” argument that because more acres had supported Senator Sanders, acreage should outweigh people in the election, and that thus, Bernie had “won” New York State.
According to the Sanders supporters, Hillary’s decisive victories in New York, Bronx, Kings, Queens, Richmond, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Onondaga, Monroe, and Erie Counties should not count because Bernie Sanders carried more land area.
The fact that Hillary carried the Five Boroughs of New York City and that to carry the Five Boroughs would itself alone be enough to carry the state seems not to have dawned on the angry diehard supporters of Bernard Sanders. It reflects a political truth that we have always understood in this country, even if the United Kingdom continued to seat acres, not people, in Parliament until “Rotten Boroughs” were abolished in the great electoral reforms of 1832.
In short, the fact that Hillary has been winning bigger primaries and amassing greater numbers of delegates then Sanders has become unacceptable to his diehard, intransigent supporters, who have been engaged in the unproductive enterprise of denying the legitimacy of Sec. Clinton’s victories in the loudest and most earsplitting way imaginable.
Of course, if the Sanders supporters are in deep denial about the way in which their candidate is starting to lose, they are also angry. Vein-poppingly, friendship-sunderingly, lawsuit-inducingly, apoplectically, angry. In fact, they’re so angry that they are now engaging in organized libel and slander, as well as organized efforts to silence Hillary supporters on social media.
All one has to do is look at social media to see the almost stupefying degree of anger being displayed by certain of those more intransigent supporters of Bernard Sanders. Now I think it’s probably fair to suggest that a majority of Sanders supporters will pass through all of the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief and finally accept that an imperfect friend, as Bill Maher has said, is light years better than a deadly enemy.
And when that happens, that reasonable portion of Sen. Sanders's supporters should be accepted into the ranks of Hillary Clinton supporters without anger or recrimination. We should remember the counsel of sometime Texas Agriculture Commissioner and longtime Democrat Jim Hightower, who observed that on primary election night there comes a time when supporters of the loser need to take the so-called midnight train over to the headquarters of the winner. On arrival, Hightower suggested, they need to engage in some fence-mending, have a helping (or two) of humble pie, and then they need to put their name on the volunteer list and work their hearts out for the nominee of the Party.
Several months ago, I suggested that no matter who the nominee of the Democratic Party turned out to be, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, neither candidate would have the luxury of conducting extensive background investigations and loyalty tests. The Democratic Party, I suggested, would need to take a leaf from Spain’s book. When Francisco Franco died in 1975, and Spain began her long journey back to democracy, Spanish society developed a so-called Pacto de Olvido, or “pact of forgetting.”
It was agreed among Spaniards at the time — and up to the present day as well — but who one had supported during the Franquista years was simply no longer be a legitimate or admissible subject of discussion. Spain, the consensus ran, could not afford the recrimination and backbiting attendant upon some sort of purge of Franco supporters now that the apparatus of falangism had been dismantled.
The Democratic Party, having been almost as badly fractured this year as Spain was during the Franquista years, should avail herself of a similar Pact of Forgetting. We cannot afford, nor should we embrace, a policy of vetting fellow Democrats on the basis of their support during the primary season.
Now, I know that this will not sit well with certain hyper-partisans on both sides the primary divide. I have served on numerous Democratic boards and committees that got themselves altogether caught up in trying to enforce pre-existing loyalties, in trying to determine who has been the truest believer for the longest time.
Indeed, when we see Bernie Sanders supporters attacking Hillary Clinton for having supported Barry Goldwater more than half a century ago, before she saw the light and came over from the Dark Side and opted to spend the rest of her career fighting for causes which any Democrat should be proud to fight, we know that we are dealing with True Believers of the most reckless sort.
These True Believers are the people who are the most angry right now. These True Believers are the people who want to bully Sec. Clinton and her supporters. These True Believers are the people who will engage in all manner of libel and slander, who will engage in orchestrated efforts to silence Hillary Clinton supporters, uncaring of the enemies they make. These True Believers are the people who blow a gasket if someone has the effrontery to say “I am voting blue, no matter who.”
And these “Truly Believing” Sanders irreconcilables should perhaps constitute an exception to the amnesty which I have suggested would be the better course of action. For the irreconcilables, by engaging in nihilistic, “burn-the-country-down” behavior have rather sacrificed any claim to our consideration.
Because, in truth, the irreconcilable faction among Sanders supporters, what we may call the Green Tea Party, bears a disturbing resemblance to that other insurgent candidate in the presidential race, Donald Trump. And if the Republican Party can find the hardihood to cast out The Donald and The Donald’s supporters, we should not fear to take a leaf from their book and do the same in our Party with the irreconcilable supporters of Bernard Sanders.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was wrong to suggest that all differences of opinion are irreconcilable, but Ilyich was right to suggest that the unity of the Party is something worth defending. Even among Democrats, we should be able to require a basic consensus as to who is entitled to be called a Democrat. Right now, I don’t see that the irreconcilable Sanders supporters have earned the right to be called Democrats.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Thursday, April 7, 2016
OVER THE EDGE INTO FASCISM: THE DESERT SUN'S EPIC SNIT OVER PALM SPRINGS' HIRING OF ROD PACHECO
Summary: The Desert Sun does it again. It opinion page this morning, Palm Springs’ Gannett newspaper editorialized at great length against the city’s decision to retain the services of former Riverside County DA Rod Pacheco to assist it in addressing so-called City Hall scandal with this Gannett publication was so instrumental in fabricating. In a tone of entitled anger, this Gannett publication throws an epic snit, complaining that its amour propre was offended because the City didn’t trust it with sensitive information it wasn’t entitled to at any rate. The Desert Sun’s arrogance in believing it has the right to police the City’s choice of counsel is breathtaking, and constitutes a misuse of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.
This Gannett publication’s editorial this morning, attacking the City of Palm Springs’ decision to retain the services of former Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco to assist it in addressing the so-called City Hall scandal which this Gannett publication was instrumental in fabricating, takes the Desert Sun out of the realms of being simply a Republican-leaning newspaper and send it squarely over the edge into the realms of fascism.
Because it is a fundamentally fascist tactic to seek to interfere with the relationship between counsel and the Council’s client, whether an individual or an entity. This Gannett publication cannot articulate a convincing reason for its lengthy editorial excoriating the city for having retained Rod Pacheco, and by implication, for having retained counsel at all.
Instead, this Gannett publication takes the position, in print, that Pacheco should not have been retained because the Desert Sun’s institutional feelings were hurt because it was supposedly lied to. Of course, this Gannett publication is not a federal or state investigator that possesses the right to demand responses under oath, nor can it bring charges against an entity or individual for making an “false or misleading statement.”
Moreover, this Gannett publications attempt to ride the coattails of the gay community is, quite frankly, risible, as is the theatrical indignation of certain members of the gay community who have rallied to the support of this Gannett publication because of Mr. Pacheco’s peripheral role in the Palm Springs Police Department’s breathtakingly ill-advised effort to conduct sex stings in the Warm Sands neighborhood approximately 6 years ago. One does not blame counsel for the misdoings of the Constable.
This Gannett publication’s institutional arrogance in regard to this matter is breathtaking to behold. Indeed, the entire editorial appears to be nothing more than this Gannett publication’s epic snit that the City of Palm Springs apparently didn’t consider this Gannett publication trustworthy, and certainly didn’t buy into this Gannett publication’s amazing sense of entitlement. Distilled to its essence, the editorial could be summed up as “how dare the City of Palm Springs not spill its guts to us on our demand?”
Indeed, it was that sense of entitlement, that sense that this Gannett publication, and presumably this Gannett publication alone, has the right to play kingmaker in the politics of Palm Springs that has led this publication to a series of enormities over the years that, had they been covering Donald Trump, would have gotten them sued many times over.
This Gannett publication swung its institutional weight behind then-Congresswoman Mary Bono in the 2010 congressional election. In a candidate debate, moderated by then Desert Sun editor Rick Green, Green acted as an unembarrassed and shameless cheerleader for Mary Bono. Bono’s opponent in that race was then-Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, whom the Desert Sun has been eager to frame as the corrupt “darling” of the local Democratic Party.
In short, this Gannett publication’s entire framing and narrative of the so-called City Hall scandal has been based upon 1) a presumption of guilt, 2)this Gannett publication’s entitled view of itself as lawmaker, judge, jury, and presumptive executioner, and 3) an ill-concealed desire to “punish” Mr. Pougnet for having had the effrontery to be Mary Bono’s Democratic challenger in the 2010 congressional election.
This Gannett publication has a long memory, and a well-established, well-recognized faculty of nursing grudges. So, when it appeared that Mr. Pougnet had made some potential ethical missteps, the knives were well and truly out over on North Gene Autry Trail.
What takes this Gannett publication’s editorial this morning of the realms of fascism is that it flies in the face of that guarantee of the right to counsel, and to counsel of one’s choice, that is the core of our system of ordered liberties. The choice of counsel is not this Gannett publication’s choice to make. Its attempt to arrogate to itself the right to decide whom the city will retain as counsel, and its attempt to police that choice in its editorial pages is a misuse of the First Amendment. Indeed, it may be an actionable tort.
For if the City allows itself to be buffaloed by this Gannett publication into un-retaining Mr. Pacheco, he, and the city, should file an immediate lawsuit against the Desert Sun for interference with prospective advantage, interference with existing contract, and any other theory of recovery that Mr. Pacheco and his colleagues consider appropriate under the circumstances. This Gannett publication should not be allowed to interfere, under color of the First Amendment, with the Sixth Amendment rights of the city and its employees.
It’s high time this Gannett publication was forcibly disabused of its entitled view of itself as political kingmaker in this Valley.
This Gannett publication’s editorial this morning, attacking the City of Palm Springs’ decision to retain the services of former Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco to assist it in addressing the so-called City Hall scandal which this Gannett publication was instrumental in fabricating, takes the Desert Sun out of the realms of being simply a Republican-leaning newspaper and send it squarely over the edge into the realms of fascism.
Because it is a fundamentally fascist tactic to seek to interfere with the relationship between counsel and the Council’s client, whether an individual or an entity. This Gannett publication cannot articulate a convincing reason for its lengthy editorial excoriating the city for having retained Rod Pacheco, and by implication, for having retained counsel at all.
Instead, this Gannett publication takes the position, in print, that Pacheco should not have been retained because the Desert Sun’s institutional feelings were hurt because it was supposedly lied to. Of course, this Gannett publication is not a federal or state investigator that possesses the right to demand responses under oath, nor can it bring charges against an entity or individual for making an “false or misleading statement.”
Moreover, this Gannett publications attempt to ride the coattails of the gay community is, quite frankly, risible, as is the theatrical indignation of certain members of the gay community who have rallied to the support of this Gannett publication because of Mr. Pacheco’s peripheral role in the Palm Springs Police Department’s breathtakingly ill-advised effort to conduct sex stings in the Warm Sands neighborhood approximately 6 years ago. One does not blame counsel for the misdoings of the Constable.
This Gannett publication’s institutional arrogance in regard to this matter is breathtaking to behold. Indeed, the entire editorial appears to be nothing more than this Gannett publication’s epic snit that the City of Palm Springs apparently didn’t consider this Gannett publication trustworthy, and certainly didn’t buy into this Gannett publication’s amazing sense of entitlement. Distilled to its essence, the editorial could be summed up as “how dare the City of Palm Springs not spill its guts to us on our demand?”
Indeed, it was that sense of entitlement, that sense that this Gannett publication, and presumably this Gannett publication alone, has the right to play kingmaker in the politics of Palm Springs that has led this publication to a series of enormities over the years that, had they been covering Donald Trump, would have gotten them sued many times over.
This Gannett publication swung its institutional weight behind then-Congresswoman Mary Bono in the 2010 congressional election. In a candidate debate, moderated by then Desert Sun editor Rick Green, Green acted as an unembarrassed and shameless cheerleader for Mary Bono. Bono’s opponent in that race was then-Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet, whom the Desert Sun has been eager to frame as the corrupt “darling” of the local Democratic Party.
In short, this Gannett publication’s entire framing and narrative of the so-called City Hall scandal has been based upon 1) a presumption of guilt, 2)this Gannett publication’s entitled view of itself as lawmaker, judge, jury, and presumptive executioner, and 3) an ill-concealed desire to “punish” Mr. Pougnet for having had the effrontery to be Mary Bono’s Democratic challenger in the 2010 congressional election.
This Gannett publication has a long memory, and a well-established, well-recognized faculty of nursing grudges. So, when it appeared that Mr. Pougnet had made some potential ethical missteps, the knives were well and truly out over on North Gene Autry Trail.
What takes this Gannett publication’s editorial this morning of the realms of fascism is that it flies in the face of that guarantee of the right to counsel, and to counsel of one’s choice, that is the core of our system of ordered liberties. The choice of counsel is not this Gannett publication’s choice to make. Its attempt to arrogate to itself the right to decide whom the city will retain as counsel, and its attempt to police that choice in its editorial pages is a misuse of the First Amendment. Indeed, it may be an actionable tort.
For if the City allows itself to be buffaloed by this Gannett publication into un-retaining Mr. Pacheco, he, and the city, should file an immediate lawsuit against the Desert Sun for interference with prospective advantage, interference with existing contract, and any other theory of recovery that Mr. Pacheco and his colleagues consider appropriate under the circumstances. This Gannett publication should not be allowed to interfere, under color of the First Amendment, with the Sixth Amendment rights of the city and its employees.
It’s high time this Gannett publication was forcibly disabused of its entitled view of itself as political kingmaker in this Valley.
Monday, March 28, 2016
BERNIE, I’M OUT OF LOVE WITH YOU
Summary: Bernard Sanders’s campaign for the presidency of the United States has become an abomination. It is not even overmatched by the profoundly ugly campaign of Donald Trump. The Senators supporters have demonstrated a combination of hatefulness, defensiveness, and wishful thinking that is offputting to an increasingly large number of American voters. There is an orchestrated effort among Sanders supporters to drive off of social media those who do not succumb to their blandishments or parrot their ridiculous views. I’m sorry, Bernie, but your supporters, and your failure to keep them under control, has caused me to disdain you, and to wish ill of your campaign.
Bernard Sanders’s campaign for the presidency of the United States has become an abomination, surrounded and supported as it is by a legion of assholes who make Donald Trump’s Legion of Assholes look tame.
It has become a commonplace in the United States that if you want to start a fight, say anything at all that any thin-skinned supporter of Bernard Sanders might find it even remotely offensive, and it will guarantee you a raft of nastiness, cyber bullying, and outrage from the unhinged legions of the Leninist loudmouth from Burlington. Indeed, it is becoming apparent that supporters of the Vermont Senator have been engaged in an orchestrated campaign to suppress the speech of anyone with whom they disagree. They have been assisted in this effort by such entities as Facebook, an organization for which I have little use, because its practices and its so-called community standards are nothing more than a vehicle for suppressing the speech of reasonable people, while facilitating treason, sedition, and all round nastiness among organizations and individuals whom Facebook deems worthy of not having their speech censored. I hate Facebook.
I’ve also, and more’s the pity, begun to entertain a real personal antipathy not only toward Sen. Sanders’s supporters, but also toward the senator himself. I had not wanted to be angry at Bernie. I had thought that he was a breath of fresh air in this election season. I had thought, and to some extent still think, that he was doing God’s work, as it were, to pull Hillary Clinton to the left, because, as some time Texas agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower has put it “there ain’t nothin’ in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.”
But as the Vermont Senator’s road to nomination has become steeper and narrower, as Hillary Clinton continues to maintain a solid delegate lead and to hold on to her status as a prohibitive front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination, both the senator and his supporters have become more strident, more prone to magical thinking, and more intolerant of any views or expressions that do not accord with their own, or which do not advance the cult of personality which is so evidently beginning to emerge from the Bernard Sanders campaign.
This phenomenon has been noted by numerous political commentators. It is been described, dissected, and held up to popular scrutiny. Is caused otherwise reasonable journalists like Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi to abandon even the pretense of critical thinking and enthusiastically to repeat discredited conspiracy theories and calumnies against Hillary Clinton that were dreamed up in the fever swamps of the Republican right. But God help you if you call Matt Taibbi on such things, or if you suggest that people like the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald might have potentially impure motivations.
Because if you do, the Sanders people will be after you like a savage horde of cannibals going after a missionary. They will abuse you in highly personal terms on social media, but if you complain to Facebook, Facebook, which is totally in the tank for Sanders, will take the side of your abusers and cast you into the outer darkness, banning you without any means of protesting the ban. Facebook, in short, has availed itself of the same kind of opaque mechanisms as did the apartheid regime in South Africa 30 years back. I had not thought possible that Mark Zuckerberg and P.W. Botha could be brothers under the skin, but apparently they are.
Consequently, I have fallen so completely out of love with Bernie Sanders that, while I will vote blue no matter who, I won’t give him one ounce of support beyond voting for him in the general election if he is the nominee. I will hold my nose hard and mark the ballot for him, but that’s it. But I will certainly work very hard to make sure that he is not the nominee of the Democratic Party. Because Bernie Sanders’s supporters have managed to rouse in me a spirit of revenge and anger, and in a lot of ways, that’s the best possible motivator. I will run, not walk, into Hillary Clinton’s embrace, and I will say to the Sanders supporters: fuck you, you did this. You did it for me, and you did it for countless others, too. You have been some of the best recruiters for Hillary that anyone could imagine. If for no other reason than her nomination to the presidency will give us enormous pleasure as we watch all of Sanders’s Legion of Assholes get well and truly put down.
Because it won’t be enough for me to unfriend Sanders supporters on Facebook, if I ever return to that place. It won’t be enough for me to snub Sanders supporters in public, and it won’t be enough for me to contribute what I can to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I want to see Sen. Sanders beaten and badly, because he can’t keep control of a group of thoroughly obnoxious people. They will know you by the company you keep and by the supporters you encourage, and Bernie has lost me because of his supporters. And my falling out with him is as poisonous as any falling out can be. You wouldn’t let me love you, Bernie. Because you wouldn’t let me love you, I can only disdain you.
-XXX-
Bernard Sanders’s campaign for the presidency of the United States has become an abomination, surrounded and supported as it is by a legion of assholes who make Donald Trump’s Legion of Assholes look tame.
It has become a commonplace in the United States that if you want to start a fight, say anything at all that any thin-skinned supporter of Bernard Sanders might find it even remotely offensive, and it will guarantee you a raft of nastiness, cyber bullying, and outrage from the unhinged legions of the Leninist loudmouth from Burlington. Indeed, it is becoming apparent that supporters of the Vermont Senator have been engaged in an orchestrated campaign to suppress the speech of anyone with whom they disagree. They have been assisted in this effort by such entities as Facebook, an organization for which I have little use, because its practices and its so-called community standards are nothing more than a vehicle for suppressing the speech of reasonable people, while facilitating treason, sedition, and all round nastiness among organizations and individuals whom Facebook deems worthy of not having their speech censored. I hate Facebook.
I’ve also, and more’s the pity, begun to entertain a real personal antipathy not only toward Sen. Sanders’s supporters, but also toward the senator himself. I had not wanted to be angry at Bernie. I had thought that he was a breath of fresh air in this election season. I had thought, and to some extent still think, that he was doing God’s work, as it were, to pull Hillary Clinton to the left, because, as some time Texas agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower has put it “there ain’t nothin’ in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.”
But as the Vermont Senator’s road to nomination has become steeper and narrower, as Hillary Clinton continues to maintain a solid delegate lead and to hold on to her status as a prohibitive front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination, both the senator and his supporters have become more strident, more prone to magical thinking, and more intolerant of any views or expressions that do not accord with their own, or which do not advance the cult of personality which is so evidently beginning to emerge from the Bernard Sanders campaign.
This phenomenon has been noted by numerous political commentators. It is been described, dissected, and held up to popular scrutiny. Is caused otherwise reasonable journalists like Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi to abandon even the pretense of critical thinking and enthusiastically to repeat discredited conspiracy theories and calumnies against Hillary Clinton that were dreamed up in the fever swamps of the Republican right. But God help you if you call Matt Taibbi on such things, or if you suggest that people like the Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald might have potentially impure motivations.
Because if you do, the Sanders people will be after you like a savage horde of cannibals going after a missionary. They will abuse you in highly personal terms on social media, but if you complain to Facebook, Facebook, which is totally in the tank for Sanders, will take the side of your abusers and cast you into the outer darkness, banning you without any means of protesting the ban. Facebook, in short, has availed itself of the same kind of opaque mechanisms as did the apartheid regime in South Africa 30 years back. I had not thought possible that Mark Zuckerberg and P.W. Botha could be brothers under the skin, but apparently they are.
Consequently, I have fallen so completely out of love with Bernie Sanders that, while I will vote blue no matter who, I won’t give him one ounce of support beyond voting for him in the general election if he is the nominee. I will hold my nose hard and mark the ballot for him, but that’s it. But I will certainly work very hard to make sure that he is not the nominee of the Democratic Party. Because Bernie Sanders’s supporters have managed to rouse in me a spirit of revenge and anger, and in a lot of ways, that’s the best possible motivator. I will run, not walk, into Hillary Clinton’s embrace, and I will say to the Sanders supporters: fuck you, you did this. You did it for me, and you did it for countless others, too. You have been some of the best recruiters for Hillary that anyone could imagine. If for no other reason than her nomination to the presidency will give us enormous pleasure as we watch all of Sanders’s Legion of Assholes get well and truly put down.
Because it won’t be enough for me to unfriend Sanders supporters on Facebook, if I ever return to that place. It won’t be enough for me to snub Sanders supporters in public, and it won’t be enough for me to contribute what I can to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. I want to see Sen. Sanders beaten and badly, because he can’t keep control of a group of thoroughly obnoxious people. They will know you by the company you keep and by the supporters you encourage, and Bernie has lost me because of his supporters. And my falling out with him is as poisonous as any falling out can be. You wouldn’t let me love you, Bernie. Because you wouldn’t let me love you, I can only disdain you.
-XXX-
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
BERNIE SANDERS AND THE UNDEMOCRATIC CAUCUS PROCESS
Summary: Bernie Sanders loves the caucus states. Most of them have been favorable to his bid and have provided him with delegates in his increasingly longshot candidacy for the Democratic nomination. Yet caucus states themselves conduct their primaries not only in a fundamentally undemocratic way, but in an anti-democratic way as well. The caucuses are designed to place a premium on the participation of the white, the well-off, and the well-connected. They also disincentivize the working poor and minorities, who can’t afford to make the investment of time and personal attendance necessary in a caucus state. The Sanders has done so well on the caucus states raises disturbing questions about the legitimacy of his outreach to poor white and minority voters. Perhaps it’s time for the convention rules and credentials committees to strap on their cojones and refuse to seat delegates from states that do not conduct an honest-to God-primary election.
As the Democratic primary campaign slouches toward Philadelphia, the numbers begin to look better for Hillary Clinton and worse for Bernie Sanders. Of course, a series of primaries in the so-called caucus states may help delay the inevitable for a short time, but they raise a question which should perhaps be answered before we repeat this process four years hence: why do we permit caucus states to hold their primaries that way?
With a few exceptions, the caucus states have leaned heavily toward Sen. Sanders, while the primary states have tended to lean toward Sec. Clinton. Yet, on balance, the caucus states that lean toward Sen. Sanders tend, again with a few exceptions, to be heavily white, non-diverse constituencies.
But what makes caucus states objectionable is not that they usually represent heavily white constituencies, as much as they are, as Markos Moulitsas noted today in The Hill, fundamentally undemocratic. The caucus mechanism itself requires personal participation in a rather lengthy process. The Iowa caucuses, for example, do not permit absentee voting, and they require personal attendance for several hours on what are often cold, snowy, winter evenings. Other state caucuses are similar. What they all share in common is that the caucuses all favor the white, the well-off, and the well-connected. Because it is the white, the well-off, and the well-connected who can afford to make the investment of time necessary to participate personally in a caucus. Latinos, African-Americans, and the white working poor don’t have that option.
If you’re working two or even three jobs, you can't afford to take a couple of hours off on a Tuesday night to attend a caucus. If you are disabled, you may have no means of attending a caucus. If you don’t have transportation, you may also have no means of participating in a caucus. In short, the in-person process of a political caucus advantages the advantaged, awarding them a premium position in the delegate selection process for their state. By contrast, a primary election allows for far broader participation in the delegate selection process. In California, for example, a primary election is one in which every registered Californian has the right to vote. Indeed, one need not take time out of one’s day; one may cast one’s ballot at an early voting location or vote by mail. It’s worth recalling, in fact, that when the Stonewall Democrats in West Hollywood ran their so-called Vote Naked campaign, encouraging registered voters to cast their ballots by mail, voter turnout in West Hollywood increased perceptibly.
In short, a primary election, as opposed to caucuses, encourages a larger, more democratic, voter turnout. It also has the advantage of being a secret ballot, obviating the risk that devoting the “wrong” way will expose one to potential retaliation, either domestically, socially, or in the workplace. By contrast, caucuses place a premium on personal, vocal, participation, with all the risks of adverse consequence that participation entails. No American should have to worry about suffering an adverse consequence because of his or her vote.
Unfortunately, many of the Sanders campaign’s most dedicated activists don’t believe any of this. Sanders does well in caucus states for one very simple reason. Most of his voters are white and most of the caucus states have significant white majorities in them. In short, Sanders does well where white privilege does well. In the same way that Donald Trump makes overt racial appeals, the Sanders campaign appeals to white, well-off, well-connected caucus voters. Worse, it pitches fits when Sec. Clinton does unexpectedly well. For months now, we’ve been hearing Sanders supporters repeatedly engaging in conspiracy theorizing about the Iowa caucuses. We have heard them engaging in similar theorizing about the Massachusetts primary, as well is about the results in Illinois, and now they are complaining because of the asswhipping she administered in Arizona.
This probably is the reason why Sanders activists love the caucus states, advantaging and rewarding as they do privileged white voters with enough time on their hands to spend hours in a caucus. The Sanders campaign isn’t as overtly racist as the Trump campaign; it just seeks the same result using dog whistle methods.
Since the Sanders people have complained about just about every Hillary Clinton victory out there, and have repeatedly demanded that the rules be changed in the middle of the game to advantage them, let turnabout be fair play: the rules committee and the credentials committee at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia should refuse to seat the delegates of caucus states, declaring that states which do not have a legitimate primary election cannot be heard.
That would make the Sanders people even crazier than many of them already are.
As the Democratic primary campaign slouches toward Philadelphia, the numbers begin to look better for Hillary Clinton and worse for Bernie Sanders. Of course, a series of primaries in the so-called caucus states may help delay the inevitable for a short time, but they raise a question which should perhaps be answered before we repeat this process four years hence: why do we permit caucus states to hold their primaries that way?
With a few exceptions, the caucus states have leaned heavily toward Sen. Sanders, while the primary states have tended to lean toward Sec. Clinton. Yet, on balance, the caucus states that lean toward Sen. Sanders tend, again with a few exceptions, to be heavily white, non-diverse constituencies.
But what makes caucus states objectionable is not that they usually represent heavily white constituencies, as much as they are, as Markos Moulitsas noted today in The Hill, fundamentally undemocratic. The caucus mechanism itself requires personal participation in a rather lengthy process. The Iowa caucuses, for example, do not permit absentee voting, and they require personal attendance for several hours on what are often cold, snowy, winter evenings. Other state caucuses are similar. What they all share in common is that the caucuses all favor the white, the well-off, and the well-connected. Because it is the white, the well-off, and the well-connected who can afford to make the investment of time necessary to participate personally in a caucus. Latinos, African-Americans, and the white working poor don’t have that option.
If you’re working two or even three jobs, you can't afford to take a couple of hours off on a Tuesday night to attend a caucus. If you are disabled, you may have no means of attending a caucus. If you don’t have transportation, you may also have no means of participating in a caucus. In short, the in-person process of a political caucus advantages the advantaged, awarding them a premium position in the delegate selection process for their state. By contrast, a primary election allows for far broader participation in the delegate selection process. In California, for example, a primary election is one in which every registered Californian has the right to vote. Indeed, one need not take time out of one’s day; one may cast one’s ballot at an early voting location or vote by mail. It’s worth recalling, in fact, that when the Stonewall Democrats in West Hollywood ran their so-called Vote Naked campaign, encouraging registered voters to cast their ballots by mail, voter turnout in West Hollywood increased perceptibly.
In short, a primary election, as opposed to caucuses, encourages a larger, more democratic, voter turnout. It also has the advantage of being a secret ballot, obviating the risk that devoting the “wrong” way will expose one to potential retaliation, either domestically, socially, or in the workplace. By contrast, caucuses place a premium on personal, vocal, participation, with all the risks of adverse consequence that participation entails. No American should have to worry about suffering an adverse consequence because of his or her vote.
Unfortunately, many of the Sanders campaign’s most dedicated activists don’t believe any of this. Sanders does well in caucus states for one very simple reason. Most of his voters are white and most of the caucus states have significant white majorities in them. In short, Sanders does well where white privilege does well. In the same way that Donald Trump makes overt racial appeals, the Sanders campaign appeals to white, well-off, well-connected caucus voters. Worse, it pitches fits when Sec. Clinton does unexpectedly well. For months now, we’ve been hearing Sanders supporters repeatedly engaging in conspiracy theorizing about the Iowa caucuses. We have heard them engaging in similar theorizing about the Massachusetts primary, as well is about the results in Illinois, and now they are complaining because of the asswhipping she administered in Arizona.
This probably is the reason why Sanders activists love the caucus states, advantaging and rewarding as they do privileged white voters with enough time on their hands to spend hours in a caucus. The Sanders campaign isn’t as overtly racist as the Trump campaign; it just seeks the same result using dog whistle methods.
Since the Sanders people have complained about just about every Hillary Clinton victory out there, and have repeatedly demanded that the rules be changed in the middle of the game to advantage them, let turnabout be fair play: the rules committee and the credentials committee at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia should refuse to seat the delegates of caucus states, declaring that states which do not have a legitimate primary election cannot be heard.
That would make the Sanders people even crazier than many of them already are.
Friday, March 4, 2016
THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF #FEELINGTHEBERN
Summary: Despite the efforts of certain Sanders supporters to spin to the contrary, what we’re witnessing with the Bernie Sanders campaign is a lot like John Anderson’s failed third-party campaign in 1980. Bernie's supporters, like Anderson's tend to be well educated, urban or college town liberals, generally speaking strong in the Northeast and weak in the South. But the elephant in Bernie’s living room, the one his acolytes would like us to ignore, is that his support base is overwhelmingly white. Bernie has not been structurally positioned to understand the dynamics of the African-American community, because it is largely nonexistent in the Green Mountain State. Because he has not had the opportunity that Hillary Clinton had, coming from a state with a substantial African-American population, Bernie, and his supporters, have been curiously ham-handed and tone deaf in making the case for his candidacy to the African-American community. Apparently, to #feeltheBern, you have to have experienced the unbearable whiteness of being. Bernie deserves better messengers. Much better messengers.
As the numbers continue to get crunched following Super Tuesday, we start to see a profile emerging for Bernie Sanders supporters. They’re either millennial, or they’re well-educated liberals living in largely liberal constituencies, or some combination of the above. His support comes much more out of college towns than out of farm towns, and what else we know about Bernard Sanders’s supporters is that they are overwhelmingly white.
We know that Sanders crumbles in primary states where large portions of the electorate are African-American. That’s not surprising. Anyone who was at all familiar with Bill and Hillary Clinton knows how close the relationship is between the Clintons and the African-American community. Before anyone had ever heard of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton was often referred to as “America’s first black president.” The explanation for that is simple. Bill Clinton, and by extension, Hillary Clinton, had an unerring, nay, preternatural, ability to reach out to the African-American community, to understand that communities fears, its hopes, in short, to know what made the African-American community tick.
Bernie Sanders, for all his appeal to liberal Democrats (full disclosure: I love what Bernie says; I love the way he says it; I’d like to see Bernie Sanders as Vice President to Hillary’s president; I think they’d be an unstoppable team, with Vice President Sanders holding President Clinton’s feet to the fire on the progressive issues that mean very much to us,) has not been able to close the sale with large sections of the African-American community. I think part of the problem that Bernie, quite bluntly, is that he has spent the last 30 years representing one of the whitest states in the union. Because he represents the overwhelmingly white Green Mountain State, he hasn’t had the opportunity that Hillary Clinton had in Arkansas of becoming acquainted with and sensitive to the concerns that animate the African-American community.
And because he hasn’t had those opportunities, he has made some unfortunate mistakes in his African-American community outreach. He hasn’t been able to command the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, and aside from a few endorsements from people like Cornel West, whose value as an endorser is open to grave question, he’s not demonstrated broad and deep African-American community support. Now, that’s not to say that he wouldn’t have much greater support if one of two things happened; either he gets the nomination of the Party, in which case I do believe the African-American community will rally to him in preference to Donald Trump, or he will, in the relatively short time remaining before other primaries take place, learn to make a case to the African-American community that is both cogent and convincing. The success of his campaign will depend on it, and on his ability to control his obstreperous followers.
For the thing that will militate strongly against Sanders being able to make a cogent and convincing case the African-American community is the condescending and dog whistle racist tone of a disturbingly large number of his supporters. Most Sanders supporters are white. That’s not an indictment, it’s a simple statement of fact. Most Sanders social media supporters are under the age of 30. That’s not a demographic calculated to be able to speak with any kind of empathy or authority to African-Americans. What’s worse, is that an astonishingly large number of Sanders supporters come from what can be charitably described as “white privileged” backgrounds. And when you read social media postings from such Sanders supporters, the white privilege oozes from every pixel. You don’t have to be a semiotician or a semanticist to be able to deconstruct the textual cues in the language of Sanders supporters. A law degree or graduate work in English will more than suffice.
The texts and comments from Sanders supporters not only breathe misogyny, they also conceal deep undercurrents of racial animus. When a millennial Sanders supporter takes to his keyboard and lambastes an African-American activist who has been working Democratic campaign since long before he was born, suggesting that she is too stupid to understand the dynamics of this campaign, or that she is a corporate shill, or that she is a sellout, we may wonder just where all that privileged white rage comes from.
And it would not be too great a leap of faith to infer, based on the texts we are seeing any evidence they represent, that Bernie Sanders, from no personal fault of his own, has managed to tap in to a kind of Trumpian racism of the left, in which the Other is defined as all those silly African-Americans who don’t know enough to #feeltheBern, presumably because they are foolish and easily deluded by the blandishments of Hillary Rodham Clinton. That kind of analysis is, let us shame the devil and tell the truth, racist. And it’s made worse because it’s racism that comes from within the Democratic Party.
We vaunt, and usually quite rightly, a sense of moral superiority over Republicans because after the great flip that occurred post-World War II, it was the Republicans who adopted the ideology and methodology of Jim Crow racism, while the Democrats repented of their sins, cast off the fetters of racism, and, beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, opened their arms to embrace the African-American community and, as a practical matter, the untapped political potential of the African-American vote, not only in the great industrial cities of the North and the Pacific coast, but also throughout the South as well.
Thus, when I see angry white supporters of Bernard Sanders speaking in the kind of coded phraseology of racism, sexism, and Othering that we have come to expect from Donald Trump and his supporters, I almost despair of my Party. I had thought that over 50 years, my Party had grown up; that like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, my Party had had its conversion experience, and that something like scales had fallen from its eyes, Acts 9:18, and that it had been given to us to see the light so that we might give ourselves over to the great task of making America whole again, building that more perfect union that our forebears envisaged in the preamble to the Constitution.
I despair of the atavism that I see coming from Senator Sanders’s supporters, who seem prepared to burn down the country rather than accept the possibility of having an imperfect friend in the White House, rather than a deadly enemy. I’m too old, and too damn ugly, to put up with absolute tests for absolute purity. Unfortunately, too many of Bernie’s supporters don’t seem to realize that that’s what they are demanding. Utopia will never be secured in a single day, no matter how much Bernie Sanders white, bright, millennial supporters may want it. And to the extent that they believe that they can attain utopia in a day, or make the revolution happen with a single election, they merely validate Mao Zedong’s dictum: too much study makes you stupid. It’s time for Sanders supporters to climb down off their high horse, drop the racist, sexist rhetoric, and get right with their millions of fellow Democrats. Bernie’s message is good and worthwhile, but Bernie deserves a lot better messengers.
As the numbers continue to get crunched following Super Tuesday, we start to see a profile emerging for Bernie Sanders supporters. They’re either millennial, or they’re well-educated liberals living in largely liberal constituencies, or some combination of the above. His support comes much more out of college towns than out of farm towns, and what else we know about Bernard Sanders’s supporters is that they are overwhelmingly white.
We know that Sanders crumbles in primary states where large portions of the electorate are African-American. That’s not surprising. Anyone who was at all familiar with Bill and Hillary Clinton knows how close the relationship is between the Clintons and the African-American community. Before anyone had ever heard of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton was often referred to as “America’s first black president.” The explanation for that is simple. Bill Clinton, and by extension, Hillary Clinton, had an unerring, nay, preternatural, ability to reach out to the African-American community, to understand that communities fears, its hopes, in short, to know what made the African-American community tick.
Bernie Sanders, for all his appeal to liberal Democrats (full disclosure: I love what Bernie says; I love the way he says it; I’d like to see Bernie Sanders as Vice President to Hillary’s president; I think they’d be an unstoppable team, with Vice President Sanders holding President Clinton’s feet to the fire on the progressive issues that mean very much to us,) has not been able to close the sale with large sections of the African-American community. I think part of the problem that Bernie, quite bluntly, is that he has spent the last 30 years representing one of the whitest states in the union. Because he represents the overwhelmingly white Green Mountain State, he hasn’t had the opportunity that Hillary Clinton had in Arkansas of becoming acquainted with and sensitive to the concerns that animate the African-American community.
And because he hasn’t had those opportunities, he has made some unfortunate mistakes in his African-American community outreach. He hasn’t been able to command the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, and aside from a few endorsements from people like Cornel West, whose value as an endorser is open to grave question, he’s not demonstrated broad and deep African-American community support. Now, that’s not to say that he wouldn’t have much greater support if one of two things happened; either he gets the nomination of the Party, in which case I do believe the African-American community will rally to him in preference to Donald Trump, or he will, in the relatively short time remaining before other primaries take place, learn to make a case to the African-American community that is both cogent and convincing. The success of his campaign will depend on it, and on his ability to control his obstreperous followers.
For the thing that will militate strongly against Sanders being able to make a cogent and convincing case the African-American community is the condescending and dog whistle racist tone of a disturbingly large number of his supporters. Most Sanders supporters are white. That’s not an indictment, it’s a simple statement of fact. Most Sanders social media supporters are under the age of 30. That’s not a demographic calculated to be able to speak with any kind of empathy or authority to African-Americans. What’s worse, is that an astonishingly large number of Sanders supporters come from what can be charitably described as “white privileged” backgrounds. And when you read social media postings from such Sanders supporters, the white privilege oozes from every pixel. You don’t have to be a semiotician or a semanticist to be able to deconstruct the textual cues in the language of Sanders supporters. A law degree or graduate work in English will more than suffice.
The texts and comments from Sanders supporters not only breathe misogyny, they also conceal deep undercurrents of racial animus. When a millennial Sanders supporter takes to his keyboard and lambastes an African-American activist who has been working Democratic campaign since long before he was born, suggesting that she is too stupid to understand the dynamics of this campaign, or that she is a corporate shill, or that she is a sellout, we may wonder just where all that privileged white rage comes from.
And it would not be too great a leap of faith to infer, based on the texts we are seeing any evidence they represent, that Bernie Sanders, from no personal fault of his own, has managed to tap in to a kind of Trumpian racism of the left, in which the Other is defined as all those silly African-Americans who don’t know enough to #feeltheBern, presumably because they are foolish and easily deluded by the blandishments of Hillary Rodham Clinton. That kind of analysis is, let us shame the devil and tell the truth, racist. And it’s made worse because it’s racism that comes from within the Democratic Party.
We vaunt, and usually quite rightly, a sense of moral superiority over Republicans because after the great flip that occurred post-World War II, it was the Republicans who adopted the ideology and methodology of Jim Crow racism, while the Democrats repented of their sins, cast off the fetters of racism, and, beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, opened their arms to embrace the African-American community and, as a practical matter, the untapped political potential of the African-American vote, not only in the great industrial cities of the North and the Pacific coast, but also throughout the South as well.
Thus, when I see angry white supporters of Bernard Sanders speaking in the kind of coded phraseology of racism, sexism, and Othering that we have come to expect from Donald Trump and his supporters, I almost despair of my Party. I had thought that over 50 years, my Party had grown up; that like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, my Party had had its conversion experience, and that something like scales had fallen from its eyes, Acts 9:18, and that it had been given to us to see the light so that we might give ourselves over to the great task of making America whole again, building that more perfect union that our forebears envisaged in the preamble to the Constitution.
I despair of the atavism that I see coming from Senator Sanders’s supporters, who seem prepared to burn down the country rather than accept the possibility of having an imperfect friend in the White House, rather than a deadly enemy. I’m too old, and too damn ugly, to put up with absolute tests for absolute purity. Unfortunately, too many of Bernie’s supporters don’t seem to realize that that’s what they are demanding. Utopia will never be secured in a single day, no matter how much Bernie Sanders white, bright, millennial supporters may want it. And to the extent that they believe that they can attain utopia in a day, or make the revolution happen with a single election, they merely validate Mao Zedong’s dictum: too much study makes you stupid. It’s time for Sanders supporters to climb down off their high horse, drop the racist, sexist rhetoric, and get right with their millions of fellow Democrats. Bernie’s message is good and worthwhile, but Bernie deserves a lot better messengers.
IS PARIS BERNING?
Summary: The elections of Super Tuesday demonstrated that Bernie Sanders’s momentum is not what it had been thought; the Vermont Senator may not be unstoppable, and his path to the nomination may have just gotten a lot narrower. What we’re seeing is Bernie Sanders own setback, like the setback of the Germans at the river Marne in 1914, when the unexpected resistance of the French and British armies jolted German hopes of a swift victory and brought France safely into 1915. As Bernie’s campaign begins to hit roadblocks, his supporters have become, not to put too fine a point on it, more frightened about the outcome and consequently more strident in their denunciations of Hillary Clinton. Their rhetoric has become nihilistic, and they now talk of defecting to Donald Trump, presumably because America doesn’t deserve their greatness. If Bernie Sanders can’t get his more unhinged adherents under control, he will drive people into Hillary’s camp, and the Sanders campaign will go glimmering.
The elections on Super Tuesday produced the results many prognosticators and political animals expected. Solid wins for Hillary Clinton in most of the South, together with a somewhat unexpected primary win for Bernard Sanders in Oklahoma and in states with caucuses. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening, however, was that Hillary Clinton took Massachusetts, a northeastern, heavily liberal state with an all-Democratic congressional delegation.
With super Tuesday now over, or as the British might put it “all over, bar the shouting,” the apparent momentum the senator had had after Mrs. Clinton’s equivocal win in the Iowa caucuses and the trouncement she suffered at Senator Sanders’s hands in New Hampshire, seems to have evaporated. Despite Senator Sanders’s efforts to put a happy face on the outcome of super Tuesday, the fact remains that his path to the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States has gotten significantly narrower in the last 72 hours.
If yesterday morning Senator Sanders had seemed unstoppable, today may represent for him his own Marne moment; in September, 1914, Germany’s seemingly unstoppable advance on Paris was stopped at the Marne River, when the hard-fought French Army and British Expeditionary Force rallied before Paris, attacked the German flank, saved Paris, and helped bring France safely into 1915. I would imagine this morning but the mood at Sanders headquarters is somewhat similar to that prevailing at OHL (Oberste Heeresleitung), or German army headquarters on the day following the battle of the Marne.
As it becomes depressingly clear to Sanders supporters that the path to victory has become less and less obtainable for their candidate, their mood and rhetoric have become increasingly nihilistic. We now hear so-called Bernie or Bust adherents openly declaring that they will either sit out the election in November or that they will cast a protest vote for Jill Stein, the perennial, unsuccessful Green Party candidate, or worse, they’ll vote for Donald Trump on the theory that somehow by having nominated Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party, and by extension, the country, will deserve whatever Trump inflicts upon us.
Let me now unapologetically go all Godwin: all this “Protest Vote for Trump” talk merits comparison with Adolf Hitler’s frenzied demands that occupied Paris be destroyed, rather than conceded to the free French and the other Allies when it became clear that Paris must truly be liberated from four years of Nazi occupation. I had not thought that it would be necessary to go all Godwin on Democratic candidates and their supporters.
But when I see supporters of Senator Sanders saying things like “if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, I’ll vote for Trump and what the country burn,” or “I’ll cast a vote for Jill Stein and accept four years of Donald Trump in the White House,” I’m reminded, far too forcefully to remain silent, of Hitler’s directive for the destruction of Paris. I’m reminded how he is reported to have wandered around his headquarters in East Prussia asking “brennt Paris?” Is Paris burning?
Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. All you have to do is look at just about any social media outlet or digital news source which even mentions Hillary Clinton. And that’s not even conservative sources. Left-wing sources are full of nihilistic rhetoric that appears to be intended to accomplish a number of things. First, it’s intended to rally the base, by putting as positive a spin as possible on Bernie’s poor performance in the South, and upon polling numbers which now suggest that not only would Secretary Clinton defeat Donald Trump, but also that she is opening up significant numerical leads in states which have yet to run their primary elections.
Second, there is a kind of child-throwing-a-temper-tantrum quality to all this, as if by stamping their feet and waving their arms and trotting out every discredited right-wing trope that has ever been deployed against Hillary Clinton, the Sanders campaign can somehow stave off the inevitable. Unfortunately, the angrier Sanders supporters get, the more they drive the undecideds into Hillary’s camp.
I warned about this months ago, in a post entitled “Bernie Sanders’ woman problem” in which I suggested that as the primary season developed further, Bernie’s supporters would do him a real disservice by pissing off women who would in their turn kiss off Bernie. It’s unfortunate that this seems to be the case. I was one of the early commenters on this phenomenon, but it’s become so pervasive that it has now received numerous instances of coverage in both digital and mainstream media.
Third, the nihilistic tone of Bernie’s supporters also indicates that a not insubstantial number of them are willing, in fact, to betray the Democratic Party and what it stands for because of sheer antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, and by extension, toward Hillary Clinton supporters. This troubles me deeply. Democrats, or at least left-wing Democrats, have apparently forgotten the virtues of loyalty and perseverance. By being willing to give the country into the hands of Donald Trump and his supporters, these “Bernie or bust” Democrats illustrate what political treason is all about.
Apparently, none of them understands, or they refuse to understand, the ramifications of Republican victory this November. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, the Sanders irreconcilables are ready to stab the Democratic Party in the back, while loudly proclaiming to all with ears to hear that they, themselves, alone, are truly principled Democrats, and that the rest of the party, those of us who are willing to fall in line loyally behind whoever is the nominee, including, by the way, Barack Obama, are “sellouts.”
For the life of me, I cannot understand why any self identified Democrat would call a president of his own party a “sellout.” That kind of disloyalty will ensure that Donald Trump is inaugurated president on January 20, 2017, unless loyal Democrats rally around the party’s candidate, who at this stage of the game, looks like Hillary Clinton.
The elections on Super Tuesday produced the results many prognosticators and political animals expected. Solid wins for Hillary Clinton in most of the South, together with a somewhat unexpected primary win for Bernard Sanders in Oklahoma and in states with caucuses. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening, however, was that Hillary Clinton took Massachusetts, a northeastern, heavily liberal state with an all-Democratic congressional delegation.
With super Tuesday now over, or as the British might put it “all over, bar the shouting,” the apparent momentum the senator had had after Mrs. Clinton’s equivocal win in the Iowa caucuses and the trouncement she suffered at Senator Sanders’s hands in New Hampshire, seems to have evaporated. Despite Senator Sanders’s efforts to put a happy face on the outcome of super Tuesday, the fact remains that his path to the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States has gotten significantly narrower in the last 72 hours.
If yesterday morning Senator Sanders had seemed unstoppable, today may represent for him his own Marne moment; in September, 1914, Germany’s seemingly unstoppable advance on Paris was stopped at the Marne River, when the hard-fought French Army and British Expeditionary Force rallied before Paris, attacked the German flank, saved Paris, and helped bring France safely into 1915. I would imagine this morning but the mood at Sanders headquarters is somewhat similar to that prevailing at OHL (Oberste Heeresleitung), or German army headquarters on the day following the battle of the Marne.
As it becomes depressingly clear to Sanders supporters that the path to victory has become less and less obtainable for their candidate, their mood and rhetoric have become increasingly nihilistic. We now hear so-called Bernie or Bust adherents openly declaring that they will either sit out the election in November or that they will cast a protest vote for Jill Stein, the perennial, unsuccessful Green Party candidate, or worse, they’ll vote for Donald Trump on the theory that somehow by having nominated Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party, and by extension, the country, will deserve whatever Trump inflicts upon us.
Let me now unapologetically go all Godwin: all this “Protest Vote for Trump” talk merits comparison with Adolf Hitler’s frenzied demands that occupied Paris be destroyed, rather than conceded to the free French and the other Allies when it became clear that Paris must truly be liberated from four years of Nazi occupation. I had not thought that it would be necessary to go all Godwin on Democratic candidates and their supporters.
But when I see supporters of Senator Sanders saying things like “if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, I’ll vote for Trump and what the country burn,” or “I’ll cast a vote for Jill Stein and accept four years of Donald Trump in the White House,” I’m reminded, far too forcefully to remain silent, of Hitler’s directive for the destruction of Paris. I’m reminded how he is reported to have wandered around his headquarters in East Prussia asking “brennt Paris?” Is Paris burning?
Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. All you have to do is look at just about any social media outlet or digital news source which even mentions Hillary Clinton. And that’s not even conservative sources. Left-wing sources are full of nihilistic rhetoric that appears to be intended to accomplish a number of things. First, it’s intended to rally the base, by putting as positive a spin as possible on Bernie’s poor performance in the South, and upon polling numbers which now suggest that not only would Secretary Clinton defeat Donald Trump, but also that she is opening up significant numerical leads in states which have yet to run their primary elections.
Second, there is a kind of child-throwing-a-temper-tantrum quality to all this, as if by stamping their feet and waving their arms and trotting out every discredited right-wing trope that has ever been deployed against Hillary Clinton, the Sanders campaign can somehow stave off the inevitable. Unfortunately, the angrier Sanders supporters get, the more they drive the undecideds into Hillary’s camp.
I warned about this months ago, in a post entitled “Bernie Sanders’ woman problem” in which I suggested that as the primary season developed further, Bernie’s supporters would do him a real disservice by pissing off women who would in their turn kiss off Bernie. It’s unfortunate that this seems to be the case. I was one of the early commenters on this phenomenon, but it’s become so pervasive that it has now received numerous instances of coverage in both digital and mainstream media.
Third, the nihilistic tone of Bernie’s supporters also indicates that a not insubstantial number of them are willing, in fact, to betray the Democratic Party and what it stands for because of sheer antipathy toward Hillary Clinton, and by extension, toward Hillary Clinton supporters. This troubles me deeply. Democrats, or at least left-wing Democrats, have apparently forgotten the virtues of loyalty and perseverance. By being willing to give the country into the hands of Donald Trump and his supporters, these “Bernie or bust” Democrats illustrate what political treason is all about.
Apparently, none of them understands, or they refuse to understand, the ramifications of Republican victory this November. No matter how hard you try to reason with them, the Sanders irreconcilables are ready to stab the Democratic Party in the back, while loudly proclaiming to all with ears to hear that they, themselves, alone, are truly principled Democrats, and that the rest of the party, those of us who are willing to fall in line loyally behind whoever is the nominee, including, by the way, Barack Obama, are “sellouts.”
For the life of me, I cannot understand why any self identified Democrat would call a president of his own party a “sellout.” That kind of disloyalty will ensure that Donald Trump is inaugurated president on January 20, 2017, unless loyal Democrats rally around the party’s candidate, who at this stage of the game, looks like Hillary Clinton.
Saturday, January 30, 2016
WILL BERNIE SANDERS BE UNDONE BY HIS SUPPORTERS?
Summary: It has become a virtual commonplace that Bernie Sanders’s supporters are some of the most enthusiastic campaign supporters any candidate has had in recent years. It’s also become a virtual commonplace that his supporters are some of the most belligerent, sexist, patronizing, and unoriginal campaign supporters in recent years. The Vermont senator’s supporters, most of whom appear to be young, white, male, and well-educated, don’t seem to have the self-awareness to realize that their lack of self-awareness with respect to their white male privilege, and even more, with respect to their educational privilege, is profoundly offputting to an increasingly large number of the electorate, a phenomenon that has been noted with increasing concern by an increasing number of mainstream and digital media outlets. Bernie, if anything undoes you, it will be in the intensity of your supporters. I love ya, Bern. But I’m ready for Hillary.
Back in June, so long ago now that it is almost ancient history, I posted an article in this blog entitled “Bernie Sanders’ Woman Problem.” In it, I suggested that Bernie was being ill-served by his more vocal supporters. Since then, articles suggesting the same thing have appeared in numerous mainstream and digital media outlets. All of them suggest the same thing; Bernie Sanders supporters are making it impossible to support their candidate.
Now let us be candid, and acknowledge that this Democratic primary season is very much like that of 2008. We Democrats have a supremely talented field from which to pick our nominee for the general election. Every single Democratic debate has been characterized by adult, mature discussion about policy, and every one has had the air of an intellectual conversation, among adult people, of a search to develop good policies and practices.
By contrast, of course, the Republican debates have been exercises in the coarsest demagoguery conceivable, of an insult to the intelligence a large part of the American people. Pandering to fear, invoking militant Nonconformist religion, and astonishingly light on actual policy, the Republican debates have been high school shouting matches. Between narcissistic expositions from Donald Trump, to Marco Rubio’s breathless mile a minute shouting, to Ted Cruz’s almost spot on imitation of discredited Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, to the disgusting anti-choice lies peddled by disgraced HP executive Carly Fiorina, the Republican debates have demonstrated everything that is wrong with the GOP.
But if the Republican debates tell us a great deal about what is wrong with the GOP, and the Democratic debates have been, essentially, a vade mecum on how adult conversations about policy should happen, the Democratic debates have nevertheless let us down because the performance of the supporters of Senator Bernard Sanders.
It’s understandable that a candidate’s supporters will try to be zealous advocates for their candidate. However, the phenomenon that has emerged from the Sanders campaign is both disturbing and offputting. It has been noted over and over again that the comment thread of any article that mentions Hillary Clinton will be swarmed by Sanders supporters, usually young, white, well-educated men, determined to try to deflect any positive attention to the quondam Secretary of State. Their talking points are almost universally the same, and many of them sound as if they came directly from the opps research operation of the Republican National Committee.
What is worse, the usually tend to be misogynistic and sexist, entitled and patronizing, particularly when responding to commenters who do not necessarily share the same view. They share a disturbing degree of white male privilege, and an equally disturbing lack of self-awareness. Just a couple of examples will make the point.
First, many of the comments condemn Hillary Clinton for her husband’s legislative record. Yet, in the 21st century, we ought to insist that a woman, particularly woman seeking the presidency, be afforded the simple courtesy of conceding that she might have some agency. To blame Hillary for legislation passed on her husband’s watch is, as I suggested in my previous post on the subject, fundamentally antifeminist. It denies Hillary her own agency, and implicitly postulates that she has no identity separate from her husband. In the 21st century, such a posture ought to have no place, and for Bernie Sanders’s supporters to trot out such a rhetorical tactic is simply inadmissible.
Second, many Sanders supporters have attacked Hillary Clinton because, at the age of 17, more than 50 years ago, she volunteered for Barry Goldwater’s ill-fated 1964 Republican campaign. Yet, people evolve and change. To hold her participation in the long-ago and unsuccessful Goldwater campaign against her half a century later is the kind of totalitarian nonsense up with which no American should put. One can insist, with all the irritating entitlement commonly associated with the undergraduate left, on ironclad consistency and fidelity to so-called principle, but one can also insist, like King Canute’s courtiers, that the tides should not roll if the king commands it not roll. Most adult Americans have evolved on issues over their adult lives.
Case in point, how many straight Americans support marriage equality today who just five or 10 years ago would have found the prospect of Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David tying the knot and enjoying wedded bliss together offputting and unacceptable? Indeed, when I myself graduated from law school in 1989, neither my parents nor I were “ready” for marriage equality. Now, 26 years later, with marriage equality a reality in every American jurisdiction, my mother wonders when this gay man is going to settle down with a husband. Marriage equality implies marriage evolution, and the criticisms of Hillary that she has not been sufficiently militant on the subject are, quite frankly, a bunch of bunk.
Because, in truth, there has to be a statute of limitations beyond which volunteer work for Barry Goldwater or opposition to marriage equality is simply no longer fair game. The Spanish, in their wisdom, has made a pact of forgetting, El pacto de olvido, with respect to the awful events of the Spanish Civil War; where one stood or who one fought for in that conflict, or what one’s political views may have been during the conflict, is simply not a subject of discussion. Yet Sanders supporters love to hold grudges, and love to nurture aggrieved memories about what Hillary Clinton did or did not do long years ago. Again, this is the sort of nonsense up with which most reasonable Americans will not put.
The final point is this. Simply put, Bernie Sanders has not been well served by people professing to be his supporters. Some of them, I am sure, are Republican trolls, infiltrating among us to cause division and anger. But a larger proportion of them, I expect, are the kind of foolish knee-jerk liberals who do damage to every Democratic campaign conceivable with their ridiculous purism and unwillingness to face pragmatic fact. And because they all claim to be authentic supporters of Bernie Sanders, it is one of the infelicities of Bernie’s condition that insofar as this is the case, we take them at their word.
And because I love Bernie and loathe his over-the-top, patronizing, divisive supporters, as well as because I think Hillary Clinton is the better candidate, I will be casting my vote enthusiastically for Hillary Clinton should I have the opportunity to do so in the absurdly late June California primary election. Not because I dislike Bernie Sanders personally, but because I find his supporters troubling. Because when one elects a candidate, one elects many of his supporters as well, supporters who will be occupying patronage positions in a Sanders administration. Because I can’t trust Bernie’s supporters, and because I don’t want to see vindictive, patronizing, sexist loudmouths in any position of authority or responsibility, I support Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I will work in her campaign.
Of course, should Sanders be the nominee, I will support him and work in his campaign as well, although I would not be surprised to see some vindictive, score settling Berniebot do his or her level best to keep me far away from the campaign.
Because, in the end, it’s always the supporters who ruin things. It’s always those who want to out-Herod Herod who do the greatest damage to their candidate and their cause. It’s a pity Sen. Sanders has only recently begun to learn this lesson.
Back in June, so long ago now that it is almost ancient history, I posted an article in this blog entitled “Bernie Sanders’ Woman Problem.” In it, I suggested that Bernie was being ill-served by his more vocal supporters. Since then, articles suggesting the same thing have appeared in numerous mainstream and digital media outlets. All of them suggest the same thing; Bernie Sanders supporters are making it impossible to support their candidate.
Now let us be candid, and acknowledge that this Democratic primary season is very much like that of 2008. We Democrats have a supremely talented field from which to pick our nominee for the general election. Every single Democratic debate has been characterized by adult, mature discussion about policy, and every one has had the air of an intellectual conversation, among adult people, of a search to develop good policies and practices.
By contrast, of course, the Republican debates have been exercises in the coarsest demagoguery conceivable, of an insult to the intelligence a large part of the American people. Pandering to fear, invoking militant Nonconformist religion, and astonishingly light on actual policy, the Republican debates have been high school shouting matches. Between narcissistic expositions from Donald Trump, to Marco Rubio’s breathless mile a minute shouting, to Ted Cruz’s almost spot on imitation of discredited Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, to the disgusting anti-choice lies peddled by disgraced HP executive Carly Fiorina, the Republican debates have demonstrated everything that is wrong with the GOP.
But if the Republican debates tell us a great deal about what is wrong with the GOP, and the Democratic debates have been, essentially, a vade mecum on how adult conversations about policy should happen, the Democratic debates have nevertheless let us down because the performance of the supporters of Senator Bernard Sanders.
It’s understandable that a candidate’s supporters will try to be zealous advocates for their candidate. However, the phenomenon that has emerged from the Sanders campaign is both disturbing and offputting. It has been noted over and over again that the comment thread of any article that mentions Hillary Clinton will be swarmed by Sanders supporters, usually young, white, well-educated men, determined to try to deflect any positive attention to the quondam Secretary of State. Their talking points are almost universally the same, and many of them sound as if they came directly from the opps research operation of the Republican National Committee.
What is worse, the usually tend to be misogynistic and sexist, entitled and patronizing, particularly when responding to commenters who do not necessarily share the same view. They share a disturbing degree of white male privilege, and an equally disturbing lack of self-awareness. Just a couple of examples will make the point.
First, many of the comments condemn Hillary Clinton for her husband’s legislative record. Yet, in the 21st century, we ought to insist that a woman, particularly woman seeking the presidency, be afforded the simple courtesy of conceding that she might have some agency. To blame Hillary for legislation passed on her husband’s watch is, as I suggested in my previous post on the subject, fundamentally antifeminist. It denies Hillary her own agency, and implicitly postulates that she has no identity separate from her husband. In the 21st century, such a posture ought to have no place, and for Bernie Sanders’s supporters to trot out such a rhetorical tactic is simply inadmissible.
Second, many Sanders supporters have attacked Hillary Clinton because, at the age of 17, more than 50 years ago, she volunteered for Barry Goldwater’s ill-fated 1964 Republican campaign. Yet, people evolve and change. To hold her participation in the long-ago and unsuccessful Goldwater campaign against her half a century later is the kind of totalitarian nonsense up with which no American should put. One can insist, with all the irritating entitlement commonly associated with the undergraduate left, on ironclad consistency and fidelity to so-called principle, but one can also insist, like King Canute’s courtiers, that the tides should not roll if the king commands it not roll. Most adult Americans have evolved on issues over their adult lives.
Case in point, how many straight Americans support marriage equality today who just five or 10 years ago would have found the prospect of Ruth and Naomi or Jonathan and David tying the knot and enjoying wedded bliss together offputting and unacceptable? Indeed, when I myself graduated from law school in 1989, neither my parents nor I were “ready” for marriage equality. Now, 26 years later, with marriage equality a reality in every American jurisdiction, my mother wonders when this gay man is going to settle down with a husband. Marriage equality implies marriage evolution, and the criticisms of Hillary that she has not been sufficiently militant on the subject are, quite frankly, a bunch of bunk.
Because, in truth, there has to be a statute of limitations beyond which volunteer work for Barry Goldwater or opposition to marriage equality is simply no longer fair game. The Spanish, in their wisdom, has made a pact of forgetting, El pacto de olvido, with respect to the awful events of the Spanish Civil War; where one stood or who one fought for in that conflict, or what one’s political views may have been during the conflict, is simply not a subject of discussion. Yet Sanders supporters love to hold grudges, and love to nurture aggrieved memories about what Hillary Clinton did or did not do long years ago. Again, this is the sort of nonsense up with which most reasonable Americans will not put.
The final point is this. Simply put, Bernie Sanders has not been well served by people professing to be his supporters. Some of them, I am sure, are Republican trolls, infiltrating among us to cause division and anger. But a larger proportion of them, I expect, are the kind of foolish knee-jerk liberals who do damage to every Democratic campaign conceivable with their ridiculous purism and unwillingness to face pragmatic fact. And because they all claim to be authentic supporters of Bernie Sanders, it is one of the infelicities of Bernie’s condition that insofar as this is the case, we take them at their word.
And because I love Bernie and loathe his over-the-top, patronizing, divisive supporters, as well as because I think Hillary Clinton is the better candidate, I will be casting my vote enthusiastically for Hillary Clinton should I have the opportunity to do so in the absurdly late June California primary election. Not because I dislike Bernie Sanders personally, but because I find his supporters troubling. Because when one elects a candidate, one elects many of his supporters as well, supporters who will be occupying patronage positions in a Sanders administration. Because I can’t trust Bernie’s supporters, and because I don’t want to see vindictive, patronizing, sexist loudmouths in any position of authority or responsibility, I support Hillary Rodham Clinton, and I will work in her campaign.
Of course, should Sanders be the nominee, I will support him and work in his campaign as well, although I would not be surprised to see some vindictive, score settling Berniebot do his or her level best to keep me far away from the campaign.
Because, in the end, it’s always the supporters who ruin things. It’s always those who want to out-Herod Herod who do the greatest damage to their candidate and their cause. It’s a pity Sen. Sanders has only recently begun to learn this lesson.
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