Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

should he have done more? you bet. everybody should have. the election seems to have been pretty close, if they made more of an effort to work w activist groups, to reach out to the more energizing elements, to actually visit all the states they wanted to win. it was pride that did them in, not empathy.

if Clinton had picked Sanders as a running mate and still lost, the party would've seen the loss as a repudiation of him and he'd be powerless.

it should have been ", *and*" instead of ",but" but doesn't make Bernie any less of a god-send imo

― flopson, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 2:02 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you see the second tweet transcript?

The point isn't that he's wrong, but that he's accepting the framework of this being about "identity politics vs. the actually important work of class" when that's the framework dividing these portions of the party. he's using identity politics as a scapegoat to get traction

if he was interested in incorporating identity politics as a critique he wouldn't be fighting them!

i didn't think we were doomed until this "and/but" argument

there is a complete absence of self-criticism from any of the partisans in the democratic world

everyone lost and nobody did anything wrong, it's incredible.

Politics aside, I'm not sure you could have a ticket with the combined age of 140.

Tbf to deej, the media has been interpreting sanders' comments as an attack on identity politcs, despite the more nuanced reality. To be real with deej he is a US senator not an ilx poster. He is saying he will fight Trump "tooth and nail" on any policy he proposes that is at all discriminatory or that will hurt minority communities. It seems crazy to me that he would be a special object of critique in a senate full of racists.

its hard to wrap your head around the fact that we had the most popular dem president in a long time and he left the party with jack fucking shit. he better get to work when he moves out of the white house.

Here, play with this: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/poll-obama-approval-rating-231789

sanders has a p shaky grasp on how to speak to the consituencies that make up the dem party of today. "identity" isn't going anywhere

meanwhile nikki haley and ben carson are going to be in the next cabinet so yeah diversity in itself isn't enough

President Barack Obama’s approval rating is at a seven-year high, according to a CNN/ORC national poll released Wednesday.

Obama enjoys a post-election approval rating of 57 percent, his highest mark since September 2009, when his approval rating sat at 58 percent.

The president also has a favorability rating of almost 60 percent, his highest since October 2009. Obama has a net favorability of +21 percent (59 percent favorable, 38 percent unfavorable), far outpacing Americans’ views of the Democratic (-15 percent) and Republican (-11 percent) parties.

Fifty-four percent have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, 9 percentage points higher than where it stood around this time last month. The 54 percent mark is the highest unfavorable opinion of the party since 1992.

Obama approval seems more about personality than party.

xp — As the stats above make obvious.

a pessimistic reading of obama's approvals just occurred to me. you know old saw about how politicians out of the game are remembered fondly? obama is, as far as the country is concerned, already gone. he's been a second carter for the last year. maybe.

there was no last minute push to, idk, close gitmo, or force merrick garland thru, or any other in-the-dirt political thing that might have looked 'in the arena'

will trump pardon a turkey next year y/n

meanwhile nikki haley and ben carson are going to be in the next cabinet so yeah diversity in itself isn't enough

― goole, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 2:35 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but literally no one on the left would argue it is ...

hes setting up a fake strawman democrat to fight against for no discernable reason

I think the reason is that he believes that in order to win elections you need to offer something for everyone. The republicans convince whites that they have divergent interests with minorities. Sanders thinks the party needs to break through this by showing whites that progressive policies help them too, and do this without giving an inch on their antiracist, pro lgbt, feminist etc convictions

ok ffs obv some ppl say prioritize one thing and some ppl say prioritize the other that's literally what the whole fucking argument is about + leftists who get more joy having the same argument over and over again than they do being in political power.

The point is there's a third way which is prioritize class in a way that doesn't set itself up as an enemy of identity politics, or doesn't see identity politics as an obstacle to your focus on class??

this is about how he's framing the problem in a way that aggravates rather than soothes their compatibility

Ben Carson accepts Department of Housing and Urban Development secretary nomination, spokesman says - WSJ https://t.co/kxbchvi3Gw

Wrong!

Ben Carson, one week ago:

Business manager and close friend Armstrong Williams said Carson won't join the incoming Trump administration and would only serve as an unofficial adviser...."Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency."

Ben Carson today, asked about his qualifications after being offered a position as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."

In other words, he has no qualifications at all. I suppose Trump finally found the one thing Carson wouldn't mind crippling.

mindboggling

Apparently there's a full-on Satanic Panic going on about Comet Ping Pong Pizza

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307404-jill-stein-to-file-for-recount-in-three-states

https://jillstein.nationbuilder.com/recount

so if jill stein asks for a recount is it just of the green party votes?

aren't economic and legal justice also essential to greater racial and social justice?

That's a terrific question. Why don't you go back in time to the 50s through the 70s and ask all the black and Latino men who were pushed aside by the labor unions that made a successful middle class possible? Or ask every minority ethnic group who was left out of the gains that occurred doing the boom of the 90s while still suffering all the shit of racism?

ben carson is a total joke obv, but is in all likelihood not appreciably more incopentent than alphonso jackson, the sec'y gwb appointed to hud

Apparently there's a full-on Satanic Panic going on about Comet Ping Pong Pizza

― (rocketcat) (kingfish), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:15 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's a pretty good article that makes it pretty clear it's *not* a legit satanic panic, just a full-blown harassment campaign. That jibes with my impressions - I've seen the stuff on the internet and it's pretty clear 99% of these people are trolls. Potentially both politically and homophobically motivated though -- the owner has some sort of connection to the Clintons and was once in a relationship with David Brock.

IDK, it seems like the law and law enforcement hasn't evolved to address this. I almost feel like you need a RICO-like deterrent but it's really difficult to figure out how to craft one that wouldn't rope in all kinds of relatively innocuous activity.

aren't economic and legal justice also essential to greater racial and social justice?

That's a terrific question. Why don't you go back in time to the 50s through the 70s and ask all the black and Latino men who were pushed aside by the labor unions that made a successful middle class possible? Or ask every minority ethnic group who was left out of the gains that occurred doing the boom of the 90s while still suffering all the shit of racism?

― and this section is called boner (Phil D.), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 4:40 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So...your answer is yes?

this is an amnesiac's answer

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."

Let's ensure people of all races remain poor and desperate and without adequate access to basic resources like health care in order to punish dead white union leaders who practiced discrimination half a century ago.

hoo boy

It will disproportionately hurt minorities anyway. The most inportant thing is to grandstand on their behalf.

who are you arguing with

Phil

Actually you're being a moron who is inadvertently championing a "how can the Democratic party prioritize the needs of white people" argument

this is an amnesiac's answer

"I know that I grew up in the inner city," Carson said. "And have spent a lot of time there. And have dealt with a lot of patients from that area. And recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities. And we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something."
― nomar, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 3:46 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"In closing, I know my name is Simon, and I like to do drawerings. God bless America"

If Sanders had said, "let's move our focus away from criminal justice reform, let's play down our support of affirmative action, let's winkingly pander to xenophobia like the right, or let's downplay racial and gender inequality," i'd vehemently denounce his statements. He wasn't saying that. He was saying that Clinton's virtue signalling wasn't enough. She should have ran a campaign that focused more on how her policies would help the voters she was trying to get to vote for her.

Treesh, buddy, you are misunderstanding my argument, which is that *prioritizing* the economic justice argument without also putting the social justice/minority rights arguments front and center tends to make all the gains accrue to white people.

IOW, reread my last post

So we're probably more in agreement than not. I think Sanders is being clumsy with his words, and I also thing Clinton did a lot more than virtue signalling, but nobody reported on it.

Trump will pardon a turkey over Snowden i'd say, so there's that

come around me with the phrase "virtue signalling" in your mouth and you're going to get pushed down some stairs

If we were in an alternate ALTERNATE universe, 2016 would be the timeframe where the human race would throw up its collective hands and yell, "you know, fuck this shit, let's build a Multivac and let it handle all the leadership appointment decisions we're too fractured, divided, and distractions to make now."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivac

so should I donate to a Jill Stein recount or not?

Maybe that term has a right wing valence i forget. My point was that at the end her loudest campaign message was "trump is unacceptable." More than enough for me to happily vote for her and make sure all my family members got to the polls. Not enough to win this election. Maybe it was because that many voters truly were bigots -- i think this is possible -- but i think it was also because these swing state voters didn't understand what she was offering and how they could benefit. I don't think she focused "too much" on race or gender, i think she lacked focus overall and her message didn't break through. Tie policies to people's day to day lives imo, whenever possible.

I didn't realize this before, mind you, and hindsight's 20/20. I just think democrats need to be serious and critical when they look at why so many voters preferred a serial liar, con artist and misogynist to them

I thought that "virtue signaling" was a term that started off being used by left-wing activists and then migrated to the right, but apparently it was coined either by someone at the Spectator or LessWrong blog, so I guess not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling#cite_note-Religious-4

though I'm sure that the first few times I encountered the phrase it was being used by social justice types as a synonym for "thirsty allies" or whatever

Idk i apologize to secretary clinton for using it. Still think her campaign - which at the time i thought was slaying - needs to be ruthlessly analyzed. I feel sick that people like jeff sessions are going to the white house now