a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

Guys, political correctness is weakening America.

Which usually means "But how come black people can call each other that if we can't say it?!" but in this case also includes menstruation jokes older than the fucking pyramids.

Not even jokes, really, just idiotic sexist blathering.

Yes people are overly sensitive about things, except for the people complaining about it.

It's ok to be overly sensitive only if the thing you are sensitive about is other people being sensitive.

It's a rock-solid ideological position.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18279/scott-walker-is-an-american-dictator-in-waiting

“I find [ him ] more Nixonian than even Richard Nixon himself (the authoritarian leader with whom I was, and am, so very familiar,” wrote ex-Nixon White House Counsel John Dean in April 2012, on the eve of a special gubernatorial recall election Walker won. “To me, it is clear that Wisconsin has a double high authoritarian governor, a conservative without conscience.”

Today, three years later, Walker is parading around the campaign trail like an American dictator in waiting. He has a lengthy record on so many issues that reveal the same pattern: pick fights, launch sneak attacks, smear and scapegoat opponents, and then punish the defeated, according to Wisconsin media analysts. But he also has the personality of an aspiring American tyrant, as Dean noted. Walker may not be Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy’s ghost, but he certainly is heir to that anti-communist crusader’s hateful lineage.

“Democracy and democratic institutions do not function well with dogmatic, unbending authoritarian leaders,” Dean wrote. “Authoritarians are great as dictators, and even at times benevolent. They are often outstanding at running businesses, and when serving as high-ranking officers in the military, not to mention law enforcement. But they are failures as presidents and governors, and… dangerous to democracy.”

pick fights, launch sneak attacks, smear and scapegoat opponents, and then punish the defeated

...or as Charlie Sheen might express it: winning!

Walker and Cruz both have those churchy, eyebrows-perpetually-raised faces that look like the lids over endless pits of hell.

Walker definitely has the right 'feel' of an authoritarian-in-waiting - that Nixonian, McCarthyite whiff. I could picture him playing the malevolent politician from The Dead Zone. The hope is that America actually has no stomach for his ideas, and/or that if he tries to play "moderate" whoever runs against him can effectively point up the way that (as summarized in that article, which overall I think falls short of proving its claims) he's repeatedly brought in really brutal, unasked-for policies for which he did not have a mandate. What will be his surprise for America?

i can already see the eleventh-hour rezoning proposals pushed through to prohibit any building from rising high enough in the air to see the tops of the heads of the statues of our fearless leader

(xpost) My dream debate moment is where some politician, after describing in great detail how precariously the country teeters on the precipice of disaster, slams down his fist and screams "THE ICE...IS GONNA BREAK!"

these pleas for civility from the Ericksons of the world are really cute

Apparently Bernie's appearance in Seattle today got interrupted by BlackLivesMatter protesters, he gave them the mic and didn't end up giving a speech. (Personally I'm a little dubious about the protest given that the event was specifically to promote Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, rather than a campaign rally.)

I'm kind of unclear on what, exactly, the point of doing that is. Also calling his audience "white supremacist liberals" seems a little weird.

Twitter

the footage is uncomfortable. protesters on stage and screaming in his face.

http://www.kirotv.com/videos/news/raw-video-activists-disrupt-rally-featuring-sen/vDYQxq/

I like Bernie Sanders fine but like does his audience actually gain anything from hearing him speak? I think the protestors are making the right moves & white leftists should wake up to what they have to say

How will we know that white leftists have woken up to what they have to say? What would it look like?

what do any of these audiences gain by going to hear candidates speak? i mean i know some ppl are like 'i need to learn more about his views' like they're deliberative aficionados or something but isn't it basically just a little political-participation juice, an attempt to banish apathy w/ the proverbial press of flesh and jolt of the crowd?

if white leftists were woke there'd be nationwide marches in the streets, direct actions, galvanization around actual issues, etc.

Searching in vain for "Black Lives Matter Protesters Disrupt Hillary Clinton Event" headline.

Hillary has secret service on her detail, Bernie's security appears to be some Vermont guy in his 50's

Oh I didn't realize secret service stopped protests. Try harder.

It's very touchy for Sanders, he has to not do anything to avoid being shouted down, or he's going to be pilloried.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y153/struggin/200235916-008.jpg

COINTELPRO?

Toadies.

I like Bernie Sanders fine but like does his audience actually gain anything from hearing him speak?

Uh

For one thing is pretty idiotic of Bernie Sanders to participate in anything this weekend without giving space to BlackLivesMatter. Tomorrow, sunday, it's one year since the shooting of Michael Brown, apparently they hadn't even planned a moment of silence? And it had already happened once, at the grassroots conference, and he hasn't done anything to make sure it doesn't happen again?

It's rude, but the Sanders supporters I know - Danes - constantly speaks about grassroots and activism. And he can't figure out how to handle the single most significant leftist activist movement currently. They hate him, and they don't respect him at all. It's really damning.

does he have an electoral path that runs through denmark

thought he was just humblebraggin about knowing Claire

loooool

Fredrik: Sanders didn't organize the event this afternoon, it was to promote Social Security/Medicare, which have made a pretty undeniable positive impact on an awful lot of black lives, and are jeopardized by the prospect of someone like Jeb Bush (or worse) getting into the White House. I work in low-income housing, and we were encouraging our clients to go check it out because it's so vital to their lives. I don't have a problem with people disrupting campaign events to get their issues more awareness but I think it would have made more sense to allow this rally to continue uninterrupted. Not because it made sensitive white liberals mad but because the rally was for a worthy cause and it's kind of a shame that now no one's going to pay attention to what it was about in the first place.

I feel like I don't want to comment on whether or not the interruption was good or right or whatever, but you don't think presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders can demand a moment of silence for Michael Brown as requirement to participate in this kind of thing? That sounds weak. And exactly because Social Security/Medicare has been so important to black lives, and especially because the fight to dismantle it is so often based on racist feelings, it would make perfect sense. So whether or not what BlackLivesMatter did was smart or not, Sanders walked right into it.

Idk who the protest group was made up of but I don't think it was the core BLM organizers. Seeing some buzz that suggests they want to distinguish the people who led that action from their own work.

That is kinda what happens with grassroots often, right? They have weak leadership by design, more horizontal, so they splinter and the fringe is hard to control. It's just, that if Bernie Sanders want to seem as if he's the candidate for the grassroots - and again, I'm only basing this on fb-posts from my friend Clare Danes - then this is bad and stupid. There aren't a monolithic 'grassroots' dem party to fight against the establishment and Hilary. There's a bunch of different ones, and some of the most vocal feel completely overlooked by Sanders, and his followers.

Then again, this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/08/bernie-sanders-leaves-seattle-stage-after-event-disrupted-by-black-lives-matter-protesters/?tid=sm_tw 15.000 people turned up at second stop on saturday. But boy, that crowd looks white on that picture...
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CL7uwJkUAAAzS6l.jpg:large

He should do a BLM Town Hall and try to thread the class/identity politics needle, I guess. Doesn't seem like this issue is going away. I just don't understand why BLM doesn't focus on Hillary.

Hillary has secret service on her detail

yes, what i think we have here are either 'principled' chickenshits or secret Clintonians

Hilary's very first campaign speech was focused on criminal justice, iirc. And she's learning the talking points, and nobody expects her to do more than that. Sanders is presenting himself as the defender of the grassroots, but these specific grassroots hate him. This article points out what Marissa Johnson said on the stage: “I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is — with all of its progressives — but you’ve already done that for me. Thank you.” “Bernie says that he’s all about the people and about grassroots. The biggest grassroots movement in this country right now is Black Lives Matter,” "Bernie, you were confronted at NetRoots at by black women, you have yet to put out a criminal justice reform package like O’Malley did."

"these specific grassroots hate him"

really? I don't think anyone hates him. This seemed like opportunism to make a point; you can argue whether or not that was a good idea (I think it was misplaced) but to say that a large number of people in the BLM 'movement' (to the degree that there is an organized movement) "hate" Sanders is not true.

Here is the full statement from the two women, as posted on Facebook:

*****

Today BLM Seattle, with the support of other Black organizers and non-Black allies and accomplices, held Bernie Sanders publicly accountable for his lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and his blatantly silencing response to the ‪#‎SayHerName‬ ‪#‎IfIDieInPoliceCustody‬ action that took place at Netroots this year.

Bernie’s arrival in Seattle is largely significant in the context of the state of emergency Black lives are in locally as well as across America. The Seattle Police Department has been under federal consent decree for the last three years and has been continually plagued by use-of-force violations and racist scandals amongst their rank and file. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has refused to push any reform measures for police accountability, not even the numerous recommendations of his self-appointed Community Police Commission. The Seattle School District suspends Black students at a rate six times higher than their white counterparts, feeding Black children into the school-to-prison pipeline. King County has fought hard to push through a plan to build a $210 million new youth jail to imprison these children, amid intense community criticism and dissent. The Central District, a historically Black neighborhood in Seattle, has undergone rapid gentrification over the past few decades, with Black people being displaced from the only neighborhood that we could legally live in until just years ago. While white men profit off of the legalization of marijuana, our prisons are still filled with Black people who are over-incarcerated for drug offenses.

This city is filled with white progressives, which is why Bernie Sanders’ camp was obviously expecting a friendly and consenting audience for today’s campaign visit. The problem with Sanders’, and with white Seattle progressives in general, is that they are utterly and totally useless (when not outright harmful) in terms of the fight for Black lives. While we are drowning in their liberal rhetoric, we have yet to see them support Black grassroots movements or take on any measure of risk and responsibility for ending the tyranny of white supremacy in our country and in our city. This willful passivity while claiming solidarity with the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ movement in an effort to be relevant is over. White progressive Seattle and Bernie Sanders cannot call themselves liberals while they participate in the racist system that claims Black lives. Bernie Sanders will not continue to call himself a man of the people, while ignoring the plight of Black people. Presidential candidates will not win Black votes without putting out an explicit criminal justice reform package. As was said at the Netroots action, presidential candidates should expect to be shut down and confronted every step along the way of this presidential campaign. Black people are in a state of emergency. Lines have been drawn in the sand. You are either fighting continuously and measurably to protect Black life in America, or you are a part of the white supremacist system that we will tear down in the liberation of our people.

On this, nearly the one year anniversary of the ruthless murder of Mike Brown, we honor Black lives lost by doing the unthinkable, the unapologetic, and the unrespectable. Out of radical love for our Black brothers and sisters, we put our lives and our bodies on the line to testify to their persecution and resilience. We join together in Black love to #SayHerName and declare that #BlackLivesMatter, understanding that our love will disrupt the complicity and corruption of our anti-Black society; GOP, Democrat, and otherwise.

There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost. We will ensure this by any means necessary.

With the strength of our ancestors and for the future of our children,

Black Lives Matter Seattle Co-Founders

Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford

#BowDownBernie
#SayHerName
#IfIDieInPoliceCustody
‪#‎NotOneMoreDeportation‬
‪#‎FreePalestine‬
‪#‎MikeBrown‬
#BlackLivesMatter

#BowDownBernie?

#FreePalestine?

But that is a very very well written statement, imo.

not to be super cynical but it would surprise me if sanders'/whoever else's aloofness & lack of responsiveness to BLM is total blind oversight. i think there's probably a calculated resistance to seeming to explicitly affiliate w/issues that are considered divisive or which turn off an electorate apathetic regarding social justice issues & historically not super introspective. there is clumsiness - sanders insisting that economic inequality is the lens to the entirity of race relations in whichever interview it was felt really tone deaf, to me - but i feel like it is probably worse than that, & reflects the degree to which having conversations about race with everyone in america is considered a liability.

Not sure where the source is (maybe not published yet?):

https://mobile.twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/630407245017313280

ian bremmer
ian bremmer – Verified account ‏@ianbremmer

Post-Debate Poll (NBC)
Trump 23%
Cruz 13%
Carson 11%
Fiorina 8%
Rubio 8%
Bush 7%
Walker 7%

Trump, Cruz & Carson = 47%
#Wow

Sanders just hired a black woman as his PR person, so we'll if that changes things. she said as much, that it was unfair to look at things only thorugh the lens of economic inequality.

A perspective I agree with:

If the group engaging in civil disobedience is willingly granted the microphone at a managed event by the supposed oppressor, it’s nearly impossible for the disrupters to maintain the audience sympathy required to forgive the chaos and upset caused by the disruption itself. This is, of course, doubly true when the supposed oppressor is not an enemy but an ally within the tent. In order for an action of civil disobedience by an oppressed group to work, the oppressed group must actually remain oppressed in the context of the event. If they’re treated as equals with underdog outsider presidential candidates on stage, it simply looks like a circular firing squad of fractious activists rather than a civil rights movement speaking for the dispossessed without a voice. Once you have the stage and a microphone with a presidential candidate standing behind you (and you’re registered to vote!), it’s hard to gain sympathy for the claim that you don’t have a voice in the process.

From here.

people toss #FreePalestine in just about anywhere and i honestly dgi

/Hillary has secret service on her detail
/

yes, what i think we have here are either 'principled' chickenshits or secret Clintonians

my god morbs I'm just saying u can't hop onstage at a Clinton rally (have there even been any of these?) and usurp the mic bc the secret service will accost you. if you actually watch the footage of the BLM interruption of sanders he basically had the same security detail as a popular college athlete.