Democratic (Party) Direction

No, milo, my husband just doesn't believe the stated critiques. He imagines the true motivation is essentially about courting white votes. I cite his view not because I agree with it, it just suggests to me the unfortunate distrust within the left.

I wouldn't call that distrust within the left, that's distrust of the left - and something that can't be countered. It's an unfortunate narrative, we even see how it's spread here, because it leaves the left unable to defend itself - no matter how much evidence there is that left voters are more progressive on everything identity politics is actually about, you get accused of arguing in bad faith or that the only reason a centrist is getting criticized is racism/etc.. The people who rend their garments over the WWC aren't going to DSA meetings, they're asshole blue dogs like Jim Webb.

It's poor messaging on the left's part, too - when someone talks about broadening the appeal, it's really about the belief on the left that doing so means getting the 40% of Alabama that doesn't bother to vote. You can argue about whether that 40% is going to break the way they want via appeals to social democracy, but more non-voters are in fundamentally Democratic constituencies than Republican.

The popular vote and $2 will get you a 20oz Coke.

And won the popular vote anyway! A miracle.

― El Tomboto, Sunday, August 6, 2017 9:09 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow she must be really popular!

The anxiety from the center/Dem establishment, is that if a moderate candidate gets nominated (which is a real possibility), that not enough voters from the left will show up and Trump or some other horrible republican will win. I think there are plenty of moderate Dems who would be completely fine if a Sanders or similar candidate won, and they'd line up to vote for him, just like moderate republicans were happy to vote for Trump. Sadly, the opposite seems less likely.

I dunno, seems more like the center/Dem establishment still haven't figured out that there are no good Republicans and still harbor some suspicion that they can build a winning strategy out of finally locating those "two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia."

The stance is in place that any criticism or rebellion ala 2016 is basically treason and that if you don't want second-term Trump you'd better vote for whomever you're told to.

"This is just as likely to be a symptom rather than the cause - social media was full of vocal criticism of Clinton because she as a candidate and a campaigner turned a lot of people off."

I'd like to think the next candidate will be more likeable and less susceptible to misleading narratives I depressingly saw non-right wingers spread ("Hillary laughs at rape victim", false narratives that contextless emails can be easily framed perpetuate) but seeing the way people are still
effectively cynically played to wrt click bait-y stories about Democrats every week indicates something deeper is going on with how information is consumed.

People on the left with large followings like David Sirota telling his followers that Democrats were wrong to not vote for GOP's fake single payer amendment ploy a couple weeks ago can conjure up all of this misinformed outrage despite the fact that Bernie gave a speech about why the GOP amendment was a sham.

I do agree the left is providing a very overdue counter to the annoyingly persistent illusion of "honorable republicans". Although it's interesting that this manifested itself in anger at Dems for applauding McCain's return to the Senate when there's a not entirely unlikely possibility his "no" vote could very well have been a consequence of his vanity being played to somewhat and forms of "civility" pragmatic politics they harshly criticize.

milo, you yourself is part of the problem when you say stuff like:

re: Patrick, which critiques or questions focus on the fact that he has a business career rather than where he's worked? Is there no room for the idea that no one should be given a free pass for being an executive with Bain Capital, an entity which actively hurts more peoples' lives than it helps?

― louie mensch (milo z), 7. august 2017 03:07 (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The answer to that is no. There should be no room for such a critique without an intersectional understanding of the way race and gender impact who wants and gets those jobs. Class and race and gender is intertwined, and just as centrist liberals might use identity politics for strategic reasons while overlooking class, a large proportion of the left insist on a focusing on class to the exclusion of identity, which is off-putting to a lot of would be allies. Simple as that. You can insist all you like that 'left voters are more progressive on everything identity politics is actually about', but you repeatedly demonstrate the exact opposite.

That dude, Samuel Sinyangwe, who got called Richard Spencer, he tweeted out this image a while back, that shows the reduction in the racial wealth gap that would come from free college:

http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/imce/Racial%20Wealth%20Gap_Fig%209_1.png

College degrees has a 'modest impact' on the gap, the driving force seems to be homeownership, to a large degree. So wanting to focus on a concerted degree of battling desegregation and racism instead of free health care and education does not meant that someone doesn't understand class.

It's an interesting article, btw: http://www.demos.org/publication/racial-wealth-gap-why-policy-matters This is what it says would be educational policies that would contribute to closing the wealth gap:

Invest in universal, high-quality preschool education.
Make K-12 education funding more equitable.
Recommit to racially integrated schools, colleges, and universities.
Establish an Affordable College Compact.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-congressional-map-is-historically-biased-toward-the-gop/

:(

The stance is in place that any criticism or rebellion ala 2016 is basically treason and that if you don't want second-term Trump you'd better vote for whomever you're told to.

This is utter horseshit. Where is it in place? Who is making this stance? Were the primaries cancelled already?

_No, milo, my husband just doesn't believe the stated critiques. He imagines the true motivation is essentially about courting white votes. I cite his view not because I agree with it, it just suggests to me the unfortunate distrust within the left._

I wouldn't call that distrust within the left, that's distrust of the left - and something that can't be countered. It's an unfortunate narrative, we even see how it's spread here, because it leaves the left unable to defend itself - no matter how much evidence there is that left voters are more progressive on everything identity politics is actually about, you get accused of arguing in bad faith or that the only reason a centrist is getting criticized is racism/etc.. The people who rend their garments over the WWC aren't going to DSA meetings, they're asshole blue dogs like Jim Webb.

It's poor messaging on the left's part, too - when someone talks about broadening the appeal, it's really about the belief on the left that doing so means getting the 40% of Alabama that doesn't bother to vote. You can argue about whether that 40% is going to break the way they want via appeals to social democracy, but more non-voters are in fundamentally Democratic constituencies than Republican.

I don't...are you calling my husband a blue dog? So glad you cleared up that he's not on the left. I'll be sure to let him know.

Tombot, howbout the endlessly shared Family Guy guy meme? "Prepare to vote for someone who's NOT PERFECT" etc. I'm sure everyone sharing that is expecting a democratic socialist to be nominated.

Oh, there's a meme? That settles it then

The people who rend their garments over the WWC aren't going to DSA meetings, they're asshole blue dogs like Jim Webb.

I come from the white working class, and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 14, 2016

lol

yeah, that line from milo was almost gaslighting

I've never understood the WWC rhetoric tbh. Doubly so since the avg trump voter made what, 70k per year?

Average eh

Median, anyway

does the Left even have a viable potential candidate for 2020 right now besides Bernie?

what about jeremy corbyn

beyond Warren, no

electorally speaking, I see the American left's job over the next few years to field strong local candidates, support rad dems where they exist, and scrape and scream to hold establishment dems' feet to the fire (inasmuch as that's possible or effective)

The American left will never field strong local candidates, though

There have already been DSA-affiliated and other lefty local candidates getting elected to stuff recently.

I mean maybe, sure, anything's possible, but it's hard to list all of the reasons the deck is stacked against DSA type candidates in local races.

Khalid Kamau springs immediately to mind but I'm sure there are others xp

I love Warren but I've recently come to the conclusion that she could never get elected president so I hope she doesn't run. I just think she falls into that same category as Kerry or Gore or Hillary where, fair or not, her personality is just a non-starter. Obviously their personalities are unattractive to voters for different reasons but I think the end result is the same.

Again, I love what she stands for and I would vote for her in a second, but unless she radically transformed her public persona, I think she's just always going to come across to a wide swath of people as a supercilious schoolteacher, which is not really the personality type that makes people eager to stand in line to vote for you.

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. xp

Simon i agree with you and i agree with your party plan I'm just waxing hopeless about lefties getting on the ballot and winning, say, state senate seats or even city council in non-Portland urban areas

Oh, there's a meme? That settles it then

They are our future and you know it

Both Kamau and the other person mentioned in the recent Voxplainer (Renitta Shannon) are in Georgia fwiw xp

They also supported (iirc?) Chokwe Lumumba in Jackson, MI

The answer to that is no. There should be no room for such a critique without an intersectional understanding of the way race and gender impact who wants and gets those jobs.

Deval Patrick isn't an accountant working at Wal-Mart HQ - he's an incredibly powerful man who can choose to work anywhere he wants to and make large sums of money.

I don't...are you calling my husband a blue dog? So glad you cleared up that he's not on the left. I'll be sure to let him know.

Um... what? You said your husband was reading between the lines that criticism of Harris/Patrick/Booker was really about how they wouldn't appeal to the white working class. How is saying that that argument isn't the domain of Ryan Cooper (who has the piece that is the entirety of group criticism of them), who doesn't even allude to the WWC, calling your husband a blue dog?

I'm glad one tweet from 9 months ago that was dissected ad nauseam can still be dishonestly deployed.

If only he'd said anything else on the topic in all these several months.

idk man i feel like the 2016 primaries aren't over or something xp

Again, I voted for Sanders in the primaries, I support his agenda by and large, but I perceive a blind spot on the topic by his repeated concentration on economic arguments almost to the complete exclusion of racial arguments.

I love Warren but I've recently come to the conclusion that she could never get elected president so I hope she doesn't run. I just think she falls into that same category as Kerry or Gore or Hillary where, fair or not, her personality is just a non-starter. Obviously their personalities are unattractive to voters for different reasons but I think the end result is the same.

Again, I love what she stands for and I would vote for her in a second, but unless she radically transformed her public persona, I think she's just always going to come across to a wide swath of people as a supercilious schoolteacher, which is not really the personality type that makes people eager to stand in line to vote for you.

― evol j, Monday, August 7, 2017 9:56 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, warren is great and i'm happy she is in the senate but she would be a terrible presidential candidate imo and would definitely lose

xp like, he really seems to sincerely think that if we begin attacking the economic inequality issues at their roots, the racial issues will take care of themselves or be swept away -- it's variation of the "rising tide lifts all boats" thing and it's . . . incorrect, to be generous.

Again, I voted for Sanders in the primaries, I support his agenda by and large, but I perceive a blind spot on the topic by his repeated concentration on economic arguments almost to the complete exclusion of racial arguments.

It would definitely not have killed him to point out that the sorts of reforms he wants (eg free college and single payer) would disproportionately benefit people of color who as we all know tend to get more of an economic squeeze under current configurations

re: left alternative, I've heard people talking about Jeff Merkley from Oregon

I think it's utopian to argue that an economically egalitarian society would be free of racial or sexual (or ableist etc.) prejudice, but it's also strange to me to argue that scarcity (genuine or manufactured) doesn't exacerbate divisions intensely

otm, warren is great and i'm happy she is in the senate but she would be a terrible presidential candidate imo and would definitely lose

I know I am ~emotional and shit~ but I felt that way about another actual pres candidate and still do. Then your opposition is suddenly two scoops and yr metrics get fucked up. Yr right tho it's best to support great candidates who can also win.

oh and don't forget Randy Bryce (aka@IronStache) in WI, gunning for Ryan's seat

I got shit last year for saying I was delighted Warren is in the Senate and should stay there.

otm

I think nearly all of us proved last year we have NO IDEA who "can win."