Democratic (Party) Direction

A hell of a lot of people who are in the best position to fix what's going wrong in this country don't see how Hillary Clinton's approach to politics and governance is irrevocably flawed, so they will be reviving it every day through the 2020 election and beyond.

definitely agree that viewing every issue from the bernie/hillary 2016 lens is counterproductive, and that goes for both sides (and myself too)

anyway as i said the choice is ridiculous, who are these people, let alone candidates, who support material, radical corrective action to correct racial inequity but are economic conservatives? who are these definitely very real people who are economic progressives but don't give a shit about race? this is a stupid conversation. we need both, everyone agrees on this

xp

I don't think the Bernie personality cult is particularly helpful either at this point. The difference is that Bernie (1) is still in office and (2) seems to spend a lot more time advocating on issues rather than talking about the election. The Bernie people who keep moaning about the DNC honestly are annoying at this point. But Bernie isn't out speaking about why he lost the primary.

I would be a-okay with both Bernie and Hillary being dropped off a cliff at this point (assuming the Dems could hold onto Bernie's Senate seat)

yeah maybe a Feinstein-quality Dem could replace Bernie, that'd be great

if De Leon runs against Feinstein I think he'll win and I won't shed a tear, she's (mostly) awful: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/07/dianne-feinstein-california-primary-2018-242409?lo=ap_f1

"who are these definitely very real people who are economic progressives but don't give a shit about race?"

there are tons of ppl who "give a shit" but then push comes to shove will always decide that addressing racial injustice can be dropped like a hot potato if it's "alienating white working class voters" or something that's "gotten too radical" or something that will be magically solved by implementing the economic agenda. that kinda quickly ceases to resemble giving a shit imho.

from what i have seen, most of these arguments occur on twitter and most of them involve deliberately misrepresenting people's positions. usually the issue is something symbolic rather than substantive

no argument though that leftists/democrats need to be better on race. disagree with the implication that this is some malady unique to or particularly problematic with sanders dems

IIRC, Bernie voters were more progressive on every social justice issue than Hillary voters or Dems as a whole.

Bernie's personality cult would dissipate if Dems had the equivalent of Labour's Momentum or even the Tea Party as an issue group for people to identify with.

in America, personality cults win more elections than "movements" so thaaaaaat's what we get

the bernie personality cult is probably a good thing for the party overall, even if it leads to annoying people on twitter xp

BLM probably fits that description btw, milo

Obama Is My Rock Star

And He Didn't Build a Movement

the bernie personality cult is probably a good thing for the party overall

in the sense that his primary challenge and Trump's subsequent victory seem to have dramatically shifted the party's overall priorities + policies to the left, I suppose so. the interminable internicene fighting sure is annoying though.

xp - historically personalities have been what we had but even accounting for the Koch astroturfing, the Tea Party was pretty successful as a movement without a specific personality cult (unless Ayn Rand counts)(which she maybe does).

there are tons of ppl who "give a shit" but then push comes to shove will always decide that addressing racial injustice can be dropped like a hot potato if it's "alienating white working class voters" or something that's "gotten too radical" or something that will be magically solved by implementing the economic agenda. that kinda quickly ceases to resemble giving a shit imho.

My problem with this is that it's being used to tar progressives/leftists but historically the faction ready to ditch racial justice at the drop of the hat are the DLC centrists.

i was talking about DLC centrists!

Tea Party was more like an anti-personality cult if you know what I mean

xp

I fervently hope BLM becomes the Tea Party of the Democratic Party.

Omg Coates took on that fuckin George Packer piece. I love him.

"It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say, “If a black man can be president, then any white man—no matter how fallen—can be president.” And in that perverse way, the democratic dreams of Jefferson and Jackson were fulfilled."

BOOM

Kamala Harris's endorsement of single payer healthcare may help unite a divided Democratic Par--
Hillary Clinton: Leeeeeeeroy Jeeeeeeenkins

— shut up, mike ginn (@shutupmikeginn) September 7, 2017

hahaha

https://verrit.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fverrit.com%2Fwp-admin%2F&reauth=1

for those who haven't used popular blog/content management software wordpress, this is the login page for the admin interface

Verrit, the site created by the Daou family (Peter was apparently head of a certain 2008 campaign's online wing) and endorsed by uh, well, HRC, has the worst security and technical ideas of anything I have seen recently

like rule number one of wordpress (other than "do not use wordpress if you can avoid it") is "do not leave the admin page at the default address

I'm tellin' ya, money laundering scheme.

I've just picked a fight with a good FB friend who thinks Joe Reid is the most brilliant person on MSNBC.

Joy Reid

joy reid is fantastic at her job because she tells people what they want to hear. she's verrit personified

I don't know enough about msnbc to comment!

speaking of MSNBC personalities, one who's actually worth a damn makes a point i tried to make upthread

I think the very intense debate within Democratic party is needed, fascinating and quite substantive, but would *really* benefit from...

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 7, 2017

all of the participants detaching it from the particular characteristics/personalities of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. My .02.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 7, 2017

joy reid is fantastic at her job because she tells people what they want to hear. she's verrit personified

― k3vin k.

Precisely what I said!

imo the problem is any time one person criticizes from any given direction, it's assumed they're a fan of whatever candidate was somewhat in that position?

like dude I have these stances because I had them long before the election, I refined and changed some over the course of the last two years, and the election is goooone

we need some new concepts that people don't associate with anything at all

how about "rich people should pay higher taxes"

i think the government should..
*looks at the world*
..nationalize the ag industry?

imo the problem is any time one person criticizes from any given direction, it's assumed they're a fan of whatever candidate was somewhat in that position?

Something about the internet exacerbates the human tendency to sort people into boxes. Everyone is always speaking unwittingly as a representative of one or another loosely defined faction or interest group.

the whole bernie/hillary thing makes no sense to me after the primary, because it wasn't my experience at all

the caucuses get a lot of criticism for how they're run in some areas, and validly for issues of accessibility and availability, but I've generally had good experiences and I feel like something would be lost if they were significantly changed

I think what people don't understand is that the primary/caucus thing, while coordinated to an extent at state level, are purely of the parties. The rules and regulations are for the party, and there's nothing federally that says how the parties have to operate. If a state party voted to have the primary delegates assigned in a completely arbitrary way, it happens -- people would have to actually join the party and force a change.

That aside addressed, the Iowa caucuses are still the earliest and it was actually incredibly low drama this past year. The way it works is that each district has a given number of delegates , they do a count of the number of voters present, and candidates have to carry enough voters to get an assigned delegate. In 2008, my district had three or four candidates that got delegates! It was interesting, there is a lot of bartering when the candidates with not enough voters are forced to either dissolve and support other candidates or attempt to sway just enough to get up to the one delegate level.

In 2016, there were a couple too few people to get O'Malley a delegate, and they weren't enthusiastic enough, even when the people running the caucus were his supporters. So their choice was to go to Sanders or Clinton, and it was about a 60/40 split. You end up realizing it's your neighbors, who you see around, trying to figure out support but everyone there is involved and wants their party to do well. There are probably a few people who are there for one candidate and will bow out when they're eliminated and maybe even bow out of the party when it comes to the general, but that's a very small group.

So, seeing this in-fighting is so dumb late in the game -- I was divorced from this as of February 2016 as far as voting goes. Some of the later primary things made me motivated to pay more attention to internal politics, but seeing it physically represented in a room, by neighbors, coming together and forming alliances makes it a little more real.

i'm torn on whether arguing about the future of the democratic party is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic or not. yesterday i was reading about the roman sack of jerusalem in 70 ad. ancient history, it's hard to know anything about for sure, but it looks like the split between "moderates" and zealots in jewish politics was a strong contributory factor. on the other hand, there's this strong sense of inevitability, a feeling that the romans were always going to wind up burning down the temple no matter what happened.

computer, give me the most infuriating collection of words in the English language:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/axios-vandehei-democrats-could-select-candidate-with-clinton-ties.html

not to be overlooked in that piece:

On the Republican side, VandeHei made no predictions about 2020, but warned to never discount a Trump re-election. "It's so far off. It's not inconceivable. The working assumption is he could never win again. He certainly could."

ya fuckin' think?

i mean, we're all just being trolled here, right?

axios is bad

Just to update the story higher up in the thread, Daniel Biss's new running mate is Litesa Wallace, a state rep from Rockford.

i hate to be cynical, but something in me feels that thinking it matters who the democrats run in 2020 is sort of like thinking the paris accords are going to save us all from climate apocalypse. the "smart money" democrats are smart enough to know this, but when people don't have any viable alternatives they're going to tend to do the same shit they always did.

Even Cory Booker endorsed Bernie's single payer bill!

This is a great sign imo.

btw Kaine is still in the swamp

.@timkaine pretty much rules out getting on single-payer bill, tells me and @PeterSullivan4 he prefers more choice in marketplace

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_Vox) September 11, 2017

it *is* a good sign but it's only a start. they need to be pushed much harder on a variety of issues.

I like the cut of this OH gubernatorial candidate's jib: http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2017/09/governor_candidate_connie_pill.html

The Cincinnati Democrat announced her plan Tuesday morning, just hours before the first Democratic debate. She called it an "education stimulus" that will create jobs and shore up Ohio's workforce.

"I want to make a transformative investment in education," Pillich said. "Over the last seven years our ranking has fallen from 5th to 22nd and obviously that's a result of having the wrong priorities in Columbus."

The plan includes universal pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds, increasing funding for and revamping the K-12 state aid formula to make it more equitable and providing free vocational workforce training.

Perhaps most ambitious is Pillich's proposal for free higher education, which would radically alter the university system.

Under Pillich's plan, students with an income or family income of less than $100,000 who attend a public university would receive deferred tuition. The deferment would last for 10 years if the student stays in Ohio post-graduation.

If after the 10-year mark those students are still in Ohio, the full cost would be forgiven.

Here are some of the other planks:

Give businesses a $1,000 tax credit for each licensed apprentice they hire
Start middle and high school days no earlier than 8:50 a.m. per recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics
Increased STEM education in classrooms including computer coding
Create a fund to help current college graduates with debt
Require public universities to freeze costs at current rates, adjusted for inflation
Create the Ohio Service Corps Program and forgive graduates' student loan debt after two or three years of service

That college tuition plan is pretty brilliant aside from the wrinkle of "what happens to students who study a field where they can't get employment in Ohio?"

Like, what does that mean for contractors who need to travel? I'm thinking past technical people; what about, for example, musicians who travel across state lines for extended gigs, or people who tour? If you are an author, does your publisher need to be in Ohio in order to count towards deferment/forgiveness?

Seems to be modeled on Cuomo's scheme in New York - I think similar questions were raised about that but I haven't read anything that comprehensively takes these issues on. You'd like to think somebody's thought about them. Obviously it starts to sound like a creepy indentured servitude to the state and you can imagine people stuck in dead-end jobs not in their field, with something great available just across the border but unavailable because getting slammed with a wall of debt is not so appealing.