Political Discussion

It feels like Bernie is standing up with his ideas, plans and being on the right side of history right now. He's not, or he did not throughout the campaign, try to bridge the gap between moderate dems and his progressive ideals. Right now, his social media strategy is showing him vs. Biden on a lot of issues. Moderate dems still see him as insulting the DNC/Biden, by showing graphics, etc, and they don't like him for that. He needs to change a little bit to appease to those voters.

But like many of us have mentioned, a lot of people vote for someone because they like them and Bernie's unwillingness to "play politics" with the establishment is coming off as "stubborn" and "set in his ways". I'm not saying Bernie change his morals or agenda, but he needs to bend a little bit and get in line with the DNC if he wants to win their nomination. He can fake it if he wants idgaf, and then if he wins he can swap back. But you have to play politics a little bit here.

It's like, if Bernie walked into a store and said "this store sucks! this store used to be cool but you sold out and started to carry national name brand products instead of local goods. I want to take over this store and become the manager, so me and these angry customers who agree with me are going to help me." The store would be like "hell no. do you have any relevant experience to become a manager of this store? you have to have work here for a little bit before you can be considered as manager. please leave." the store would never allow something like that to happen.

Until Bernie tries to appeal to moderate dems he's fighting a losing battle.

It's weird because the delegate gap is better right now than it was last election cycle after Super Tuesday. Bernie, realistically, has a better shot right now than the did 4 years ago. But I don't feel anywhere near as confident and full of hope right now as I did 4 years ago. The only thing that would drastically help Bernie is if Biden does a Bloomberg at the next debate on 3/15. Biden has had minimal media time since Super Tuesday and there's doubt that he "has enough marbles" to be president. Bernie needs to show his compassion and willingness to compromise (it hates me to say compromise) with GOPers and moderates to get things done. He's only ever done his stump speech at debates and everywhere for the past 5 years. It's a good message, it reaches new people all the time but until his ideas become substantive he doesn't stand a chance.
 
I don't get how not playing politics with the establishment is "set in his ways". Sure it's being stubborn, but he stands for change. If anyone is set in their ways it's the establishment who wants the status queue and no changes.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
I don't get how not playing politics with the establishment is "set in his ways". Sure it's being stubborn, but he stands for change. If anyone is set in their ways it's the establishment who wants the status queue and no changes.
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If you truly want to represent people you have to seize power and effect change. If you believe in a democracy that involves being elected and working in the system. These things involve compromise. Anything else is a protest movement which can influence but can’t effect change.
 
Joe Mac said:
If you truly want to represent people you have to seize power and effect change. If you believe in a democracy that involves being elected and working in the system. These things involve compromise. Anything else is a protest movement which can influence but can’t effect change.
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Basically this, yeah. Unless you work the system you’re going to get “that’s great but how are you going to do it?” And if the reply is “we’re going to change the system.” No one wants that hassle. The average voter knows that’s a lot of work and unrealistic. i hate how pragmatic I’m sounding but that’s the way it is in politics at the moment.
 
wokeupnew said:
Basically this, yeah. Unless you work the system you’re going to get “that’s great but how are you going to do it?” And if the reply is “we’re going to change the system.” No one wants that hassle. The average voter knows that’s a lot of work and unrealistic. i hate how pragmatic I’m sounding but that’s the way it is in politics at the moment.
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Is pragmatism as of itself a bad thing though? I don’t think that the system is working particularly well at the moment but beyond representative democracy I dont see any options. I think it’s the responsibility of any social movement representing working people/minorities/the oppressed to make themselves electable so that they can get into power and attempt to bring about change. It’s no good griping about your opponents or the electorate, that’s the field, play it or go home and whinge from the sidelines about how unfair and mean it all is!
 
dhodo said:
I appreciate his perspective, but have to say, this thread is a bit of a head scratcher for me. He starts by laying out a lot of great reasons that southern African Americans have to completely distrust the government, which I would argue is certainly not limited to Republicans. I think these are great arguments for why voter turnout is dismally low here.

However, then he says that what "surprised the fuck out of him," that she said, is the same two tired, flawed arguments against M4A that every Republican has been parroting for years. He also lays all that information out there and then dissapointingly concludes the whole thing by saying the only reason they vote for Biden, since he hasn't done anything for them either, is that he is a Democrat. This doesn't provide any insight in to why they went with him over the other Democrats running. I have heard a lot of people say they are voting for Biden because of Obama, so I think the fact that he brought it up just to brush it off is disingenuous. Certainly it is a valid point that it isn't just African Americans who feel that way, but he didn't seem to be making that.

His point about Bernie not trying, or at least failing to win over the most trusted African American members of the Democratic establishment is a great one though. Perhaps this was a flaw of the other candidates as well, I'm not sure anyone had a chance of winning them over when Biden was in the race. He certainly has the strong advantage there.

Just to be clear, I am not even remotely close to a Bernie Bro. I'm not trying to disagree with his points to say that anyone should have voted for Bernie. He is not the candidate I would have preferred overall. Honestly I have a hard time getting excited about any of them. I'm mostly sharing these feelings about that thread because I wanted to gain more and much deeper insight than I feel like it provided.
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I understand your confusion. His point is that they'll go for the "establishment" Dem over the guy trying to take over/dismantle the party and alienating important black statesmen. Because that establishment on the local level is their support system, it's each other.
 
Dtknuckles said:
eu.usatoday.com

'I wasn't going to let anything stop me': Texas voter waits six hours to vote on Super Tuesday

By the time Hervis Rogers cast his ballot it was no longer Super Tuesday, but 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
eu.usatoday.com


I find it hard to work 8 hours. I mean did he even have his phone battery charged. I’m usually at >10% in the morning.
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Lol, it cracks me up that you are thinking about his phone battery. To be honest, due to his age I would say that wasn't even an issue for him.

I find it absolutely absurd though that lines are that long, and for a primary. How long are they in the general election and would everyone even being able to cast their vote before polls close?

It does sound like a serious issue and designed to deter people.
 
RenegadeMonster said:
Lol, it cracks me up that you are thinking about his phone battery. To be honest, due to his age I would say that wasn't even an issue for him.

I find it absolutely absurd though that lines are that long, and for a primary. How long are they in the general election and would everyone even being able to cast their vote before polls close?

It does sound like a serious issue and designed to deter people.
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Early voting is a thing. I showed up at a location right after dropping of my kid at school, waltzed in, voted, and was out in less than 5 minutes. Early voting was open something like 2 weeks before Super Tuesday.

Edited to be less ignorant, privileged, and judgmental.
 
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Early voting and mail voting are not available in every state or city. There are places, especially in Red States where these are not options and it's considered voter suppression by the ACLU.

Sure there are absentee ballots, but many times they are not counted unless the vote is close. Don't know how true that is, but is a common assumption many people have.
 
dhodo said:
Voting should be made as easy as possible regardless of completely baseless and unfounded assumptions and judgements of why someone might wait until the actual designated voting day to vote.
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Australia might be a burning, former prison colony with a bunch of diseased marsupials, where every other living thing would like to kill you. [joking, mostly] but they do have the right idea when it comes to voting...
en.m.wikipedia.org

Democracy sausage - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 
dhodo said:
Voting should be made as easy as possible regardless of completely baseless and unfounded assumptions and judgements of why someone might wait until the actual designated voting day to vote.
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And we should never have issues like these:

www.politifact.com

SCOTUS ruling doesn't revoke Native Americans' voting rights

A viral image about Native American voting rights in North Dakota called a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision "disgracef
www.politifact.com www.politifact.com

Republican Controlled North Dakota created this law, like gerrymandering, because it tips the balance of the vote Republican, because the people affected by the law tend to lean Democrat.

And of course Republicans say the law was made to prevent voter fraud, but all evidence says there never was any voter fraud.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
And that is not okay. Whatsoever. The examples of “centrist” accusations and misrepresenting of positions makes sense. It’s something I’ve fought back against on Facebook. But that second paragraph disturbs me for a plethora of reasons. They are (lonely) idiots with no lives or mentally unstable or even, possibly, even plants who aren’t even really supporters.

Again, Twitter is an exceptionally toxic place. Listen to Nina Turner or AOC talk about what they experience in that realm. Or any other well known voice on Twitter.

I guess I just find it frustrating that Twitter is allowed to color an entire coalition especially one as racially diverse and full of female supporters (and for the record, the one toxic supporter I referenced above is a Latina female). Especially when I know first hand that the campaign itself went through extensive lengths (to the detriment of its ground game) to vet it’s hires and (to the benefit of its ground game) train its staff to avoid talking about other candidates.

When you are as dependent on organic organizing and (the actual phrase is alluding me) do-it-yourself collaboration (chalk it up events, phone banking parties, ext) there are also going to be loose cannons. Organizations like Black Lives Matters are plagued by the same thing. And much like BLM, the media then hyper focuses on it as a convenient way to demonize the larger whole.

It’s not like Bernie hasn’t spoken out about this multiple times. He even referred to the calls for Warren to drop out yesterday as disgusting. I don’t agree with that take but it’s also probably the stance he should take considering the circumstances. This is not like Trump where that behavior is tolerated or encouraged at rallies either.

Politico did an awesome price where the writer talks about being incredibly moved by an opening speaker who has everyone hold hands and squeeze if something was started was true ala “I have a job” and then it slowly worked towards like truly tough shit like “I grew up with one parent” or “I sometime went without a meal growing up” and then into even borderline traumatic events to help everyone think about the different environments we come from and build empathy.

I guess it’s just so far from the side of the “movement” that I know that it’s tough to grasp. Hell, Ground Game LA which was founded by women in their mid 20’s after the 2016 campaign functions as an activist space where white men are encouraged to “shrink” and let the women lead the meetings because so often within the public realm that is not the case. And all of those people led the charge for him here in LA.

I’ll leave it at that because I don’t want it to feel like I’m trying to invalidate your concerns.
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BjorgenFjorgen said:
Sanders supporters are far from the only ones to ever be aggressive online; they're just the only ones given a derogatory nickname. But if you believe anyone who cites that as the main reason why they can't support him, you're out of your mind. They were never going to. If someone prioritizes online civility over voting to give poor people health care and stopping the forever wars, they're telling on themselves.

Is it a good outreach strategy? Obviously no. But the man himself has told them to stop or to get out of his movement firmly. They are not his staff or surrogates He's been sometimes frustratingly polite and civil. People are mad as hell and they have every reason to be. Focusing on "Bernie bros" over politics is this year's version of "but her emails...". It's a bad diversion to keep people away from substantive talk about substantive policy; it's preferring "the negative peace which is the absence of tension to the positive peace which is the presence of justice." Don't fall for it.
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Hahaha--I am a woman on Twitter. I follow AOC and Nina Turner and Briahna Joy Gray and and and. You really don't need to tell me to check any one woman's experience there--and believe me, it isn't limited to Twitter. But Twitter is only as toxic as its users, and I am not even talking about random low-follower bot accounts. Of course we know Russian interference has involved some "Bernie Bro" bots since 2016. And we all remember that Bernie said Hillary Clinton's campaign should have done more about it, right? But I'm talking "blue checks" and real people. And I'm not only talking about Twitter. In fact, I'm barely including Twitter, except for some particular individuals there.

It's odd to keep dismissing online interactions--the internet is a major way people get news now. People talk to their friends online. We follow each other on Twitter and FB and SnapChat and IG and interact in those places. How people behave to each other in those spaces matters. And as you point out, women are disproportionately abused online. For men to continuously dismiss their experiences fits very into the "Bernie Bro" archetype, haha. (I am teasing, not calling you Bros)

I am personally faaaaar left of Bernie (we're an anti-State, anarchist household), and I've been Very Online my entire adult life. I have many, many Bernie supporting friends and acquaintances from the ranks of the barely political to the outright arnarchist. And unfortunately I've seen plenty of the "bro" behavior from many of the white dudes between the ages 25 and 45. Their feeds talk more about how Warren is a "liar" and a "spoiler" than about what is good about their candidate. They comment on all of our mutuals' posts attacking their candidates, and won't step out when asked to please take their debates elsewhere. Sadly over the last 5 years I've seen too many of those interactions only end when the person they're harrassing blocks them. I've ended up unfollowing or hiding many of them myself.

It's a real phenomenon that impacts real people. I think one of the main reasons people keep talking about it is because of the vociferous denial of it from Sanders supporters, both of its existence and its importance, as opposed to simply acknowledging the problem and actively policing for it amongst their own. I mean, look at this thread. A bunch of us who agree with Sanders policies have to keep talking to a couple of you about why yes, the online toxicity is a problem with some elements unique to a portion of Sanders' base. It is *an* issue for his campaign. Not *the* only issue. One of many. But the one you seem most hung upon denying.
 
GritNGlitter said:
A bunch of us who agree with Sanders policies have to keep talking to a couple of you about why yes, the online toxicity is a problem with some elements unique to a portion of Sanders' base. It is *an* issue for his campaign. Not *the* only issue. One of many. But the one you seem most hung upon denying.
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I've tried to tap out of this thread because it is depressing and exhausting, but since you quoted me I'll respond. I don't think either of us has denied it, so I'm not sure where that's coming from. You can see examples of both of us in this thread saying that it is an issue and that we don't think it's helpful and that we wish it wasn't happening. We're all too terminally online here, I'm pretty sure. I just think that to pretend that it's only coming from one candidate is kind of ludicrous considering all the evidence to the contrary. I mean, look!



Sanders' supporters obviously skew younger for various reasons and younger people use the Internet differently. It's a lot easier to talk about the novel use of a snake emoji than it is to talk about harassment of a woman who comes forward about sexual assault or unwanted touching from someone since the Trump era seems to have desensitized the media to that a bit. It's also a lot easier to talk about that than it is to engage with policy! (I'm not talking about people in this thread.)

Again, I don't think it's helpful to harass users online and I don't know what others' experience is, so I've not dismissed them. I also know that for a lot of people (online or otherwise), this primary/election is very personal! We should all know this. Only one candidate has been steadfastly against sanctions in Iran that are going to starve people including my partner's grandparents. That doesn't justify harassment, obviously. Others' surrogates are dangling their support/endorsement now based on whether people will be nice to them, like a treat to a dog. I'm sure people who need insulin love that.

Anyway, I think harassment is bad but I also think that this moment calls for a lot of righteous anger from a lot of people, and a lot of other people say they care about the cause of progressivism but have yet to show they care more about it than civility. I hope they don't have to deal with bullshit, but I also hope my nephews and niece can grow up in a country where they can get health care and go to school without worrying about being shot and maybe one day own a house.
 
I'm not going to quote anyone because this has been going around in circles literally since the day this wonderful forum was formed last May.

Whether we agree on this point or not it is my feeling when it's been brought up, until very recently, that there was a dismissal of the Sanders bullies here (and elsewhere) and the impact it has had on how people (the royal we) view the candidate and the campaign. I personally think it's a significant impact... others not so much ...and maybe neither one of us are correct.

We've talked about Bernie a lot, probably too much, but the positive thing to me is that the idea of a society that ranks human well being above profits is something the average person probably has a much greater awareness of because, in part, of the noise the Sanders campaign and the candidate have made over the past several years. This is a good thing in my mind.

The not so good thing is that the campaign and candidate have (i don't know what term to use here) basically taken this thing that people like myself and many many others have been advocating for for decades and made it their thing and about them. The "Us" in the campaign slogan never felt like everyone, to everyone even if it did within the campaign and a seeming inability to accept criticism and defensiveness made the campaign appear unaware of itself and emotionally fragile to too many. I'm just speaking for myself / these are just my feelings about it.

too long don't read below:

I've watched how the takeover of the country by Nixon and Reagan has actually trickled down through every aspect of society over the last four decades. I've watched how the Clintons decided to protect themselves when push came to shove. I've watched the few who get to manipulate markets and politicians only become more powerful. I've watched tech wealth be centralized for the privileged and individuals be commoditized by an industry who told us their motto was "don't be evil." I've watched (and lived myself) the propaganda campaign against science take hold amongst regular working Americans. I've watched people's lives become more difficult, desperation increase, and opportunities continue to fade. It isn't new and while the burden for millenials is high, every generation gets fucked by the people to come before them. We too are screwing our children and grandchildren in some known and some unknown ways. There never was a fantasy, glory time for most people in America despite the disease of nostalgia and hindsight that is sometimes exhibited by older folks.

The cliche thing here is that there is more than one way to skin a cat... i don't know where that saying comes from and it's pretty weird, but we know what it means. Some of the things that Sanders supporters want can still be achieved. Other things take a complete dismantling of very entrenched aspects of American society and culture that was unlikely to occur even if Sanders or Warren were to be elected. What I'm getting at is that the same needs still exist today as they did yesterday and they will again tomorrow. If we really want things to be better we can keep engaging in the frustration of incrementalism until the opportunity arises for something more... or we can just keep wallowing in being fucked... whatever... I'll probably do the latter because I'm depressive and agoraphobic and that's right in my wheelhouse.

If people who really want to shake this shit up they need to find a way to be better collaborators to achieve their goals. Coalescing around an age group because they're "enthusiastic" wasn't enough for the Sanders campaign. Blaming "Boomers" and anyone who was ignorant of the righteousness of the "movement" for something that has always existed wasn't effective either. This thing, if people really want it, needs to be broad, inclusive and far less judgemental than it has been if it's ever going to happen, and if it isn't going to be those things then it needs to be done much more covertly than anyone running for political office could ever offer.
 
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