As you can tell by some of my recent posts (some of these did not make it to the new blog as I thought they were superfluous), I feel the democratic
party is deeply divided right now, and wonder if Hillary can unite us.
As you can see, the answer I’ve been leaning toward is “no”, and I’m
really just posting this to confirm that. Look, if this primary played
out differently and the democratic party didn’t seem so hostile toward
Bernie and his ideas and spend so much time specifically trying to rein
him and his supporters in without so much as attempting to appeal to us
the old fashioned way, maybe things would be different. If Hillary
herself started more to the left and displayed some level of consistency
in her views, maybe.
But the fact is, the democratic party as it exists seems hopelessly out of touch with Bernie supporters like myself and can’t appeal to us to save their life, or their electoral chances. They literally don’t understand how our minds work, and they’ve missed so many chances to appeal to us that it’s pathetic. Between the candidate, their inconsistency, their hostility, condescension, and arrogance, the rift in the party may be damaged beyond repair this election. I can’t speak for everyone here, only myself, but as I’ve said before, this election has been a blow to my faith in the democratic party being an agent of change. At best this comes from an out of touch older generation engaging in group think and simply not being able to appeal to younger folks (hence the condescending tone to “educate” the youngin’s). At worst, it comes from a targeted effort to suppress a movement that threatens the interests of their cronies and donors. So at best, they’re just hopelessly out of touch, and at worst, they’re malicious and subversive.
As such, I’m starting to think it would be nice of the dems took a breather, fired their current leadership, and got new blood in there that actually knows how to run a campaign and appeal to people without ignoring them, condescending to them, lecturing them, blaming them, and shutting out their ideas. The current people in charge, and the current candidates that are running have to go. They have FAILED, MISERABLY, at uniting the party. This should be very easy against the republican party as it exists. If they seriously can’t unite a party against the crazies we’re up against, then that really shows how weak their leadership is. It’s not hard. Just run a good platform that excites people, don’t lecture or condescend to them, and be honest enough to try to implement it. Look, I know politics isn’t easy in this environment. We are dealing with the most hostile obstructionist congress in recent history, perhaps in all of history. But the problem with the democrats is that they don’t even try. And then they do all the wrong things to win people over. I’m gonna briefly list these things, I’ve discussed most of these in another post, so I’ll keep it short, but it’s good to make a list.
1) They appeal to party loyalty, without recognizing that we’re not your average rank and file follower you can order around.
2) They tell us our ideas are bad, can’t be implemented, or even appeal to the same kind of national identity crap that you would expect from republicans and their special little snowflake-ism (American Exceptionalism). They lecture us and tell us to settle for less.
3) They accuse opponents of being sexist, making up derogatory terms like “Bernie Bros” to attack us.
4) The media ignores us, the DNC stacks the debate schedule against us, the superdelegates line up behind Hillary, and various primaries had potential voter suppression issues in states in which Hillary had won. It’s almost like they’re trying to shut down our movement. Like they’re part of the problem and their facade of being the “good party” is crumbling.
5) They don’t talk about what they want to do or what vision they want for America, all they talk about is how bad Trump is and how they’re better.
6) When they fail, they blame us. Nothing is ever their fault, it’s always our fault, for not being good little democrats that fall in line.
I really want to emphasize what the party looks like, taking all of the above points into consideration. It looks to me like, some deal may have been reached in 2008 to get Hillary to step down and support Obama. A promise of future support or something. So Hillary, like a good little democrat, stepped down and obeyed. After 8 years of Obama, the party promises to give it to Hillary. So, this whole primary process has been about getting Hillary the nomination. So they go on a full on offensive against Bernie, rig the process in many many various subtle ways that they can deny when directly accused, and then corral the Bernie supporters into supporting Hillary because they have nowhere else to go. Again, my big issues with the dems involve these shady attempts at suppression, their obvious attempts to ignore us, and these attempts to make us fall in line. It’s like the democrats think we are stupid and controllable. In this hostile environment, giving them a vote only shows that these tactics work.
AT BEST, they’ll say that if we support them, they might go more progressive at some future date, but who is to say that they will? There’s NO guarantee here. And considering how the democratic mainstream has a different ideology than Bernie supporters (New Democrats vs FDR democrats), and considering how we already had 8 years of Obama, I really just don’t see it. I see no reason to trust the democrats here, and think if we give them our vote, they’ll just ignore us and continue to pull one over on us.
The fact is, the democratic party, while still not as bad as the republican party, looks pretty freaking bad. It clearly looks like it has been corrupted by power, cronyism, and money. It really is just a slightly less toxic version of the republicans. It’s like the two parties are playing good cop, bad cop, when the republicans being the bad cop that will threaten to ruin your life, and the democrats are the good guys who will try to help you out, but in reality, their help is limited, and they’re really both working for the same bosses anyway. The problem is, this primary process has caused this good guy facade to crumble, where now the democrats are exposed as being part of the problem too.
As I said earlier, I think what the dems need to do is take some time off, fire their current leaders, and come back next election with new blood that is more honest and actually connects with the American people. Bernie supporters will support a party that sincerely tries its best to bring progressive change to this country, even if they fail. But they will not support a party that appears intent on pushing their favored candidate, suppressing other views, fear mongering, and trying to bring their voting base under control. This looks bad, and I think the democratic party has done significant harm to itself that will take more than this year to fix. It has lost the trust of the progressive movement it has been trying to build for close to a decade now, and has made itself look bad. I have serious qualms about voting for them. It would be like Leonidas bowing to Xerxes, or Luke Skywalker turning to the dark side. I just don’t think it’s a morally acceptable choice, considering how they’ve been acting this year. Come back in 2020 guys, with whole new leadership, less cronyism, less suppression of dissent, and more openness toward the passions of your voters. That being said, to all the people who think that not supporting the democrats in November is madness, I’ll just say, “madness? THIS IS SPARTA!”, as I cast my protest vote for Jill Stein.
But the fact is, the democratic party as it exists seems hopelessly out of touch with Bernie supporters like myself and can’t appeal to us to save their life, or their electoral chances. They literally don’t understand how our minds work, and they’ve missed so many chances to appeal to us that it’s pathetic. Between the candidate, their inconsistency, their hostility, condescension, and arrogance, the rift in the party may be damaged beyond repair this election. I can’t speak for everyone here, only myself, but as I’ve said before, this election has been a blow to my faith in the democratic party being an agent of change. At best this comes from an out of touch older generation engaging in group think and simply not being able to appeal to younger folks (hence the condescending tone to “educate” the youngin’s). At worst, it comes from a targeted effort to suppress a movement that threatens the interests of their cronies and donors. So at best, they’re just hopelessly out of touch, and at worst, they’re malicious and subversive.
As such, I’m starting to think it would be nice of the dems took a breather, fired their current leadership, and got new blood in there that actually knows how to run a campaign and appeal to people without ignoring them, condescending to them, lecturing them, blaming them, and shutting out their ideas. The current people in charge, and the current candidates that are running have to go. They have FAILED, MISERABLY, at uniting the party. This should be very easy against the republican party as it exists. If they seriously can’t unite a party against the crazies we’re up against, then that really shows how weak their leadership is. It’s not hard. Just run a good platform that excites people, don’t lecture or condescend to them, and be honest enough to try to implement it. Look, I know politics isn’t easy in this environment. We are dealing with the most hostile obstructionist congress in recent history, perhaps in all of history. But the problem with the democrats is that they don’t even try. And then they do all the wrong things to win people over. I’m gonna briefly list these things, I’ve discussed most of these in another post, so I’ll keep it short, but it’s good to make a list.
1) They appeal to party loyalty, without recognizing that we’re not your average rank and file follower you can order around.
2) They tell us our ideas are bad, can’t be implemented, or even appeal to the same kind of national identity crap that you would expect from republicans and their special little snowflake-ism (American Exceptionalism). They lecture us and tell us to settle for less.
3) They accuse opponents of being sexist, making up derogatory terms like “Bernie Bros” to attack us.
4) The media ignores us, the DNC stacks the debate schedule against us, the superdelegates line up behind Hillary, and various primaries had potential voter suppression issues in states in which Hillary had won. It’s almost like they’re trying to shut down our movement. Like they’re part of the problem and their facade of being the “good party” is crumbling.
5) They don’t talk about what they want to do or what vision they want for America, all they talk about is how bad Trump is and how they’re better.
6) When they fail, they blame us. Nothing is ever their fault, it’s always our fault, for not being good little democrats that fall in line.
I really want to emphasize what the party looks like, taking all of the above points into consideration. It looks to me like, some deal may have been reached in 2008 to get Hillary to step down and support Obama. A promise of future support or something. So Hillary, like a good little democrat, stepped down and obeyed. After 8 years of Obama, the party promises to give it to Hillary. So, this whole primary process has been about getting Hillary the nomination. So they go on a full on offensive against Bernie, rig the process in many many various subtle ways that they can deny when directly accused, and then corral the Bernie supporters into supporting Hillary because they have nowhere else to go. Again, my big issues with the dems involve these shady attempts at suppression, their obvious attempts to ignore us, and these attempts to make us fall in line. It’s like the democrats think we are stupid and controllable. In this hostile environment, giving them a vote only shows that these tactics work.
AT BEST, they’ll say that if we support them, they might go more progressive at some future date, but who is to say that they will? There’s NO guarantee here. And considering how the democratic mainstream has a different ideology than Bernie supporters (New Democrats vs FDR democrats), and considering how we already had 8 years of Obama, I really just don’t see it. I see no reason to trust the democrats here, and think if we give them our vote, they’ll just ignore us and continue to pull one over on us.
The fact is, the democratic party, while still not as bad as the republican party, looks pretty freaking bad. It clearly looks like it has been corrupted by power, cronyism, and money. It really is just a slightly less toxic version of the republicans. It’s like the two parties are playing good cop, bad cop, when the republicans being the bad cop that will threaten to ruin your life, and the democrats are the good guys who will try to help you out, but in reality, their help is limited, and they’re really both working for the same bosses anyway. The problem is, this primary process has caused this good guy facade to crumble, where now the democrats are exposed as being part of the problem too.
As I said earlier, I think what the dems need to do is take some time off, fire their current leaders, and come back next election with new blood that is more honest and actually connects with the American people. Bernie supporters will support a party that sincerely tries its best to bring progressive change to this country, even if they fail. But they will not support a party that appears intent on pushing their favored candidate, suppressing other views, fear mongering, and trying to bring their voting base under control. This looks bad, and I think the democratic party has done significant harm to itself that will take more than this year to fix. It has lost the trust of the progressive movement it has been trying to build for close to a decade now, and has made itself look bad. I have serious qualms about voting for them. It would be like Leonidas bowing to Xerxes, or Luke Skywalker turning to the dark side. I just don’t think it’s a morally acceptable choice, considering how they’ve been acting this year. Come back in 2020 guys, with whole new leadership, less cronyism, less suppression of dissent, and more openness toward the passions of your voters. That being said, to all the people who think that not supporting the democrats in November is madness, I’ll just say, “madness? THIS IS SPARTA!”, as I cast my protest vote for Jill Stein.
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