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2017-10-16T17:52:03+00:00

to see the same people who: (a) acted like Russian trolls spewing racist garbage were real Sanders supporters AND STILL DO; (b) claimed that Sanders' (prophetic, as it turned out) statement that it doesn't matter how strong we run in states in the Deep South if they won't get us electoral votes was "racist" AND STILL DO; (c) did not say one word in support of Colin Kaepernick for the past year while he was being figuratively lynched UNTIL they could expropriate his suffering as a way to attack Trump; (d) came out in droves to support a former DU member who spends 95%+ of her social media time praising Secretary Clinton or bashing Sanders and/or his supporters, and whose only time many people can recall her even mentioning the interest of black people was when she was spreading (b) above or when she was trying to delegitimize any black person who did not join her way of thinking; and, (e) were silent when Bob McCulloch, supported by a well-known Senator, whitewashed the cold blooded murder of Michael Brown (and were equally silent about the un-prosecuted cop murders of countless other young black people) are crying foul for having their racial justice bona fides questioned after they attacked Tamika Mallory and the other organizers of Women's Conference in Detroit for refusing to toe their orders on how Sanders should be treated. The indignation of people (who once so freely accused the left of racism and misogyny) over having their own prejudices exposed, however, is of little importance. Indeed, if not one of those who now claim to have been wronged attended this important conference, it wouldnt matter at all in the real world. Democrats will move forward without them. What does matter is that the underlying notion that current non-leftist Democrats speak for black people and that every black person who is not like Tamika understands this. Here is a simple mathematical fact, the primary reason we lost in those states we absolutely needed, Michigan, for example, was not because Jill Stein took away vote Secretary Clinton should have had, but because people who look like me were so unenthused by what we as a party offered that they didnt turn out and vote. Look at the numbers. In Michigan, Jill Stein received 30K more votes total counting the whole state in 2016 than she did in 2012. In Wayne County alone, with a population that is 40% black, Secretary Clinton received over 70K less votes than President Obama and 2012 was Obamas close election. (Btw, Secretary Clinton received 130K less votes in Wayne County in 2016 than President Obama did in 2008). Far too many people try to paper this over by saying, We got 90%+ of the black vote in Michigan. Weve got the message black voters want to hear. Sorry, thats just wrong. ANY Democrat is going to garner 90%+ of the black vote because we fn suffer in a way non-black voters do not when Republicans win. (As I have mentioned in other posts, I am as extreme left as is humanly possible and I have voted for the Democrat in every single election beginning in 1972 for simply that reason, not because any candidate other than Obama in 2008 has spoken to my interests.) If you want to see whether we buy what is being sold, look at turnout. Turnout in 2016 tells you that all of the experts who are talking about how incrementalism sells with black voters (or how Secretary Clintons policies were loved by black voters) are wrong. It may sell at DU, and even with a vast majority of black DU members, but it doesnt sell in Memphis where I live, or Houston, or, as we see from the stats, Detroit. I have zero doubt that given the closeness of the 2016 presidential election in 3-4 key states, that without Russian/Cambridge Analytical social media disinformation, suppression of Democratic voters in the form of voter ID and voter registration laws particularly combined with racially and/or ethnically targeted voter purges; and the suppression of Democratic voters in the form of racially and/or ethnically targeted decreases in polling locations and voting hours could have independently caused the 2016 disaster. Even the defectors to Stein could have changed the outcome. BUT if we are looking at the MAJOR cause of our defeat, it wasnt any of those, it was our decision to ignore the dissatisfaction of black voters and to simultaneously tell working class voters to jump in a lake (when both of those groups have consistently voted in favor of the Democratic candidate) AND then to continue the morally indefensible and failed strategy of playing to educated suburban whites which have never voted in our favor. The fault, dear Brutus . . .

Post removed Mon Oct 16, 2017, 01:52 PM Oct 2017

Post removed

2 replies

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Post removed (Original Post) Post removed Oct 2017 OP

Heh. progressoid Oct 2017 #1

I can't either GaryCnf Oct 2017 #2

progressoid

(49,999 posts)

1. Heh.

Reply to Post removed (Original post)

Mon Oct 16, 2017, 03:04 PM

Oct 2017

Your post was alerted.

Can't imagine why.

GaryCnf

(1,399 posts)

2. I can't either

Reply to progressoid (Reply #1)

Mon Oct 16, 2017, 03:34 PM

Oct 2017

I'm pretty new here so I read the TOS and then I looked at other OPs on the subject of who should be part of our big tent for sort of a template and thought I sounded a lot like other folks but that I had brought some rarely-considered facts to the discussion.

I am disappointed.

On the other hand, I guess that explains the silence.