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Fiendish Thingy

(15,367 posts)
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 10:56 PM Nov 2017

Salon- Demo-Catastrophe: It was worse than we thought, and bigger than Bernie vs. Hillary

My governing assumptions in March 2016 were highly conventional ones: Republicans were likely to turn on Donald Trump, sooner rather than later, and wind up nominating someone marginally more normal. Hillary Clinton was exceptionally likely to be the next president. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign was essentially over, after a series of lopsided Clinton victories in large Southern states.
Those assumptions, let’s just say, turned out to be flawed to varying degrees. But my underlying premise that the Clinton-Sanders primary battle had revealed an unresolved ideological and political conflict at the heart of the Democratic coalition, which was not actually about Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, was substantially correct. It was flawed in one important way: I failed to perceive that the Democratic Party’s real problems ran much deeper than that.

-snip-

At least on the surface, that's worse than the most dire accusations hurled at the party last year by internet BernieBros or Julian Assange. Some of Brazile's account has subsequently been called into question by Democratic insiders, most notably the timing of the fund-raising agreement between the DNC and the Clinton campaign, No individual element of that picture is especially damning on its own, and there was nothing illegal about this arrangement, as Brazile makes clear. But there’s also no way to make it look good, and the overall impression is one of an organization so rudderless, demoralized and destitute it had stopped caring about its integrity.

-snip-

Brazile’s revelations have obviously provided new ammunition to Sanders supporters who perceived the 2016 Democratic contest as rigged, not to mention more fodder for tweets about “Crooked Hillary” by crazy old guys, including the one in the Oval Office. But to return to the principle mentioned above, I think that’s missing the point: Bernie vs. Hillary was never the central issue, and it definitely isn’t now. The extent to which virtually all discussion about left-liberal politics and the Democratic Party’s future devolves into vitriolic disputes about those two candidates, or into circular arguments about “social justice” and “economic inequality” (as if those things were opposed or categorically distinct), is itself an index of Democratic dysfunction.


(bolding mine)


https://www.salon.com/2017/11/04/demo-catastrophe-it-was-worse-than-we-thought-and-goes-way-beyond-bernie-vs-hillary/

Thank goodness the mid-terms are still a year away; things have got to change from business as usual if we're to have a hope of saving this country from Donnie Two-Scoops, and not squander the momentum that the bountiful gifts the Mueller investigation is bound to provide. We can't count on Meuller alone to provide us with the edge to take back the majorities in the House and Senate.
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Salon- Demo-Catastrophe: It was worse than we thought, and bigger than Bernie vs. Hillary (Original Post) Fiendish Thingy Nov 2017 OP
Bullshit article greeny2323 Nov 2017 #1
Perfect analysis. And a belated welcome to DU. VOX Nov 2017 #3
Bullshit analysis shanny Nov 2017 #4
. Squinch Nov 2017 #2
Good read FarCenter Nov 2017 #5
More "we're more progressive than thou" bullshit from non-Democrats trying to wag their fingers... wyldwolf Nov 2017 #6
There was an indication of trouble ahead when Bernie won Michigan... kentuck Nov 2017 #7
 

greeny2323

(590 posts)
1. Bullshit article
Sat Nov 4, 2017, 11:07 PM
Nov 2017

"So, it turns out most of what Brazile said is wrong and has no evidence, but it confirms my bias so I'll write a 'Democrats in disarray' story."

Thank goodness normal people don't follow this stuff.

 

FarCenter

(19,429 posts)
5. Good read
Sun Nov 5, 2017, 07:53 AM
Nov 2017
How in God’s name did that happen? Well, we’ve all spent too much time blathering on about that and coming up with halfway plausible explanations: It was sexism and Russian meddling and racial resentment and “economic anxiety” and the marginalization of the white working class. It was a flood-tide of right-wing fake news and Jim Comey’s October surprise (remember, we were supposed to hate him before we were supposed to love him). It was voter suppression and depressed turnout and bearded millennial snowflakes who voted for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson. Given how flukish the 2016 election was, it’s fair to say that all those factors played a role, and that if any one of them could be adjusted just a little, the outcome might have been different.

Even at their most grandiose and Putin-enriched, those are granular explanations of what happened last November — a uniquely traumatic and damaging event, to be sure — which completely ignore the near-total meltdown of the two-party system that got us there in the first place. Hillary Clinton’s bizarre defeat-in-victory was an event so unlikely it seems like a metaphor. So does the fact that the Democratic Party was so broke and so cynical it literally sold its soul for rent money. But those things happened. Until we face them honestly there will be no Resistance, no victory, no political renewal and no democracy.

wyldwolf

(43,865 posts)
6. More "we're more progressive than thou" bullshit from non-Democrats trying to wag their fingers...
Sun Nov 5, 2017, 07:57 AM
Nov 2017

... at the rest of us.

If there wasn't so much as stake, I'd love to see these people start their own 'progressive' party just watch it wilt away as reality dawned on them.

kentuck

(110,950 posts)
7. There was an indication of trouble ahead when Bernie won Michigan...
Sun Nov 5, 2017, 08:00 AM
Nov 2017

...in a major upset. It showed that Hillary's support in Michigan was rather thin.

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