2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum'White liberals have the luxury of nominating a socialist
because getting a Republican Attorney general won't impact their lives the way it will minorities."
That was the concensus of my AA inlaws (large get to gathering weekend). They point to how Holder cleared out the Ferguson PD, voter suppression lawsuits against states like Texas, spotlighting unequal disciplining of minority kids in schools and a number of other things that they fear would come to screaching halts if the next Attorney General is a Republican.
While a completely anecdotal story it was pretty good focus group of definite Democratic primary voters and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that sentiment isn't part of Bernie's inability to make inroads with traditional Democratic constituencies.
enid602
(8,659 posts)We have s winner. Well put.
Snotcicles
(9,089 posts)the general election? Do they intend not to vote for him?
If they don't shame on them and they would have no one to blame but themselves.
He has a better chance in the GE. If he gets the nomination, we won't have to worry about a Republican Attorney General.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Historic NY
(37,454 posts)Wankle Ronnie
(66 posts)And that's the brutal truth.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Beartracks
(12,821 posts)Because, you know, obviously if a Democratic Socialist gets the nom, then most Dems will skip the election because he's too far to the left.
Yeah, I know, that doesn't make sense.
====================
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Beartracks
(12,821 posts)... that Sanders can't win the GE.
=====================
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Is there some expectation that republicans are going to jump the party divide for Clinton, then? because if that's what's going on in this argument then... Uh... Well, there's no soft way of saying it, Republicans fucking HATE the Clintons. Hillary, and Bill, and Chelsea, and their cats. They even hate Clinton, Montana (pop. 549) for good measure.
They're not going to jump over to vote for her. They'll vote against her as hard and as thoroughly as they'd vote against Sanders. Or Biden. or O'malley. or any other democrat.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)of GOP attack ads, 'socialist' is a hella burden of a label to self identify.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/183713/socialist-presidential-candidates-least-appealing.aspx?utm_source=Politics&utm_medium=newsfeed&utm_campaign=tiles
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Nope, Democrats aren't the only ones voting. That's true! But the next largest block of voters are republicans. And they are going to vote against whoever, whatever the Democrats nominate. Period, end of story.
yup. republicans will vote against Sanders with all their skinny-dicked might. But they'll do the same for Clinton, too. or Biden. or O'Malley.
What the republicans are going to do is not a valid argument for who ought to be the democratic nominee. we do not set our clocks according to republican watches.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)in a general election? If not in your opinion, clearly it is implicit that that was the assumption of my in laws. If you have convinced yourself that Bernie being a socialist won't be a big problem in the general, that is one thing. But if you think that most people who keep up with politics agree with you, you are in a bubble.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)See, Arley, it's not alchemy. There is no weird and arcane system whereby adding a socialist to the democratic ticket suddenly invents a Republican win. Sanders on the ticket will not spawn Republican voters like water splashing a gremlin. Running Sanders won't make Republican votes count double.
It's demographics. Democratic voters outnumber Republican voters. If sanders wins the nomination, we can presume democrats are on board with him. Generally the big problem the Democratic party has with winning, is when the Left stays home or protest-votes; it doesn't appear this will be a significant problem with Bernie on the ticket. We've already written off the republicans; we know where they're going. So that leaves the vaunted "independent" vote. Self-declared independents trend liberal, and I don't think Sanders' years as an independent and promises to try to shake up the system are going to bring him any significant negatives with that demographic.
This is how I think it would play out, too. Yes.
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)PatrickforO
(14,594 posts)His message makes sense, and there's 80 million Millennials out there who don't care at all that Bernie's a democratic socialist - they don't see anything bad about socialism.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,458 posts)Bernie as well and some of them will not only be voting for Bernie but testifying in his behalf.
He was convicting the Christian leaders and the religious leaders in that university, and calling us out for being complicit in the abandonment of those who suffer, the least of these, and siding with the powerful and rich, the masters of this world. And he was convicting us and calling us out, and we scorned him, and we stared him down; and, with sour faces, we thought, "Who is this wacko, and why do all these people seem to follow him, seem to like him this wild-haired Jew, crying out from the wilderness of the political left, in his hoarse voice?"
When I heard Bernie speaking in that way, when I saw that guy on stage at Liberty University, I saw John the Baptist...crying out to the religious leaders, the Pharisees of his day, calling them corrupt and complicit with those who have all the power and all the money and all the wealth, and abandoning the people that God loves, that God cares about...
As I heard Bernie Sanders crying out to the religious leaders at Liberty University, in his hoarse voice, with his wild hair this Jew and he proclaimed justice over us, he called us to account, for being complicit with those who are wealthy and those who are powerful, and for abandoning the poor, the least of these, who Jesus said he had come to bring good news to. And in that moment something occurred to me. As I saw Bernie Sanders up there, as I watched him, I realized Bernie Sanders for president is good news for the poor. Bernie Sanders for president is Good News for the poor. Bernie Sanders is gospel for the poor. And Jesus said "I have come to bring gospel" good news "to the poor."
And lightning hit my heart at that moment. And I realized that we are evangelical Christians. We believe the Bible. We believe in Jesus. We absolutely shun those who would attempt to find nuance and twisted and tortured interpretations of scripture that they would use to master all other broader interpretations, to find some kind of big message that they want to flout. We absolutely scorn such things, and yet somehow we commit to the mental gymnastics necessary that allows us to abandon the least of these, to abandon the poor, to abandon the immigrants, to abandon those who are in prison.
I listened to Bernie Sanders as he said he wanted to welcome the immigrants and give them dignity, as he said he wanted to care for the sick children and mothers and fathers who do not have health care, as he said he wanted to decrease the amount of human beings who are corralled like cattle in the prisons, as he said he wanted to do justice for those who have nothing and live homeless. And I remembered the words of Jesus who warned his disciples that there will be judgement, and on that day he will look to his friends, and he will say "Blessed are you for you cared for me, for I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you cared for me, I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was in prison and you came to visit me, I was homeless and you gave me shelter." And his disciples said, "When did we do any of those things for you?" And he said, "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/16/1421659/-An-Evangelical-responds-to-Sanders-speech-at-Liberty-U#
Such is the power of faith over fear.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)That's it.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)They do know what a Democratic Socialist is, right?
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)If these people don't want a republican ag, they should gotv for Sanders. And BTW, we've had a democratic ag for seven years.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)like Clinton
ancianita
(36,157 posts)Gman
(24,780 posts)The raw truth.
Gman
(24,780 posts)What? I don't get it.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)left-of-center2012
(34,195 posts)What is "AA"?
Oh, just figured it out - African-American.
I was thinking Alcohol Anonymous.
oasis
(49,428 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)at times. That isn't meant as an insult. But I have thought that for years.
jfern
(5,204 posts)How did NAFTA, the repeal of Glass Steagall, or the end of welfare work out for minorities?
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)I am guessing. More to the point, those beatings aren't DoJ priorities for GOP AGs.
Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)The reason militarized police think they can get away with beating black people is because of systemic racism caused by some of those very issues.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Never really thought about it.
TM99
(8,352 posts)have decreased the number of police beatings and killings of AA men and women during their watch.
I eagerly await your response.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)I find it insulting and I think most of the blacks that I know in real life would feel insulted by your implication, too.
Just so damn one-dimensional. Ugh.
appalachiablue
(41,182 posts)subprime mortgage loans often promoted as 'wealth creation' at seminars in communities of color who lost it all when the housing bubble crashed in 2008.
In the 1990s the incarceration of majority black and Hispanic people increased along with harsher sentences for non violent crimes passed under Clinton that in 20 years has climbed to 2.2 million American prisoners. 'The New Jim Crow' in America as legal scholar Michelle Alexander has written about in her award winning book of the same name.
The US now has the largest prison population in the world, including authoritarian, communist China. Most are in privatized prisons that are very lucrative for corporate shareholders like Thurgood Marshall Jr. who is on the board of the CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America, sorry to say.
According to 'The Atlantic' journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates and others one in four prisoners in the world is in the US.
The notion that 'white liberals' are able to vote for a democratic socialist because they are affluent, drive Volvos, are immune from poverty and social and economic problems, and many other issues and broken systems in this country is absolutely false.
The successful, popular social programs, socialist in purpose that have benefitted working Americans since T. Roosevelt, FDR, LBJ and beyond are many and they have been covered on this forum time after time.
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)How many Democrats spoke out against that?
How many set the record straight as to the true cause?
How many pointed out that the majority of the subprime holders would have qualified for a conventional mortgage?
appalachiablue
(41,182 posts)issues like Clinton's initiative to push home ownership that Bush continued. No the applicants who would qualify for a fixed conventional loan weren't told that but rather put in high risk exploding ARMs because the MBS divisions at investment brokerages were profiting from the fraud as were Fannie and Freddie to some extent, and others. I don't want to get into Chris Dodd with Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide and others. The home buyers were blamed largely esp. by the financial press so many Americans believe that to be true unfortunately.
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)The so called defenders of minorities did nothing to dispel this myth. It shows where their true loyalty lies.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)anyone else...suck it up!
Dems to Win
(2,161 posts)Puts our challenge into focus.
artislife
(9,497 posts)Excuse me, I am not sure if NPR is an allowed source but here goes
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/19/432774289/for-latinos-environment-seems-just-as-important-as-immigration
The poll shows that Latinos place a high priority on the personal effects of climate change, particularly air and water pollution. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed said "reducing smog and air pollution is extremely or very important"; compared with 80 percent for comprehensive immigration reform.
AND
This is not just a Black and White world, people.
Lots of brown people live in war zones, rising ocean level zones, poisonous earth zones.
Lots of Latin Americans are looking at this as the global shitfest we allow our corporations to wage
http://overgrowthesystem.com/argentina-the-country-that-monsanto-poisoned-photo-essay/
I remember the Urban Carbide chemical poisoning of India. Here, look at what has been happening since:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142333/
PoC around the world don't have the luxury of us voting for a middle of the road, wishy washy candidate let alone a republican. This meme you have going here is simplistic and disingenuous at the same time. It sounds like white splaining to me.
artislife
(9,497 posts)to PoCs than one concern.
And there is more than one PoC.
And what we do, affects the rest of the world.
Your tidy little OP is in a very tiny vacuum.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)The more money and status a person has the less responsible he or she is for the consequences of their actions. The less you have of both the smaller your margin of error.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)I wish some of our more vocal brethren could get this through their heads.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Most of us have a hell of a lot at stake as "consequences of actions" and a lot to lose. Why the hell do you think we're pushing for meaningful change and reform?
IF we didn't we'd just say "Let's just coast along with the wonderful status quo we have now. It's working out so well."
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,716 posts)The more money and status a person has the larger their margin for error.
Response to arely staircase (Original post)
Post removed
Chitown Kev
(2,197 posts)lovemydog
(11,833 posts)in this country's history.
The substantive question is why are so many white men who vote republican so narrow minded.
aikoaiko
(34,185 posts)I can't help but think they might do even better than Holder if Bernie is President.
Rilgin
(787 posts)I assume (i am sure correctly) that you are implying by attacking Bernie's electability that you think Hillary is more electable.
She is a public figure and has been for years and her unfavorable ratings are consistently high including some percentage of unfavorable ratings in her democratic base. These are not changeable. She is a known entity. People have made up their minds about her for years and no amount of rebooting will change this.
She has already proven in 2008 that she is a weak candidate by losing a race which she was considered a lock to win. This is because as much as Bernie being a democratic socialist gives you pause, a greater part of the democratic base has the same problem with her and has for years. Some is not her fault. For example, regardless of her qualifications I have a problem with nepotism at this level. Some of her problems come from Right Wing attacks but many come from the type of politics she practices. She, like Bill, believe in triangulation. This may not be the best year for this.
Her flaws as a candidate should be obvious from her failed campaign in 2008, from her current unfavorable numbers and the fact that with all her money and establishment support her polling numbers have been trending downwards to the point that Bernie is leading in many polls of the early states. If you can not admit that this should cause you concern, you are not being objective.
If the concern is over Republicans getting in is your main concern, you should be praying, begging, doing anything you can to make sure that HRC is not the Democratic Party nominee for president and someone else is. Her negatives and problems as a candidate should make even the most staunchest Hillary liker pause in whether they feel certain she is the best nominee and the problem is that she has been set out as the nominee for the last two years by the establishment and the media so we do not have other potential candidates. I actually have some concerns over Bernie's electability, I have many more about HRC's.
Chitown Kev
(2,197 posts)because our communities have somewhat different criteria and different concerns.
A Republican administration is twice as much hell on POC as it is for whites, liberal or otherwise.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)will ignore or turn back the progress that President Obama and Attorney General Holder have made. A democratic administration will strengthen and hopefully further those accomplishments.
A significant question vis a vis our democratic candidates is which one can most effectively continue & improve upon that legacy. I think reasonable people can disagree on which democrat they feel will be most effective. Without implying directly or indirectly that one group is ignorant. As you say, there are somewhat different criteria and different concerns at play.
artislife
(9,497 posts)But the OP is about socialism and Bernie.
I don't want republicans, they are vilifying my people (Latinos) at every turn. Much like what they have done and continue to do to AAs, but that doesn't mean I will vote for Hillary, either.
I see those as two separate points.
I understand the sentiment that we have a lot more to lose and I can understand wanting to choose the "sure thing" over the untested and new. But I feel, we need to go for broke. We have had a wonderful man in the White House for 8 years and that hasn't stopped the hurt to POC communities. I don't think Hillary can either.
But Bernie represents the powerless overcoming the small handful of powerful. I want to ride this wave.
There are a lot of reasons that now is the time and for me the main one is the health of this planet.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Is Bernie Sanders going to appoint a conservative Republican attorney general? What makes you so sure Clinton's appointee will be any better than Bernie's?
And isn't Hillary a "white liberal?" There are no African Americans running on the Democrat side. They are all white. The only AA in the race is on the GOP side. Would you rather have Ben Carson over Bernie Sanders?
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)We've come a long way since 1964, I guess.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Because Bernie speaks the plain truth.
oasis
(49,428 posts)pretend otherwise. Their condescending replies reached new levels.
"It is impossible to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep"--Navajo proverb.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)delrem
(9,688 posts)It doesn't make sense to me and the anecdote about a weekend get together with in-laws doesn't explain anything at all.
All that's there is some vague innuendo, but who wants to go there to find out?
I hope for a Sanders win just because I believe his appointments will likely be much more focused on protecting the common people than some third way candidate obviously playing the game for the money or worse, a fascist Republican. And I'm not looking at all askance at O'Malley -- at any rate O'Malley is by far a better candidate than Hillary Clinton.
Hillary, of all the Dem candidates, has an enormous trust deficit. No doubt largely because she plays so outrageously openly for the money. Both of the Clintons do. She is not considered trustworthy by a full 60% of the population, according to polling, and even "customizing" the poll by stretching it and singling out favorable outliers doesn't help much. PEOPLE DO NOT VOTE FOR SOMEONE THEY DO NOT TRUST. That's an axiom of human nature. So even if we massage those numbers by explaining that Dems support Hillary by large margins, there's still a huge problem. This is why Biden, the Plan B establishment Dem candidate, is being warmed up and, in fact, campaigned for by the MSM and the establishment "pundits".
I see no reason why Dems, even if they ARE "in laws", wouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley just as readily if not more readily as they would vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Anybody on the left *at all* would more eagerly come out to vote for someone actually on the left, who is overall trustworthy, than for someone who is generally perceived as being either untrustworthy or skirting on the edges, and whose major talking point so far has been that she's most electable because she's most heavily bankrolled, so she's "safest", most "moderate".
Response to arely staircase (Original post)
whatchamacallit This message was self-deleted by its author.
TM99
(8,352 posts)Do your AA in-laws know anything about the history of the civil rights movement in the United States over the last 100 years? It really might behoove you and them to learn about it so they are not low-information voters as they now seem.
The founder of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois, went back and forth between communism and socialism his entire life. His influence on other civil rights leaders from King to Malcolm X is apparent, as both of these men espoused socialist, Marxist, and democratic socialist ideas towards the end of the lives.
The Democratic Socialists organization endorsed strongly Jesse Jackson's run in the 1980's. You know the one? The one where Bernie Sanders openly endorsed and supported Jackson where few other democrats did.
Here is an interesting article that I have shared before on the intersection between Marxism, socials, and AA civil rights in recent history.
http://www.marxist.com/black-struggle-and-socialist-revolution.htm
Here is another link for yours and their edification on this topic --
http://www.dsausa.org/black_brown_and_white_socialist_feminisms
So if this 'anecdotal story' is in fact true, it simply demonstrates yet again that Americans in general no matter their gender or race tend to be low information voters who often vote against their best self-interest. We PoC stand a better chance of truly getting social and economic justice with a Democratic Socialist as president than we ever will with a damned neo-liberal whose policies of her husbands, which she enthusiastically endorsed, have already be proven to be extremely harmful to our communities. From for-profit prisons to the death penalty to the war on drugs to welfare reform, belief now that Clinton will somehow be a liberal & progressive champion for PoC is so facile and ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Jappleseed
(93 posts)Your continuous attacks on white liberals is doing nothing but alienating them.
They sicken me and I am not even white.
romanic
(2,841 posts)Thought that was over after the whole fiasco (and failure) in Seattle.
freedom fighter jh
(1,782 posts)It's just an assumption that Bernie has less of a chance in the general than Hillary does. I haven't heard anything to justify it other than "most Americans won't vote for a socialist," another assumption that is never supported.
Bernie is waking up people who don't usually vote, people who will vote for him if he wins the nomination. Bernie's positions are what the mainstream wants. Why would they not vote for him?
From what I've seen, I do agree with your assessment, not just for AA but generally for people who want to see a Democrat win: Many favor Hillary because they think she has a better chance in the general. That's why we need to get the word out that Bernie is electable: so he can win the nomination and then go on to win the presidency.
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)Whoever the Democratic nominee is, she or he will win the blue states, lose the red ones and fight over a handful of swing states. But Sanders won't be the nominee, so I suppose it's a moot point.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)working class includes black, white, brown and other.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)and police abuse, be sure to tell them how the real problem is trade policy. Do it kinda condescending. Then ask them to vote for Bernie.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Sorry to be non-PC but I resent the fuck -- I don't give shit about color -- of that "luxury of white liberal" bullshit. This splitting of "racial issues" from economic inequality and the issue of who holds POWER is crapola and it is a narrow way to view at it. It's more "divide and conquer" bullshit.
EVERYONE (who isn't in the top 20 percent of income brackets) has a stake in what happens to our economy, and has a lot to lose by electing Republicans. It' s not like people who support someone like Sanders is saying "Oh what the hell. let's have some fun and see what a full control by the GOP would be like. Gosh Luvvy, that would be such an interesting experiment."
The fact that people like the Kochs have the power to put right wingnuts into office -- and eliminate voting rights, anti-discrimination laws and everything else -- is an indictment of the entire system of corruption and de-democratization that those "pamperd liberal socialists" are opposing.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)Response to arely staircase (Reply #69)
Cheese Sandwich This message was self-deleted by its author.
magical thyme
(14,881 posts)I'm guessing that's why so few general polls include him. The pollsters are trying to hide the reality!
JRLeft
(7,010 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)JRLeft
(7,010 posts)arely staircase
(12,482 posts)True story. And probably pretty mainstream (their opinions).
At least Bernie's glaring lack of support among AAs nationaly would indicate it is.
Not to take away from your solid logic and argument.
you're supposed to "toe the line" and just agree, you're not allow to be black (or *insert* minority here) and not agree with the narrative here lest you be a sell-out or "a white troll".
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)Although, I am unsure why that matters.
It is not as if any other current candidate would provide a better alternative.
In fact, I'd contend that there is a better chance that they would get a better Attorney General with Bernie as President.
As per mentioned, I am happy with our current crop of nominees. I really don't mind whomever wins the Democratic nomination for President.
Clinton - Happy about her
Sanders - Happy about him
O'Malley - Happy about him as well
Biden - Sure, the more the merrier
All I want is someone to beat down the Republican nominee, as I do not want them to get any more legitimacy or more Supreme Court judges.
YabaDabaNoDinoNo
(460 posts)MellowDem
(5,018 posts)is seen as a luxury, you know the voting system is fucked.