- The current DNC chair is still Donna Brazile. Yes, even after it was revealed that Brazile leaked town hall questions to Hillary Clinton during the primary, she remains chair. “Fake News” CNN even had the good sense to fire Brazile for her conduct, but not the DNC.
This person is a walking caricature. WTF is she "forgiving" the DNC for? She came into politics as an oppositional radical and when her revolution failed she whipped out the capslock. It's like Occupy Wall Street - "what do we want? Something something rabble rabble CHANGE!" Bitch, don't even pretend you were ever in the party. It's not like the DNC's handling of Bernie Sanders drove you from the bosom of your caucus out into the radical wasteland. You were in the woods before, followed a hermit to the campfire and then when he didn't take it over, you returned howling to the woods. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT but this essay is akin to a Vegan claiming to be a lifelong customer of McDonald's and railing over the disappearance of the McRib.Last year, I did something I never thought I would: I volunteered for a political campaign. I also did something I never dreamed I would ever do: I donated to a political candidate. Although a young voter and only encountering the second presidential election I could vote in, I was already cynical enough to believe nothing would ever compel me to give money to a politician. After all, they could get the money they needed from their wealthy donors.
I’m fired up and ready to work for change. Yet, it seems the DNC doesn’t want my help. They certainly don’t act like they do.
Yet, the DNC has made no efforts to woo us back. Rather than admitting to any wrongdoing or showing the least bit of inclination to make changes, the Democrats instead seem steadfast in their resolve to continue as they were, crying Russia! and Trump! and expecting us to shut up and help them out of fear.
Attacking this thinkpiece on its merits isn't even worth the time. The real issue, IMO, is the cropping up of these type of publications. I keep seeing them on my FB feed, and its grating on me more and more every day. Air America, or whatever that radio channel was called, failed where conservative radio has long succeeded because modern liberals have at least tried to consider themselves as free thinkers. We've taken pride in the idea (even if it's not always correct) that we can synthesize ideas from facts. We don't need Pravda telling us whom to persecute and who's persecuting us. Apparently, that was a veneer, and when the shit gets tough, everyone is susceptible to propaganda.
Air America failed because it was positioned for people who listened to NPR but wanted their facts sprinkled with shouting and invective. Conservative radio succeeds because only old people listen to talk radio anymore unless it has a heapin' helpin' of NPR sprinkled in.
They aren't that far out into the radical wasteland though. Out in the wasteland everyone's split into "why bother voting, pass the spliff" (or the variant "vote for the SA/PSL/Greens, feel smug") and"vote for whoever the Democrats run, mumble about popular fronts as if there were enough of us to matter." If you're favoring one particular Democrat over the other for reasons other than which is likely to win you're not that far from the center.
The official slogan of the Berniecrats, ladies and gentlemen. The whole point of the Sanders campaign was it motivated people who do not normally participate in politics. They clearly participated to the detriment of the establishment Democratic machine - two of WA's presidential electors posted their votes to some activist at Standing Rock rather than Clinton. "I still haven't forgiven the DNC" is only a point of discussion if you can also say "I have experienced emotions other than scathing contempt for the DNC.""why bother voting, pass the spliff"
I, also supported Sanders. My wife even gave him money. When Clinton won the nomination, we gave her money, too. I did none of your actionable stuff because it was pretty damn symbolic around here. And the thing is? I would love for all that Sanders anger and passion to reset the democrats. The Sanders campaign conclusively proved that a little money from everyone is as effective, if not more so, than a lot of money from the Forbes 100. ctrl-F "ellison" on that article and show me where the author is even vaguely pretending to have a clue what's going on at the DNC right now, let alone that she cares other than to be butthurt. Bye Felicia.I did my best to watch the full DNC chair debate, but I had to rage quit an hour in after every candidate on stage refused to admit that the primary had been rigged.
I don't think you have to believe that the DNC swung things for Clinton. They used all the parliamentary procedures that the Sanders neophytes didn't know existed. That's all well documented and unashamedly admitted. Honestly? If Sanders had decided to become a Democrat in 2013 instead of 2015, I suspect the primaries would have gone very differently. I'm all for bashing the DNC. But I also think that being pissed off within the system is hella more productive than storming in from the parking lot and demanding everything change. Fuckin' lurk moar.
Get the fuck over yourself, dude. You've been on this crusade against Hillary, the DNC, and so many other fucking things and not once have I seen you present anything actionable outside of high-flying articles like this one and tearing it down and starting over.
My deepest and sincerest apology for not being jaded enough. I have sworn off the two major parties and will vote independent for the rest of my life, barring some kind of electoral miracle that puts a legitimately (Read: Idealistically, not pragmatically) progressive candidate up for election. My 'action' is reserved for causes I can actually make an impact in. National politics is not that arena. I have however gone to town halls/city council meetings since the election, and plan on continuing to do so.
I would much rather hear and learn about your experiences in local politics than whatever this article is.
It can be summed up pretty succinctly. All of the councilmen/women, with one exception, are nice WASPy folks with long, familial connections to the city and local industry (The University). They are all avid Democrats. When confronted with a population boom in the local deer population, causing lots of car accidents, they voted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay a group of hunters to 'lethally remove' ~90 overgrown rabbits from the parks. They spent an additional ass-load of money to surgically sterilize less than 100 does. Less than 20 miles from here there are thousands and thousands of good 'ol boys with bows and arrows who would have been more than happy for open season to be declared on those deer, and would have 'lethally removed' them for free. Article on The Shoot as it was so dramatically called. Think Global, Act Local. This is me thinking globally.I would much rather hear and learn about your experiences in local politics than whatever this article is.
More importantly, how many more times will you need to say "a plague on both your houses" before you feel that the universe has heard you? You probably don't recognize it because it's mostly the outrage that you like, but these articles of yours? They're universally by some special snowflake vituperatively performing their astonishment that representative democracy means more than 'i'm the loudest so I get my way.' To you, anyone who acknowledges the system as it exists is a cynic. To you, anyone who demands the system change to fit their preconceived notions is an idealist. Your hunting anecdote - what did you do about it? 'cuz lemme tell ya - anybody with their panties in a twist over Donna Fucking Brazile while Jeff Sessions unravels three key reforms on his first day in office is useless.
Agreed. And I'm in pretty much exactly the same boat. This is a message to establishment democrats, if you want the support of the people who were fired up for Bernie, if you want to win next time you've got a chance, you need to listen to the people who were willing to give you a shot.Bitch, don't even pretend you were ever in the party. It's not like the DNC's handling of Bernie Sanders drove you from the bosom of your caucus out into the radical wasteland. You were in the woods before, followed a hermit to the campfire and then when he didn't take it over, you returned howling to the woods.
It's the wrong message, though. "you lost us because of Donna Brazile" rather than "the only reason we were talking to you is it was the only plausible way to get a socialist elected president." Here's the basic problem the DNC faces: if you're rich and self-interested, you vote Republican because you've likely managed to accumulate wealth and privilege. If you're poor and self-interested, you vote Republican because they bald-facedly tell you things will be better if they gut environmental regulations and kick out the Mexicans. If you're poor and selfless, you vote Republican because ISIS is going to blow up the Chick-Fil-A and Obama has death panels. If you're rich and selfless you're a fucking unicorn. I am now in a position where I know about hiring lobbyists. I am now in a position where my wife's trade group is attempting to gently remind a multi-billion-dollar multinational that they're afoul of state law (and impacting our trade rights) and hoping that the hospital group doesn't just decide to lobby to make my wife illegal. I am now in a position to understand that government protection is great for everybody, but seeing that the people who actually make up the government that protect you are, on average, Peter Principle bureaucrats that have risen to the level of their own incompetence and are in the positions they're in because they lack the drive or skill to work in a competitive marketplace. It's really easy to be a democrat when you're poor. That wealth that needs to be distributed to the underprivileged? You're one of 'em. When you have amassed some assets? You have to be pretty goddamn idealistic. I'm a booster of Obamacare. I'm glad it provides insurance for millions that couldn't get it any other way. But it directly cost me $5k a year. You gotta really want universal healthcare for your country to eat five grand and not be bitter. Railing against it? Simplest fuckin' thing. 'I work for my money why are you taking it from me and giving it to a bunch of strawman welfare queens I've never met and have no reason to believe exist?' So the DNC needs to be a party that doesn't gut anyone who has actually made some money in the system while also trying to represent the interests of people who are fucked by the system without employing the guns-guts-god trifecta that the Republicans employ. Because the people clever enough to make it out of the Republican strongholds? They're currently in liberal enclaves where they don't have to suffer under conservative totalitarianism and where their vote also doesn't count.
Is the Left trying to invent their own Breitbart? Anyone who says that such-and-such person "had the media" do anything, as if "the media" is an organ to be played, has no credibility. Full stop. Media bashing isn't ok when Trump does it, and it's even more shameful when the Left does it. Journalists are our last best hope to get some measure of what is happening in today's chaotic climate. I know it feels good to go all Breitbart, because the Right does it so well, but thinking people are better than this.
I'm not media bashing. I am DNC bashing, so is the article. Seeing as it starts with, and I quoted If anything, that's congratulating CNN on doing the right thing, and firing an obviously corrupt individual. That she's corrupt in a way that runs counter to Drumpf is not an excuse.The current DNC chair is still Donna Brazile. Yes, even after it was revealed that Brazile leaked town hall questions to Hillary Clinton during the primary, she remains chair. “Fake News” CNN even had the good sense to fire Brazile for her conduct, but not the DNC.
I don't remember which magazine I read it in but the RNC had a dossier on Bernie and he probably would have lost too. I mean I love the guy, I donated money I couldn't afford to him, but there was some damning stuff in the dossier. He was on welfare into his thirties, he was stealing power from a neighbor, he called the sandinistas or some such group freedom fighter. Not like I care about any of this but the article made me question whether he could have won. The average voter wouldn't have taken kindly to these things. The Republicans wanted him to win. Hell, Hilary won except for some unfortunate electoral college math. I can't find the exact article but here's a quote from it Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue. Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.” The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone reallyattacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it — a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.
I think the calculation here is that Trump will be such a bad president that no matter how weak or corrupt the next democratic nominee is he/she will be a shoe in. Donna will assure that the "Right" person is nominated for president in 2020 (Chelsea Clinton? or similar). Its become pretty clear that there is no admission of failure after the last election or desire to reform and clean up the party. That's really too bad because I was hoping that a reform of the democratic party into a more progressive unit would be one of the positive outcomes of the last election. I fear that once again there will not be a progressive option for the 2020 election.
KB is trolling you again don't take the bait. The foundation is being laid for 2020. How the party reacts or doesn't to the election of 2016 is telling on how they plan to run 2018 and 2020 campaigns. If they thought progressive issues of Bernie supporters were important to the party they wouldn't have selected her. This is another sign that the Party thinks Bernie carts will vote for whoever has the D next to their name to oppose trump. And you know what, they might be right this time.
I'm being completely sincere, actually, and if you want to talk smack about me, you can do it to my face. The fact that Ellison vs. Perez is making news shows how much this shit matters - a black muslim wants to take over running the DNC. Doesn't that show just how radical things have gotten? But to profess that the catastrophe of 2016 was the fact that Bernie Sanders didn't get the nomination is to profess profound selfishness and ignorance.
Know what happened in this election cycle? A cranky old Vermont socialist switched to the Democratic party because he didn't want Clinton's agenda to run unopposed. And he gave her a hell of a run for her money and forced her to adopt much of his platform. In the end he did not win but he enrolled millions of people in the electoral process who otherwise never would have bothered. The fact that you think it's "pretty massively important" to prevent that from happening again shows just how far you are up your own alimentary canal on this.