Tag Archives: democrats

I disagree with this.

  1. Not even Bernie Sanders would qualify as a left-wing Trump, no matter how many comparisons were drawn between them or how many folks had wet dreams of a Trump-Sanders debate.
  2. a left-wing Trump would have to be sexist AF and adept at racist dogwhistles (*hinthint* “BLASTED ZIONAZI BANKERS” *hinthint* “Asians tuk er jerbs”). That would gut the Dems in the Black third of the South, so why even try?
  3. The closest I could imagine to a left-wing Trump is George Galloway, and he’s a British MP who got kicked out of Labour.

Larry Sanders Tearfully Casts Vote for Brother Bernie Sanders at DNC 2016

Factoid:

Larry Sanders, a social worker and academic who is a citizen of the UK and the U.S., is a member of both the Green Party of England and Wales and the U.S. Democratic Party. He has served as a Member of the Oxfordshire County Council (2005-2013) and ran for a seat in Parliament in 2015 on the Green ticket, coming in fifth to the Conservative winner. Larry’s son Jacob has also served on the Oxford City Council and ran in 2005 for Parliament as a Green.

I am very glad that Larry, who is 82, has lived long enough to cast this vote. I also feel that Larry is more free in the UK to vote his conscience than he is here in the US.

Looking Forward After the DNC

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

I will continue to be proud of the work I did and the vote I cast for Bernie Sanders, but I look forward to what we can do under a Clinton presidency and a better-run Democratic Party. I’m proud of the work that David Smith has done on behalf of the Sanders campaign in Columbus and as a Sanders delegate to the DNC. I’m glad that Sanders delegates on the platform committee were able to make progressive lemonade out of what could have been a very moderate, weak lemon for the next four years.

Susana et al at the DNC who are aggrieved by the conduct of the contest and its result, the next four years present an opportunity for you. Take a cue from Ronald Reagan: when his candidate Goldwater lost in a landslide to Johnson in 1964, he and several other party activists – including Richard Viguerie, who used Goldwater’s direct mail list for years to come to support conservative causes of the day – fought to clear out the moderates – along with Nixon and Ford – and make the party into a hardcore, free-market, religious-conservative force. Reagan used this to win the governorship of California and then mount three candidacies for president.

If Clinton’s win is the last straw for you, then continue the work that Sanders fought for. Make Sanders’ platform viable on the downballot. Speak for harder-left progressive politics across the country. Fight for those values in places where single payer and public options have not penetrated the public mind. Appeal to those who have something they want to protect and serve. Change county party leadership. Distribute pamphlets, free booklets, direct mail and email newsletters to your friends – be they urban or rural – which explain your case for a progressive America. Change moderates and liberals into progressives and Democratic socialists.

Sanders awakened a progressive energy which was dormant for the time that President Obama has been in office. But that energy must now be flexed to change America for the foreseeable future. Our lives, our quality of life, our peace, our social justice, and our environment depend on what we do after this convention.

Let’s do the work.

Why Jill Stein is Not My Choice

Uncategorized, ,

I’m a Bernie Sanders primary voter, and I don’t feel that Jill Stein is a realistic candidate for president. It has nothing to do with her being a third-party candidate or being a potential “spoiler” because I don’t believe in the premise that votes only belong to two parties. This has everything to do with the optics and mechanics of Stein’s proposals, as well as with her lack of political experience as an electoral liability.

Jill Stein’s Green Party has never won a single Congressional seat since their foundation in 1992. On the Green ticket, only 7 senate candidates and 1 House candidate are running in 2016, when 34 Senate and all 435 House seats are open for election this year. The Republicans are favored to retain the majority in the House this year while the Senate majority is up for grabs. With a party list being this paltry and dry, if the Green Party leadership intended for this year to be a watershed for a left-wing exodus from the Democrats to the Greens, all seven co-chairs of the Green National Committee are sorely mistaken.

So many of Stein’s policies could pass muster with none but a number of the Democratic minority in either House. That will effectively render about 60% of her platform moot in the face of not only Republican far-right hostility but also moderate Democratic reticence. A president Jill Stein faces far worse hostility to her policies than the current officeholder has faced in 8 years, 6 of which have been lame ducks filled with deft executive self-control against reactionary legislative havoc. Stein could not, under any known or possible circumstances, institute an effective presidency in this oh-so American, oh-so counterintuitive political reality.

With the sole exception of her time as a member of the Town Meeting of Lexington, Massachusetts (2005-2011), Jill Stein does not have any degree of downballot political experience. 40 out of all 44 presidents in the history of the United States have held any combination of at least one of these seats of office prior to their election as president: Vice President, Senator, Member of the House, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Member of the President’s Cabinet. Three other presidents – Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower – had only held military leaderships prior to their presidency, and the remaining one – Washington – was a delegate to the Continental Congress and the leader of the U.S. Army during the Revolutionary War.

So where does Jill Stein fit in that expectation of experience? Similarly, where does Donald Trump fit in that expectation of experience?

By comparison, the person who she has sought to woo over to running with her as a Green Party candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has held elected office since 1981 as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, representative of Vermont’s at-large district in Congress and Senator for Vermont. Hillary Clinton, who Jill Stein has browbeat for her arguably non-progressive record, served as Senator for New York from 2001-2009 and as Secretary of State from 2009-2013. By comparison to 40 out of 44 other presidents in U.S. history, both candidates for the Democratic nomination are significantly more qualified than Jill Stein, who has never held state or federal level office, and Donald Trump, who has never held elected or appointed political or military office.

Even Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party right-wing candidate in 2016 who previously gained more popular votes than Jill Stein’s last run in 2012, is more qualified for the presidency than Jill Stein or Donald Trump by way of serving as the Republican Governor of New Mexico. Seeing how Johnson browbeat Stein and her Green Party in a third-party debate on RT America, Stein seems to largely be out of her depth when it comes to confronting a cottage industry of the most inane right-wing arguments and rebuttals directed against her policies. If I were to protest-vote without concern to political ideology, I would vote for Johnson over Stein.

Even Gayle McLaughlin, the former two-term Green Party mayor and current councilwoman of Richmond, California who has been lauded for her progressive, far-left-to-the-Democrats policies, is somewhat more qualified to run for higher state or federal office of some type, if not president, than Jill Stein. I would vote for Gayle McLaughlin over Jill Stein in any state or federal office if I were a California resident. Unfortunately, it seems that the Green Party only runs a decent ground game in California, and only in local races. Outside of California, the Green Party seems to mostly attract politically-aware but ill-tempered, non-serious malcontents as candidates. I wish the Green Party were a more serious, more self-aware rival for left-wing votes at all levels, seeing that they are the largest left-wing political party in terms of membership which is not named the “Democratic Party”.

Finally, to pivot back to the separation of powers, so much of Jill Stein’s agenda (and Bernie’s and Hillary’s) is not accomplishable by one person or by the executive branch as a whole. About 60-80% of Stein’s platform is the remit of Congress. About 60-80% of Stein’s agenda cannot be accomplished by executive order and would be slapped down by the courts if tried through EO. Separation of powers guarantees that the Congress will always act to hold the executive to account. Even under the G.W. Bush presidency, a Republican Congress held his presidency in check on the Real I.D. Act, which scared many libertarians of the left and White-right varieties over the usurpation of state-level privilege over identification.

Why do we demand so much of the presidency that cannot be realistically accomplished by the presidency? Why have we lost so much of our cognizance regarding what power Congress has in the implementation of federal government? Is this a popularity contest over who can be the bigger strongman or strongwoman? I don’t think so many of us, especially Democrats, care about Congress and its powers anymore (to our peril), and we set ourselves up for massive disappointment when we treat one person as the leader of a political cult of personality as so many of us have done with Bernie Sanders. I believe in competent presidencies, not strong presidencies, and no matter how progressive or liberal a platform can be, it has little to no legitimacy if it is not backed by a legislative mandate. Jill Stein does not have a legislative mandate by way of her party having no members in Congress, or even a progressive majority to consider and pass her proposals.
That is how woefully inadequate Jill Stein seems to me as a candidate. This is why I backed away from Bernie Sanders after I voted for him. This is also why I’m conceding to voting for Clinton in the general, in that she has the votes, the basic experience as an officeholder that at least 40 other presidents have had prior to their elections, and the legislative mandate to carry so many of the policies that Sanders supported in his candidacy’s platform.

But whether Democrats, or progressives and liberals in any party, even care about getting a majority in both houses of Congress anymore remains to be seen.

Just thought about this:

Ethics are definitely an issue post-#DNCleak but there is no previous code of conduct that I can find to suppress perceived bias among party strategists and activists toward candidates, campaign staff and elected officials.

Rhetoric and ill intent among the top activists of the party during a nomination contest is what everyone’s rightfully angry about. But there is no prior standard for party activist behavior to measure these emails up against, so the resignation of DWS is simply a sop to both media and in-party activists after the fact. How do we measure (im)partiality?

DNC activists need an activist code of ethics/code of conduct to measure future perceptions of bias or outright (non-illegal) misconduct. Is anyone even advocating for this at #DNCinPhilly/ #DNCinPHL?

Or what about ya’ll? What do you think should go into a DNC (or any party’s) code of ethics?

Hold Fire on Donna Brazile

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Bernie supporters are already coming for #DonnaBrazile for saying that she’ll “cuss out” Sanders personally in the emails. Because of this, she’s now being called “corrupt”.

So because Donna uses curse words, Bernie supporters are mad at her? But her apology to Sanders for the “stupidity” in the #DNCleaks is not accepted?

You know who else is coming for Donna Brazile? Trump supporters on Twitter, with their “fat black woman” and “affirmative action” comments and “MOLON LABE/MAGA” in their profile.

Can’t please everyone. But it now smacks of racism, misogyny and hurt feelings over “classiness”. And the reaction against Brazile is typical of the flimsy definition of the word “corruption”.

Bernie got the scalp he explicitly wanted: that of DWS. The emails don’t show Brazile conspiring to undermine Sanders’ campaign, even in her personal mild disdain for the campaign.

Bernie people, “Basta”. This is embarrassing. We have a better DNC chair. Let’s move on.

Donna Brazile

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Donna Brazile should stay as long-term chair, IMO. Her resume without ever having held elected office:

  • Lobbied heavily to get MLK Day recognized as a federal holiday
  • Volunteered for Carter-Mondale in 1976 and 1980 as a teenager
  • first African-American woman to manage a major party presidential campaign (Al Gore, 2000)
  • Served as Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute (2001-2009)
  • Previously interimed as chair between Kaine and Wasserman-Schultz in 2011
  • DNC Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation since 2009
  • Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
  • Adjunct Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown University
  • Second African-American to serve in a chairship capacity since the late Ron Brown (1989-1993)
  • Brought up the issue of George H.W. Bush’s alleged extramarital affair which got her fired from Dukakis’ campaign in 1988, but which was later used by Bill Clinton (irony?) against the elder Bush in 1992.
  • Was instrumental in penalizing Florida and Michigan’s Democratic parties for moving their primaries against DNC rules in 2008.
  • Member of the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority under Governor Blanco (2005-2009)
  • Says what she feels: “Look, I’m a woman, so I like Hillary. I’m black; I like Obama. But I’m also grumpy, so I like John McCain.” (2008)
  • Arguably the most powerful woman in the DNC for years.
  • NOT A POLITICIAN. HELLO?!

Voter’s Remorse Over Bernie

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

My eye is better now. I don’t feel the scratching since I woke up. Surprising.

After that utter crushing of Bernie Sanders in #NYPrimary (not even restoring the voter rolls would have gotten him a victory, AFAICT), his birthplace, I’m rethinking the movement behind him.

The “money-in-politics/anti-corruption” focus is incredibly myopic and monomaniacal. To be honest, “money-in-politics” is not my biggest focus. My focus is on civil and human rights, and clearing all possible impediments to those rights.

Right now, those impediments are coming from the 50 states which exercise more control over cities than the federal government exercises over them. State politicians are falling over themselves to stigmatize the autonomies and powers of women, LGBT people, people of color, non-religious/minority-religious people, and organized labor.

But Sanders’ focus is on moneyed interests in the federal government, not the state politicians who are spearheading these terrible experiments in the “labs of democracy” which act as little fiefdoms for the White Male Christian Supremacist orders which have controlled them since colonial times and violently fought the federal government when compelled to change their ways of governance.

Universal health care is also being heavily resisted at the state level, as are the restoration of the VRA, the closing of wasteful local military installations and the drawing-down of our military expenditures, the banning of fracking, card check for union elections, non-discrimination laws, the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of felon disenfranchisement etc.

All of the vested interests which seek to protect the social status quo and rage against what could bring us together seem to emanate directly from the state governments and their landed gentry, while D.C. merely tries to hold them together with sweetheart deals and gentleman agreements. Oh, and the majority of the federal spending that is ballyhooed by the reactionaries representing these states goes to funding the expenditures which keep these states afloat. Hypocrisy.

While Clinton is already signaling how she will deal with recalcitrant states (in which she will likely follow Obama’s model), Sanders is not addressing what the progressive agenda should be on and in the states. Clinton will most assuredly keep much of this status quo with many allowable incremental changes around the edges, but she, by her platform, is more likely to apply those changes to matters of a civil or human rights concern through executive action than Sanders, by his platform, seems to be.

Sanders’ singular focus on “big banks” has carved out a core constituency of true believers and populists across many states, the majority of whom have not had to live under the oppression of their home state. Similarly, their focus is either on “big banks” or how “Hillary is bad because she takes money from such and such”. I don’t share that concern.

Right now, big banks and Fortune 500s who donated to bigoted state politicians and ALEC are having “buyer’s remorse” and successfully rallying the proletariat against these same politicians’ bigoted legislations. They’re becoming unlikely, problematic but necessary allies of the civil rights constituency in Southern states, where the civil rights movement never ended.

Right now, Fortune 500s are facing off against nasty rural politicians who seek to other and stigmatize non-normative human beings who happen to be employees of these companies. That’s what I and everyone who lives in Columbus, GA live with. I’m not concerned with big banks right now. I’m not concerned with Super PACs right now. I’m not concerned with who donated how much to what foundation, unless they’re doing something to screw with civil and human rights here or abroad.

I VOTED FOR BERNIE SANDERS, liking his progressive bonafides but hoping that he would broaden his platform and address how fundamentally, institutionally unjust we are as a country beyond mere money economics.

I was hoping that Sanders’ social media supporters, even the ones who wear their “independent” label on their sleeve, would retreat from conspiracy theories, utter crankery, poor knowledge of both the Democratic Party’s operations and our massively-unjust 1787 Constitution, massive condescension to Democrats of color, and other *ahem* BS. He hasn’t. They haven’t. And now I’m having “buyer’s remorse.” #AbolishTheStates #AbolishTheSenate #MadamPresident

A Southern State Agenda for Progressive Liberal Dems

Politics, Uncategorized,

“Congressional Republicans in the Obama era have largely been defined by their insistence on standing in front of the administration and yelling stop. Democrats call them the party of “no.” But in state legislatures, Republicans are finding both rewards and peril in being a vigorous party of “yes” when it comes to promoting conservative social issues.”

NY Times

This is what I wonder: for Democrats – progressives, liberals and everyone in between – 2018 will be a crucial moment. At the state level, Democrats have completed their transformation into the “liberal opposition”, the “Negro Party” (the latter being what the Southern GOP was described as in the 1890s), the “anti-gun party”, the “pro-abortion party”. They’re fighting different battles than what Beltway Democrats are fighting in Congress, on a different playing field.

But we’ve also become the “party of No” in states which have gerrymandered state legislature district lines. We’ve come to this point from embracing minority, disadvantaged, young, migrant, creative, urbanized and/or educated identities, and fighting fights from a minority, disadvantaged, young, migrant, creative, urbanized and/or educated position.

This means that at this level, we will have to get used to being the opposition in so much of the rurally-spread United States for a long period of time. The rural agenda and historic rural privilege (pro-gun proliferation, pro-patriarchy, pro-religious establishment, pro-austerity, pro-racial privilege) runs ship at the state level. And I don’t see a turnaround happening without either one of two things happening:

  • a hypocritical repeat of the Southern Strategy in which Democrats drive out the “non-traditional Americans” who they’ve accrued since 1968 and curry favor with the “traditional Americans”.
  • Creating new, Democratic-leaning states from existing ones, a la State of Baja Arizona, State of South Florida, State of Atlanta, State of South Louisiana, State of South Texas, etc.

I think, with the latter option, those minority positions – Afro-American and Latino, college student, LGBT, women, urbanites, creative types, service worker, types who have better representation in city government – will have greater autonomy and home rule in the South than they have in this forever-disadvantaged position against these hopelessly-rural state legislatures. Hawaii is one example, D.C. is another. Why be held in this minority position forever? If bigoted rural interests hold back whole state governments, why let them hold back those who have a more diverse agenda? Statehood for Southern New Democrats. Think about it.

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

I will vote early in the primary tomorrow.

I’m having jitters about voting bragging rights. I confess: I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, my first time voting in a presidential election. I remember writing in Nader, as a protest against the two-party system, but I felt at the time that Obama, with his story and his meteoric rise to the top of a presidential coalition, was inevitable at some point.

Now, in liberal circles, it’s a bragging right to say that you voted for Obama in both primary and general elections both in 2008 and 2012. I didn’t buy the hype in 08 enough to vote for him, and I don’t remember voting in the Democratic primary that year,

Now, because of how impressed by him I have become over the years, I sorta wish I did buy that hype in 2008. But at least I voted for him in 2012, the same year I met Fenika Miller and created the Houston County Democratic Party website as a personal project.

Now we’re talking about that inevitability with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Sanders is the primary challenger for the nomination. But that has been undercut by voter turmoil and a lower Democratic base turnout for both Clinton and Sanders.

It was easier for me to go for Bernie Sanders when he announced his candidacy, but this cycle has soured so much for me. I just saw two Facebook friends break up hard over this rivalry the other day.

In my feed, on Twitter and Facebook, I’ve seen pro-Sanders people wax conspiracist and cranky in a right-wing way against Clinton, I’ve seen pro-Clinton people wax anti-socialist and paternalistic in a right-wing way against Sanders. And I say “in a right-wing way” because this all sounds like shit you read on FreeRepublic or Breitbart. Like, STOP IT PEOPLE. STOP BEING ASSHOLES. Gods.

You know what? I’d vote for Obama again. Third freaking term. But he’s graying at the speed of light. Argh. I don’t know about bragging rights, saying that you’d voted for one who you knew was the “right one”. I don’t know if that makes you a better person. I don’t know if that makes you psychic. But I know that I’m not voting to keep Republicans in check. I know that I’m not voting to prevent anything from happening. I’m not going to vote my fears, or for strategy or tactics.

I’m going to vote for the things I want, the ideas I want to see become flesh. They can come from either candidate, but they must have a liberal Congress to make them happen. I implore you, all my friends: don’t vote your fears, your strategy or your tactics. Fear is the worst choice. They tear you apart, just as they’ve hit me at points this election cycle. Vote for the change you wish to see in the next four years. Press your candidates on these issues.

Vote for more liberals and progressives in office, people who will vote for the Equality Act, an amendment to overturn Citizens United, an increased minimum wage, a Right to Vote Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment, decriminalization of marijuana, for renewable energy, for expanding Medicare to all people, and so on. Vote for people who will bring those laws into the state and local level, too. Vote for those solutions. Vote for constitutional change. Vote for equality. Vote for hope. #YesWeCan