Tag Archives: elections

We can either:

  1. (under current liberal thought aka “race consciousness”) wait until ethnic demographics change across the depopulated bastions of Middle America which provide the bulk of the Electoral College’s power, or
  2. (under Sanders-Warren’s progressive thought aka “class consciousness”) we can try to woo back the White Working Class who voted for both Trump and the gutting of their own unions in the name of prosperity.

Either way, for logistics or optics, it seems like Democrats will have to throw someone under the bus for the midterms.

Bernie folks, while you’re out here trying to make allyships with Trump voters in the Midwest, remember that these same people voted to gut their own unions’ collective bargaining rights.

You know, just to screw over their “lazy” “wealthy” teachers and government workers and welfare recipients, most of whom happen to be White.

Is this the sort of voter you want to bring back into the progressive fold, that Bernie wants to bring back? The type who feels they are too good for unions or that unions are evil?

Sub-par Campaign Websites for Sub-par Candidates

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

If you’re going to run for a legislative office here in GA as a Democrat, you better get your communications straight. In fact, DON’T DO YOUR OWN CAMPAIGN WEBSITE, as you’ll probably screw it up anyway. Call/txt me if you need a comms person.

Angela Pendley ran this year as a Democrat for Lynn Westmoreland’s old seat GA-3, which includes northwestern Muscogee.

Her website, http://apendley4house.com is a damn joke, likely self-created on Wix. Her “About” page proudly proclaims thus:

“Angela Pendley does not use social media such as Facebook, twitter, or instagram.
​
Angela Pendley communicate with people in person, on the phone, through email, through United States Postal service, and through text messaging.
​
Supporters of the campaign are encouraged to share Angela Pendley’s message with friends, even if they are republicans who will vote as independents in November.”

Like, what the hell is this? If you’re not where the people and their eyeballs are, you’re ruling yourself out. You’re also doing damage to other progressives and liberals who want to run for that seat after you fail so needlessly.

No wonder she was beat by Drew Ferguson 68%-32%. She had it coming. Her communications looked like absolute “trash can juice”, to quote Nick Decker.

Same with Ben Anderson. Lost 64-35 to Josh McKoon. No website, just a Facebook page Anderson for Georgia.

Democrats out here in the country areas don’t know what they’re doing. Ugh.

Don’t be Angela Pendley 2016. Don’t screw up 2018. Call/txt me. #gapol

Over the next two years, if you are a progressive or liberal elected official who needs a website, or if you are looking for a website+mailing list+social media for your progressive or liberal campaign or activist group, please hit me up.

I don’t know if I have enough life experience to run for office, but I sure enough can cook up a communications platform for you. I can also write press releases.

Progressives, liberals and democratic socialists, please. And maybe pirates.

While at #Nerdacon this weekend, I talked to a libertarian who happens to be gay. He thanked me for not advocating burning or destroying things in protest, and asked me to consider adopting the model of the Tea Party movement in advocating for progressive policies.

I also talked to a writer with whom we shared a lot of concerns, including on the direction of progressive politics in the South. He happened to vote for Jill Stein in his home state of Tennessee.

Both wished me condolences over what happened on Election Day.

I’ll have more to say after I process these two conversations.

Gone Head and Free Yourself

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Those who wish to blow up the Democratic Party, or replace it with another party, now have a chance to make good on their wish over the next two years.

Are you below 50 years of age?

Go ahead.

This party is not progressive enough for many, not liberal enough for many, is too cozy with corporations and too cold to unions, is too prone to utilizing warfare to promote this country’s interests, and many wish death to the very infrastructure of this oldest organization of its kind in the United States.

Go ahead.

If the Green Party is what you feel to be the natural successor and replacement to the Democratic Party, join it and build it up into a political machine capable of running offices across this country. Hopefully, you can make more Gayle McLaughlins and less Jill Steins.

Go ahead.

Now is your time to build something better.

You’re gonna have to build similar networks with voters as the Democrats have, but with a different message, status quo and even culture within those networks.

You’re gonna have to organize county by county by county, and kiss some ass alongside.

You’re gonna have to practice what you demand about partisan openness to independent radicals and independent moderates.

You’re gonna have to practice what you demand about enforcing term limits, clearing the most obstinate people from leadership, and bringing the younger guns into power.

Or, if the Greens aren’t your speed, you’re gonna have to lead a takeover of your local Democratic Party. And maybe rename it to, I dunno, “Freedom Democratic Party” a la #FannieLouHamer? Do that here in GA.

Look at your by-laws and take advantage of them. Show up to the central committee meetings. Make it a long-term goal to take it over. Withstand the hours of yelling. Get your similarly-aged friends to come.

But go ahead. Take it over.

But when you start, don’t stop for anything.

One of your goals is to amend the bylaws. Another is to instill specific and broad goals for governance.

Do it.

  1. Visit similar ill treatment upon the new GOP governance as was visited upon President Obama and Democrats for 8 years. Make the GOP pay. Undermine. Don’t “give them a chance.”
  2. Work to build alternatives to the current structure of government. Start with fighting for top-two primaries or ranked-choice voting at the local and state levels.
  3. Destroy “The South”. Build an entire alternative culture to replace the current one.
  4. State secession. Create blue states out of blue, competitive regions like Metro Atlanta.
  5. ?????
  6. Profit!

Bernie Sanders’ Fandom is Making S*it Up Again

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

A lot of Bernie supporters on my feed saying that he would have won handily in the general election, expressing their utmost resentment for the DNC primary and “The Media”(tm).

Speaking as a Bernie primary voter, you can miss me with that. I think he would have done worse.

You can talk about how polling showed that he would have done well in a head-to-head against Clinton and Trump, but 3 things:

  • why did he lose so many open primaries against Clinton?
  • Why were most of Bernie’s wins in the caucus states?
  • Why did so many Bernie supporters resent that the New York primary was closed to registered Democrats, even though he lost so many open primaries?
  • How would Bernie have performed in terms of Electoral Votes as compared to the popular vote?
  • Why weren’t those Republicans who saw Bernie as the non-Hillary present in the open Democratic primaries in the Southern states like Georgia?
  • How were open primaries rigged?

You cannot make Afro-American Democrats love Bernie any more than how we voted in the primary, especially not within a year.

In the end, Afro-Americans were not the deciding factor between Clinton and Trump, and the bet on the Latinx vote came up short. Trump won because he carried the Euro-American vote across all class divisions, and the Euro-American vote dominates the Electoral College, not the popular vote.

So much of Euro America made this decision, especially the Euro working class, out of a reflex for economic and political security of their position in the world and against constraints of decency, and their decision is reflected more in Trump’s share of the Electoral College than in his current share of the popular vote.

Bernie would not have filled that hole because he came too late and assumed wrongly that so many demographics would gravitate to him with immediacy. Hillary did her best to compensate for this hole, even in working an entire “ambitious” political life toward this goal, but came up short.

Trump is the president that Euro America deserves, and the political system is rigged in Euro America’s favor since the Electoral College was established in its current form in 1803. He’s a man of his time, and the Euro-American men and women who voted for him will own everything that this Republican presidency and Congress will enact and appoint over the next four years.

To imply that Bernie would satisfy this urge is disrespectful to the man himself. It is a projection of your fantasies onto someone who tried and failed to build a sustainable voter base. It is a projection of your fantasies upon voters who clearly sided in the GOP primary with Trump because they liked his gutter nationalism, that maybe those misinformed voters would have seen the light of Bernie in the general election if he had been the Democratic nominee.

No. Euro America did not deserve Bernie. Euro America did not deserve Hillary. Euro America did not deserve a continuance or progression of the best policies of Obama’s 8 years in office.

Euro America knows what Euro America wants. Let Euro America have it.