There was a lot of furor over AOC speaking at the DNC. First, that she had only a minute, then that she didn’t “endorse” Biden.
Both of these things come down to a simple fact: She was invited by Bernie to nominate him. As such, it wasn’t appropriate for her to talk about Biden. That she had only a minute is because that’s how long the nominations are.
AOC wouldn’t have been invited to speak at the DNC, really, if it was up to the people running the convention, Biden’s people, she wouldn’t have spoken at all.
She was there because Bernie chose her.
AOC is Bernie’s successor: She is going to be the leader of his movement when he no longer is, and this was his last Presidential campaign. She’s the progressive leader now.
It could have been Elizabeth Warren, but she called Bernie a liar and a sexist and waffled on key progressive priorities. AOC, on the other hand, when Sanders needed help most, right after his heart attack, came out, endorsed, and campaigned for him and made a huge difference.
Warren, in her short-sightedness, torpedoed herself in an attempt to win it all now, and then later to maintain viability with centrists. In exchange, she got a DNC speech, and in exchange she gave up her post as heir-presumptive to the progressive bloc. She will never be President.
I don’t know if AOC is a better choice, but she is genuinely charismatic in a way Warren and Sanders aren’t. It will be interesting to see if she can can do more with the movement than Sanders did.
Let us hope so.
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NR
I’m cool with it. Hopefully she learns from Bernie’s mistakes.
Buzzard
Given how viciously she’s been attacked by Republicans and establishment Democrats, despite her youth and lack of political experience, she sounds like the real deal to me. The elites are good at identifying and kneecapping potential threats, so if she can build a movement and avoid being co-opted, she can go further than Bernie ever did.
She also has to avoid ANY scandal, no matter how trivial, no matter how insignificant. The rules are different for progressives. Donald Trump got to the White House; Eliot Spitzer was forced out of his office for far less.
GM
There will never be any real advance towards solving the economic injustice problems of the world as long as the so called “progressives” and the so called”left” are wedded to identity politics.
The function of Bernie was to absorb a lot of the negative energy that had accumulated by offering some hope that real change may come, while shepherding the herd towards voting for whatever disgusting corporate prostitutes the Democrat would once again put on the ticket.
If he had any real intention to try to change something, he would have directly called out the corruption of the Democrat party, he would have more directly talked about the ways in which the oligarchy in the US parasitises on the rest of society, he would have called for sending the relevant people to prison for their crimes, and he would have run as a third party candidate if rejected by the party establishment. He never did any of that.
AOC will behave the same way, but it will be even worse, because she is so strongly poisoned by identity politics that much of the white working class is already completely disgusted with her, so whatever “movement” she is a leader of will be even more pathetically weak and inadequate relative to the magnitude of the challenges we’re facing than Bernie’s.
And I only talked about economic injustice so far.
Identity politics is even more of a poison when it comes to the environmental crisis, because there is no solution to the environmental crisis that does not involve drastic global population reduction, and for 40 years now a key strategy to shut down any discussion about overpopulation has been to call out the people bringing it up “racist”. And that has only intensified in recent years.
different clue
@Buzzard,
A way for people to disarm-in-advance the effect on their own thinking-about-a-politician is to decide in advance which and what sort of cardboard replica foam-rubber full-scale-models of a scandal they will not be shocked by. Or even concerned by.
The more people who cut the more pre-emptive scandal-tolerance slack in advance to AOC, the more resistant and then immune she will be to clever Scandal Design Engineering by the Establishment.
She could start telling people more and more and more that . . . ” I’m not your Role Model. I’m an Agenda Pusher. If you want a Role Model, join a Church.”
different clue
Bernie could have helped Gabbard through some very crucial campaign survival challenges. But he never did. And so maybe she never did in return. Oh well, so it goes . . .
If AOC and Gabbard are able to find a way to sincerely work together towards certain shared agenda items, that too could make AOC a little more scandal resistant because it would show that AOC really is ready to take no prisoners and show no mercy at least in some situations. And some people really will accept a measure of scandal from those leadership-seekers who clearly hate the same people which some people hate, and clearly want to “exterminate” and destroy the same people which some people want to “exterminate” and destroy.
General Grant’s soldiers did not hold General Grant’s drinking against General Grant.
Dave Dell
I’d vote for AOC in any race for anything. Since I can’t, I’ll just donate some of my limited $ to her.
S Brennan
I agree with GM’s comment:
“The function of Bernie was to absorb a lot of the negative energy that had accumulated by offering some hope that real change may come, while shepherding the herd towards voting for whatever disgusting corporate prostitutes the Democrat would once again put on the ticket…If [Bernie] had any real intention to try to change something, he would have directly called out the corruption of the Democrat party…he would have run as a third party candidate if rejected by the party establishment. He never did any of that. AOC will behave the same way, but it will be even worse…whatever “movement” she is a leader of will be even more pathetically…than Bernie’s
==================
DC,
Tulsi is dead, that was Bernie’s mission. You will recall, Tulsi tossed her hat in the ring before Bernie signaled genuine interest in 2020 and as soon as Tulsi dropped out Bernie followed. You will recall, Tulsi gave up a top DNC spot to support Bernie…Bernie never thanked her, nor showed any appreciation…and that was the tell in 2016. After watching Bernie shove the shank into Gabbard’s back by running after she announced, I knew Bernie was a phony through & through.
Bernie Sanders is vile skanky streetwalker making fools out of everybody who slows to have a look…he looked better at a distance and he’ll definitely look better in the rear view mirror.
If AOC is, as Ian says, the next Bernie, she will never have my support or vote. Bernie Sanders will rot in hell for his betrayals of all who thought him genuine. I can think of nothing worse to say of a person than to say, they are the next “Bernie Sanders”.
Geoffrey Dewan
To S. Brennan: OK, so Tulsi is now dead. Bernie’s mission was to kill her. Mission accomplished. AOC will be even “more” pathetic than Bernie… Wow, anybody left or should we just pack it in?
Ché Pasa
If she’s as smart as I think she is, as soon as this election is over and decided, she will move to adjourn as a Democrat and will start up a new progressive party (different name, I hope) and watch it grow as the Rs wither away and the Ds fossilize.
One can dream can’t one?
nihil obstet
I have problems with the attitude towards Sanders. He was an independent in a two party system, a New Dealer during the rise of neoliberalism. In that situation, he accomplished more than most people could think about. For fifty years, he worked to make life better for Americans. Much of the time it was by votes that really didn’t accomplish anything other than registering disagreement — against NAFTA, against the Iraq War, against the Patriot Act. But he also slogged away at amendments that improved situations for many people — for pensions, for health care clinics, for veterans, etc.
That record deserves respect from the left. You may disagree with his choice of which battles to fight and which ones to pass in favor of maintaining influence. But this reminds me of the Clinton camp’s efforts during the 2016 campaign to cast Sanders as a racist and sexist. Given his fifty year record on the issues, that was loathsome dishonesty. I doubt that any of us agrees with Sanders on everything he has and has not done, but we are failing worse if we fail at solidarity with a figure of the left as accomplished as Sanders.
S Brennan
Dunno Geoffrey Dewan,
I really don’t, but, if people I respect, like Ian can’t pull the wool from their eyes, can not, like Toto, pull back the curtain for fear of exposing the “Wizzard” then we really are in a world of hurt.
If AOC is the alternative…there is no alternative.
Jessica
The question about AOC is whether she will be willing to acknowledge and act on the fact that the current Democratic Party functions as an enemy, not an inadequate friend. We will need to win over many of those who support the current Dems, but the party itself is the enemy.
Will AOC eventually acknowledge that and fight as hard against them as they do against us?
I am agnostic about whether the fight is best conducted within the Dems or as third party. I lean strongly toward a third party, but this is just a tactical question.
I enormously admired Tulsi’s outspoken opposition to US war mongering. She saw the evil of US wars, but at least publicly, she did not cross the line from seeing those many wars as many mistakes by a basically benign force to seeing them as an accurate expression of an evil force. She seemed wobbly on domestic issues too.
I assumed that Bernie mostly ducked foreign policy besides it is inherently more difficult to convince people against in the face of unified media opposition. People can see how screwed up things are at home with their own eyes, but foreign affairs they mostly get through media. I noticed that Bernie immediately called out the Christianist-fascist coup in Bolivia for what it was. I think that was because Bernie knew Evo Morales personally.
This also made the mission that Tulsi took on much more difficult and increases my admiration to her for trying.
Hugh
There is a changing of the guard. Progressives continue to need a clear, consistent vision, not just a list of programs. They need to organize and they need leaders who are willing to fight –win, lose, or draw.
NR
“AOC will behave the same way, but it will be even worse, because she is so strongly poisoned by identity politics that much of the white working class is already completely disgusted with her”
Yes, “identity politics” is the reason those noble, kindhearted, salt-of-the-earth white working class men don’t like AOC. There’s no possible *other* reason why they might not like her. No, it must just be that horrible “identity politics.”
bruce wilder
Yes, “identity politics” is the reason those noble, kindhearted, salt-of-the-earth white working class men don’t like AOC.
OK, so you hate white working class men. What is your point?
bruce wilder
I like AOC. Her greatest strength is her combined willingness and ability to simply tell the truth. In American politics, simply telling the truth without being buried under a mountain of fake outrage apparently requires an immense political talent backed by assiduous staff work.
Ambition is not very often betting on The People these days, and for very good reason.
I do not think it will do us much good to have a singular AOC contending, if others with a fighting spirit are not willing to be effective supporters or allies.
I think AOC may well be undone by idPol so popular among the young. IdPol is apparently design to purpose to sink economic issues behind a wall of non-sequiter.
kj1313
No idpol is used cynically by the DNC establishment to deflect from class issues. Communists/Socialists encompasses identity with a class based argument since most minimum wage jobs employ POC.
NR
“OK, so you hate white working class men. What is your point?”
When you want to have a discussion with a real person, instead of one you made up in your head, let me know.
Thomas B Golladay
AOC is not our savior and can’t even articulate her positions without sounding like an idiot.
Only one Democrat deserves our support and that is John Bel Edwards who is pro-life, pro-gun, and for higher minimum wage, healthcare for all, and disdains identity politics. This effectively broke the Republican Party in Louisiana.
All others should be boycotted for Third Party Candidates.
Your choices this year are to vote 3rd Party to avoid legitimating this lesser evil bullshit with your vote.
Stirling S Newberry
It was obvious.
On a different notes:
1. Marco has been formed as AT13. New record for 13 – but again, small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records
2. We are in 800,000 COVID deaths. We will almost certainly pass 1,000,000. Remember Trump’s “100.000” in the US? I do.
3. Stop with identity politics – the whyte he-mans will stop beating your faces in and we can get back to Pawn Stars showing how Whyte’s controlling the universe on fabled pitch at a time. It is what Trump would do.
GM
Anyone who is pushing the identity politics crap is either stupid or evil. There are no other possibilities.
Such people are stupid if they truly believe it. Because it should not be hard to see how and why you are not fighting for any real justice and equality by pushing such nonsense.
First, at the very least the fact that every major predatory international corporation that pays no taxes, exploits slave labor in Asia, destroys the environment, guts regulations and bribes the politicians is fully on board with it should give you a reason to pause and seriously rethink what exactly is happening — how am I fighting for justice and equality yet I find myself on the same team with those guys? Something isn’t right.
Could it be that the capitalist class is promoting identity politics because it is very useful for keeping the population atomized and divided? And because the more we talk about pronouns, censoring movies, toppling statues, banning people on the internet for wrongthink, etc. the more we are not talking about taxes, monopolies, private equity, outsourcing, trade policy, health care and education, etc. etc.
Certainly looks that way because it is definitely having exactly those effects. Wherever identity politics dominates the discussion, political economy is a taboo topic.
Second, you are not fighting for justice and equality by demonizing and seeking to suppress half of the population (men) plus another 30-35% of it (white people). Yet that is exactly what we have here. It is both morally wrong and a losing strategy politically that ensures that even the right things to do will not get done by tying them to outright racism and sexism against such a large fraction of the population.
Third, identity politics carries with it a lot of extremely troubling postmodernist philosophical baggage that is militantly anti-scientific to an extent that even the bible thumping creationists are not. It undermines the very foundations of modern civilization if taken seriously. Most of the feminist, anti-racist, black-trans-lives-matter, etc. shrieking zombies lack the proper education to formally articulate most of it, but that does not mean it is not there as a background foundation of their thinking.
For these reasons no rational properly educated person who truly cares about justice and equality could adopt any position other than firm opposition to identity politics, and the various more granular lunacies that constitute it. From which it follows that if someone sincerely wants to “make the world a better place” but is promoting those things, he is stupid.
The only possible alternative is that such a person does not sincerely want to “make the world a better place” and is playing the game for personal gain. In which case that person is evil.
I am quite certain that this is indeed the case for many, because there is definitely a lot of gain to be had. As I said above, the major corporations and the corporatized media and the corporatized universities of our times are all actively promoting this stuff. Which means opening up a lot of cushy highly paid positions for “diversity inclusion and equity” (BTW, isn’t it so wonderfully symbolic how the acronym for that is DIE?) officers and supervisors and all sorts of other bloated administrative fauna. If someone graduated from a gender/race/queer/etc. “studies” programs, or some other useless humanities major, that person has absolutely no useful skills and the only thing she/it (it’s usually a “she” or an “it”, almost never a “he”) knows how to do is policing other people’s behavior. Such positions are the only possible route towards comfortable employment for these people, and it is quite comfortable indeed a lot of the time. The more ambitious of them can even launch themselves into politics and do even better.
In short, these people are doing it so that they can successfully parasitize on the productive members of the rest of society. Which is no different than what the capitalist class is doing. And again, remember that they are in a quite obvious to everyone with the eyes to see alliance with each other.
Of course, the two possibilities are not entirely mutually exclusive. In fact, for someone like AOC I suspect that both apply — she is a ruthless careerist who has not yet revealed her true corporate prostitute identity but will do so with time (we’ve seen that movie many times in the past, all the signs point towards this being yet another instance of the same phenomenon), and she is sufficiently brainwashed to actually believe some of the identity politics ideology she is pushing (though probably not all of it) because she just lacks the education and intelligence to properly understand it.
anon y'mouse
as far as can be told, AOC is not someone you should “hope” for anything from.
she signed up for her post with her initial backers like an actor hires onto a show.
as soon as elected, she modelled in a magazine wearing an outfit that costs more than rent for most of us.
the second day she was in the capital, she was pulling stunts in Pelosi’s office that were quite scripted.
she believes her constituents are people who don’t actually have a right to vote or even BE in this country.
she pegged herself as a working class kid, and is not by a million miles.
her interrogations in the congress have been quite obviously stunts, set up like the straight man sets up the space for the comedian to do his bit.
she has backed down every time the Dims have cocked an eyebrow.
Ché Pasa
If she’s as smart as I think she is, she’ll marshal the energy and rage of the youth on the streets and combine it with the anger, frustration and the fear of so many of those who stay in their houses or go to work (for now) and don’t go to the streets to synthesize a mass movement for positive change.
If she does this — or even looks like she’s going to — she’ll probably be expelled from the House, and if she is, a dozen or more elected representatives will leave with her in solidarity. Each of them can then become leaders of the people.
While most of the media ignores the protests in the streets of the US since the “withdrawal” of the Feds from Portland (hint: they’re still there) in order to feature the demonstrations in the lands of Our Enemies, protests are still going on, day after day, night after night, in dozens of cities around the country, led by the young and determined, on behalf of a better future for all — or in some cases any future at all — including racial and social justice, class solidarity, and de-policing.
For the most part, police have lost control of the streets and themselves — and even more importantly, they’ve lost control of the narrative. They lie as routinely as California wildfires burn, and everybody knows it. They are violent and sometimes murderous, and until now they’ve been operating with impunity on behalf of their employers — who are not the People, but selected moneyed interests. Reform has been repeatedly attempted and it doesn’t work. They refuse to reform. They refuse to stop their brutality and murders. They refuse to be subject to control by people and laws they despise.
AOC and allies can use the animosity toward the police and the police animosity toward the people as a lever to build a political and social movement that articulates and demonstrates alternatives to the rotten and creaky systems we currently endure. That’s what’s been lacking. Even Bernie could not quite articulate an alternative vision — in part because he was so wedded to the current systems. Programs are good, but they don’t change the system, and the system is the problem.
It won’t be long before the systems are totally chaotic. What will emerge on the other side? If AOC is as smart as I think she is, she’s prepping right now.
bruce wilder
Thomas B Golladay: AOC is not our savior and can’t even articulate her positions without sounding like an idiot.
Would you mind furnishing a couple of examples? I am serious in asking.
I do not hang on her every word, but I tend to notice when one of her more heavily promoted tweets, or performances in Committee clipped for YouTube, resonates with me. I do notice that her performances are carefully crafted. These are not the spontaneous mutterings of Joe Biden, or Joe plagiarizing some genuine working class or civil rights hero, or Joe Biden shamelessly farming family tragedy. Not that she does not do some bits like that last with her father’s memory, for example, as all politicians do. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin and split rails!
The things that repulse me most right now are the ones where she does fealty to the decayed rump of the Dem Party, but even that seems carefully leavened by well-tuned anger about some stupid Pelosi stunt or, an example, calling out MSNBC on faking controversy over her nomination of Bernie Sanders. I actually think her support of Biden is a serious political miscalculation, but an understandable one.
As I said earlier, I think she is at serious risk of being done in by the fashion for IdPol rhetoric. I think I probably filter out those utterances, which are not targeting me anyway. (Targeting is pervasive now and distorts what any of perceive.)
She is not going to be anti-abortion nor anti-gun control. Not from NYC. If those positions seem “idiotic” to you, I can understand, but I am not sympathetic to your point-of-view.
Some positions of hers probably do not make immediate sense to lots of people — they do not yet poll well, because the immediate response reflects what a deficit of thinking exists in the body politic. “Every billionaire is a policy failure.” delighted me, but it did not initially poll well ( Vox said 20% liked, 45% disliked, but Vox knows who is paying Vox’s bills and it ain’t its readers)
There are a lot of slogans floating up on the left that really are pretty stupid, though again frustration with the extreme deficit of deliberate political thought and the pervasive use of conformist, coded language that disregards simple truths, preventing them from registering in common memory, accounts for some of that.
Ultimately, a good politician in a political ecology going rotten is at hazard of life and limb. I hope AOC does not pay a high personal price for being hope, when hope was extinguished.
Plague Species
Could this happen in America? Sure it could. It could happen anywhere. All you need are pundits and machetes. America has both in droves. It’s just a matter of time. As always the wealthy who instigate it will escape it and enable it unscathed.
Politics will not solve this existential crisis. It is only making it worse because it paralyzes people into believing it can provide a solution and in that process, it only serves to factionalize people further, throwing them deeper into the clutching claws of the pundits and the oligarchs who will provide the metaphorical machetes to enable the genocidal slaughter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlqgovpWzI
edmondo
AOC is Bernie’s successor: she is going to be the leader of his movement when he no longer is, and this was his last Presidential campaign. She’s the progressive leader now.
She’s going to be the new sheepdog? Woof. Woof.
Do we really need a new Bernie? He pretty much disgraced himself in 2020. I’m going to pass. The Republican Party seems more likely to change than the D Party. It might be more productive to work over there instead.
kj1313
@Edmondo Both parties are captured by their donors so change will be difficult for both parties.
@Plague Species I’m inclined to believe as you that electoralism is a dead end and change will be driven by events on the ground.
Plague Species
It’s all a con. I always found it laughable that Bannon, publicly at least, presented himself as a populist champion of the “working class” when in fact he’s a Goldman Sachs Wall Street goon. When you look up the word loathsome in the dictionary, there you will find a pic of Bannon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/opinion/trump-steve-bannon-fraud.html
Per that article, Erik Prince, another loathsome goon, is on the advisory board of the We Build The Wall nonprofit. So, we have Bannon in bed with a potential Chinese CCP spy (Wengui/Kwok) who is a member of Mar-a-Lago. He, Bannon I mean, was on this freak’s yacht when he was arrested in Connecticut by postal authorities. And, we have Prince providing his specialized crimes-against-humanity services to the CCP. Both are part of Trump’s inner sanctum and both are in bed with the CCP. Trump truly is the CCP’s man in the oval office it appears. If it quacks like a duck, well, it’s a duck. It was the Chinese all along, not the Russians. Trump even told us so. I guess it was the second time he told the truth.
Since the article linked to below, Prince, aside from Beijing, has also set up shop in Xinjiang Province where the Uyghurs are being “assimilated.” We know Prince has a hard-on for Muslims so I’m sure if forced abortions truly are being performed as part of the assimilation process, Prince is training the Chinese on how to go about it. It’s easy peasy. You just need a coat hanger, right Erik? Otherwise, Erik is staunchly anti-abortion and fetal rights.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/05/04/feature/a-warrior-goes-to-china-did-erik-prince-cross-a-line/
S Brennan
Exactly Edmondo;
“AOC is Bernie’s successor: she is going to be the leader of his movement…She’s going to be the new sheepdog? Woof. Woof…Do we really need a new Bernie, He pretty much disgraced himself in 2020.”
===================
Thomas B Golladay;
It’s very hard to explain to the anti-gun confiscationalist “liberals/left”, people who are the most highly dependent on the police protection, the very same people who denigrate and despise the police that they are world class hypocrites.
It’s even harder to explain to the anti-gun confiscationalist “liberals/left” that their calls for a leftist “revolution”, after they have aided in the disarmament of the “proletariat” shows a childish inability to reason through a problem. That is the real reason their “calls for action” are routinely ignored by working people.
It’s very hard to explain to the anti-gun confiscationalist “liberals/left” that almost all crimes involving firearms are illegally obtained pistols ~98% and yet, “liberals” first priority is to confiscate legally owned rifles from law-abiding citizens. People who live in rural areas know that a call to the Sheriffs office often means help might be more than a hour away. Anti-gun confiscationalist “liberals/left” can’t seem to understand that their upper-class urban lifestyle requires ther consumption of the majority of the governmental services, this impoverishes the surrounding countryside.
It’s always hard to make somebody understand something when sustaining their comfortable lifestyle requires them not to understand.
bruce wilder
@ Plague Species
When I read this stuff, I wonder why QAnon is bothering with pizza.
Then, I remember the first maxim of the Psychoanalytic Institute: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” Maybe it is all subliminal distraction — conspiracy theories on the right; intersectionality on the “left”.
I am sure you know that Trump has drawn attention to the Biden family’s involvement with hedge funds, including a Chinese-financed one. PolitiFact, a hobbyshop of the Poynter Institute, came up with this classic summation, after no one, accused or accusing, “provided any additional information”:
someofparts
Reality check on defunding police –
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/17/atlanta-police-city-council/
“Peyton Woods fights. They know exactly how to register a complaint. Peyton Woods votes. And as Atlanta wrestles with police reform, the city government has to contend with hours of strident public commentary calling for police reform in one ear, and the quiet reservations of neighborhood leaders like Martin in the other. She is exactly the sort of person elected officials live in fear of, because she’s going to be around forever and can move half a neighborhood of reliable voters.
That is how you get a majority of Black city council people to vote against a police reform proposal.”
someofparts
NR:
“When you want to have a discussion with a real person, instead of one you made up in your head, let me know.”
I’m putting this on a t-shirt.
Temporarily Sane
Working to “change the system” from within the Democratic Party is a fool’s errand. It’s an endless waiting for tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. The party is controlled by its rich donors and they will never let anyone who threatens their hegemony near the levers of power.
Read Chris Hedges’ articles about this. Incidentally, he called Bernie’s 2020 flake out back in early 2017.
NR
Temporarily Sane: Can you link to that article?
anon
Elizabeth Warren has horrible political judgment. If she has joined forces with Bernie rather than tear him down she could very well be the vice-presidential candidate right now. Krystal Ball aid recently on her show that it doesn’t matter how nice progressives are to Pelosi. She sees progressives as the enemy and will attempt to destroy them regardless. Ball used Warren as a prime example of someone who tried to appease corporate Dems and still Wall Street wanted nothing to do with her. All she got was a stupid DNC speaking slot. Very shortsighted indeed.
Ed
The more I read the comments here, the more I move right…
The reason we have Trumpism instead of a leftist plurality is because the right understands the concept of unity. Yes, it’s evil that Trump lies and every member of the right establishment immediately bleats it out and defends it, but it’s enough to keep him in power when he’s clearly guilty of a number of crimes and when he also broke all his promises to help the people who elected him.
Meanwhile the left tears into its own leaders as ineffective, argues about their flaws and what they should’ve done, insists on purity of vision and action but can’t seem to agree on what it is. Many swear they won’t support someone because they’re not good enough. Good god, folks. No wonder the left keeps getting marginalized.
On top of that, few seem to understand the “nose of the camel in the tent” concept. It’s pretty clear AOC does. Take the primary wins where you can. Propose a Green New Deal you know you can’t pass, but which forces the conversation to move left. Figure out how to work with the establishment, without forgetting it’s the enemy, until you can either take it over or grow enough strength to displace it.
I’ve been following The Lincoln Project as well as Ian here. Are those folks evil? Many of them, yes. But they know how to fight. They also understand the concept of “when your house is burning, put the fire out first. Worry about redecorating later.”
The left’s too busy arguing about what lace doilies they should put on the end table and whether they should be knitted by Warren or Sanders or Gabbard or AOC.
If the Wall Streeters and ultra-rich and their political enablers are the evil that’s causing so much pain in the world as Ian repeatedly points out, then maybe target them instead of each other?
Just a thought…
bruce wilder
@ Ed
Warren & Sanders & Gabbard & AOC have all endorsed Joe Biden, hero of Wall Street. There is no one left who is actually willing to fight the Corporations, the Ultra-Rich, or Wall Street.
What would you have us do?
anon y'mouse
Ed–
so, if we just cooperate and do as the mentally and physically abusive, gaslighting spouse tells us to do, perhaps they will hit us less often. because being hit only occasionally, but still constantly mentally abused and gaslighted, is better than being homeless.
gotcha….
Dan
@NR
Here is a link to a June 2017 Hedges piece on Truthdig titled “Et Tu, Bernie?” The article is well worth the read for all the facts it lays bare on what happened in 2016 and the utter corruption that permeates every aspect of the Democratic Party. That Hedges predicted “His 2020 campaign for the presidency will be a pale reflection of 2016” is a minor tidbit, and a rather obvious forecast given all the nefariousness Hedges detailed. I imagine Hedges himself would agree.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/et-tu-bernie-3/
Hedges has a number of segments on Jimmy Dore that are quite good as well, if you partake of such things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F94MMb0w6o
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2020/05/04/jimmy-dore-wide-ranging-interview-with-chris-hedges-absolute-must-see/
nihil obstet
Standing together on the left doesn’t mean (or shouldn’t mean) obediently following leaders, any more than realism means capitulating to evil. I’ve objected in comments to a number of posts to Bernie bashing for example. And he’s endorsed Biden. Well, too bad. I’m not going to assign a motive to him or assume that he’s just a phony (if so, he’s spent 50 years being a phony, for what?) And I’m not going to vote for Joe Biden, no matter what he says.
We should support those who lead us towards a good society. Support does not mean allow ourselves to be delivered to the bosses. That’s the politics of personality. The notion of “sheep dogging” or of “how recalcitrant will Bernie Bros be” is part of the propaganda to convince us that mindless loyalty to a leader is what social organizations are all about. Reject it. Joe Biden is bad. Don’t vote for him. If you decide that Biden is better than Trump, you have reached a different conclusion than I have. I would not conclude that you are stupid or evil. Not once I’ve calmed down, anyway.
We should tell our politicians what to do. We should think long and hard before doing what our politicians tell us to do.
bruce wilder
@nihil obstet
i am with you bro, but how many are we?
Temporarily Sane
@NR
Here is one of his best on the subject.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/bernie-sanders-phantom-movement/
different clue
@ S Brennan,
I just got in to work, where the computers are. So I will reply to an early comment in hopes that it has not already been covered anyway in the rest of the thread.
Tulsi may not be dead. She may be in Deep Seclusion for a while. She is still young. The best thing she could do for her future political usefulness is to stay away from the national political scene for just now. Taking part in National Politics for her would be like skinny-dipping in a sewage lagoon. Onlookers might mistake her for the sewage in which she would be covered.
Let her bide her time in private for now.
different clue
I once had a Pure Fantasy about being part of a counter-IdPol incident. The fantasy is Pure because it could never happen in real life.
I remember once how Sister Souljah, during her fifteen minutes of fame, said “quote” . . . I have never met a good White person . . . “unquote”. I wish I had been right there right then. I wish she would have been looking ME in the eye WHEN she said that. I could have then looked HER in the eye and said . . . “quote” . . . Well, don’t look at ME. I’M not your good White person . . . “unquote”.
I am not Woke. I am not an Ally. And I never will be. Never Ever.
Feral Finster
Ed actually is close to hitting on something, but it’s not “just fall in line and vote a straight Team D ticket!”
Rather, the left (not Team D or certainly not Team R) is so focused on purity, purity of identity, purity of past statements and deeds, purity of present attitude and stances, that they can’t make coalitions.
The Green Party is a prime example. I don’t think they really want power, because that will require compromises, hard choices, tradeoffs, and tactical alliances, sometimes with unseemly characters. Staying pure while kvetching on the sidelines is far easier.