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So, Sanders has most likely lost. Last minute upsets are possible, but highly unlikely.
And now come the calls for Bernie to be conciliatory.
This misses the point.
Sanders doesn’t need anything Clinton can give.
Any promises she makes with respect to his priorities are not credible. He’s old and his career is all but over anyway, so there is little she can offer in terms of career “advancement.”
Why does he need to be conciliatory? Only “for the good of the party.” But the party has not been good to Sanders–in fact, it has repeatedly put its hand on the scales to help Hillary.
Clinton’s policies are far enough from Sanders that the only argument for him to be “conciliatory” are based on Trump being even further from him. But on things like not attacking foreign countries, Trump is actually closer to Sanders.
From my POV, the onus is on Clinton to be credibly conciliatory to Bernie, and more importantly his supporters. If her entire argument is “I’m the lesser evil,” then she should expect little beyond the occasional symbolic olive branch from Sanders or his followers.
Of course, it’s hard to be conciliatory for Clinton. Her entire campaign has been based on “I deserve this,” which doesn’t leave a lot of room for saying to other people, “I see your side.” She’s already saying things like TPP only needs a few tweaks, etc.
She’s simply, and to the core, a right wing hawk who is fundamentally opposed to most left-wing policies and who only changes her mind once those policies are inevitable (as with gay marriage, which she supported very late in the game).
In emotive language, she’s evil. Bernie’s no wonder on a lot of issues, but he did actually oppose all the key wars, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and so on. Clinton? On the wrong side of almost every issue which has mattered for her entire career and she’s not even believable where she’s better than Bernie, for instance on gun-control, about which she has attacked Obama as anti-guns, but then pandered in PA on gun-control.
So Clinton has to rely on Bernie being loyal to a party which has screwed him repeatedly in order to help her win the nomination, and she can’t credibly give him anything that matters because she’s not trustworthy on any issue that matters to Sanders or his followers.
Conciliatory? Ridiculous. She’s not credible, and he doesn’t need her. If she wants to be conciliated, she had best go first and find out how to make it credible.
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Ivory Bill Woodpecker
“Help me, Obi Wan-Comey. You’re my only hope.” 😛
Bozo
Can Sanders run as an independent in the general election? Even in the open primaries he’s often been more popular than Clinton so I believe he could beat her in the general election, where anyone and not just registered democrats are allowed to vote. Also there are a lot of people who would not vote for Trump on the Republican side. Clearly, the democrats will be mad at him, but like you are saying, he is at the end of his career, there is not much that he needs from them in the future if he loses.
Dan Lynch
For the record, Bernie supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, supported the bombing of Yugoslavia, co-sponsored a resolution calling for regime change in Libya, and he just recently affirmed his support for invading and bombing Syria. In general, Bernie has supported ALL Democratic wars. He merely opposes some Republican wars.
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Bernie also voted to deregulate commodities trading, which had more to do with the 2008 crash than Glass-Steagall.
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Clinton does not need Bernie’s delegates, she has the nomination locked up without them. Clinton knows that Bernie voters have nowhere else to go. Regardless of “Bernie or Bust” claims, history says they will fall in line and vote for Hillary. At worst, they will stay home on election day.
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Bernie is irrelevant. Why are we still talking about Bernie?
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In any event, the Iron Law of Institutions tells us that the Democratic establishment would rather remain in control of the party and lose the election than lose control of the party and win the election.
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Get ready for President Trump.
Bill H
@Bozo: He runs an an independent, splits the Democratic vote, and hands the general election to Trump on a silver platter. That might be a better outcome than a Clinton victory, so I’m not sure I would not welcome it, but don’t think for a second it would result in the (to me) more desireable outcome of a Sanders victory.
Ché Pasa
Hillary’s campaign is premised on the simple message:
Which started with telling Bernie that he couldn’t seriously expect to run against her in the primaries. Laughing at him. Dismissing his message and supporters. Demanding they desist and follow her lead.
Hillary and her surrogates have become more and more strident and demanding of Bernie and his supporters as the primaries showed growing levels of appreciation for Bernie’s message, policy prescriptions, and programs. Upwards of 40% or more of Democratic primary voters prefer Bernie’s positive, can-do, “Yes, we can” message to Hillary’s continuing “No you can’t” scolding.
Now the surrogates are practically pleading with Bernie and his supporters to not only endorse Hillary but stay with the Democratic Party as some kind of internal “progressive” wing — so as to eventually force change on the rickety Party apparatus.
The problem is that there is already a Democratic Party Progressive Caucus. It is routinely treated with contempt and condescension the Party establishment, just as Bernie and his supporters are. The point of having the Progressive Caucus inside the Party is to keep them tame, and so far, it seems to have worked very well.
The Democratic Party establishment is not at all inclined to accept the leftish policies and programs the Progressive Caucus has been advocating for years, and it is not about to let Bernie’s slightly more leftish ideas become the Party standard.
It’s much more difficult than many imagine to dislodge the Party establishment. Ask those who have tried over the years.
The pleas to surrender and submit are only going to get louder. But it looks like that horse has left the barn and the pleas and demands will fall on deaf ears.
TK421
Great post!
Shh
“People should know when they are conquered.” – Quintas (Gladiator)
I can only mock those who take American politics seriously. Even if Mr. Dreamy McDreams-a-lot were (s)elected, to the cheers of partisans on either side, why do people continue to believe it’ll make one iota of difference?
We are totally pawned only if we life our lives in conjunction with this nonsense. Ignore it and try to make the best of what’s to come.
Hugh
These are Sanders’ options as I see them:
1. Sheepdog. This is the choice the Clintons, the Democratic party machine, its apparatchiks, and the Establishment media want Sanders to make. It is the choice that would most favor the election of another status quo, anti-populist President, Hillary Clinton.
2. Semi-sheepdog. This is the tack Sanders is currently on, neither supporting nor rejecting Clinton, leaving it up to his individual voters to make up their own mind about Clinton. About 60% of Sanders’ supporters would consider voting for Clinton. This is a perfectly acceptable number to Clinton. She can use the standard TINA and lesser of two evils argument with them. Importantly she would have to make no concessions (even temporary, virtual ones) to Sanders to get this.
3. Acting as a leader, i.e. dropping the bomb. Reject Clinton and tell his supporters to do likewise. This is the option the most out of character for Sanders. But it would be the most honest course of action. Clinton, the neoliberal on economic matters and the inveterate neocon in foreign affairs, rabid anti-progressive that she is, will not only not support any of Sanders’ agenda, she will actively oppose and subvert it. I have heard a lot from Sanders’ supporters that his candidacy could be used to start a movement. Well, if they are serious about that, this is the only option consistent with their goal. For Sanders, it comes down to whether he wants to go down in history as a footnote or a founder. For Clinton, it would be a well-deserved disaster. After such a break, she would be lucky to get even 30% of the Sanders vote in the general. And she needs more.
I agree with Ian that Clinton isn’t going to offer Sanders and his supporters, well, really anything. Sanders could fight to include some of his positions in the Democratic platform, but the platform writing process is as rigged as everything else in the party. So I think he will be largely shut out of it. But even if he got to write the whole platform, who cares? It wouldn’t change anything. Nobody reads the party platform, and nobody would remember or feel bound by it a day after the November elections.
I also agree somewhat with Shh. The Sanders’ candidacy is just that, “a” as in one candidacy. It’s not a movement. Even if he won the nomination and the general, he would be one guy in Washington, technically the most important guy, but still just one. The rest of the government would stop him and/or go around him at every turn. Sanders chose to run as a Democrat. It increased the amount of exposure he got, which wasn’t much. But it left the power structure of the party and its officeholders intact and unchallenged. If we want real change, we need a movement with a clear vision of what we want and we need to challenge the two parties at every level and for every office with members recruited out of our movement. That would be a real revolution. All of this insider running as an outsider inside the system, which both Sanders and Trump opted for, falls just so completely short of this.
Ché Pasa
Hugh,
Truly I suspect Sanders’ candidacy was not initially intended to be what its potential has become. There’s no way to precipitate a populist/leftish revolution from within the political system. Rightist/authoritarian/elitist “revolution” (coup?) yes, as we’ve seen. But not the other way around.
So what Bernie set out to do was keep tame the restive populist masses who have been so screwed for so long by throwing them red meat now and then — but mostly bones — without any real intent to challenge let alone to overthrow the status quo. What happened is that he triggered a much larger revolt in and out of the Democratic Party than he anticipated, and now Hillary is really running scared it seems to me.
Up to now, the more progressive Dems and others have been rather easily held in check, either by ignoring them, by offering them marginally satisfying social gains, or by crushing them when they get uppity. In other words, up to now, there has been no serious challenge to the Neo-LibCon establishment consensus.
There still isn’t a strong enough one to interfere with the power of the Neo-LibCons, primarily because the various populist/progressive threads have been unable to coalesce. Keeping them from coalescing is a prime immediate establishment project. That’s a big part of Hillary’s current push. But it’s happening on the R side, too.
Desperation and flop-sweat are coursing through the establishment.
I don’t think Bernie intended that. I doubt Trump did either.
But here we are.
AlanSmithee
Long story short, Sanders Sheepdog act spun out of control and made some media talking heads and pundit wannabe\’s a little excited. Now it\’s over, Sanders will get his committee appointments, and Obama\’s \”Believe\” campaign will go back into mothballs for another four years. -30-
Jill
“Sanders’ much vaunted trip to the Vatican was nothing but a public relations gimmick carried out by Jeffrey Sachs, one of his foreign policy advisers. Sachs was at the center of every neo-liberal heist which took place in the last twenty years. He coined the term “shock therapy” which means privatization of publicly owned assets, elimination of price controls, withdrawal of state subsidies, job cuts and a litany of measures which create suffering for millions of people. People in Russia, Poland and Bolivia all endured the Sachs punishment.” Black Agenda Report’s senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
I think Jeff Sachs is enough to show that Bernie isn’t who people think he is. He was already conciliatory to HC with that hire. There are also many other top Democratic regulars working on his campaign.
Glenn Greenwald did a column on things Obama said before his election in 2008 and what has happened sense. They aren’t anything alike. I am frustrated that it doesn’t seem to occur to people that what Sanders says is just the same as what Brand Obama said. Much of it is great stuff, needed stuff. That doesn’t mean he means any of it. Did I mention Jeff Sachs?
When Obama voted for telecom immunity his followers still revered him. We have to look at people’s action and quit looking for a savior. His actions are as others have shown above and again, did I mention Jeff Sachs?
If this isn’t the time to go to a third party I don ‘t know when that time will ever be (and I don’t mean a third party run by Bernays). If people absolutely refuse to look at actions and instead want pablum we will never get out of this mess.
We should not vote for Bernays, Clinton, Trump etc. We need a citizen’s movement for justice. That will not happen under any of these people.
BDBlue
One of the differences between Sanders and Obama is that Sanders has a voting history more or less in line with his rhetoric. Is it perfect? Nope. But he has been more or less consistent over the course of his political life. Obama’s voting record was either non-existent or in conflict with any claim of being anything other than a center-right candidate in 2008 (his platform, to the extent you could get specifics, was in conflict with his change narrative, too).
None of this is arguing that Sanders would be some sort of panacea or that anyone should vote for him, but to compare him to Obama is inaccurate, IMO. Sanders is at the end of his career, he has a long record and it matches the positions he’s taken in his campaign. Maybe you like it, maybe you don’t, but it’s there.
Jill
Sander’s doesn’t match what he is saying. He does have a record and that is why it is very shocking that so few people will look at it carefully. I’m going to quote again from Black Agenda Report as Glen Ford speaks to this very point: “Bernie Sanders has endorsed President Obama’s troop escalation in Syria, once again showing that “he is no more ‘progressive’ than Obama on foreign policy,…He supports President Obama’s illegal drone wars and the 15-year occupation of Afghanistan. Should he somehow be elected president, Sanders would follow Obama’s practice of reserving Tuesday’s for choosing targets from his “Kill List.” To circumvent U.S. and international prohibitions against assassination, Sanders offers the same “self-defense” justification as the Israelis do, when they slaughter Palestinians by the thousands. “There are people out there who want to kill Americans, who want to attack this country, and I think we have a right to defend ourselves,” Sanders told Chris Hayes, of MSNBC….and so on. http://www.blackagendareport.com/sanders_prepares_bow_to_hillary
No, I don’t like it! He supports wars and wars that are illegal.
We have gone through this process with liberals in 08 and 12. Just as Obama dropped cluster bombs on Yemen only two weeks into “earning” that peace prize, only to still have people who cheered him on and insisted that everyone must support him, liberals today insist that Bernays is the new savior.
Liberals need to start being liberals. This means looking very carefully at who they support, having an ethical stance that doesn’t change depending upon membership in the Democratic party and begin to have the integrity to support each other and ally with other people who are hurting instead of chasing after false saviors.
Some Guy
Man, I think about what Sanders has put himself and his family through in his presidential run, when nobody could deny he had done enough already, and accomplished more than almost any other American, to push ideas such as reining in the banks, getting money out of politics, building strong social programs, reducing inequality, and then I read some of the BS on this thread and I think that maybe the left deserves getting the stuffing kicked out of it all the time.
If you are on the left and you can’t support Sanders, and you can’t tell the difference between Obama and Sanders, you need to try harder.
As for the post itself, this is an excellent analysis Ian – on the one hand, I think Sanders really does truly believe that Clinton winning will be a much better outcome for what he believes in than Trump winning. On the other hand, he has been treated poorly by the party and they have nothing to offer him, as you say. But in the end, I don’t believe Sanders is the type to take a ‘burn it down and rebuild’ approach, so I don’t foresee any sort of ‘falling out’ on the democratic side, even if Clinton deserves it – but don’t be too sad – it is coming, and Sanders has laid a key part of the groundwork for it.
MojaveWolf
+1000 to this entire post. I agree with most of it so much there’s very little I can add w/out being repetitive.
But for a glimmer of hope w/regard to: So, Sanders has most likely lost. Last minute upsets are possible, but highly unlikely.
Yes, you are entirely right & I admit that it’s going to be very, very difficult and a win is unlikely and it would take a combination of improbable factors, most important being none or almost none of the Bernie people in the remaining states giving up.
But if you keep trying, unlikely things can happen. To which point I must share this link:
http://www.bradenton.com/news/nation-world/world/article72930097.html
(for the link averse, Irish collegiate runner who doesn’t normally run the 400 starts the last leg of 4×400 down 100 meters in 5th place, is still in 5th & appears to be still down about 60m w/200 to go as best I can tell from the one brief moment she showed up on the edge of a long screenshot, finally shows up on camera turning for home, passes everyone including a member of the Irish Olympic team over the last 100. This simply doesn’t happen at this level of competition; that’s a LOT of ground to make up in a very short space; the runner herself had no expectation of winning and was hoping to get 3rd as best case scenario)
MojaveWolf
Re: all the “unite behind HRC to stop Trump” crap:
1. It is unclear who would be worse. Trump is more likely (tho not certain, nothing with him is certain) to stop or void the TPP (which I think would be a disaster on par w/Bush election or Iraq invasion) & its horrible sibling agreements, & he is less likely to pointlessly invade other countries.
Other than these two things, Hillary would probably (tho not definitely) be a better president. But, these two things are kinda big.
He talks about building a stupid wall but almost surely has no intention of doing so; HRC actually VOTED to build the stupid wall (tho admittedly, she also almost certainly would not have if she thought it would actually get built). So, as to relative to merits between these two, meh. Hard to shrug with indifference when you think both would be awful, but relative to each other? The case for HRC is not so clear.
2. Win only by blatant and massive cheating, go down. Bye HRC!
3. Get rid of someone worth voting for in favor of someone NOT worth voting for by blatant & massive cheating, and watch us work to defeat not only that person but everyone who endorsed them (realizing this will be impractical in many instances, but hardly all). Bye DNC!
4. How is there not a bigger furor over the voting machine audits, the statistical unlikelihood of the exit polls being off (yet MD was called purely by exit polls prior to a single vote being counted?) the insane # of people’s registration being changed that seems to only happen to Bernie supporters (remember that shared DNC database?) etc. How does ANYONE back this & still claim to support democracy & oppose election fraud & voter suppression?
If HRC gets the nom & loses & the conservadems nationwide get wiped out, I’ll happily take credit. We need a viable non-evil actually progressive alternative, imo, and if killing the D party is necessary to achieve that, I’m game. Beats the heck out of watching them mouth off about helping people & fighting climate change then doing the same stuff to screw the poor & working class and kill the planet as the R’s do.
The rhetoric of the two parties is very different, but the actions haven’t been. That needs to change.
Tal Hartsfeld
The reason Sanders “has to” be conciliatory is because social etiquette is mandatory.
If not by law then by the ethos of unwritten consensus-based decrees.
alyosha
For all the negatives about HRC, and all the args posted by others, I view her as the lesser evil to Trump, who this article ignores.
He talks about building a stupid wall but almost surely has no intention of doing so..
You want to place a bet? He was here in Orange County California last night, a Republican stronghold that nonetheless has a growing Latino population. There were riots going on outside. He deliberately fed his audience all the red meat they could eat, bashing immigrants, who live right outside the venue. You better believe he’s going to try to build that wall, if he gets in.
alyosha
BTW, for those who didn’t see it – the Boston Globe mocked up a front page, set one year into the future, showing the kind of news you’d likely see, should Trump win.
The stories themselves are frightening enough, but what blew my mind is that a major US paper felt the need to run something like this. Never saw anything like it.
Sanctimonious Purist
Crystal Ball says: Sanders will hang in until the convention. His delegates will try to get some of his planks into the platform. Clinton will offer him HHS Secretary in return for his support, which he will take. In that post, he will expand Medicare/Medicaid, though not as far as a single payer system, and retire. This the oligarchs will allow and he will settle for.
S Brennan
Sadly, without a Sanders vs Trump match-up, we will not have any substantive debate on the contours of our eff’d-up foreign policy that has been one disaster after another [thanks to Bill, Bush [the 2nd] & Barack]. Also, Sanders would have forced Trump to the left to pick up independent voters.
Now we will have a war criminal [perhaps common as well], with the full support of the extreme right of the Republican party and the full support of the extreme right of the Democratic party along with all those “brand” followers in the Democratic party who call themselves “liberal” but in reality are, if judge by who they support and vote for, extreme right wing nuts.
This is no country for decent conservatives & liberals, just ultra right extremists.
highrpm
@alyosha,
i live with a latino immigrant. a big obstacle is the language barrier with the consequence that she watches t.v. lots more than she reads; i.e. uses the irrational emotive reflexive mind 10x more than the logic reflective mind. the result is easy to guess, thanks jim morrison, “he who controls the media controls the mind.”
different clue
If Sanders loses the nomination, I would prefer to see Sanders stay in the Senate where he will retain some measure of legislative power. He would have zero power over anything if he agreed to become a sacrificial fool in a Clinton cabinet.
Same as for Senator Warren. She is building up effective anti-Bankster power in the Senate. If she is misguided enough to accept any spot in a Clinton Administration, she too will be sidelined and then sacrificed. People have suggested she be Clinton’s running mate. If such a ticket won, Clinton would reduce Warren to playing HHH to Clinton’s LBJ.
Ken Hoop
Like it or not, there is certainly an “economic populist/socialist” case to be made for hard-line stands on immigration, even a moratorium on legal immigration. As beneficial to most of the working class currently.
On Jeff Sachs, it is hard to read his Clinton is the Candidate of the War Machine article of a few months ago, and see him as a Hillary supporter.
On Sanders shortcomings on foreign policy, and they are there….Palestinian activists pushed him “left” on Palestinian issues during the campaign. I would hope, generally, the core of the following he has built would push him further leftward on the issues mentioned wherein he has demonstrated imperialist-friendly politics.
Sanders should not be conciliatory. He should outline his issues and suspicions that Clinton cannot necessarily be trusted on them, whatever her assurances, and tell his followers they should only vote for her if they intend to hold her feet to the fire afterward, as he does,and if they believe that they can do so.
Hugh
“Truly I suspect Sanders’ candidacy was not initially intended to be what its potential has become.”
I agree with Ché Pasa. Sanders originally started to go out and give a few speeches on some issues close to his heart because no one else was going to. The Clinton campaign had no problem with that judging that it would be ineffectual in itself but useful in that it would preclude any real progressive alternative to her and provide a means to eventually sheepdog stray progressives back into the Democratic (Clinton) fold. What happened, however, was that Sanders tapped purely by accident into a volcano of discontent. And to his surprise and Clinton’s fury, he became a serious candidate.
This changed his campaign in many ways, but importantly did not transform it and even more importantly did not transform Sanders. In the last ten years, I have seen this so many times among progressives. Someone comes along, a Sanders or a Warren, they mouth a few progressive slogans, and BAM, they are christened the “progressive alternative.” The whole progressive agenda is associated with them although on much of it they have either been silent or opposed to it. No matter, all kinds of rationalizations are invented for the discrepancies. And then the head scratching begins. Why is Sanders still giving the same stump speech? Why hasn’t he changed and updated it in the last eight months? Why didn’t he attack and attack much harder Clinton on a dozen different issues? On her lies? Her corruption? Her disastrous record?
Well, he didn’t because Sanders is not the person progressives keep trying to make him. No, he isn’t the devil incarnate, or some lying cheating schemer. But he also isn’t the real progressive alternative progressives keep wishing he was. He didn’t start that way. Yes, he had a chance of becoming that alternative. But he didn’t take it. Why? because that is who he is. It is who he always was. Sanders’ candidacy makes a lot more sense if you look at it as the last hurrah of a seventy-four year old mildly progressive Establishment insider.
Could he still reclaim the mantle of the progressive alternative? He would need to reject Clinton, clearly, openly, and in no uncertain terms, break with the Democratic party he so recently embraced, found a progressive third party, encourage challenges to incumbents of both parties, and mount an independent run for the Presidency. All this is possible, just highly unlikely, for the same reasons that Sanders passed up all of his other opportunities to be what progressives wanted him to be.
Bernard
Hillary is the worst possible evil. only Democrats could have helped fulfill the Republican dream of totalitarianism, or Corporate Oligarchy, whatever you call what we are heading for. that anyone could conceive of there being any good in Hillary/most Democrats is beyond my ken. She will finish off the Democratic party, which deserves to die, but first she will do the things the Republicans have been promising their base since time immemorial, since St. Reagan’s time most recently, lol.
being the Plantation overseer, like Obama, is what would be the best outcome for the Power structure. the more effective evil has always been a Blue Dog/Democrat. It takes and it took the Democrats Quisling behavior/collude with the Republicans to get us where we are. One Party two Faces. It’s always clear and obvious what Republican intentions are, more MIC and less Society.
at least the Republicans are honest and direct when the say they will get us. Read the Powell Memo. it’s there for anyone to see what they had planned. The Democrats say different “sounding” things and then immediately join in with the Republicans when it comes down to brass tacks. Never ever seen any Democrat dare to filibuster or do “whatever” to stop attacks on the working People. Obama gave the Tax Cuts away. started the attack on Social Security, hired Bush’s and Reagan’s mendicants to continue on with the “Republican way. A Blue Dog is not a real Democrat.
that Golden Calf is what reigns supreme. and i’m supposed to “think” Hillary or any other Democrat has the 99%’s interest at heart. putting a stake through the Working People’s hearts, or more chains on their lives. lol i have some wetlands in West Texas if you believe that. lol.
Hillary, like most Democrats, is the more purer form of evil. out there for all to see, even says “we can’t go there.” No sweet talking like Bill does to assuage our fears of “oh, no, Not again. then sticks the knife in.
after all that Bill has done to us during his reign, Nafta, repealing Glass Steagall, Don’t Ask, gosh some people even want more? wow. wow
Sanders isn’t the one to lead the dispossessed back to a rule of Law, apparently. the Media won’t let him and Sanders doesn’t appear to want to “lead”that way. so we are all… Captive… to the Rule of Men, not the Rule of Law.
One thing for sure is the Republicans fear their base, just watching how the Trumpers have the RNC terrified, while the Democrats/DWS…et al hate and abuse their base, and Democratics voters keep coming back for more… endlessly. those cheetos eating pajama clad left wingers just never learn. Oh well. it is most interesting to see where we are as a country. back to feudal ages or some such Slave bound construct. the Elites have got us doing their dirty work, aka get rid of those proles so the “few” can really “enjoy” their time on Earth, before they finish fukking it up completely.
the willfulness of Americans to continue to “follow” is very frightening and very apparent.
Bill Hicks
I totally agree with this post. And when it comes to the November election, though I will not vote for Trump, but I’ll be rooting for him to win. He is what this sick, depraved country deserves.
DMC
Indeed. To Bernard above: You’ve hit on the very thing that I’ve come to realize over these last years with the “Dear Leader” to wit, “Republicans get elected and try and advance the Republican agenda. Democrats get elected and SUCCEED
DMC
in advancing the Republican agenda.” (and damn these meta-commands that keep f*cking me up).
Also, I’m thinking that we might term the liberal “Trump as the lesser evil” notion as the dose-of-salts strategy(“Sure he’s noxious! Think of him as a purgative!”). And really if you look at Trump’s actual behahior over his adult life, he’s emphatically not some kind of reactionary ideologue, much more like the sort of middle of the roader that that Clintonova pretends to be. And as long as at least ONE major US political party self destructs as a result of this election, I’ll be reasonably satisfied.
Bryce Wellington
The Push to Make Sanders the Green Party’s Candidate
Counterpunch, By Dave Linderoff, April 29
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
Hillary’s message to young Bernie voters:
Wise up, you stupid little shits. And no, I’m not going to do anything for you after the election. That’s how the real world works.
It’s a dog whistle from her, but her surrogates hear it loud and clear.
~
karenjj2
Excellent extensive interview on Greece Financial Disaster at DemocracyNow.com April 28 as well as brief commentary by Chomsky re Sanders at the beginning of the hour.