Following onto last week’s Politico article about Deval Patrick, and discussion of Kamala Harris and Corey Booker’s presidential prospects, there was some resistance from certain well-known lefty writers, notably The Week’s Ryan Cooper. Cooper’s column made some fair if unremarkable points, but illuminated some unfortunate habits of mind in the very distinct culture of the left.
(I don’t want points of agreement to be lost: Stipulated that any public figure who is qualified to President et al will have a record which is up for scrutiny. We air concerns, and find some candidates lacking. Stipulated also is the notion that the pursuit of money in politics — particularly post-Citizens-United — creates a distance between a party that is supposed to represent the concerns of those who can’t afford to donate big money. This is, of course, nothing new within the Democratic Party.)
Cooper gets off to a bad start (my emphasis):
The latest battleground is over a handful of minority Democrats being groomed by the centrist establishment …
If the center wants to win over a suspicious left, they can start by clearly explaining their policy orientation, particularly in areas where they might have fallen short by the supposed standards of the modern Democratic Party — which all three of the above candidates have done in various ways. If they want to deepen divisions, they can use cynical accusations of bigotry to try to beat back any leftist challenger.
And concludes:
At any rate, if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in for a rather bitter fight for supremacy over the Democratic Party between big money elites on one side and Sanders Democrats on the other.
So much here … Cooper clumsily attempts to inoculate himself from accusations of racism, as if the left were immune to it. (Are any of us?) In case it wasn’t clear enough from the post, Cooper doubled down on Twitter:
anyway, I argued that it would be wise for folks like Harris to avoid the perception that they are stalking horses for the neolib Dem elite
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) August 4, 2017
because the elite will probably try to stand up some minority candidate and cast policy disagreement as bigotry of some form
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) August 4, 2017
“Some minority candidate” … oof. This is an unlovely, sharply patronizing suggestion that these African-American pols — each with a complexity, backstory, résumé, and constituency — are mere puppets, performers to be repped by well-heeled impresarios on the Hamptons, and foisted as political entertainment to a gullible public. I can’t even caricature the “stalking horse for the neolib Dem elite” phrase. That’s just ugly stuff. It’s tinged with racist condescension, but also with a brittle, academic-Marxist compulsion to categorize and stereotype.
Furthermore, Cooper’s false dichotomy between “big money elites” and “Sanders Democrats” literally erases all of the rank-and-file Democrats who did not vote for Sanders. Do people choose candidates based on whom the “establishment” (whoever that is) foists upon them? E.g.: Did Dem primary voters choose a first-term senator as their standard-bearer in 2008 because they are lemmings who did what they were told by “elites”? History is littered with well-funded candidates who got very little traction. Voters come to their own conclusions — even those that Cooper would not prefer.
Cooper claims that success will come only with the blessing of the left, as if to say, “You’d better run it by us.” Leftists assert that in the wake of the Democratic party’s manifest and deep electoral failures, leftism will prove broadly appealing. There is some evidence suggestive of this, but it is by no means a comfortable conclusion. We need demonstration cases. Neither the late and unlamented 2016 Dem primary, nor the subsequent special elections, have provided satisfying answers to that for anyone. Frankly it seems like we’re all hanging, together or separately.
Rather than look inward and say well, the left has some work to do, gardens to tend, bridges to build, room to grow, coalitions to manage with the broader Democratic coalition … Cooper invokes a with-us-or-against-us false dilemma. This is tiresome. Politicians are a lagging indicator, and if there is sufficient appeal among rank and file primary voters for left ideas, the politicians will follow. But that would put the onus on Cooper’s left to broaden their appeal, not on the candidates themselves — a harder but ultimately more valuable task.
The only thing I’m pretty sure I know about politics, is taking power and sharing power through coalition. The left is going to have to find those voters who heretofore identify with neither the “moneyed elite” nor yet their own segment. This likely includes, if I may be so bold, those African-American voters for whom the electoral achievements of Harris, Booker, Patrick — and Obama — represents something other than a smoke-show on behalf of wealthy donors.
Cooper sees the left as the kingmaker faction. But we are all kingmakers. No one’s going to “bend the knee.” More persuasion, fewer power fantasies, please.
JimC says
Well put. Here’s to building bridges and tending gardens.
bob-gardner says
“False dichotomies?” Should Democrats attack each other based only on “True dichotomies”? Or should they not attack each other at all, in which case why are you are attacking leftists?
Conflict is the whole point of politics. If there is a real problems with the relationship of the Democrats and big money, what conflict-free plan do you have for solving it.
SomervilleTom says
NO NO NO NO NO.
A “dichotomy” is a choice between to BINARY alternatives. A switch is either ON or OFF. That’s a “true” dichotomy.
A false dichotomy is a logical fallacy that attempts to replace a continuous dimension (temperature, for example) with an arbitrary choice (“TOO COLD” versus “TOO HOT”).
There is no need for a “conflict-plan”, nor does this thread-starter propose one. Conflict is fine.
The point is that there are a multitude of gradations between “big money elites” and “Sanders Democrats”, and in this case even the dimension of comparison is both arbitrary and arguably completely bogus.
Presumably the people who supported and support Mr. Sander are paying attention to more than his personal wealth (never mind that Mr. Sanders is by no means a pauper — his personal net worth is more than enough to put him in the top 5%, if not 1%). Similarly, those who attack the “big money elites” presumably include some criteria beyond the amount of their personal wealth.
The full-throated promotion of and adherence to such false dichotomies (and other logical fallacies) are one of the several toxins that are currently destroying our political system.
petr says
Yes. Science and religion, by way of example, are seen as dichotomous. Al Gore is a Democrat who wants to use science to both describe the problem and define the solution. Somebody claiming to be a member of the Democratic party who denies science because they think God would never allow climate change, should be called out. I think in that instance it would be a true Democrat exposing a false one.
The tent is big, but it’s not so big we can afford to let in just anybody….
Self-governance is the point of politics. That we (the people) differ sometimes on the scope, type of and manner of paying for self-governance is the root of conflict.
Democrats do have a relationship with big money. But they also have, in my estimation, a healthy relationship to small money. The problem isn’t that there is big money in Democratic politics, the problem is that there is only big(ger) money in Republican politics. I don’t know of any Democrat who ‘d weep at all if we could get money out of politics.
Christopher says
For the record, though, it IS possible to be both a faithful religious adherent and completely accepting of science, a circumstance I’d like to think describes me pretty well.
SomervilleTom says
Well … it is possible only while the definition of “faithful religious adherent” is kept loose and personal.
In my view, it is categorically impossible for a “faithful religious adherent” who believes in the literal inerrancy of the King James Bible and who believes in absolute fundamentalism (those are two different, though related, theological constructs) to also be “completely accepting of science”.
Bishop Spong pointed out, more than a decade ago, that many “liberal” Christians are liberal only when certain parts of the bible are concerned.
Every Sunday, every Episcopalian and every Roman Catholic is asked to assert a belief in some variant of the Nicene Creed. That creed assert contains several statements that are utterly inconsistent with a scientific worldview.
To wit — human women require sperm to become male. They just DO.. The claim that Mary became pregnant without having intercourse with a man cannot be reconciled with science. Similarly, humans die. Putrefaction of a human body happens well after the body is dead. The claim that Jesus lay in a tomb for three days and then arose and walked about cannot be reconciled with science. Similar arguments apply to The Ascension.
These three events — the virgin birth, the resurrection, and the ascension — are NOT religious claims, they are SCIENTIFIC claims. They assert events that, had science existed when they occurred, could have been tested and accepted or rejected using scientific methods. Even now, asserting the literal truth of these claims requires rejecting essentially ALL of science.
It is all well and good to say that these are “metaphorical” or “symbolic” claims. Similarly, it is perfectly reasonable to say that these texts were meant to describe spiritual, rather than historical, truth.
Nevertheless, a HUGE number of contemporary Christians declare these to be literal statements describing historic events. Those declarations simply cannot be reconciled with science.
Christopher says
I just hate it when people generalize about religious faith, and the secular left often seems to do it in a way that stipulates that the Right has their theology correct. I have always assumed that the historical Jesus was conceived in the usual way, lived on earth for a span of time, was executed by the Romans for sedition, and at least corporeally stayed dead. I have also assumed that the Abrahamic faiths are just as entitled to have a body of mythology as any other tradition. There are LOTS more of us than you might imagine – most modern mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox reconciled to science long ago. Some even go as far as to say science is the study of how God works, or that science says how, but faith says why. My tradition doesn’t use the creeds as regularly as some; the UCC in fact prides itself on being non-creedal. However, if we are asked to recite a creed in worship I am comfortable doing so because I know it to be a statement of FAITH and not of SCIENCE. As the author of Eccleasiastes might have put it – “To everything there is a season…a time for myth and a time for fact.”
jconway says
I still don’t understand the attacks on Harris who strikes me as having a more consistently progressive record than Patrick or Booker.
They seem to angry because she was a prosecutor to begin with and didn’t go after Mnuchin, but again, a lot of those decisions have to be made by the DOJ and not a state AG. And on the issues she was an anti-death penalty and anti-Patriot Act AG which is more than we can say for Martha Coakley or most AGs.
Booker is also doing a lot of heavy lifting on criminal justice reform which is probably the single best example of an issue where being an economic and racial progressive intersect down the line. Legalizing marijuana is also a bolder move from him than we’re used to. He’s growing on me, still not my first choice, but he’s been happily surprising me.
I am equally tired of some pundits on the other side automatically shouting racism whenever a Sanders pundit questions the progressive commitments of a black or female potential nominee. I think the attacks on Cooper have been unfair and I am sick and tired of black pundits from the center-left claiming Sanders and his supporters are all middle class white males.
That marginalizes the many prominent people of color who stood up for him, including Cornel West, Ta Nehisi Coates, Michelle Alexander, Killer Mike, Shaun King, Rep. Keith Ellison, Neighbor to Neighbor, former NAACP President Ben Jealous and a solid majority of POC voters under 30.
So can we stop trying to talk down to one another and work on what we have in common? Any of the three nominees in question, including Patrick who I’ve been highly critical of, would be an improvement over what we have.
Have a real primary, with frequent debates at times people can watch, and see where the votes fall. If 2016 taught us anything it’s that the invisible primary doesn’t matter, pundits don’t matter, but voters do.
If they pick Bernie his critics have to fall in line, if they pick one of his opponents, his supporters have to fall in line. What this does tell me is he is running and he is our front runner and the #NeverBernie movement has just begun.
johntmay says
Mnuchin……contributed to Republicans AND Democrats alike. My hunch is he’d be Hillary’s ick if she won. Bernie is too old. Can we find a candidate under 50 years old who is not beholding to Mnuchin and his ilk?
Charley on the MTA says
See … here’s the problem. We talk about a thin Dem bench. The Left *literally has no bench at all* — yet. So, they can either a) appeal to candidates: Hey folks, big basket of votes and volunteers over here! Or b) tear people down, carelessly trash the Dem party (which they’re going to need to achieve power), and isolate themselves.
Making a stink is part of the business plan. It can’t be the whole plan.
bob-gardner says
There may come a time when a scorched-earth campaign against big money in the Democratic party will become counterproductive. But that time hasn’t come yet.
johntmay says
Our current president spent a whole lot less money on his campaign than his rivals during a very long primary and an general election. But Democrats are still looking at big money to win races….
Charley on the MTA says
Re: Cooper (and Lee Fang, and some others I’ve seen): I think I’m pretty reluctant to call out a line of argument as racist. I agree that there’s diversity on the Left. It doesn’t follow that a close examination of the record of any black pol is racist — of course not.
But on a number of levels, there’s something pretty nasty about the line that *elites are going to run a black person to smuggle in some neoliberalism!* Which is pretty much what Cooper stated. His column and subsequent tweets were …. revealing.
I’m not characterizing the Left as racist. I’m saying it’s not immune to it, QED. (None of us are.)
jconway says
To clarify Charley, I agree with your criticism expressed here and think it’s far more nuanced than what I saw on twitter or from #NeverSanders African American pundits.
I also agree that racism has always been a problem on our side of the aisle as much as it is on the other.
In short, I think the #NeverSanders left is just as problematic as the #BernieorBust left. My comment can be seen as an addendum to your eloquent post calling for unity and big picture politics.
jconway says
Also a total aside, but I’ve been on twitter now for a year and a half and think it makes us all coarser, dumber, and less charitable towards others we disagree with.
I lament that BMG has become more Balkanized since last November as I find it a long form oasis from the inanity and groupthink on social media . I am confident the usual sparring partners all voted for Hillary in 2016 and will support our nominee in 2020. Edgar aside, nobody here supports continuing this madness. The Balkanization is becoming more and more problematic as we recover and resist.
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
Group think on BlueMassGroup? Yes. (…Also Blue think, and Mass think.)
judy-meredith says
Brittleness and false dichotomies on the left – is a great headline,
There are a lot of contradictions in this work of politics, especially electoral politics, I have supported many candidates with whom I disagreed on how to advance important social, economic and racial justice issues,
But these new snotty elitist attacks by the alt-left or Bernie Bots, or whatever they call themselves now, on any emerging Democratic candidate who has reached out for support to wealthy Democrat is driving me nuts.
First they demonize wealthy Democratic donors, then they demonize emerging candidates that have solicited support from wealthy democratic donors. Then I assume they will demonize any of us who would rather judge a candidate on their positions of issues we care about, their leadership skills and their character. Oh yes, and on their capacity to run a well funded winning campaign.
SomervilleTom says
Amen and six sixes.
doubleman says
“But these new snotty elitist attacks by the alt-left or Bernie Bots, or whatever they call themselves now, on any emerging Democratic candidate who has reached out for support to wealthy Democrat is driving me nuts.”
That’s helpful. I can assure you that no one on that side refers to themselves as “alt-left” or “Bernie Bots.”
For me, the fundamental problem with the Democratic party is its alignment with corporate interests and often placing those interests over the interests of the base of the party. If candidates who lean into the dynamic run they should absolutely be criticized. There are other ways to raise money, and lots of money, but it’s harder and one has to often forgo certain policy positions to do it.
JimC says
Well, yes and no. It’s a dilemma. Some candidates seem truly money-drenched, to the point where it affects their judgment. It’s a problem. But (excuse the cliche) we can’t disarm unilaterally.
I agree with Judy’s bottom line, it’s policy that matters.
doubleman says
Yes, and very regularly, who ones donors are highly overlaps with the policies one supports.
JimC says
I agree that that happens, but I can’t go all the way to “very generally.”
JimC says
Sorry, “very regularly.” Same point though, I can’t quite get there. Too often, sure.
Christopher says
There’s also the chicken and egg to consider. Often donations follow policy positions rather than vice versa.
bob-gardner says
But Judy, it’s not as if we’re driving the wealthy donors out of politics, or nullifying their influence. In fact just the opposite is happening.. More and more candidates are more and more dependent on wealthy donors,
If we had a nickel for every time someone said we have to get the money out of politics we wouldn’t have to do any fundraising at all. So why all the push back when someone makes an issue of it?
judy-meredith says
Politics costs money period. Demonize away whatever source of money you wish.and the candidates who accept it.
johntmay says
Running a campaign costs money and it’s vital to get people to vote. Yup. And there is this: The stronger the message, the better the candidate, the less money has to be spent and less time needs to be spent on GOTV. It seems to me that Democrats spend too much time asking for money and GOTV and not enough time asking voters what they want and then campaigning on that.
Christopher says
I prefer a candidate lay out his/her own agenda/vision rather than just tell voters what they want to hear.
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
“Bernie Bots, or whatever they call themselves now”?
Many Bernie supporters were centrists – appalled by Hillary’s ethical lapses. Different people had different reasons to support Bernie. Painting them all with the same color may be convenient – but it is also uninformed, and if you dig down to it, nobody, even on the far left, was a robotic supporter of Bernie -.thank you very much.
methuenprogressive says
“nobody, even on the far left, was a robotic supporter of Bernie”
That’s a silly line you’re tying to sell.
methuenprogressive says
“But these new snotty elitist attacks by the alt-left or Bernie Bots, or whatever they call themselves now, on any emerging Democratic candidate who has reached out for support to wealthy Democrat is driving me nuts.”
Democrats should expect to be attacked by Stein voting Bernie Bros and the “alt-left”. These people are not Democrats. They’re Anti-Democrats. Fuck ’em.
JimC says
I think one factor that divides “the left” is the inadequacy of (most of) our leaders. They are people after all, and imperfect, but supporters get defensive when officeholders are criticized.
So someone says “So-and-so didn’t do enough on X,” and someone else says “He did the best he could!” And on and on.
This is, in fact, healthy (far healthier than the GOP’s approach). But it does lead to everlasting divides.
SomervilleTom says
@Christopher (continuing the depth-limited response chain above):
I understand where you’re coming from, and I come from a similar place (I take a mens-room break during the creed).
My point is not to challenge you or your faith. In a currently-active parallel BMG thread, this question comes up with regard to James Inhof.
My point is that he DOES exemplify the phenomenon petr and I are talking about. The comment, on that thread, is that he gains credibility through consistency:
It is not a “generalization” to assert that the kind of faith professed by Mr. Inhof and his supporters cannot be reconciled with science. I certainly don’t assert that the right “has their theology correct” (there are countless ways where I can show that the beliefs currently professed by the Christian right are not just wrong but are even heretical).
I assert, instead, that this brand of religious faith IS real, IS practiced, professed, and believed by a large number of Americans, and:
– is TOTALLY at odds with science, and
– is devastating to governance as it gains sway over our government
jconway says
I’ll just add that us Catholics have always believed in evolution and been alarmed about climate change. We have rejected biblical inerrancy from the get got which is a big reason the Protestants separated from us in the first place.
The mainliners may be to the left of us now on sexuality, but were originally all to our “right” on the question of Sola Scriptura and Sole Fide. Salvation has always been possible outside of the Church, as well as within it.
One can accept science and also believe the Holy Family is ontologically outside of scientific constraints. Im surprised even the Nicene Creed is now controversial with the liberal sects…
SomervilleTom says
Well, I didn’t say that the Nicene Creed is controversial. Claims about birth, death, and so on (ontological or otherwise) are well within scientific constraints if we’re talking about actual historic events (as opposed to mythology and legend).
If the events of the nativity occurred today, taking and sequencing a DNA sample from Jesus of Nazereth immediately and definitively answers the question of whether or not a human father was involved.
Current analyses of the Nicene Creed make it clear that Catholic dogma is that the death and resurrection was physical (emphasis mine):
One cannot actually BELIEVE this to be true and also be “completely accepting of science”. The laws of science do not allow exceptions — there are no footnotes that read “*except when God is involved”.
If belief in the bodily resurrection is “the keystone of Christian doctrine and experience”, then Christian doctrine and experience is in conflict with science — no matter what the institution says about evolution or climate change.
I’m perfectly comfortable with the posture that the Gospels, like the rest of the Bible, were not written to be historical documents and lose their core meaning in the attempt. Millions of American Christians are FAR more literal than that, though.
Thankfully, it seems that Pope Frances and the Vatican are now rejecting Christian fundamentalism.
jconway says
Oh I agree with your analysis. Aquinas and his proofs get you as far as Platonic deism-but they do not get you to the Incarnation or Resurrection. That requires a suspension of rational belief and an acceptance that the irrational can be accomplished by mystical forces. A leap too far for
most moderns, including my father and 90% of my friends.
Though to wit, my mysticism is far closer to Thomas Merton than it is to Jim Inhofe’s! A distinction you were very careful to consider which I appreciate.
Christopher says
I agree with you about Inhofe. My reaction was to petr’s statement that religion and science are dichotomous without any qualification. My point was that there are plenty of us for whom those two concepts are not dichotomous at all.
jconway says
Yeah but your theology sounds like it lives up to the Unitarians Considering Christ moniker 😉
petr says
I did not say that religion and science were dichotomous. I did qualify, if only for the sake of making an entirely different argument, by saying they are seen as dichotomous… mostly by people who think they understand both science and religion in equal measure, and seek to use one or the other for their own ends.
Personally, I think that there is a creator of the universe and that He created this set of things we call ‘science’ itself and fashioned it into a universe that contains man and I know that after that happened, man created religion. When I want to think about God I study ‘science’ the better to understand what He built. When I want to think about what other people think about God I study religion.
jconway says
That’s a great way of putting it Petr
terrymcginty says
My two two-cents: First cent: as a Bernie supporter, it drives me completely crazy when other Bernie supporters denigrate and try to caricature Hillary supporters as corporate stooges or a centrist dullards.… Second cent: so elegantly written.
fredrichlariccia says
As an ardent Hillary supporter, I thank my best friend and Bernie supporter, Terry McGinty, for not denigrating us as corporate stooges or centrist dullards. I can assure you our debates are anything but dull. Have you ever heard a gay Irishman argue with a gay Italian ? 🙂
And at the risk of being accused of fawning, I too, think the post is elegantly written. Well done, Charley !
jconway says
I think this Vox piece does a great job showing how Bernie himself has started playing well with others and working with allies in the institutional party.
Bernie helped organize the grassroots opposition to save ACA which brought a lot of the primary antagonists together in common cause. Time for the rest of us to follow that lead.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/7/16069112/bernie-sanders-obamacare-trumpcare
jconway says
Booker and Harris are also moving in his direction-legalizing marijuana or being open to single payer. Booker is even going after monopolies now. I don’t see what is to be gained by imposing purity tests on past positions.
After all, marriage equality advocates had no credible candidates on our 2008 stage and now that’s a given. They didn’t say marriage or bust but they met people and candidates where they were. Healthcare and economic progressives should do the same.
johntmay says
It’s not purity tests on past positions, it’s the reasoning behind them. Personally I am not enraged at Harris and her failure to go after the big guys on Wall Street. After all, neither did her boss, President Obama. I do get angry at Booker’s big pharma connections.
Mark L. Bail says
What irritates me (and I’m guessing many other long-time party folks) is the idea that an uncompromising leftist ideology and unrealistic rejection of big money will result in better, more electable candidates.
We are four years away from the next election. That’s a lifetime. Unless it keeps up for the next four years, no one is going to remember what a wanker like Ryan Cooper said about Kamala Harris. We do have a potential conflict (for lack of a better sobriquet) the Bernie wing and the established wing of the Democrat Party. It bears watching, but we established folks should be reaching out to the Bernie wing trying to bridge the gap. The Bernie wing is pointing to the future, and the Established wing could not only exert some calm but learn.
Is there someone actually experienced in electoral politics–whose livelihood doesn’t require frequent written materials or whose political involvement didn’t begin with the Sanders’ campaign–who has an informed opinion Kamala Harris?
Aside from Judy Meredith’s comments here, Michael Tomasky has the best published take on the Kamala Harris ridiculousness:
But these attacks have the feel of something else. They have the feel of a group of people, most or all of them Bernie Sanders supporters, itching to refight 2016 and demand a level of purity that lo and behold only one candidate can possibly attain.
I wrote this many times in 2016, and I’ll write it again here: The fact that Sanders is from the state he’s from gives him the luxury of purity. I don’t doubt that he’s principled. But it’s also a fact that he (along with colleague Pat Leahy) faces less pressure from powerful interests than probably any other senator in the country….
When you’re running in California, it’s a different ball game. Harris has raised $16.5 million since 2015, when she started running for the Senate. She got off easy because no first-rank Republican pursued the Senate seat; in 2022, assuming she hasn’t moved into the White House, she can probably expect that things will be different and she’ll need to raise $50 million. Bernie, by contrast, raised around $7.8 million for his last election but spent only $3 million and at this point could win by spending $200,000 if he wanted to.
Harris is running in an insanely more expensive state. It’s also a much more complex state. California has tech, of course, but also huge banking and retail and oil-refining businesses, and a hundred other things. A senator shouldn’t prostrate herself before these interests, but as they all represent jobs in her state, she can’t simply denounce them as capitalist predators. She’s bound to take some donations that Sanders would refuse—or simply wouldn’t need to solicit in the first place. And I can guarantee you that if Bernie Sanders were a senator from California, he either wouldn’t be the same Bernie Sanders we know today—or he wouldn’t be a United States senator.
doubleman says
I’ve seen more responses to attacks against Kamala Harris than actual published attacks on Kamala Harris. All of this has the stink of being a fake controversy.
Strong left pressure has already shown some benefits, though, just over the last few months. For example, after Cory Booker got wrecked for his bad vote (and worse explanation) on drug reimportation, he came out quickly with support of a similar measure. It really seems he got spooked. Yesterday, Kirsten Gillibrand yesterday withdrew support for the anti-BDS bill after receiving a lot of pressure from the left. And there’s also the general support for $15 minimum wage and single payer. I hope Democrats don’t continue to respond to criticism by calling everyone whiny losers.
doubleman says
Related: It has turned into Larry Tribe saying that Bernie Sanders himself is going after Kamala Harris.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/894677244161011714
“Sanders is now going after @KamalaHarris exactly the way he once went after @elizabethforma! At long last, Senator, have you NO shame?”
Umm . . . sure . . .
Mark L. Bail says
BDS should stand for Bernie Derangement Syndrome.
I supported Clinton. In my opinion, You did a good job presenting the case for Bernie. Bernie makes some people nuts, and I don’t mean drives them nuts. I mean they can’t deal with his existence. Tribe may be an example. He makes a claim supported by no evidence I can locate, never mind the fact that it’s not in his tweet.
Some of the crazier Trump Russia people (I don’t follow them, but they end up coming through my Twitter feed retweeted by others) like to imply Bernie’s collusion with Russia. Evidence? None. The Russians probably had some Twitter bots targeting Clinton, pretending Bernie support. That doesn’t require any complicity by Sanders. Evidence he went after Elizabeth Warren? None.
I’ve got 4 years to rethink 2016. Based on her campaign’s failings, I’m at the point where I have a lot of doubts about how good a president Hillary would have made. Infinitely better than Trump, but I’m still thinking.
JimC says
Sorry, what is BDS?
Charley on the MTA says
Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (vs. Israel on behalf of Palestinians)
JimC says
Thank you Charley. PS. This character minimum for comments is impeding my minimalism.