In the wake of the most destructive 48 hours I’ve ever seen experienced by a presidential candidate, I propose a BMG project. I would like to know of every Republican candidate in Massachusetts, incumbent or not:
-For whom will you be voting for president in November?
It would be enormously beneficial for those of us looking for a progressive government to get every GOP candidate for Congress or the State House on the record on this question. If we are willing to make the calls, will our editors at BMG keep and publish the results? This is something the Massachusetts Democratic Party should be doing, but that organization clearly lacks the competence to do this (the front page of the website has a “weekly column” two months old).
What do you say? If you provide the infrastructure, I’ll make a chunk of the calls.
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…but I doubt many Dems are going to feel the need to wiggle out of being associated with our nominee.
I’m PROUD to say I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton. No reservations, no reluctance, and certainly no shame.
I’m similarly proud to cast my vote for EVERY Democrat on my ballot:
– Denise Provost
– Pat Jehlen
– Mike Capuano
I’d happily vote for Joe Curtatone, but he’s not up for re-election this time around.
There is no shame associated with being on the same ballot as Hillary Clinton. The same is most certainly NOT true about Donald Trump.
As soon as a sitting Democratic Congressperson announces s/he is voting for Trump, it will be worthwhile.
Let me know when that happens.
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You were thinking of Cornell West, not an actual Democratic elected official?
It feels a little mean-spirited to me. All the possible outcomes for the people who answer are bad.
I’m sure it’s not intended to be mean, but why put pressure on people who are already under pressure by virtue of being Massachusetts Republicans? I would assume most of them ARE voting for Trump out of party loyalty.
My answer to your question is “For the same reason that we put pressure on people who continue to use ‘ni**er’.”
There are limits to acceptable behavior in society. That includes acceptable political behavior. The GOP has been stretching those limits for years, and Mr. Trump has blasted through and on to the other side. He is so outrageous that some claim he is “ok”. He is not.
Voting for Donald Trump is not acceptable. It is akin to voting for Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, or Erdogan.
I’ve been courteous to these people long enough.
I have been fascinated by the brouhaha over the N word for years. I avoid using because I understand it offends some people, and for the same reason I don’t go around using dago or kike. It’s an unnecessary description. But Italians and Jewish people tend not to use those words themselves.
My problem comes with the use of the word by the Black community themselves. It’s common in rap lyrics. If I went to “open mike” night and recited lyrics, could I use it? Tiger Woods’ kids (they’re only 1/4 black)?
A grandson used it with a black teammate one time and my ears perked up but when the kid responded “hey cracker” I knew all was good.
Acceptable behavior has been deteriorating to the lowest common denominator for years, Trump’s crudeness is just an example of our slide downwards.
I agree with you, especially your last paragraph.
Still, we don’t use the word in political speech. When whites like me are doing business in a shopping mall, nearly all of us are shamed and embarrassed when other whites use the word as a disparagement. In my view, there is no “common denominator” that includes the use of the n-word as an epithet.
There should similarly be no common denominator that includes the savage hate and casual brutality of Donald Trump (never mind his flagrant dishonesty and pure ignorance).
The nomination of Donald Trump is a shameful embarrassment for America. The GOP did it, not the Democrats. I hope that nobody would object to ANYBODY here using the n-word about another.
I think that asking our self-described Republicans to explain their continued loyalty to their party after its nomination of Donald Trump is absolutely legitimate.
Here’s how our President phrased it:
Should have been “I hope that nobody would object to shaming ANYBODY here who uses the n-word about another.”
I scrolled down as soon as I read it. I knew it was a typo. FWIW nobody I know ever uses the N word, nor should they.
When I was a child we used to pick teams with “eeny meeny miney moe, catch a “Nword” by the toe”. We had no idea what the word referred to, but before I was too old to stop picking teams, it had changed to “catch a tiger by the toe”… that was in the early 1960s. I can’t remember when I learned to what the term had referred.
I was unaware of that tiger was once something else in that rhyme.
Except that you typed ‘dago’ and ‘kike’ but did not, in fact, type the “N word.”
Like me he may be trying to assuage the sensibilities of others. I would never actually use those words to address or refer to someone, but am not offended seeing them typed or hearing them said out loud. None are nearly as bad IMO as actual swears like the F-word which you will absolutely never hear or read me use in full.
Those derogatory terms have fallen out of the vernacular and no one hears them anymore. The offended people didn’t perpetuate their use. Most on here wouldn’t know what they are, so I had to spell it out.
Blacks continue to use the word and then are offended when they hear it from someone who they don’t think should use it. How do they decide? What if Rachael Dolezal (the one who self identified as black) used it? Kosher?
It’s an epithet. Some blacks use it anyway, in an effort to reclaim it in the same way that gay men have tried with some some success to reclaim the word “queer”. The persistence of the n-word is NOT because blacks use it — I think we both know that it’s the other way around.
It’s REALLY simple: if you’re not black, don’t use it.
The N-word does not float about like some Platonic ideal so that we can judge it good or bad, and so that we can take its use by some African-Americans as evidence of its goodness or acceptability.
The N-word exists in a variety of social contexts. In almost every social contexts that is majority of white, the use of the N-word echoes the racism of a country founded by legalizing slavery and enriched by the tremendous economic efficiency of slavery, a country that emancipated slaves into a system of enforced poverty that was then followed up with segregation, Jim Crow, and the denial of credit. The N-word was used to make this horrible system look legitimate; it was used to make the oppression go down easy for white people because it was being applied to lesser humans.
After a few hundred years of that, it should come as no surprise that there are few ways white people can use the N-word without sounding like assholes.
You all do realize that the few MA Republicans we have have been stuffed into overwhelmingly Republican districts? They’d lose their seats to more conservative primary challengers if they didn’t back Trump. And for what? So DeLeo and Co can have 100% control?
The Mass Dema don’t need to update their webpage because they don’t need to. You all have drunk the kool aid that the obstructionist Republicans at the national level are the reason Massachusetts can’t have nice things. Why do they need to update? It was a nice waystation for McGee on his way to running for Mayor in Lynn, and Cahill was set up nicely to glide into that seat.
They have no interest in beating Baker because they can point their finger at him whenever we can’t have nice things and rile up the BMG crowd, despite the fact that he’s passed more progressive legislation this term than Deval Patrick did in his second term with the same legislature. They would rather Charlie stay in power than Wolf or Seti or whatever sacrificial lamb is offered up on the 2018 altar. And it’s because they can blame him when they don’t do their jobs, and take the credit when he signs progressive legislation or they override his symbolic vetoes.
Meanwhile the most pro gun, most anti choice, and most anti immigrant legislators have big fat D’s next to their names, more taxpayer salaries due to ghost committee chairmanships and lucrative side gigs that aren’t considered conflicts of interest. And there is no infrastructure in place to beat it, let alone seriously challenge it. But sure, some Republicans in MA are voting for the Republican nominee. That’s our biggest threat to local progress.
Perhaps I’m being myopic, but I have a GOP representative, my workplace does, and I have a Republican Senator. And these are all districts the Democrats could win. Yes, I am curious — do these people put party first, or their community? Are they so married to the elephant that they will put Trump in charge of the the nuclear arsenal? Someone else called it mean-spirited, but if someone wants to be my representative, they need to prove they can navigate a tough decision. Any idiot can make a choice when there’s one obvious answer.
I would have expected that someone being paid to grow a third party would want to take advantage of this opening, rather than sticking with the “a pox on everyone!” strategy that has been a decades-long failure in Massachusetts.
No incumbent elected official in either party wanted to run with us or be endorsed by us. For the progressive Democrats its the fear DeLeo could run a D against them and they would lose to low info voters who don’t know what the UIP stands for. For the moderate Republicans there is still a belief that the state organization won’t be dragged down by the national organization.
In terms of an opportunity for running candidates we have three that are running with us, one against an entrenched conservative Democrat and the other two for open races as write in candidates. if you have any leads I’d be happy to talk to them.
I’m sorry, but I really think you’re going too far here.
It is not the fault of the Democrats that Massachusetts GOP is in the sorry state it’s in. The MA GOP has, for whatever reason, been unable to even find candidates to run in most local districts for most of the last forty years. As you know all too well, it is impossible for ANY party to be a political force when it doesn’t even compete in elections. The Democrats didn’t force Greg Hyatt to run for office.
I think that ANY party who wants to gain momentum in this state MUST renounce the hate, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and deceit of Donald Trump. The MA GOP must do it, and — frankly — so must the UIP. The latter is hopefully neither controversial nor difficult.
It is NEVER a “waste of time” to renounce hate, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and deceit when those are the hallmarks of a major Party’s nominee for the most powerful position in the world.
Very few of our supporters, if any, support him. None of our volunteers do and Evan Falchuk is on record saying he will be voting for Clinton. As am I for the matter. It doesn’t matter locally. Donald Trump is not the reason Massachusetts can’t have nice things, Bobby DeLeo is. I don’t see why using Trump as an albatross around the necks of moderate Republicans to increase DeLeo’s majority is a project worthy of BMG or it’s time. Not when there are local candidates, whether they are in my party or primarying DINOcrats that you all should be supporting. Not when there are city councilors who might take on Walsh next term.
You guys are complaining about a rump faciton and asking a third party to do the hard work progressive Democrats have been unsuccessful at for the past three to four decades in this state. I wish we had the resourced the Mass Dems do, we don’t. And the sad fact it its really hard to compete in every district.
You have to find locally relevant candidates, you have to fund them and build an organization capable of getting them elected. I am confident in the candidates I have recruited and am looking forward to seeing them win. Maybe that’s the straw that breaks the camels back and gets some reluctant incumbents to break to us, we will see. The us against Trump narrative that keeps getting espoused here really drowns out the real work that has to happen to make this a better state. I get it’s Blue, but let’s focus on actually fixing Massachusetts once in awhile.
Someone woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning!:(
in which Republican elected officials are supporting whom in this Presidential election.
At this point, there’s little consensus: while some Legislators are supporting Trump, the Gov and the Senate and House Minority Leaders aren’t.
I don’t think that recording Republican positions in this Democratic state is mere piling on, and I also don’t agree that any Republican who doesn’t back Trump would lose his or her seat to a more conservative primary challenger. The Gov’s recent success in electing more moderates to the state committee suggests that the momentum is going his way these days. Plus, the next primaries are eons away.
As jconway observes upthread, Baker has passed more progressive legislation this term than Deval Patrick did in his second term with [very nearly] the same legislature. So I’m interested in knowing more about Baker’s fellow partisans, including whether they support the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016.
At any rate, I’m happy to tally the results of intelligence that BMG collects on this score. Send reports to h_prynne@hotmail.com. I’ll keep you posted.
I will contact my elected officials and email you shortly.