Predictably, the next presidential race has started, in earnest, and, just as predictably, calls for radical change in the Democratic Party are heard again and again.
This is ridiculous.
The Democratic Party is not in need of rebirth. In almost all elections since 1992, a majority of Americans have voted for Democrats. Without actually crunching the numbers I venture to say that this is has been true since the election of 1932. That is to say, the existing Democrats, warts and all, have long had a size-able numerical advantage. Most of the country is entirely willing to vote Democratic most of the time.
The tripod of racism/sexism, economic illiteracy and outright criminality, is that which is holding up any kind of advantage for the GOP… and nothing else.
So why do Democrats have to be responsible for changing that? What can Democrats say, that they haven’t already said, to counter racism and sexism? What can Democrats do to counter economic illiteracy in a small, but vocal, minority of the country? What responsibility do Democrats bear for Republican lies? Why do the Democrats have to answer for Republican gerrymandering that has propped up their minority almost to the breaking point?
Sherrod Brown isn’t saying anything that Hillary Clinton hasn’t said: people are just more willing to believe him, and not her… is all. But here’s the thing: 65 plus million people still believed Hillary Clinton and voted accordingly. A size-able portion of the ‘other side’ likely also believed her, but for cultural indoctrination and cognitive dissonance simply could not be compelled to pull the lever for a woman. Somehow — and I’m at a complete loss as to how — this is her fault.
Barack Obama didn’t singlehandedly create a majority out of nothing but his charisma and some raw clay. He just tapped into what was already there.
The next Democrat to come along, whomever that is, is likely, also, to do and say similar to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and to garner a significant majority. That’s what the numbers have shown for decades. We don’t have to be reborn. We don’t have to change significantly. We don’t have to answer the other sides lies and calumny. We don’t have to argue with the dissonance. We just have to remain Democrats. We have to be the majority we are…
Can you imagine how much better at being Democrats we could be if we stripped away this layer of self-flagellating doubt? This cringing, almost embarrassed, posture of tactical retreat and nibbling at the margins? If we stopped acting like we were the smallest minority we think we are and started acting like the clear majority we are…? Can you imagine?
I can.
Amen
I agree, but this isn’t self-flagellating doubt.
The spoilers have no doubt and not expending their scourges on themselves.
They are a coalition of three isms: sexism, ageism, and opportunism.
Okay Petr, how do you square this post with your comments on the Mass Legislature? By every standard you use in this post the state legislative Democrats are wildly successful. They get a huge majority of the votes, and their share is only increasing. So why is criticism of the national Dem’s leadership “self flagellating” and criticism of the state Dem’s not?
…The same way I know that Hillary Clinton doesn’t deserve to be locked up but Sal Dimasi does…
… duh.
So if it’s all about Hillary Clinton and Sal Dimasi, why not just say so in your post? Why the pseudo data driven rationale about how we’re a majority if you don’t think that matters? Why the psychobabble about self-flagellating doubt? Why not just say “Hillary good, Sal bad, Petr say so, duh!” Better yet, why not just “Duh”?
bob(goblin)-gardner, you’re so cute when you try to be clever… but you’re never so clever as when you try to be cute.
In Massachusetts we are on the other side of ‘let the majority be the majority,’ and we’ve seen corruption resulting from that…And that may be something to worry about in the future at the national level. After all, the last time we ‘let the majority be the majority’ in congress, we got Dan Rostenkowski… But that doesn’t mean we get to let the minority be the majority, which is a situation about which you seem to be serenely complacent.
Or, put another way, instead of trying to trap me in some perceived inconsistency why don’t you turn your cognitive abilities to an actual important problem? I promise to be on your side when/if that were to happen.
It would be more accurate to say “slandered woman good, convicted criminal bad”.
and “unindicted co-conspirator” bad, also…
Indeed. Very bad.
Three reform suggestions:
1. Electoral College scrapped, President decided by national popular vote. That one’s pretty obvious. We’re deep enough into democracy that we don’t need the safety rails (which apparently don’t protect from anything anyway).
2. Double or triple the number of House seats. We went to 435 representatives in 1913. Our population was 92 million at the time. Now it’s 325 million with the same number of reps. We’re no longer getting local representation. It’s ridiculous that Ayanna Pressley and Mike Capuano shared a district. Frankly, it’s ridiculous that New England doesn’t have a single Republican rep or that the deep south is so red. Smaller districts would allow for better representation, a more complete cross-section of who we are as a nation.
3. A proportional Senate where you only vote for one seat, and districts cross state lines. We can keep the body itself to 100 senators, but our founding fathers didn’t anticipate Wyoming or California. The model simply doesn’t represent the people of this nation. Time to admit there’s nothing magical about state lines.
#1 is a no-brainer, but do it right through Constitutional amendment rather than “National Popular Vote” allocation of electors. At very least states should allocate their electors in proportion to the popular vote in that state,
For #2 I have long thought the House should increase to 600 which has the advantage of being easy to calculate all sorts of voting ratios and would bring every district closer to the total population of WY. That said, I’m not complaining that New England doesn’t have a single Republican and as Boston and Somerville are adjacent cities Capuano and Pressley being in the same district is not that unreasonable. We do, however, need redistricting reform.
1000 times NO! for #3. The Senate is supposed to represent states as entities, which we seem to have forgotten post 17th amendment. Our federal union of semi-sovereign states absolutely means something as each state has its own culture, politics, etc. The largest states could divide if they wish, but if CA gets to don’t forget so does TX. This is also the one amendment to the Constitution which itself would be unconstitutional. However, given the overall increase in population I have thought that along with a 600 member House each state should now get three Senators. This would allow every state to have a say in the composition of the Senate in every biennium which may better reflect the will of the people. The GOP is in the majority only because of the map, but of the 35 seats up for election this year the Dems actually took 22 of them.
I generally respectfully (and without typing) disagree with Christopher on government structure threads, but…
… this is really interesting. Alternatively, make ’em 4 year terms instead of 6 years, and not add another 500+ people to the government payroll. đŸ˜‰
I don’t see how #1 is a no-brainer when it directly contradicts your point in #3.
I don’t see how they are even related – please advise.
The question is whether we’ve ‘forgotten’ that or if, in fact, the 17th amendment… well… amended that…
I think the 17th amendment was a mistake and is the poster child for short sighted populism. And I think if the Senate was still appointed by the state legislatures then people would pay greater attention to races for state legislature.
I think it’s past time for the high-density states to divide either in half or in thirds,
Here’s one way:
California: California, North California, South California
Illinois: Illinois, Chicago
Texas: Texas, North Texas, South Texas
New Jersey: North New Jersey, South New Jersey
New York: New York, West New York, East New York
Connecticut: Connecticut, North Connecticut
Massachusetts: Massachusetts, West Massachusetts
The effect is to expand the seven above states to seventeen. This adds 34 new senators, raising the count from 100 to 134. No constitutional crisis is provoked — the original state of Virginia split into Virginia and West Virginia in 1863. Maine was split from Massachusetts in 1820 with no crisis, and Kentucky split from Virginia in 1792.
The motivation is to improve Senate representation for the tens of millions of voters who live in the seven current states.
I don’t find it necessary or practical for the geographically small states to become even smaller.
I think it is interesting that in a diary advocating NOT taking radical steps, radical reforms are posited. While not criticizing the actual reforms posit’d, I don’t think they address the concerns: instead, It is — yet again– another form of Democrats trying to take responsibility for the problem.
The root of the problem is with the Republicans. They lie. They cheat. They steal elections. They rouse populist anger with racist and sexist arguments. They rely upon economic illiteracy and anti-intellectualism. They gerrymander to a fare-the-well. If you want to make it harder for them to steal and cheat and lie and gerrymander in the future, well… I can’t argue with that. But if we could erase all that, the Republic would be in good stead. The root of the problem is not in the rules, but in the wholesale abrogation of the rules by the Republicans.
The second order problem is that Democrats believe that all this lying, cheating, stealing and gerrymandering is just all in the game and that the Republican congressional majority, or the presidency or the supreme court represents an actual majority in the country. It does not. It demonstrably does not, but if you thought about the lying, cheating, stealing, gerrymandering, etc, even for just a second, you’d realize why they feel the need to do it… They too, know they are in the minority. And it is a minority that is shrinking all the time.
We don’t need reform. We don’t need rebirth. We don’t need renewal. We need to be who and what we are, fully. That’s all. That’s enough.
“We need to be who and what we are, fully. That’s all. That’s enough.”
I wish that were the case. In America of 2018, I suggest and fear that it is not.
The reality is that an epistemic closure exists that causes the Trumpist minority of Americans to steadfastly reject any information that challenges their bias. Not just reject, but reject with prejudice — the result of attempting to provide information to them is to strengthen their bias.
A Trump-appointed judge rules, correctly, that the White House cannot arbitrarily deny a hard pass to a CNN reporter. The message that Fox News proclaims to the heartland is “Liberal court system betrays our values. Even our own judge can’t fight it. The treasonous liberal atheist communist reporter still spreads his lies”.
The heartland voters already see who we are. Fully. That’s why they want us in jail, deported, and silenced. We thought the election of Barack Obama showed that America is ready to move on from its racist past. The election of Donald Trump — and aftermath — shows that those red states in the middle are not NEARLY ready to move on.
I agree with you that they are already a minority. I also agree with you that they know that. I see their behavior as a sign of desperation, and as their minority gets smaller and smaller I expect them to ratchet UP their bigotry.
This is Jihad. We didn’t choose it, but it is what it is. That’s why we need to think about how to reduce their influence. These are the symptoms of a political system in catastrophic (although slow motion) collapse. A mechanical engineer would call it “a catastrophic loss of structural integrity”.
We are seeing fundamental flaws in our political system, and fundamental reform of our political system is required to address those flaws.
Since the Democratic party is the party of intellectuals and would be economic wizards why don’t we adopt a test to be allowed to vote. We don’t let people drive without taking a test and then they get a license. Think of all the Republicans and conservatives you’d purge from the rolls of voters. Hillary would have won in a Reaganesque landslide. Nelson would still be in, in Fla.
We have arbitrary limits in place now, age, no convicted murderers, etc. Why not have a civics, economic test.
You’re either joking, trolling, or both.
You don’t have to be an economic wizard to understand that the policies of the GOP are disastrous to working-class people — all that’s needed is to look at their proposals and what’s happened when those proposals have been put into practice (of course, we need to also look at the stark difference between what they proposed when out of power and what they did when put in power).
Presumably you know that poll tests were a common tool used by southern racists (mostly Democratic) to suppress black votes. I remind you that it is the GOP who is leading the way in voter suppression today.
The Democratic party is the party of intellectuals only by default: nothing but prejudice prevents Republicans from intellectual endeavor. You should try it sometime.
He’s correct. The Democratic Party leadership is comprised of well educated/wealthy individuals whose only advice to the working class poor is to improve their education and/or job skills to improve their lot in life. They offer no criticism of the system because they, personally, have gained from the status quo.
This is simply not true and every one of the many many times it has been pointed out, you have ignored it.
Okay, tell me when Hillary, or Bill, Or Barack proposed higher taxes on the rich?
You’re losing your touch, your bait having nothing to do with your switch…
Exactly that was a key proposal of Bill’s 1992 campaign and he followed through.
Yup, my mistake, Still, the ownership class fared far better then the working class under both presidents.
Don’t tempt me. I’ve long wondered if we should require of natural born citizens the same citizenship tests we give to the would-be naturalized in order to vote.
Just some basic civic questions with some economics maybe. Nothing too difficult but maybe Ocasio-Cortez and Sarah Palin wouldn’t be exposing themselves fighting over such simple questions it makes you wonder if candidates should also have to pass a test.
Not trolling, we limit voting now I’d be happier if I felt the average voter understood more.
I wonder if your basic questions about economics include the following:
“The federal government must balance its budget just like every household. True or false?”
I think I’ve seen versions of the citizenship test with that question or similar. The answer is of course false, both because the federal government is not required to balance and because most households don’t either.
Perhaps we might share this basic economic reality with the GOP.
The reason the federal government is not required to balance its budget is that the full faith and power of the holder of the most powerful arsenal in human history is more than enough to guarantee payment of any debt.
There is therefore no need for a gold standard (in fact, imposing one would immediately generate a catastrophic deflation) and no need for the federal government to balance its budget.
Basic economics that are ignored or denied by the GOP and its supporters. A denial and lie that has been core GOP dogma since the Reagan era (except when the GOP is in power and is therefore expected to act on its dogma).
Sounds like exactly the people who should avail themselves of the citizenship test:) Seriously, though, certainly the GOP knows the federal government is not currently required to balance the budget. After all, THEY are the ones who have pushed a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to make it required, which would be unnecessary if it already were.
Nothing as extensive as the Foreign Service State Dept test which takes what about 7 hrs but something that at least defines the branches of govt, responsibility for making laws, maybe who won WW2, what is a budget (without getting into deficit spending).
Petr seemed to imply that average Democrats would do better than Republicans so I thought if a test disqualified 20% of the Democrats and 40% of the Republicans it would be welcome.
In other words, the US citizenship test. If such did not already exist I would not be suggesting this, but since that particular wheel has already been invented I figure we just use it for our own people the same as we would for foreigners.
I don’t see the benefit of testing for a multitude things that we routinely flout whenever it is politically convenient.
The US Constitution (Article 1, section 8, clause 11) grants only to Congress the ability “To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”
We’ve ignored this since the 1960s. Why bother to test something that our own government essentially ignores?
I would rather see us drop the current citizenship test than spread it. So far as I’m concerned, it is far more important that voters be able to correctly add, subtract, multiple and divide.
That’s a pervasive issue of our declining public schools, and no citizenship test will change that sad reality.
Um, you know that there are many more enumerated powers than that, right?
@ enumerated power:
Of course I do. I picked one of the more obvious examples where our current citizenship test is fifty years behind our current practice.
Putting aside the disturbing comparisons to literacy tests in the Jim Crow Era, perhaps a better solution would be to have a “moon shot” like project to make Americans civilly literate?
You suggestion is like taken a society that can’t read and making them ass a literacy test so they can work. The net result would be a society where no one can work because they can’t read and then throwing up your hands and saying “well, I guess the national work force is to stupid to work” and just keep the status quo.
If the problem is civic illiteracy (and it is) then the solution is not to keep people stupid and impose a test preventing the stupid from participating. The solution–in an enlighten democracy (I can dream can’t I)–is to invest in a massive program to increase civic literacy.
Anything less than that–particularly testing–is the opposite of what a democracy is.
That is the goal. If we were to ever use such a test the point would not be let’s see how many people we can disenfranchise, but rather let’s see how many people we can get educated enough to pass the test – let’s shoot for 100%. We’d all be better off if nobody believed some of the nonsense our politicians spew.
You’ve incidentally summed up the problem with education and education reform in America more clearly than I have ever seen it. The answer is to TEACH more not to TEST more.
I see. Presumably you would give those same “citizenship tests” to students in already-failing inner city public schools in cities like Lawrence and Springfield and already-excelling public schools in places like Brookline, Carlisle, and Dover.
As night follows day, a much higher portion of inner city students would fail those tests, and be denied the most basic privilege and obligation of American society. Of course, the overwhelming majority of those newly-disenfranchised 18 year olds would be black and Hispanic.
Nothing racist about that idea, nope.
This is a bad idea. It was a bad idea during Jim Crow, and it is a bad idea today. In fact, the only reason it was EVER liked was because of its effectiveness in keeping “uppity” blacks away from the polls.
Not if done correctly. Why should we expect less of our own citizens than we do of those who seek naturalization? Those who have to take it for citizenship get plenty of opportunity to prepare and so would our citizens. Start by requiring civics in high school and administer it junior or senior year. Have you ever seen our citizenship test? It’s not that hard. Obviously you don’t just spring it on people right before an election. Frankly, if it keeps out anybody I see it mostly affecting the yahoos that constitute Trump’s base, almost entirely white. Jim Crow is a completely bad analogy because those “literacy” tests were not at all about literacy and very subjectively evaluated.
I invite you to offer even one standardized test where inner-city public schools (Springfield, Lawrence, Roxbury) perform comparably to public schools in affluent suburbs like Brookline, Carlisle, and Dover.
We use MCAS test results to help identify struggling schools that need help, for crying out loud.
I am quite confident that statewide failure rates of such a test will be MUCH higher for minorities than for whites. I know of NO test where students from affluent suburbs don’t out-perform their peers from the inner city.
I’m equally confident that those higher statewide failure rates will be cited as a reason why those who fail shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
This is not too far removed from the terrible excesses of the Eugenics movement, which locked up poor people (predominantly minority) because the prevailing belief of the time was that poverty was a sign of inferior genetics. The argument was that the best way to “improve” society was to sterilize those who were poor.
Sorry, but I completely reject your premise.
And I reject your assumption that on such a basic test there will be such disparity between the communities you use as examples. You seem to be manifesting what George W. Bush once described as the “soft bigotry of low expectations”. Again I ask, why should we expect less of those who have been here all their lives than we do from those we know are coming from other places and have to learn our ways from scratch?
We’re not talking about expectations. We’re talking about actual results of actual tests given by actual staff to actual students.
I invite you to compare the results of another basic test, the spring MCAS for “English Language Arts” and “Mathematics”, grades 3-8. I compared an arbitrarily chosen Lawrence school and Carlisle public school:
Language (school/district/state) :
Lawrence: n.a/486/499
Carlisle: 515/515/499
Mathematics:
Lawrence: n.a/491/499
Carlisle: 516/516/499
The phrase you repeat from Mr. Bush epitomizes the blame-the-victim attitude of the GOP. This data shows a failure of the SCHOOLS and the education system that supports them. It is no accident that the disparity is so pronounced.
The same will be true of this contemplated poll test.
Your question (“Why should we expect less …”) is itself right on the verge of racism. It blames the student, not the school.
When the performance of our struggling urban schools on MCAS and the other standardized tests we already give is comparable to our affluent suburban schools, then we might perhaps revisit your question.
In the meantime, you are proposing to erect even more barriers to block urban minorities from voting.
Do you seriously think I am motivated to erect barriers to voting by our base? I’ve seen many iterations of the MCAS, and while I have defended it as reasonably geared to what kids should be learning in school anyway the citizenship test is still quite a bit more basic. I’m not the one blaming the students. YOU seem to be the one starting with the premise that some won’t be able to pass. It’s racist to hold ourselves to certain standards now? – geesh!
@ seriously think: No, of course I don’t think you intentionally want that.
I think it’s another example of your steadfast refusal to admit the reality of defacto and/or systemic racism. I’m not suggesting that you are motivated by a desire to erect barriers to voting. Instead, you are continuing to defend a proposal that will surely have that effect, and you simply deny and refuse to admit evidence in support of that reality.
I am observing that decades of standardized test data show that the schools we provide to urban minorities have lower scores than the schools we provide to affluent whites. Here in Massachusetts, we still rely on property taxes to fund public schools. That makes the funding reliant on property values. Property values in affluent white towns are higher than urban minority neighborhoods. Hence less money for urban schools than for their affluent counterparts. Hence lower quality urban schools.
I’m all for restoring basic civics to the curriculum. I’ll all for ensuring that passing the equivalent of the national citizenship test is part of the testing needed to obtain a diploma.
A diploma is not required to vote, and should not be. It is not required in large part because of the correct observations of our predecessors that such a requirement would, among other things, be discriminatory.
The disparity in our schools is real and pervasive. It is racist to tie the outcome of that disparity to the ability to vote.
We’re most of the way to agreement then since the vast majority of American adults do have a high school diploma. Of course if it were up to me the legal dropout age would be 18th birthday or graduation whichever comes first, but that’s a topic for another time. I’m still more optimistic than you are that where there’s a will there’s a way and we could make this work.
“We don’t need reform. We don’t need rebirth. We don’t need renewal. ”
Famous last words.
Sadly, I agree with you on this.
Our political system does need reform, badly.
Good place to stop. Happy Thanksgiving!
Indeed, Happy Thanksgiving
Perhaps so. The point of this diary, however, is that the Democrats don’t need to reform, revolutionize, reconfigure or otherwise overhaul ourselves in order to achieve the majority. We’ve already done that. Whatever political reforms are necessary, they have very little to do with how the Democrats have behaved or will behave in the future.
We don’t need to pretend that Sherrod Brown is saying something new and novel, ’cause he isn’t. We don’t need to pretend that Hillary Clinton failed, ’cause she did not. We don’t need to get on crazy uncle Bernie’s train to utopia, stops at nirvana, eden and shangri-la on the way, because we already have a majority. There is no need for the Democrats to perform any kind of about-face, pivot, repentance or innovation of political theory in order to grasp a majority that has, so far, eluded us… because it has not eluded us. If anything it has occasionally been withheld by the bad actions of the authoritarian Right.
As the Democrats do represent a majority, they have no responsibility to fix the minority or accept the bad actions thereof or otherwise contort themselves into pretzels to please the minority or in anyway tempt some so-far purely hypothetical ‘swing’ voter.
If we had two parties, opposed in ideology, but both playing by the rules and taking seriously the voters as the Democrats do, the need for political reform would be much much less…
… but if we reform the political process and yet continue to accept Republican underhandedness as ‘just politics’ how long, do you think, before the Republicans make an attempt to subvert the new and shiny political processes?
I agree with all this.
The fact that we Democrats have had a clear majority for generations and are still very much a minority party when it comes to actual governance is exhibit A in the case demonstrating the failure of our political system.
The Democratic Party, at least nationally, is all the things you say. The political system itself is broken, and the resulting failures block the majority of Americans from having a government that reflects their will.
I hate the EC as much as anyone, but no one has been able to explain to me how we’re going to repeal it. Way to many small states have to vote to ratify this against there own interests (who gives up power?). And I’m afraid the National Popular Vote pack is an example of liberal stupidity. All you have to do is assume the Dems got 65,000 votes in OH in 2004, thereby losing the popular vote, yet winning the EC and therefore making Kerry President. If the NPV pack was in place in 2004, blue states like MA or NY would be throwing their votes to the GOP popular vote winner, electing them President. Given that many Red states will never join the NPV pack, all we’re doing is giving the GOP another way to win the Presidency (through our own stupidity) .
I’m open to increasing the size of Congress–the NYT just endorsed the concept. But I’d like some more meat on the bone to understand why it will result in more reform and not an explosion of yet more money in politics to fund the more campaigns we create. Will the result be just increasing the volume of noise, because we just doubled the amount of media seeking politicians?
And I’m not sure how your third idea would work, so I’ll pass until I learn more.
Just as a point of clarification, I believe NPV is designed to not take effect until enough states ratify to total 270 electoral votes.
Yes, and what happens if/when the states the comprise the 270 are all mostly Blue states? It will be “heads” the Republicans win, “tails” the Democrats lose.
As it stands now, only solid Blue States have passed it and most Red States aren’t even close to passing it. A noble idea with potentially disastrous results.
I don’t think it would matter in terms of their goal. All those states would cast their electoral votes for whomever won the popular vote, thus ensuring that person an electoral college victory, which is precisely the point.
When you compared Sherrod Brown to Hillary Clinton, I had to stop reading the posting. The party has changed. There was a time that it represented the working class. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama changed that, along with others. The party needs to return to its roots, the ones given to it by FDR.
Hillary Clinton, in 2016, got more votes in Ohio than Sherrod Brown did in 2018… Just because you don’t like Hillary Clinton doesn’t mean others don’t like her. And, I re-iterate: Sherrod Brown and Hillary Clinton aren’t saying different things; you just want to believe him and you don’t want to believe her.
The fact of the matter is that you’re talking about a party that simply doesn’t give you what you want and so you turn out the good as the enemy of the perfect.
I’m talking about an imperfect party made up of imperfect people that acts like it’s a minority party when in fact it has a clear majority and yet makes pretense of strenuous effort and wooing of swing voters, that don’t exist, to attempt exit of this wholly imaginary minority status they don’t have. The history of the last 80-90 years of American electoral efforts has seen most people vote Democratic, most of the time.
You are, however, correct about Bill Clinton: Democrats would be better at representing the working class if they concentrated on being the Democrats they are rather than triangulating on ad-hoc coalitions and purely transactional politics. Yet, you are to consider, Clinton performed this kind of triangulation for exactly the reasons I’m laying out here: he believed the Democrats to be in the minority when in fact they were not… Maybe it was a holdover from Arkansas (a state that also elected Mike Huckabee Governor…) where he may, in fact, have been in the minorty… Maybe he believed in the risible ‘Reagan revolution’ but the point remains, Clinton spent much of his presidency in a defensive crouch engaging in tactical raids and retreats as though he led a much smaller force than, in fact, he did.
I do not, for a second, consider that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton ever considered that kind of triangulation of which Bill Clinton was famous.
She lost the presidency and the result is Donald Trump. She lost it for many reasons, not the least of which was an inability to connect with working class citizens. She was comfortable at a Goldman Sachs event, a fundraiser at Provincetown, an event at Wellesley, but dared not set foot in Fall River or Brockton.
And if you want to insist that Hillary was super qualified because of her association with her two term husband,, than she has the same faults.
The rode the same wave. Can you tell me how many Wall Street criminals Obama put in jail?
,
Not even a nice try John, since I’ve never insisted that…
Why don’t you go off into a corner and continue this conversation with yourself? You’re certainly only arguing with things you think I said…
You are making a complete fool of yourself speaking about that which you are completely uninformed.
The Electoral College lost her the presidency. She actually got almost 3 million more votes, and if the discussion is what the people wanted that is very relevant.
Just more lies about Ms. Clinton. Nothing more. More Rush Limbaugh ditto-head commentary, similarly disconnected from actual reality.
Weak: Comparing vote totals on candidates, one in a Presidential turnout year and another in a midterm. You apparently forgot the audience you were talking with here…we know the difference.
A Public Service Announcement:
A little respect, please: This particular post is a discussion of whether or no Democratic ideas and candidates –as they have been historically constituted and as it has lead to the present moment — enjoy a majority of support in the country, and whether or no the Democrats should change, in any way, in effort to possibly increase their share of the electorates attentiveness when faced with the answer to the question..
This is not a discussion about the rightness or wrongness of the present Democratic platform or any past, present or future candidate. This is not about the shape and heft of any changes, but whether changes are needed at all. It’s not about whether the Democrats are perfect but about how much of the electorate — and whether it is a majority — presently agrees with the Democrats as they are, warts and all.
I have clearly laid out my position. If you wish to challenge this position feel free to do so. If, however, you wish to have the discussion about the flaws and the imperfections and the shortcomings of the Democrats, start your own post. Don’t try to hijack the discussion for your own hobby horses. As the author of this post I have the authority (and have already used it) to discard comments that I feel are attempts to hijack the discussion or which do not argue in good faith. I shall not hesitate to do so again.
Thank you,
Petr
How do you delete comments? I can’t seem to find that. Plus, in my viewing it seems I still see all the comments I have ever seen on this thread.
It is a function of the authorship of the post. Since I started it, I can ‘unapprove’ comments and send them to the trash. On this post, you, or anybody (save me and the adult moderators) should not be able to delete anything, but if you started a post you should be able to do it in that post.
Yes, I understand that it’s only my own. I did go back to one of my diaries to try to figure this out and was unsuccessful.
I’ll just leave this last comment and wish you call a Happy Thanksgiving.
The author of this posting seems to think that electing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a mistake, an affront to Obama and Clinton, and the party would have been better off with Joe Crowley
I respectfully disagree.
It’s way past time for a change and a return to Democrats as the party of the working class.
I don’t see any reference to that particular primary. This post seems to be more about the handwringing over internal leadership.
I’d say that primary was significant and in direct opposition to the nature of this posting that Democrats need to stay on the neoliberal Clinton/Obama/Crowley path.
You’ve turned the thread-starter on its ear.
There is no mention of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at all, and no mention of Joe Crowley at all. There is no mention of “neoliberal” anything. There’s no assertion that any primary was insignificant.
We are coming off a major Democratic win in the 2018 election. It is a major win that we accomplished by running House candidates — old and new — that loudly and boldly promoted the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.
The thread-starter reminds us of this reality.
I have no desire to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Just adding the comments of a working class dude who studies the data. Sorry if they offend you.
The thread stated that calls for radical change in the Democratic Party are heard again and again, adding “This is ridiculous.”
Joe Crowley was a 10 term congressman, 10 terms. That’s 20 years of status quo, no radical change. He was vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Calling for no radical change would be to support Crowley, a ten term respected and deeply entrenched Democrat and fiercely mock the candidacy and election of the inexperienced Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as “ridiculous”.
I fail to see how I have turned anything on its ear, given these facts and observations.
You are the only one on this thread talking about Mr. Crowley. Nobody has mocked the candidacy and election of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
You are knocking down a strawman of your own design.
Um, it’s not about Crowley or Ocasio-Cortez. It’s all about what each represents . Crowley represents the spirit of this thread that calls for no change in the party, full speed ahead with the status quo while Ocasio-Cortez represents a significant change in direction that this thread refers to as ridiculous.
Sigh.
The “status quo” party that you so passionately attack at every opportunity just won a mid-term election with the largest popular majority since Watergate, and some sources say in history.
Your commentary here mischaracterizes and distorts pretty much everything you mention — the national party, the election results it produced, the community here at BMG, and the thread-starter.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat Crowley and promptly endorsed Pelosi… So, using your logic, she’s mocking… …herself!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is, in point of fact, the unapologetic Democrat I’m asking everyone else to be. She’ll do fine.
Yet Crowley isn’t the stooge you make him out to be: an Irish Catholic cop married to a nurse with a 100% NARAL rating… serving in the district in which he was born. Just the kind of working class voice you say you want in Democratic leadership… You should pay attention to that, but I’m certain it’s info you’ll continue to ignore because it conflicts with your prejudice and with the way you’ve retained the tools and tactics of Limbot ditto-head bull and your anti-Democratic bias, even after your Damascus road.
AOC defeating Crowley isn’t the radical change you want it to be: just as with Capuano, if we could attend the alternate universes in which they won, and compare to the coming universe of Pressely and AOC, we’d likely see little if any difference in voting patterns…
Wow, the attacks against me and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are deep in this thread. We are now both hypocrites!
I agree with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsement of Pelosi, whose attackers, it appears are all from the right wing of the party.
Nobody is attacking AOC – where in the world did that come from?
… From the fact he didn’t read beyond the first line. He rarely does, so… at least he’s consistent.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, first time candidate, got 80K more votes that the sacrificial Republican in the NY 14 Congressional district…
That’s the point. NY’s 14 congressional is solidly Democratic. No Democrat has to triangulate, hedge, pretend, or constrain Dem selves in any way. There is no need to woo Republican votes or, in any way, attempt to appease the minority. My point is that national Democrats should, by and large, adopt this attitude also.
Pelosi’s attackers are not, per se, from the right wing of the party: they are simply suffering exactly the delusion I am railing against: Democrats who don’t believe they live in a Democratic majority and feel they have to kow-tow to the (so far purely hypothetical) ‘swing voters’ in order to get something done. They are so far willing to bend over backwards to draw (again, hypothetical) centrists. As we’ve seen, bending over backwards to please the other side ends up alienating a lot on this side…
This post was not about ideology, and since the current (though quickly collapsing) leadership challenge is if anything an attempt to pull to the center I think you have things backwards.