Dems Need To Learn From the UK Election to UNITE under one message: GET HIM OUT!

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm very confused about your concerns of Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

I know you are British. Do you dislike the British healthcare system? Do you feel it's ultimately lead your country and people in the wrong direction?

Being American, if I woke up this morning and my house was on fire or someone was bashing in my patio window with a bazooka, I could call the Police or Fire Dept. without grabbing my credit card or getting billed later. If I had children, I could send them to school without being billed or taking out loans. I have these socialist services from the same system that was in place before Bernie Sanders arrived. These are life-threatening or important situations and Americans somehow reasoned that society can and should provide relief.

If I woke up this morning paralyzed, my child was lying in bed coughing up blood or could benefit from 4 more years of education, society may very well fall into fascism if I don't put my house and retirement up for collateral before calling for specialized assistance.

I'd rather call for Americans to put their houses and retirement up as collateral to fund our Defense Budget and skim healthcare and education off the top of the public funds. With a simple accounting rearrangement, we might be having a completely different argument about who is the radicals and extremists.

Nope, it's not Sanders' policies that worry me at all.

What does worry me -- and possibly I'm being over-cautious here -- is that when you get people decrying elites and advocating individual socialist policies other than as part of an overall socialist or social-democratic programme, which is what I think a lot of Bernie Sanders' followers are doing (not Sanders himself, but a lot of his more aggressive supporters from outside left-wing Democratic politics), then they can become something very dangerous indeed very easily.

In the UK, Oswald Mosley was a member of the first Labour government, tasked with coming up with a plan to reduce unemployment, who resigned from the party when his plans, attacking globalisation and calling for protectionism and high import taxes as part of a raft of measures to protect British jobs was rejected.

His later political career is probably too well known to require a fuller explanation.

Many of the grievances he and his supporters articulated were perfectly real and many of his proposals were quite left-wing, but he and his radical populist followers certainly weren't.

Obviously I don't compare Sanders with Moseley -- that would be both offensive and absurd -- but I do genuinely worry about where a lot of his supporters will go if their hopes and aspirations that his policies articulate are not fulfilled, whether because he fails to gain the nomination, or fails to win the presidency or his plans are frustrated by Congress and the courts.

From what I've seen of them, some of his supporters (not you) would, under the right (wrong) circumstances make enthusiastic blackshirts.

More recently, it's certainly the case over here that the British National Party gained a great deal of its support from people who had traditionally supported Labour but felt -- often with reason -- their very real grievances were being ignored.

If people are socialists and if there's a socialist or social democratic party, they can stay inside the party and try to get Health Care and other needs met as part of a socialist programme.

If neither of those are the case, though, then they can end up somewhere very different.

That's what concerns me -- not what Bernie Sanders will do, but what some of his supporters will do if they don't get what they (quite rightly) want.

 

[Ishina]

It's been discussed before, probably in this very thread. She is approaching it as if she's never discussed it before, but she has.

Well that's between Innula and whoever she was discussing it with.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's been discussed before, probably in this very thread. She is approaching it as if she's never discussed it before, but she has.

ETA She's brought up DSA before.

I know. I'm just unsure of the role of the DSA in the Sanders campaign -- I know they've endorsed him and strongly support him, as have many other quite different organisations.

You told me, very helpfully, that

The DSA has had a boost in membership since Sanders' 1st run, and they have goals that probably align, but they're just an activist organization. I'm not really familiar with them.

which is good as far as it goes, but is the Sanders campaign encouraging people to join them to support their wider efforts? I ask because I don't know.

 

[Anya Ristow]

but is the Sanders campaign encouraging people to join them to support their wider efforts?

Nope, not as far as I know.

Jacobin, a socialist magazine, also supports him, and I don't think he reciprocates there, either. I think organizations like this support him because he is, by far, their best option, and not because they think of him as one of their own. Through they might.

I believe AOC belongs to DSA.

I believe Sanders is trying very hard to not be held accountable for the actions of other organizations. If he backs DSA then that becomes another attack vector. That, and I think he takes very seriously his run as a Democrat. There's a Democratic rule that if the party chair finds him not a Democrat in good standing, he can't run as a Democrat. Imagine the shitstorm if they deny him the nomination based on that.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Nope, not as far as I know.

Jacobin, a socialist magazine, also supports him, and I don't think he reciprocates there, either. I think organizations like this support him because he is, by far, their best option, and not because they think of him as one of their own. Through they might.

I believe AOC belongs to DSA.

I believe Sanders is trying very hard to not be held accountable for the actions of other organizations. If he backs DSA then that becomes another attack vector. That, and I think he takes very seriously his run as a Democrat. There's a Democratic rule that if the party chair finds him not a Democrat in good standing, he can't run as a Democrat. Imagine the shitstorm if they deny him the nomination based on that.

Could that happen? If he's not a Democrat in good standing, I'd have hoped they'd have noticed before now and refused to let him participate -- it's a bit late in the day for them to change their minds!

 

[Anya Ristow]

Could that happen? If he's not a Democrat in good standing, I'd have hoped they'd have noticed before now and refused to let him participate -- it's a bit late in the day for them to change their minds!

You wouldn't think so, but don't underestimate how badly they'd prefer someone else win. Practically, though, the time to forbid him from running as a Democrat has passed.

 

[Brenda Archer]

I bring it up because the way it works in most places, parties are coalitions of people with broadly similar political views, working together to win elections at all levels with a set of policies agreed through the party's policy-making structures.

The Democratic Party doesn't seem to work that way, though, which is presumably why, in most places, Sanders and Warren, on the one hand, and, on the other, Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomfield would be in different parties.

Since we can’t have a multiparty system, we have a party for white, right wing Christians, and one for literally everyone else.

It’s definitely much too broad a spectrum to have social democrats and conservatives in one party. This is as much about the fact that conservatives who are not Neo-Confederates have been pushed out of the Republican Party, as it is about the Democrats.

Underlying all this are demographic and economic changes that mean the old social order, the one set up in the 20th century which for most of that time was segregationist, is actually gone. People who live in economically powerful large blue states are literally living in a different society than the poor rural areas that first became impoverished, then depopulated.

The majority of Democrats aren’t remotely near being real socialists and don’t understand enough theory to know what that would mean. The best that Sanders could do as a President would be to be an institutionalist and help push policy directions that have become acceptable to most Democrats, but have been blocked by the Senate and derided in the corporate media, neither of which reflect the actual majority of the voters.

The voters are blandly right of center if they’re older and left of center if they’re younger. Our biggest problem with the Federal government is that the Senate is now an opponent of majority rule.

If institutions survive, demographics will break the logjam and things will start moving forward, mostly in the direction of pent-up modernizations like some type of universal provision of healthcare and more decisive regulation in favor of the environment, for just two examples.

The Republican attachment to a society and economy that *does not exist anymore* except in the fantasies of mass media, is unsustainable. What we do have is runaway financialization and the capture of a party by a fringe cult. The Democrats are trying to bail out the sinking ship of failing, hijacked institutions. I don’t think there’s energy for much more.

I don’t know how fast things can move if the logjam is broken. It’s true a few of the Bernie Bros are populist, but most of Bernie’s supporters are just left of center. I don’t think we have to worry they will become an erratic fringe. These are immensely ordinary people, more center than left. They will be institutionalists.

 

[Cristalle]

Yes, and I'm probably puzzled because I'm looking at the US Democrats from a foreign perspective and don't understand how they work.

What puzzles me about the whole thing is that I'd have thought anyone who wanted to bring about radical change in the US to change people's lives by moving the country to the left must realise that the project can't be achieved simply by electing Bernie Sanders as president.

If you're serious about it, you'd also want to elect -- I would, anyway -- similarly minded people to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, and to state, city and local government at all levels, and to keep on selecting radical candidates for each election.

That means campaigning inside and outside the party to ensure your side is at least represented in the relevant committees and the party machinery overall, and preferably that it controls it, and that means having lasting campaign groups that campaign for particular policies and slates of candidates rather than ad-hoc groups formed to support particular candidates.

I don't see any similar organisations inside or outside the Democratic Party. Here in the UK, Corbyn had been working away for years with like-minded colleagues within the party in left-wing organisations like the Socialist Campaign Group, building up support inside and outside the party, as had, in previous decades, people like Tony Benn and Michael Foot, and there are similar organisations on the centre and centre-right of the party, campaigning inside and outside the party for their policies and for candidates who support them.

Here, when voters were impressed by Jeremy Corbyn and wanted to join a movement to support him, they'd have been encouraged to join both the Labour Party and the Momentum Group, which campaigns inside and outside the party for left-wing Labour policies.

Is there a similar organisation in the US for people in Bernie Sanders' "Movement," as people are calling it? Where are his supporters supposed to go after November?

Is there a campaign for democratic socialism (or social democracy) within the Democratic Party that members and supports can join that's not primarily associated with getting a particular candidate nominated or elected for a particular post? If there isn't, then it seems to me Sanders' project will not outlast him.

There are people trying to do that. Justice Democrats, of which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one. http://justicedemocrats.com

 

[Brenda Archer]

Nope, it's not Sanders' policies that worry me at all.

What does worry me -- and possibly I'm being over-cautious here -- is that when you get people decrying elites and advocating individual socialist policies other than as part of an overall socialist or social-democratic programme, which is what I think a lot of Bernie Sanders' followers are doing (not Sanders himself, but a lot of his more aggressive supporters from outside left-wing Democratic politics), then they can become something very dangerous indeed very easily.

In the UK, Oswald Mosley was a member of the first Labour government, tasked with coming up with a plan to reduce unemployment, who resigned from the party when his plans, attacking globalisation and calling for protectionism and high import taxes as part of a raft of measures to protect British jobs was rejected.

His later political career is probably too well known to require a fuller explanation.

Many of the grievances he and his supporters articulated were perfectly real and many of his proposals were quite left-wing, but he and his radical populist followers certainly weren't.

Obviously I don't compare Sanders with Moseley -- that would be both offensive and absurd -- but I do genuinely worry about where a lot of his supporters will go if their hopes and aspirations that his policies articulate are not fulfilled, whether because he fails to gain the nomination, or fails to win the presidency or his plans are frustrated by Congress and the courts.

From what I've seen of them, some of his supporters (not you) would, under the right (wrong) circumstances make enthusiastic blackshirts.

More recently, it's certainly the case over here that the British National Party gained a great deal of its support from people who had traditionally supported Labour but felt -- often with reason -- their very real grievances were being ignored.

If people are socialists and if there's a socialist or social democratic party, they can stay inside the party and try to get Health Care and other needs met as part of a socialist programme.

If neither of those are the case, though, then they can end up somewhere very different.

That's what concerns me -- not what Bernie Sanders will do, but what some of his supporters will do if they don't get what they (quite rightly) want.

Oh. I think the hard core populists will just become Republicans. They’re really Republicans now, but they’re not willing to admit it for whatever reason. If you back one of them into a corner, you can get them to start saying things that aren’t leftist at all. They certainly aren’t on board with Bernie’s stated positions.

They’ll all whine they were betrayed, and then go back to their TVs and video games, and vote Republican, like they wanted to anyway.

They’re consumers of fantasies.

 

[Pamela]

Yes, and I'm probably puzzled because I'm looking at the US Democrats from a foreign perspective and don't understand how they work.

What puzzles me about the whole thing is that I'd have thought anyone who wanted to bring about radical change in the US to change people's lives by moving the country to the left must realise that the project can't be achieved simply by electing Bernie Sanders as president.

If you're serious about it, you'd also want to elect -- I would, anyway -- similarly minded people to the House of Representatives, to the Senate, and to state, city and local government at all levels, and to keep on selecting radical candidates for each election.

That means campaigning inside and outside the party to ensure your side is at least represented in the relevant committees and the party machinery overall, and preferably that it controls it, and that means having lasting campaign groups that campaign for particular policies and slates of candidates rather than ad-hoc groups formed to support particular candidates.

I don't see any similar organisations inside or outside the Democratic Party. Here in the UK, Corbyn had been working away for years with like-minded colleagues within the party in left-wing organisations like the Socialist Campaign Group, building up support inside and outside the party, as had, in previous decades, people like Tony Benn and Michael Foot, and there are similar organisations on the centre and centre-right of the party, campaigning inside and outside the party for their policies and for candidates who support them.

Here, when voters were impressed by Jeremy Corbyn and wanted to join a movement to support him, they'd have been encouraged to join both the Labour Party and the Momentum Group, which campaigns inside and outside the party for left-wing Labour policies.

Is there a similar organisation in the US for people in Bernie Sanders' "Movement," as people are calling it? Where are his supporters supposed to go after November?

Is there a campaign for democratic socialism (or social democracy) within the Democratic Party that members and supports can join that's not primarily associated with getting a particular candidate nominated or elected for a particular post? If there isn't, then it seems to me Sanders' project will not outlast him.

Oddly enough, you don’t hear much about a Socialist Party, at least I don’t. What Bernie has spearheaded is a move to legitimize socialism, I would say mainly by directing people’s attention to the security enjoyed by, say, every other developed country — and spotlighting the many ways we get screwed over by pharma and health ins companies. Our electorate is shockingly ill informed and unengaged politically, but the concept is simple — we already have socialized services we don’t question —- and we are so tired of being held hostage by our fear of being ruined by getting sick.

This unending crisis has accelerated all kinds of political and cultural realignments and change that had seemed set in stone.
.

 

[Aeon Jiminy]

Nope, it's not Sanders' policies that worry me at all.

What does worry me -- and possibly I'm being over-cautious here -- is that when you get people decrying elites and advocating individual socialist policies other than as part of an overall socialist or social-democratic programme, which is what I think a lot of Bernie Sanders' followers are doing (not Sanders himself, but a lot of his more aggressive supporters from outside left-wing Democratic politics), then they can become something very dangerous indeed very easily.

In the UK, Oswald Mosley was a member of the first Labour government, tasked with coming up with a plan to reduce unemployment, who resigned from the party when his plans, attacking globalisation and calling for protectionism and high import taxes as part of a raft of measures to protect British jobs was rejected.

His later political career is probably too well known to require a fuller explanation.

Many of the grievances he and his supporters articulated were perfectly real and many of his proposals were quite left-wing, but he and his radical populist followers certainly weren't.

Obviously I don't compare Sanders with Moseley -- that would be both offensive and absurd -- but I do genuinely worry about where a lot of his supporters will go if their hopes and aspirations that his policies articulate are not fulfilled, whether because he fails to gain the nomination, or fails to win the presidency or his plans are frustrated by Congress and the courts.

From what I've seen of them, some of his supporters (not you) would, under the right (wrong) circumstances make enthusiastic blackshirts.

More recently, it's certainly the case over here that the British National Party gained a great deal of its support from people who had traditionally supported Labour but felt -- often with reason -- their very real grievances were being ignored.

If people are socialists and if there's a socialist or social democratic party, they can stay inside the party and try to get Health Care and other needs met as part of a socialist programme.

If neither of those are the case, though, then they can end up somewhere very different.

That's what concerns me -- not what Bernie Sanders will do, but what some of his supporters will do if they don't get what they (quite rightly) want.

This was such a kind and diplomatic answer. It made me smile

I see your point, and it made me realize that I must have the same concerns.

Everyone should be concerned if the Med4All movement isn't allowed to make it's way. I think we've just reached a point where we have to incorporate this value of basic life into our collective psyche if we're ever going to be able to seriously address Climate Change.

I don't see Doomsday happening if Bernie Sanders doesn't make it in 2020. I think Doomsday happened in 2016 and we'll just continue it for 4 more years. In that time, die hard Democrats will continue reap money from the system, point fingers, and mount fruitless attacks against Trump. The Sanders movement solidifies under new names and leadership, develops it's own power structures and alliances, has it's own cultural icons, strengthens it's message under it's own separate and growing media, doesn't pay much attention to Trump or Democrats, and becomes an irresistible target for companies wanting to sell their products to the newest and fastest growing trend with a very big youth market.

 

[Pamela]

Thread

QU Poll Release Detail

Swing State Poll: Trump Up In Wisconsin While Dems Have The Edge In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; In Michigan It's Close

poll.qu.edu

 

[Brenda Archer]

Thread

QU Poll Release Detail

Swing State Poll: Trump Up In Wisconsin While Dems Have The Edge In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; In Michigan It's Close

poll.qu.edu

AZ could flip, it’s not impossible.

 

[Free]

AZ could flip, it’s not impossible.

We need a "maybe so, maybe no" reaction button.

 

[Ariane]

I'm not asking you to unite behind anyone -- I'm asking if Bernie Sanders (or "The Squad," or anyone else) is trying either to turn the Democratic Party into some kind of social democratic party or to create a campaigning organisation with the Democratic Party that seeks to promote a socialist or social democratic agenda within the Democratic Party, or to form some other sort of political organisation, or whether it's simply a matter of charismatic left-wing leaders emerging from every four or eight years to lead a populist movement.

Twentieth-century political history tells us that left-wing populist movements organised round charismatic leaders tend either to end in failure or by turning into something very different and very unpleasant, and that, I think, is what worries me about some of Bernie Sanders' supporters -- where they go next, whether or not he wins the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

There is a growing Liberal wing among young democratic congresspersons currently led by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who is the up and coming heir apparent to Bernie. Young millennials are much more liberal, diverse, and non-religious than their conservative parents, just like in the UK. Also like in the UK, the problem is getting them to vote.

There is a demographic change that is destined to take over, which is why the old white people in power are trying to do everything they can to kill democracy.

 

[Pamela]

AZ could flip, it’s not impossible.

Texas could.

AZ could flip, it’s not impossible.

Texas could flip.

It could!

Damn the electoral college, so many wasted Dem votes in Texas. When you see those votes, remember it’s people who voted in spite of their votes not counting — this time.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Texas could.


Texas could flip.

It could!

Damn the electoral college, so many wasted Dem votes in Texas. When you see those votes, remember it’s people who voted in spite of their votes not counting — this time.

I posted this in another thread but the link is relevant here, too

The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College | Corey Robin

The problem of minority rule isn’t Trumpian or temporary; it’s bipartisan and enduring

www.nybooks.com

The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College | The New York Review of Books | Daily

The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College Corey Robin Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesA book stall sign at a store in Des Moines, Iowa, the day of the Iowa ca...

www.evernote.com

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

The idea of the Senate was originally to let the smaller of the 13 states feel as important as the larger ones - it was never a fair system, but before industrialization, it wasn't as big a mess as now. And it was from a time when the federal Government didn't have much power at all.

Thing is, a compromise that didn't really matter that much has become a mess, and while in theory it could be changed to having the senate also be proportional, with an amendment, there is just no way it will happen as things are now.

 

[Brenda Archer]

The idea of the Senate was originally to let the smaller of the 13 states feel as important as the larger ones - it was never a fair system, but before industrialization, it wasn't as big a mess as now. And it was from a time when the federal Government didn't have much power at all.

Thing is, a compromise that didn't really matter that much has become a mess, and while in theory it could be changed to having the senate also be proportional, with an amendment, there is just no way it will happen as things are now.

This could be the cause of our demise.

I don’t want a Constitutional Convention precisely because the Dominionists do want one, but we’re in a really bad place.

Maybe getting statehood for DC and PR would help.

 

[Free]

Maybe getting statehood for DC and PR would help.

Help or not, it should happen.