Friday, July 29, 2016

Sanders Supporters Try To Save Hillary From Herself



 Now that Hillary Clinton has wrapped up the nomination, smug Hillary supporters are all up in my grill with some variation of this: "What the Bernie-bots... - (or fill in your favorite Sanders supporter derogatory term here) - need to do now  is... - (fill in your favorite have-a-bake-sale-for-Hillary support message) - and stop making so much noise! 

This condescending attitude toward Sanders supporters is not surprising coming from establishment Democrats who have always looked down on the liberal DFH arm of the Democratic party but obliviously misplaced. They should understand that if Sanders had not persisted consistently to push Hillary to the left the DNC platform would not include a $15 min wage or any opposition to the TPP whatsoever along with many other anti-corporate, labor centered planks that Clintonian establishment politics appeared to not seem concerned with prior to the primaries but that Trump is making his bread and butter.

The economy is now a bi-partisan issue. It is not just educated liberals but the "rabid right" as well who are also fed up with establishment politics. The teabaggers have finally figured it out, not in small part to Trump pulling back the curtain on 35 years of conservative economic policy that has always favored the few at the cost of the rest. Now, working class republicans of all stripes have finally stopped waiting for "Trickle Down" economics to work and are willing to grasp at straws, including electing Trump, to get some economic relief because after all it is all about "The Economy Stupid" when you get right down to it.

The reality is that Middle America has not had a raise in 35 years as corporations have shown record profits and have kept all the money for themselves instead of raising wages to match gains in productivity assuming the immoral Randian philosophy endorsed by Ronald Reagan that "Greed is Good".

You can fool some of the people all of the time but not forever. Republicans can only "trickle down" on the
Watch out for that Union guy, he wants your cookie.
middle class for so long and call it rain before someone figures it out. And Trump for all his faults, and they are disqualifying for local dogcatcher much less leader of the free world, has grasped this working class angst and run with it to the nomination to the chagrin of the conservative 1% who like things just the way they are and want to keep all the cookies and have us fight over crumbs.






Sanders and his multitude of supporters, (Sanders got 46% of the real delegates not an insignificant number no matter how you crunch the numbers), have moved Clinton's Overton Window to the left and as much as the rabid right would hate it, toward representative economic relief for the middle class in liberal fashion.

Trump has dressed this liberal notion of fairness in the economy in racism, fascism and hate, traditional conservative values but there is also a facet of protectionism another liberal tenet. There seems to be enough bluster and bigotry to offset the fact that Trump embraces an economic platform that liberals have been talking about for years. It's strange.

Sanders and his supporters keep trying to move the DNC platform further and faster to the left than may be politically expedient for the establishment candidate's relationship with her corporate supporters but necessary to facilitate change and well within the realm of possibility given the current climate of anti-establishment fervor. Sanders supporters, and I mean the 90% that support Clinton , are trying to save her from herself because we want her to win.

That's why we push her to the left without hesitation. That's why we need to ignore the outliers, the Hold-outs and concentrate on how we can help Clinton out of her bubble and into the reality of today's political climate. Clinton supporters need to accept that help and stop being smug and dismissive. I can't stress this enough. She will lose if she does not embrace labor and turn her back on Wall Street. Tim Kaine is not going to help. This is another obstacle that Sander's supporters are going to have to overcome for her as we try yet again to help her. Her establishment friends told the media today that she will flip on the TPP. Trump will shove that right up her ..wherever.., as he would say. One disparages Sanders' supporters at their own peril because we speak for the majority of Americans right now. Even the ones on the "rabid right" when it comes to all things economic.

When people are making enough money to support their families and live comfortably, when their children can go to college and the ones that don't go can still get jobs that pay a living wage the social issues that are plaguing us now tend to lessen and diminish historically. Look at the record. This isn't about Benghazi, terrorism, racial/LGBT injustice, crime or whatever the corporate media blames the ills of our country on today although these are very important issues that need to be addressed this is about money and the average American who does not make enough to live comfortably because the gains in our economy have all gone to the top 1% thanks to deregulation, trickle down economics and the corporate influence of government. Nothing will change until that changes. Until government stops being "The Problem" and Americans can realize that good government is the only thing that stands between them and corporate greed, that government can be a force for good and historically has been the ONLY thing that has truly bettered the standard of living for all average Americans, things will not change. This is the message and lesson of Bernie Sanders. For what its worth. Keep up the good fight.

4 comments:

  1. I love to read your thoughts.

    You've got the dynamic of the immediate future down perfectly. It's just too bad that the Hillaryosis has triumphed over the common sense of most of those running the Democratic Party today.

    And it seems to be terminal.

    Work for peace.

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    1. Thanks Suze, it's always good to connect with you. My composition is so rusty I'm surprised that I was able to make any coherent points.
      The DNC has been republican-lite since Howard Dean put down the gavel. The DWS era is finally over but not before the damage had been done. Think the outcome of the primaries would have been different with Dean as DNC chair?

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  2. Hey GreenDayMan.....I have been saying all along, the longer Bernie hangs in there, he would continue to drive the conversation as far as the DNC platform goes, and he played his cards expertly, especially when everyone in the room knew he probably wouldn't get the nomination. That being said...... I have a REAL hard time with the actions and behaviors of the Bernie supporters at the convention. I tried in earnest to hear what the speakers had to say, and not only was it distracting to the speaker, it made them look like children. NOT something Bernie himself would want for his movement. Another episode particularly riled me was when Tamron Hall was attempting to interview Civil Rights titan John Lewis, and the Bernie crowd was right behind him with shouts of "You suck!" , and "She stole it!"....none of those children would last 1 minute under what John Lewis had to endure during his heyday of the Civil Rights Movement.
    Being a parent myself, I know damn well NOT to be condescending to children......but when they continue to act like children, then it's hard not to treat them as such. The worst part of this is that this has a tarnishing effect on Bernie himself and what he has accomplished for the Left Wing of America. If I had my magic wand, Bernie would be sitting in that Oval Office now. But that's not gonna happen, so now it's incumbent upon us to make sure the Senate gets flipped, and Hillary gets elected. Then we hold her feet to the fire so she has no excuses.
    I'm wicked super glad you got this up and running for the upcoming season!- ML

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    1. Thanks ML, glad you stopped by. Real Democracy is messy. Well behaved activists rarely make change. Sanders definitely got shafted by a biased DNC machine and I believe Sander's supporters have just cause to be upset, but the stakes are so high Sanders had decided to let this one go for the sake of the Country. The end of this primary reminds of the end of another primary... in 2008 to be exact:
      https://heroesforhillary.wordpress.com/tag/party-unity-my-ass/

      From the Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/07/hillaryclinton.barackobama :

      "Diehard Hillary Clinton supporters who still refuse to accept that the nomination race is over have given themselves a name, Pumas, and a logo that the in-house lawyers at the Puma sportswear brand might like to take a look at. In the network of blogs where the name originated, it stood for "Party Unity, My Ass!" - a defiant shout of opposition to the notion that they should fall silent in order to speed the healing of Democratic wounds."

      They eventually came around just as Sander's supporters have and will continue to as well.

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