I’m Sorry
I am bombastic. I use hyperbole a lot. I am also not afraid to attack and insult others when I feel they are being insulting towards me or my candidate. I am very much a believer in politics being a two way street, meaning that if you give it you better be prepared to take it.
I’ve been told that my invective towards Bernie and his supporters in the Open Thread is perhaps impeding the healing process as we move the nomination fight to the general election. And that’s right. I was doing it in response to the invective towards Hillary and her supporters I have seen on Twitter, Facebook and here at DL, because, like I said, I give as good as I get. But, if we continue in this vein, we aren’t going to heal and be friends and allies again.
So I am going to stop. I will not be posting negatively about Bernie Sanders, his campaign or his supporters anymore. Indeed, it is likely my only posts about Bernie in the Open Thread will be about drafting the platform and his contributions to that process. And even then, I will only be posting the commentary of others rather than adding my own commentary. I will be mostly focusing on the General Election in the Open Thread from here on out.
And I would like to personally apologize to any Bernie supporter who feels or was insulted by my commentary.
Well thanks for this. I have been a dick as well, and will endeavor not to be. For the record, I don’t think Clinton is going to pick Cheney or Jamie Dimon for cabinet positions.
You’re a mensch, DD. I hope I haven’t crossed too many lines, and if I have, that it didn’t do too much damage.
I enjoy a little bombast myself.
The comments on DL tend to be much more issue-oriented, usually avoiding a recitation of the perjorative slurs and speaking directly about the issues. That makes it a higher-quality conversation, for which I am grateful. A lot of Hillary supporters’ reaction was projected onto their DL comments because they took umbrage at something they read elsewhere.
The conversation about Bernie’s issues will outlive his campaign.
Nicely done, DD.
I try to remind myself that a primary fight is a family fight, and, in the end, family sticks together.
I like that liberals are now Bernie supporters. And hillary supporters are realists
I am a progressive.
I am a realist.
I am a Hillary supporter.
That has been one of the negatives of this campaign, the assumption among several people that progressives and liberals could only support Bernie, and that if you did not support Bernie, you were not a liberal or progressive. Just as I am sure some Bernie supporters chafe at the notion that they are not realists or practical, and are instead some wide eyed radical idealists.
It’s not about supporting Hillary, it’s about cheerleading for her.
If you express the position that Hillary is realistically the best Democrat for the job and you hope that this campaign has taught her that the country is further to the left than the portion of it inside the Beltway, then I agree with you.
If you express the position that you support any position Hillary does because she does, and that criticizing her is “doing Trump’s work,” you’re just a cheerleader, and I don’t agree with you.
It’s that simple.
There are real, serious reasons for progressives to doubt Hillary Clinton. She is rabidly pro-Israel, by which I mean pro-Netanyahu, which she has said repeatedly. I haven’t heard one word of protest from her supporters here. She is for a “strong national defense,” beltwayese for tossing more billions down the DoD rathole. No squawks from her supporters here. I could go on and on.
That’s where the disagreement lies.
I already know the answer to these objections: “She’s saying what she has to say to win the White House.” Only time will tell if you are right to trust her or I am right to distrust her.
^^^This. (For DD’s post above)
I started supporting Bernie and changed. That doesn’t make me any less progressive.
If you express the position that you support any position Hillary does because she does, and that criticizing her is “doing Trump’s work,” you’re just a cheerleader, and I don’t agree with you.
Well, I will be “cheerleading” for Hillary because I do feel she is the best candidate for the job. That will not stop. It will only increase. Not because I agree with everything Hillary has done in her life, or with every position she holds. But because we are in an election campaign, and that is how those things work.
After the campaign, and the election, you will see me criticize a President Clinton if she does something I disagree with, just as you saw me criticize Obama at the time when he did something I disagreed with. The Afghanistan Surge, I criticized that. The Grand Bargain and his naive negotiating style, I and others have criticized that repeatedly.
Now, does that criticism mean that I am not a fan of Obama, that I can’t cheerlead for him? No. I am and I do. I feel President Obama is the best President America has had since FDR. And I say that repeatedly. Even though I have disagreed with him on issues and tactics.
It seems to me that you feel that if you cheerlead or support a candidate, you can never have a disagreement with them, or can never criticize them, or vice versa. I think that is incorrect, obviously.
“But because we are in an election campaign, and that is how those things work.”
No, this is where we disagree. I do not believe “that’s how those things work.” They work that way because we have been told for years they work that way, and this year has shown they don’t, at least not always. Just ask Nate Silver.
The entire “I’m With Her” meme is about giving her a mandate, carte blanche to do whatever she thinks best. I refuse to give that to her. I believe that only constant pressure from her left will get her to pay attention to progressive goals.
Most of the disgreements here have been over the fact that where you think she falls short does not align perfectly, or all that well, with where others think she falls short, and you take those people on. Nothing wrong with that, unless you think only full agreement is appropriate during a campaign.
@Cassandra: I never thought you weren’t progressive. From what you’ve written over the weeks, you seem to have switched for entirely practical reasons. I, too, came to the conclusion that Bernie would make a poor president, but that’s no reason for me to pretend that Hillary is a good candidate.
@a “I believe that only constant pressure from her left will get her to pay attention to progressive goals.”
And I think that’s ridiculous. The fact is, her hands will be tied from the moment she takes office until the day she leaves office. I will be more than happy if:
1. She keeps the government running as well as Obama has.
2. She nominates great USSC justices.
3. She thwarts the Republican agenda.
4. She doesn’t start any major wars.
That’s what I want from her. And I really don’t think she’ll be able to deliver much more than that (..and I don’t think that Sanders can even do those four things).
“pay attention to progressive goals” — Ha!
I just disagree.
Let’s look at her policy on day care. I think we can all agree that a lack of subsidized day care is a huge drag on families in general and single-parent families in particular. All Hillary is pushing for is expanded Head Start, which is the sort of “incremental” goal that I think is far too timid.
Head Start is particularly for impoverished kids — seen by the middle class as a “giveaway.” Subsidized day care would help the middle class as well, and it would move us more towards the social democrat platform Sanders was calling for.
With that as an example, vocal calls for progressive policies might help move the needle further to the left.
Holding “I’m With Her” signs will not.
@a “Let’s look at her policy on day care. I think we can all agree that a lack of subsidized day care is a huge drag on families in general and single-parent families in particular.”
OK.. Let’s look at that. There is NO WAY in hell that’s gets passed through congress without some major concession from her to some really crappy right wing agenda item.
What if they want to tie that to rolling back some abortion rights? You want to make that deal? What if they want to tie that to using public money for private religious day care and grade school? You want to make that deal?
Frankly, I’m usually happier when Obama doesn’t make a deal…
Sorry ,DD . I know I am older and maybe wiser then all you young whippersnappers on this page . While I agree with almost everything that comes out of SANDERS mouth it is all “pie in the sky” and none of it will ever happen. Not even close. I am a liberal realist . I am concerned with supreme court appointments , equal pay for women and all of us being treated equally in love ,life and happiness . THATS IT .
“There is NO WAY in hell that’s gets passed through congress without some major concession from her to some really crappy right wing agenda item.”
What a fanciful notion. In the first place, Abortion law isn’t made at the federal level. All of the states’ 250+ abortion-restriction laws of the past few years came DESPITE having a pro-choice president in the White House.
The only way you can be sure of never getting it is by never asking for it.
“I am concerned with supreme court appointments , equal pay for women and all of us being treated equally in love ,life and happiness . THATS IT .”
So you’re a Settler. Milk for the journey home? Salted meats?
If it works for you, go for it. I want more than that.
@a “What a fanciful notion. In the first place, Abortion law isn’t made at the federal level”
Fanciful?? Who’s the naive one here?
CapeDelaware above:
But what if it could happen? What if it could happen but didn’t, simply because no one tried? Because no one got behind someone who was trying?
What you stated was once said about Social Security (1920’s), Medicare (1960’s) and Obamacare (1994’s). Same with the Revolutionary War, (1775), abolition of slavery (1820’s -1865), and Civil Rights (1950’s and 1960’s)…. None of those “could never happen; they were pipe dreams just too unrealistic”….
When a person says something can’t happen, they are, by accepting that status, making it harder for it to happen by becoming part of the process that keeps that status in place… If it was a job promotion you were vying for that would quadruple your yearly income, would you just as glibly shrug it off and not make the attempt as you do to the betterment of our nation? And was that idea that you couldn’t succeed if you tried, your own, or was it put into your head by someone whom you would have been competing with, probably less qualified than you, for that position? That is the point that many of us don’t see. Why would you NOT try to make your life better?
You might just not like to, and that’s ok. The world has too many people like that. Which is why big changes usually only come around when large majorities of citizens decide they have nothing left to lose by sticking to the status quo…. and therefore fight with everything they got to better their future lives and by fighting, overcome the paper tiger they had previously been so afraid of.
“Who’s the naive one here?”
You. Politics does not work the way you just imagined and, as I pointed out, “trading” abortion points for day care points is impossible at the federal level because the laws are enacted at the state level. Did you miss that part? You didn’t respond to a single thing I said except the premise of a theoretical example.
So, again, you.
Also, what kavips just said above.
@a “You. Politics does not work the way you just imagined and, as I pointed out, “trading” abortion points for day care points is impossible at the federal level…”
Think harder. There are LOTS of abortion regulations and issues at play at the federal level. Look at all the politics around RU486. That’s mostly at the federal level. If the right wing really wanted to get rid of that, what would they do??
Answer… Cut a deal with the President.
You’re trying to reframe this on your terms. Either answer my points or go fuck yourself. I’m not here to hold your trembling little hand.
Here, I’ll help you out:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/early-childhood-education/
For those who won’t follow the link, the headline reads:
“Every child deserves the chance to live up to his or her God-given potential”
This is exactly how Republicans frame our society: Anyone can be successful. This is their answer to systemic inequities — that our only responsibility is to make opportunity available to everyone. That way, those who fall by the wayside deserve to.
You are part of the problem and don’t even know it.
Also, on the point you’d like to switch the discussion to: More examples, please, or at least one that shows RU-486 as a political football at the federal level. All the actions against it have been by the states. This is simply the reality of abortion politics, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not. There are only “lots of things at the federal level” on abortion if you’re an ideologue on the issue, which most people are not.
No, there was a concerted effort at the Federal level to head off any possibility of approval of RU-486 by the FDA, which is how it took us so long to get it. It was available in Europe a decade or so before it finally won approval here. Anti-abortion groups still have a bullseye drawn on the FDA (complete with their own narrative, of course) and work to get the FDA to withdraw RU-486.
“Either answer my points or go fuck yourself.”
Oh my. You okay with that? To me it makes you easily to dismiss.
If you think reproductive rights are only a state issue you haven’t been paying attention.
salted meats?
@c “No, there was a concerted effort at the Federal level…”
@p “If you think reproductive rights are only a state issue you haven’t been paying attention.”
Thanks cassandra and pandora…
LE explains how the right could get rid of RU-486:
“Answer… Cut a deal with the President.”
Exactly. That is also how they will get minimum wage <$12, raise the Social Security age, implement TPP, minmize or block tax increases on the rich, etc.
But probably not RU-486. Hillare will "fight for" women's rights, but only "believes in" the other issues.
I think that the likely situation that will exist if Clinton wins is that the GOP has either lost one or both houses of Congress or are in such complete disarray and disunity that there will be no unified or otherwise effective opposition to Clinton’s proposals.
A beaten down GOP will be a group of individuals just trying to survive with a great many of them more than willing to cross the lines because there is no penalty. They will be able to either vote their conscience and take popular stances because really how can it get any worse. Without effective opposition, Clinton will be able to do what she wants.
That scenario is at least as likely as a scenario that suggests that the GOP will band together in unity to obstruct the President like they did with Obama. When you have sitting officials and party leaders declaring that they will not support the GOP nominee, all bets are off.
Clinton will generally not have to cut deals, except with Democrats.
The GOP will welcome Clinton as a liberator! Right..
Red states will retain their red Congressmen who will be enough to sustain a filibuster, and boy will they be pissed. The current Congress has shown that you only need 41 Senators to dominate government and a simple House majority to block any Democratic tax proposals. How will she get her $150 billion infrastructure plan without “paying for it” with cuts?
And Hillary “likes to get things done,” remember? So deals will be cut, but not for the things she will “fight” for; only the things she “believes in.” That’s the difference.
Clinton will generally not have to cut deals, except with Democrats.
She’ll have to cut deals. Especially if the House stays in Ryan’s hands. He’s on a path to try to preserve some dignity for “his people” and if HRC is President, they will still be in the business of voting to roll back Obamacare, sitting on their hands for debt limit increases and all of the other theater they go through to pretend they are sticking to their principles.
The real test will be if Dems have a narrow House majority, how will party discipline be enforced to pass Hillary’s proposals?
“He’s on a path to try to preserve some dignity for “his people” ”
Yes, but after 8 years of obstructionism and the election fiasco, the GOP is effectively destroyed as an organized party versus a balkanized coalition of special interest groups. The only way Ryan has to preserve dignity is to have the GOP start being a responsible party of grownups, which will most likely occur if the down ticket races reflect the disgust people have for the GOP.
Even so, you all have to remember that I’m an optimist and most of you have glasses that are half empty. So it’s natural for you to envision dark days ahead. My contribution to pessimism was to preface my comment with “if Clinton wins.”
They’re Democrats, so there’s only but so much party discipline to be had. That said, with the right agenda, Nancy Pelosi has a record of getting it done.
The only way Ryan has to preserve dignity is to have the GOP start being a responsible party of grownups,
Which presumes that is the agenda of the people Ryan is trying to appeal to. And I think that presumption is faulty. Otherwise, the House wouldn’t be so heavily focused on the teajhadi agenda.
Even with more Dems in Congress, the country will still be polarized. I can imagine the nihilistic Freedom Coalition growing even as the overall Republican coalition shrinks. But I think we will be pleasantly surprised by DINOs who are suddenly more willing to toe the line.
“Otherwise, the House wouldn’t be so heavily focused on the teajhadi agenda.”
Today yes. I’m looking a bit further in the future. Even teajhadists have a sense of self preservation. I don’t get the feeling that Clinton is going to be all that nice like Obama was. She has an agenda and a machine. I think her first 100 days will be very interesting.
What I expect you will find among most front running Republicans are those who will quietly support the candidate, knowing he will lose and they will need his supporters in four years. A viable lesson can be gleaned from 1964. Nixon supported the ticket quietly, Nelson Rockerfeller took the opposite approach, denouncing the idiots of his party who had nominated such a monster.. Four years later In the 1968 convention, that simple dichotomy over who had supported the party four years earlier, and who had hurt it, did the trick.
“If you think reproductive rights are only a state issue you haven’t been paying attention.”
If you think they’re not, prove it. Provide links. Link to the national law on abortion.
If you can’t recognize the fight at the FDA as the pitiful rearguard action is was, it’s your loss.
You keep pretending that these state laws are something we have to elect Hillary to fix. If a Democrat in the White House could prevent it, why have so many anti-abortion laws been passed on Obama’s watch?
Y’all don’t know what you’re talking about, but you agree with each other that you’re right.
Even teajhadists have a sense of self preservation.
Indeed they do. And as long as their core supporters demand allegiance to teajhadi “principles” they’ll still be walking that path. In this instance, local politics as well as funding from the usual teajhadi suspects is everything.
Start here: National law on abortion.
Now can we get to the actual point? Hillary is fighting the last war; she’ll “stand against Republicans.”
The Republicans aren’t in a position to attack, so defense is going to be really, really easy. If that’s your metric for success, mission already accomplished.
As for your predictions of how the next Congress will operate, I’ll stack my prediction against yours: Nothing passes but housekeeping bills, and that with the same bipartisan centrist coalition that Boehner has used. In that regard, no matter what the policies she pushes, we’re looking at Obama’s third term.
I get the feeling most people here stick to American news sources. You might not have noticed that the whole world is going through upheavals, and only in Latin American countries do those upheavals have the slightest thing to do with abortion.
How long do you think the forced-birth movement is going to last in the age of Zika? We could well have a pregnancy crisis in Texas this summer. A few microcephalic GOP babies will have them demanding either funding for care for the afflicted or abortion for those carrying Zika babies.
It’s one thing to fight the last war, but you folks are busy congratulating yourselves for it.
And if you read your own link you’d know that there is one (1) federal abortion law, that on so-called “partial birth abortion.”
It was passed in 2007. How did electing Obama change it? The others are “threats” to Roe v. Wade rules. You don’t even know fundraising palaver when you read it, do you? Every time one of these laws gets proposed, I get another fund-raising letter from Planned Parenthood.
All you need to “play defense” is at least 40 Democrats in the Senate and a Democrat in the White House. Mission already accomplished.
To pretend that the fate of the relative handful of women forced to give birth is somehow higher on the moral scale than the millions working for subsistence raises is dodgy as it is. When you maintain that electing someone to an unrelated office is how to change it, you’re just making stuff up.
Even a mild recession in 2019 could well bring Republican control of all three branches on GOP pledges of tax cuts and austerity. Austerity for the POC who voted in President Clinton, and tax cuts for the “job creators.” Even the 2018 midterm is susceptible to a mild downturn.
Which is why those ideas must be killed not just dead, but really most sincerely dead. THIS is the terrain to run the campaign on — Rebuild America at the infrastructure level. Because the country can’t be Great by wishing it so — we have to build it. A return to basic Keynesian economics might not work in the long run, but in the short term it would help fix economic problems of every type. It might even produce enough jobs to cut unemployment among the higher-than-average groups who suffer most.
And by “all three branches” I meant to say the House, Senate, and White House. Hopefully Hillary will be able to appoint more than one to the Supreme Court, and she’d better pick ’em young and liberal.
“Nothing passes but housekeeping bills”
Depends on how you define “housekeeping bills,” since there is formal definition for it as it relates to Congress. To me it would mean whatever authorization bills need to be passed that keeps government functioning, So authorization and appropriations.
If that’s your definition, then it’s a pretty low standard, so I would have no problem stacking any of my predictions up against yours. Does your definition include SCOTUS? If you are suggesting there won’t be any far reaching, dramatic changes or shifts, then I would agree. I’m the incrementalist, so I never let the best be the enemy of the good.
No idea what will happen with SCOTUS nominees. We’re in uncharted waters there. We don’t even know if McConnell will move on the Garland nomination now that it looks like the most moderate choice they’ll get for some time. So I have no predictions about that.
I meant the actual Congress enacting laws, the way it used to. Won’t happen until Hillary’s second term, if she wins one. They won’t act on the Zika virus, for crying out loud, and it affects their own states the most directly! And I don’t use exclamation points lightly! They’re not just unhinged, they’ve lost the screws and the hinge plates and have leaned the door against the jamb.
I don’t expect these people to ever compromise, ever, on anything. They imagine themselves martyrs on the parapets, defending civilization against the dark-skinned Marxist hordes. You don’t compromise with the enemies of civilization.
Hillary is fighting the last war; she’ll “stand against Republicans.”
This isn’t the sum total of what she wants to do, certainly, and standing against Republicans is a perfectly fine argument for a primary election. You’ve been one of the folks here castigating Barack Obama for not standing against republicans for whatever reason and yet now you think that is no longer important.
The Republicans aren’t in a position to attack, so defense is going to be really, really easy. If that’s your metric for success, mission already accomplished.
And if they hold either or both Houses of Congress, they certainly can. It may not be directly, but they’ll be delighted to attach all kinds of poisonous BS to whatever bills they can manage to pass the chamber they hold.
I don’t know what predictions you are having on about but this: In that regard, no matter what the policies she pushes, we’re looking at Obama’s third term. Seriously? HRC is explicitly running to conduct Obama’s third term.
Just because it isn’t your war, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth waging. You were the one with this claim: If you think they’re not, prove it. Provide links. Link to the national law on abortion.
You were provided links — links for a national law on abortion and links to recent efforts to target the FDA after they changed their protocols for using RU-486. The forced birth crowd plays every damned inch of the court — local, state, Federal (all branches) and whatever policy agency they can push. In 2015 there were 77 bills introduced in Congress on abortion and all except 8 of them were meant to restrict abortions in some way. 2 of the restrictive ones were introduced by Democrat Bob Casey from PA. In the 113th Congress there were 72 bills related to abortion and it looks like 12 or 14 were NOT meant to restrict abortions in some way.
If you look closely at both lists, you’ll see that some of these bills get re-introduced for multiple Congressional sessions. Some of that is for campaign fodder, but more of that is because you won’t know what you can get until you get it out there. Because someone might take your bill and attach it to some Must Pass bill.
These people play for keeps and they do it just everywhere. Including on the Federal level. Whether it is restrictions on reproductive coverage for programs paid for my the Feds or or getting Born Alive measures passed or pushing on the FDA on birth control and abortifaceients or being patient enough to get cases in front of the Supreme Court that would help them inch back Roe v Wade.
It is crucial to push back at every single level on this. The Federal courts have been been most useful to the forced birthers, validating some of what they’ve been doing at the state level. The right President can change the composition of courts (a thing Obama has been doing) and certainly the Supremes run the whole game. But just because this isn’t a fight that you are interested in doesn’t mean it isn’t happening and that it isn’t important to some of us.
Yes, everybody introduces lots of bills on abortion. They’ve been doing it for years. As I said, the solicitations come in with every new bill, and I read the material and when I can I do donate to Planned Parenthood, so when I say it’s not important, I mean not AS important as the big picture.
My money is there even if my mouth isn’t. I think the money’s more important.
Congressional elections are not presidential elections. It’s not a reason to vote for any specific Democratic candidate, because they all share pro-choice positions (except for Bob Casey and probably a couple of others). There was no disagreement I know of between Hillary and Bernie on this.
The best solution for this is the one Emily’s List is pursuing — elect more pro-choice women.
HRC is explicitly running to conduct Obama’s third term.
This month.