I’m left wing on social & economic issues so I’m fine with a so-called “woke” progressive. The word has become a dog whistle anyways.
As far as FTV the purpose of that was to determine who should be primaried. Well a M4A supporter Andy Levin lost to someone who wants to “strengthen” ObamaCare. Also Bernie got no credit from the Dore left for forcing a vote on $15 minimum wage.
I respectfully disagree. The primary purpose of FTV was to demand that the Squad and other progressive Democrats act on their promise to push as hard as they could for Medicare for All, during the middle of a pandemic the same people kept telling us was deadly dangerous.
They refused to withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. They refused to make any demands of the Democratic leadership. They chose sides. They chose to be corrupt and to advance their own careers in the Democratic money-laundering cartel.
Bernie supported first Hillary, and then Biden. I'm sorry, but that's just too much pandering to power for me. I will not be fooled by that old fraud thrice.
Nothing personal against you, and I'm not trying to anger you, but that's what I think progressive Democratic politicians are--Frauds. Con artists. Sheepherders. All of them.
Been following the Twitter accounts of Tess Owen and Vice; Owen is attending the CPAC convention. Lots of photos and commentary. Most entertaining was Brandon Straka playing a J6 protestor in a fake jail cell being comforted by Marjorie Taylor Greene while people said the Lord’s Prayer and a few threw money.
The spectacle is nauseating, funny, and terrifying simultaneously. The folks at the convention have energy and enthusiasm; they have up and coming candidates south of the age of 50. The last time I saw anything close to this energy was Sanders’ campaign in 2016. And he threw it all away by not taking his fight to the convention floor. I now realize he never intended to do so; he was and continues to be the sheepdog to keep progressives voting blue.
The Dems have nuthin’ right now to excite voters enough to go to the polls and vote for them. People are figuring out they are useless at the federal level on legal abortion. Legal abortion will be decided at the state level, with Kansas showing how even a red state will support legal abortion if people are given a chance to vote.
I have some faint hope the Dems might get better once Pelosi retires, but there may be worse moving up the ranks behind her.
I don't even have a faint hope anymore. Maybe I'm wrong, but the preponderance of the evidence of the last three decades tells me that I'm not. In any case, the Democrats can easily prove me wrong just by accomplishing something. That burdens on them, not the voters.
Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are as nutty as they come, yet she voted against funding the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine while every single Democrat was all for it. Jimmy Dore was factually correct when he observed that the Republicans, as a party, are now more antiwar than the Democrats, but it is also true that the majority of them are just as bad.
I think what you saw at CPAC is just one manifestation of the growing anger towards the entire federal government that's out here. When 37% of gun owners say they are ready to rise in revolt against that government, and when a plurality of military voters are voting either Libertarian or Green, the oligarchy should be nervous.
They don't appear to be. Neither was Charles I of England or Louis XVI of France.
The same Republicans no doubt supported Trump when he announced his deal with the Taliban to withdraw American troops. The same Democrats now praising Biden on the internets condemned Trump at the time for abandoning Afghan women.
Both parties do this sort of flip-flopping all the time.
Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re right in pointing to a class divide between your take on the Democrats and Krystal Ball’s. I had listened to her monologue prior to reading this and had thought, “yeah, I hope so . . . “ and sort of felt that old hope you describe starting to stir a teeny tiny bit. But what’s also true is that I’m not part of the working class and, as you point out, can more easily afford to imagine such a rosy scenario coming to pass - maybe. Probably not. But hope springs eternal, right? Well, as your post here states: No, after a certain point, it doesn’t. Which is completely understandable. And also pivotal in terms of how we see what’s happening on the Right and the energy they’re tapping into. Although I’d caution that I know a few extremely wealthy Trumpers who are enormously resentful of progressives/liberals and demonize the left without any hint of grounding in reality - and when it comes to the sort of populism that we might hope to see, I’m quite sure that to the extent that people like that are really running the GOP show (which I don’t doubt is the case), it’s not going to happen there, either. They hate the liberal elite just as much as the working class, but for status reasons (right wingers don’t rack up elite cultural capital like leftys do), not bread-and-butter economic ones. But their ability to connect to populist rage is real. Where that runaway train is going worries me enormously. I am very skeptical that the more authentically economically populist voices on the right will ever truly play decisive leadership roles in the GOP. They are hoping for the same sort of transformation Krystal Ball is, just on the other side.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. A lot of Republicans, wealthy or otherwise, seem to think Joe Biden is some kind of Communist, which is every bit as ridiculous as liberals who think Trump, or Assad or Putin for that matter, is Hitler.
JFK warned us that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. The Democrats in particular have ignored his advice for at least the last 30 years by enveloping and then neutralizing one populist mass movement after another--the Rainbow Coalition, much of the old environmentalist movement, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Bernie Sanders campaigns, and more.
There is a regrettable reality - the President and most members of Congress are going to be either a Republican or a Democrat.
Citizens United made that a reality for the foreseeable future with unlimited campaign funding. It's not the only reason, of course, but money - big money - decides who is the President.
While I'm not likely to vote for either major party, it would be nice to have a President who actually keeps a campaign promise or two, or at least doesn't follow the path towards more forever wars, and a path towards WW III and nuclear war.
Or maybe something simpler - a President who cares about the people of the US, rather than the corporations of the US. But then - I don't expect it.
So Krystal, if you can help to replace the worst President in US history, I'm all for it. Not that I expect it, regrettably.
I’m left wing on social & economic issues so I’m fine with a so-called “woke” progressive. The word has become a dog whistle anyways.
As far as FTV the purpose of that was to determine who should be primaried. Well a M4A supporter Andy Levin lost to someone who wants to “strengthen” ObamaCare. Also Bernie got no credit from the Dore left for forcing a vote on $15 minimum wage.
I respectfully disagree. The primary purpose of FTV was to demand that the Squad and other progressive Democrats act on their promise to push as hard as they could for Medicare for All, during the middle of a pandemic the same people kept telling us was deadly dangerous.
They refused to withhold their vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. They refused to make any demands of the Democratic leadership. They chose sides. They chose to be corrupt and to advance their own careers in the Democratic money-laundering cartel.
Bernie supported first Hillary, and then Biden. I'm sorry, but that's just too much pandering to power for me. I will not be fooled by that old fraud thrice.
Nothing personal against you, and I'm not trying to anger you, but that's what I think progressive Democratic politicians are--Frauds. Con artists. Sheepherders. All of them.
Been following the Twitter accounts of Tess Owen and Vice; Owen is attending the CPAC convention. Lots of photos and commentary. Most entertaining was Brandon Straka playing a J6 protestor in a fake jail cell being comforted by Marjorie Taylor Greene while people said the Lord’s Prayer and a few threw money.
The spectacle is nauseating, funny, and terrifying simultaneously. The folks at the convention have energy and enthusiasm; they have up and coming candidates south of the age of 50. The last time I saw anything close to this energy was Sanders’ campaign in 2016. And he threw it all away by not taking his fight to the convention floor. I now realize he never intended to do so; he was and continues to be the sheepdog to keep progressives voting blue.
The Dems have nuthin’ right now to excite voters enough to go to the polls and vote for them. People are figuring out they are useless at the federal level on legal abortion. Legal abortion will be decided at the state level, with Kansas showing how even a red state will support legal abortion if people are given a chance to vote.
I have some faint hope the Dems might get better once Pelosi retires, but there may be worse moving up the ranks behind her.
I don't even have a faint hope anymore. Maybe I'm wrong, but the preponderance of the evidence of the last three decades tells me that I'm not. In any case, the Democrats can easily prove me wrong just by accomplishing something. That burdens on them, not the voters.
Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are as nutty as they come, yet she voted against funding the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine while every single Democrat was all for it. Jimmy Dore was factually correct when he observed that the Republicans, as a party, are now more antiwar than the Democrats, but it is also true that the majority of them are just as bad.
I think what you saw at CPAC is just one manifestation of the growing anger towards the entire federal government that's out here. When 37% of gun owners say they are ready to rise in revolt against that government, and when a plurality of military voters are voting either Libertarian or Green, the oligarchy should be nervous.
They don't appear to be. Neither was Charles I of England or Louis XVI of France.
A lot of the same Republicans that are against supporting Ukraine in the war were also against Biden pulling out of Afghanistan.
The same Republicans no doubt supported Trump when he announced his deal with the Taliban to withdraw American troops. The same Democrats now praising Biden on the internets condemned Trump at the time for abandoning Afghan women.
Both parties do this sort of flip-flopping all the time.
Much as I hate to say it, I think you’re right in pointing to a class divide between your take on the Democrats and Krystal Ball’s. I had listened to her monologue prior to reading this and had thought, “yeah, I hope so . . . “ and sort of felt that old hope you describe starting to stir a teeny tiny bit. But what’s also true is that I’m not part of the working class and, as you point out, can more easily afford to imagine such a rosy scenario coming to pass - maybe. Probably not. But hope springs eternal, right? Well, as your post here states: No, after a certain point, it doesn’t. Which is completely understandable. And also pivotal in terms of how we see what’s happening on the Right and the energy they’re tapping into. Although I’d caution that I know a few extremely wealthy Trumpers who are enormously resentful of progressives/liberals and demonize the left without any hint of grounding in reality - and when it comes to the sort of populism that we might hope to see, I’m quite sure that to the extent that people like that are really running the GOP show (which I don’t doubt is the case), it’s not going to happen there, either. They hate the liberal elite just as much as the working class, but for status reasons (right wingers don’t rack up elite cultural capital like leftys do), not bread-and-butter economic ones. But their ability to connect to populist rage is real. Where that runaway train is going worries me enormously. I am very skeptical that the more authentically economically populist voices on the right will ever truly play decisive leadership roles in the GOP. They are hoping for the same sort of transformation Krystal Ball is, just on the other side.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. A lot of Republicans, wealthy or otherwise, seem to think Joe Biden is some kind of Communist, which is every bit as ridiculous as liberals who think Trump, or Assad or Putin for that matter, is Hitler.
JFK warned us that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. The Democrats in particular have ignored his advice for at least the last 30 years by enveloping and then neutralizing one populist mass movement after another--the Rainbow Coalition, much of the old environmentalist movement, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the Bernie Sanders campaigns, and more.
There is a regrettable reality - the President and most members of Congress are going to be either a Republican or a Democrat.
Citizens United made that a reality for the foreseeable future with unlimited campaign funding. It's not the only reason, of course, but money - big money - decides who is the President.
While I'm not likely to vote for either major party, it would be nice to have a President who actually keeps a campaign promise or two, or at least doesn't follow the path towards more forever wars, and a path towards WW III and nuclear war.
Or maybe something simpler - a President who cares about the people of the US, rather than the corporations of the US. But then - I don't expect it.
So Krystal, if you can help to replace the worst President in US history, I'm all for it. Not that I expect it, regrettably.