@whisperwatch – Have Democrats been so beaten down by hateful rhetoric and diabolical behavior from a Republican congress that they have forgotten how to fight for a better America?
Further, does this atmosphere explain why some rank and file Democrats seem hellbent on chastising other Dems — especially the young — about their support of Bernie Sanders?
One thing I can’t stand is when people assume Bernie Sanders supporters are: 1) all young men; 2) all white; 3) totally unrealistic about his policies; 4) expect Sanders to wave a magic wand to get bills passed through the current Congress.
Nobody sane thinks Bernie Sanders will cast a magical spell over Congress to make sh!t happen. Save that condescending argument for when you need to make yourself feel better about why Hillary Clinton isn’t trouncing that “hammer and sickle” socialist. (Fck you, Claire McCaskill. I mean that with all due respect, of course.)
What gets me is the public argument around what’s realistic and what’s not. Sanders’s policies are ‘unrealistic’ as defined by who? A bunch of people who have political PTSD from having to suffer under a Confederate-like GOP congress?? I’m sorry, but umma need you to get the fck over that and start fighting again to achieve democratic goals.
The first step in making real change is to HAVE A GODDAMN GOAL for what you want to see happen! It’s ridiculous for anyone to say Sanders’s plans are unrealistic simply because it’s not the usual mealy-mouthed, half-steps Democrats are used to seeing.
If current Democratic members of Congress aren’t comfortable with a Sanders presidency because of his ‘unrealistic’ plans, maybe what’s really irritating them is being reminded of what they should have been doing for their Democratic base this whole time? Don’t get mad at Sanders because you feel guilty. That isn’t his fault.
Maybe Sanders is ‘unrealistic’ because he reminds them of how they chose to cower to protect their goddamn power instead of figuring out how to protect us? Don’t get mad at Sanders because you feel guilty for not knowing how to stand up to Republicans in Congress.
To deny Sanders an opportunity to fight for his ideas — simply because they can’t or don’t know how to fight for their ideas in this current political climate — is a travesty. I hope people won’t ruin his opportunity to help millions of Americans because Republicans have successfully conditioned them into accepting mediocrity and stagnation.
Bernie Sanders has clearly articulated a list of goals/policies/plans for this nation to work towards. That’s why he talks about taxing Wallstreet speculation, tuition-free public colleges and Medicare-for-All.
However, exactly what the hell is Sanders proposing that’s so unrealistic? So unreachable? There used to be a time in this country where a person could go to college without leaving a kajillion billion dollars in debt. When did that become a radical thing?? Snatching the age requirement off Medicare is not doable? Taxing Wallstreet for gambling with people’s money is an impossibility? #GTFOHWTBS
Most Sanders supporters know having a set of goals clearly in place is very important. I suspect many Clinton supporters know this too, but they’ve been convinced not to get their hopes up.
Everyone who’s not currently the President of the United States has plans which may or may not require modification if they take office. Remember when we were told not to let ‘the perfect’ be the enemy of ‘the good’? That clearly applies to Sanders right now.
If you already think Sanders can’t perfectly make all of his policies come true, you refuse to even let him try? What a sh!tty reason NOT to vote for someone!
Both Sanders and Hillary Clinton have a set of goals/policies/plans to improve the current conditions of this nation. Sanders, though, is basically telling the public not to be content with changing the arrangement of deck chairs on a ship with a substantial number of people falling into steerage (technically, poverty). Granted, the ship isn’t sinking like it was when George W. was captain, but it still needs to be secured.
I suppose the problem with Sanders is he actually revealed what he wants to accomplish instead of being content with laying out a plan full of incremental changes which won’t be fully accomplished for decades.
This nation is in a period of system failure. Our system of government led by a Republican congress is a slow-moving tragedy right now. Nothing is getting passed because it’s stacked with people intent on making sure President Obama has as few accomplishments as possible. The treachery can’t be anything other than personal because elected members of Congress got together on Obama’s inauguration night and conspired to ruin an Obama presidency. (Fck you Republican Congress. I mean that. Period.)
The system of capitalism itself is failing as multinational companies race to move manufacturing to the poorest Asian countries in the world. Multinational corporations convinced everyone that globalization was going to be great. They forgot to say it was mostly going to be great for corporations because they’d planned to set up shop in the poorest, most economically starved, easiest to manipulate countries in the world (as long as those countries weren’t full of black people).
We no longer have time for bullsh!t, endless hand-wringing or being satisfied with a set of future political changes which themselves will be at the mercy of a future Congress.
For ANY Democratic president to get ANY plan passed in the future, they must either have a cooperative democratic Senate/House, or be shored up by massive public support to the point where corporate sponsors of treachery become terrified of losing all of their financial advantages in this country. It’s possible to have both a cooperative Congress and massive public support too.
None of the policies from Sanders or Clinton will see the light of day as long as Wallstreet and big corporations can purchase a stranglehold on every level of government by buying off lobbying current and former Congress members. Not to mention the fact some former Congress members have become lobbyists themselves.
It’s not a fantasy to work towards leashing Wallstreet or tenaciously working to fight against every loophole they try to create, every ALEC bill they try to pass, and every Congressman they try to buy off… uh, I mean… lobby.
The nation should be able to fight back against GOP government shutdowns by smacking the corporate sponsors of those Congressman and tearing away their political clout. Their financial prowess is based on tax advantages and free gambling privileges as approved of by the federal government.
If the federal government wanted to take away or slowly starve them by using it’s power, it can easily do so. It only takes the right person(s) in power to call for it, fight for it, and lead people towards that goal.
But who will call for it? This is why Bernie Sanders’s appeal is hitting the mark this time. President Obama has taken this country as far as he can get using the same methods practiced by the democratic party for decades. He’s also fought for some brilliant plans — probably seen as naive delusions by his naysayers — which include normalizing America/Cuba relations and achieving an agreement with Iran to stop their nuclear pursuits.
Without the Obama administration, do we have to accept the next steps for a better nation coming from people with mediocre, fear-based plans who lack imagination? Who ridicule big ideas? Do we have to be content with people whose knowledge-base includes corporate-funded incremental scheming?? #ICANT
For anything to improve, Democratic turnout will have to be high and include young people. You know, ‘young people’ right? They’re the ones some of you regularly address in a patronizing and dismissive way to the point where they occasionally light up your Twitter TLs with sarcastic clap-backs flavored with just the right amount of derisive cuss words.
The Democratic candidate will have another advantage if they can also appeal to a certain amount of moderate Republicans who are privately afraid of their own nominee. (Think Ted Cruz or Donald Drumpf Trump).
Most importantly, public support must be sustained and nurtured throughout the Midterm elections. Stop this sh!t where you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. This ain’t English Lit. This is a nation of real live human beings who need to know their government is working for them, instead of pandering to sociopathic corporations determined to pay Vietnamese and Indian workers 50 cents/hr. Anything to keep from paying American workers a fair wage, right?
Democrats seem to have PTSD after being whipped repeatedly by the diabolical actions of a Republican congress who would sooner shut down the government than actually help real people without asking for a tax cut for the rich in return.
Dems are at the point where they don’t seem to care to fight for their own ideas anymore. Contrast that to the fact of Republicans voting dozens of times to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
Republicans are tenacious. But most importantly, they do that to make sure their constituents see them fighting for the ideas they believe in. Some of their ideas are terrible for this nation and don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding, thank God. But they carry on nonetheless.
Because of that fcking tenacity — as showy and ineffective as it may be in making something happen at that moment — their Republican base not only votes during presidential election years but also shows up during the Midterms and in local elections all around America!
It’s because the GOP fights (fake or not) for their so-called pie-in-the-sky ideas. They put it on record where they stand. They may use that tactic for political evil in my opinion, but it has the benefit of ensuring their base will get out and get to their goddamn voting places in order to retain power.
During this election year, let’s hope we won’t see a slew of the same type of lame-ass, blue dog, Republican-lite, ‘I’m not Barack Obama’ Democrats who’ve lost elections in the past (and blamed President Obama for it) after they ran away from him and his policies.
// Afraid of their own shadows //
Democrats, on the other hand, appear to be scared of their own shadows. If they can’t get what they want right then, they make the calculation to sit on their hands waiting for an opportune moment.
What the hell kind of thinking is that?? Those moments have become fewer and fewer because sticking to that strategy has caused their power to dwindle tremendously even in the Obama years.
The mentality seems to be if they can’t win or at least come away with being able to check something off on their list of ‘Things That’ll Help Me Keep My Power in Washington’, then they don’t even want to try.
Why fight for Single Payer (Medicare for All) if they think they’ll lose and make enemies in the insurance field? Why fight for true Wallstreet reform or student loan reform when their names will go on the Sh!t Lists of various corporations? Those corporations may be helping to fund their political campaigns and buying off lobbying their colleagues.
During the Midterm elections, some of them thought aligning themselves with blackety-black Obama and his blackety-black cooties would cost them their seats in red states. They quickly ran away from him and his policies. They did so without understand by running away from President Obama they were also running away from a Democratic base who voted for him and benefited from his policy battles. (Fck you, Blue dog Dems. I mean that with all due respect of course)
I’m sick of that goddamn defeatist, panicky, selfish-ass attitude. I’m tired of the Democratic leadership being shaken into cowardice every time a Republican says ‘boo’. I’m tired of hearing about how the Republicans have taken the government hostage and Dems have no way to protect the rest of us from their nefarious actions. What’s worse is they won’t even try to fight back even if they can’t see a way to win at the moment. AND they try to stop other Dems (like Sanders) from even trying! I’m over that sh!t. I’m done with that type of fckery. I’m not the only one either.
That’s why Bernie Sanders is rising in the polls and gaining support among almost every demographic — including young women — much to the disbelief of the corporate media and Clinton supporters.
// Thanks Obama //
Speaking of President Obama, this is the last year of an Obama presidency. Let me type that again: an Obama presidency. He’s overseen unemployment going down to 4.9%. Millions of jobs, whether high paying or not, have been created since he took office. He’s normalized relations with Cuba, pushed for an agreement with Iran, oversaw the killing of bin Laden, pushed for healthcare expansion, etc.
However, one needs only to look at Barack Obama as president to dismiss any asinine arguments about what’s ‘impossible’, ‘unrealistic’, ‘not viable’ or what ‘can’t win.’ He used to be ‘impossible’. His plans used to be ‘unrealistic’. His candidacy wasn’t ‘viable’ because he ‘can’t win’. His candidacy was “the biggest fairytale I’ve ever seen” (Bill) where “the sky will open up and the light will shine down and all will be right with the world” (Hillary). Remember that sh!t from the Clintons during the 2008 campaign? I do.
President Obama used to be all of those negative things… until he won. Now Clinton seems to be cloaking herself in the Obama administration’s policies and using him as a shield against Sanders. It’s not lost on me that she’s masking herself in those same “naive”, “fairytale” policies which she flippantly claimed would open up the sky and allow light to shine down and make everything better.
Imagine the ridicule he would have gotten from her 2008 campaign team if he said he wanted to normalize relations with Cuba and strike a deal with Iran to prevent them from producing nukes! Her scathing derision would have been merciless and her sense of superiority about world events would have been on full display.
President Obama has made a few ridiculous decisions, in my opinion, like trusting the GOP to actually offer real help with the ACA, approving drilling in the Arctic, and pushing this dangerous Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.
However, whatever failures and half-measures he’s been forced to accept has mostly happened because he was “advised” by people with mediocre, corporatized imaginations, and because his public support was allowed to wither on the vine by dismissive corporate Dems who sometimes referred to his liberal base as “f-cking retarded” or “the professional left”.
I’d like to send a special ‘Fck You’ to both Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs. I would tell them both to get the fck outta here with their bullsh!t but neither one stuck it out until the end of Obama’s presidency. But I digress.
I’ll say (type) it again: I’m fcking tired of the defeatist, panicky, selfish-ass attitude coming from some people who criticize Bernie Sanders. I’m OVER the Democratic leadership being shaken into cowardice every time a Republican says ‘boo’.
If Bernie Sanders is the one who will light a fire under the a$$es of people who have a stranglehold over this nation, along with those who are happy to take incremental baby steps, then so be it.
-whisperwatch (I’m really pissed off, so please excuse any typos. lol)