Who's Looking Out for You?

[sheshe2]

by D.R. Tucker

Are they going to whine four years from now, too?

Let’s say that in 2020–four years after Donald Trump has used the Constitution as a placemat, ignored incident after incident of police brutality, gutted every last element of President Obama’s carbon-cutting efforts, proclaimed that Vladimir Putin was virtuous and pure, and allowed corruption to contaminate the country–the Democratic presidential primary comes down to another contest pitting a perceived “establishment Democrat” against an undisputed progressive. Let’s say that, due to missteps, gaffes, lack of coverage from the mainstream media, or just plain old bad luck, the progressive hopeful fails to secure the Democratic nomination.

Will the same folks who went on and on about Hillary Clinton’s alleged flaws, her supposed cautiousness, her “uninspiring” nature, and her ties to the “Establishment” resurface to again assail the Democratic nominee as “not progressive enough”? Will they again exaggerate the nominee’s perceived policy flaws? Will they again suggest that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democratic nominee and the demagogic incumbent?

As I noted in February, back in the summer of 2013 I was horrified by the rhetoric of progressive radio host Sam Seder, who chased after then-Democratic US Senate aspirant Cory Booker with a rhetorical chainsaw. Seder was repulsed by the prospect of Booker defeating then-Rep. Rush Holt in an August primary to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg in an October special election. I also preferred Holt’s vision, especially his strong advocacy of a federal carbon tax to combat climate change, but it was fairly obvious that Holt was not going to win the primary–and I could not figure out why Seder kept on promoting the idea that Booker was only marginally better than Steve Lonegan, the Koch Brothers-backed Republican contender for Lautenberg’s former seat.

The same reasoning Seder used in that 2013 New Jersey Senate primary was on display during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary–and beyond. How many times did you have conversations with nominally progressive acquaintances who insisted that Clinton was a crypto-Republican, that her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a hoax, that she couldn’t wait to sell out to Big Fracking and Big Pharma and Big Ag and Big Big?

If a Democrat who has, by some odd metric, been deemed “not progressive enough” wins the presidential primary in 2020, we’ll likely hear this same rhetoric again. Nothing will have been learned.

snip//

Read More: http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/12/11/whos-looking-out-for-you/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+washingtonmonthly%2Frss+%28Political+Animal+at+Washington+Monthly%29

__________________________________

D.R. Tucker sure nails it here.

[yallerdawg]

1. And this wicked cut:

You’d figure that the confederacy of deplorables Trump has rolled out would cure some folks of the disease of perfectionism; one cannot logically argue that Clinton would have selected a skinhead as a chief strategist, a fossil-fuel magnate as Secretary of State, or an opponent of the EPA to run the agency. Yet, if a supposed non-progressive wins the Democratic nomination, he or she will inevitably be assailed as a traitor-in-waiting to the cause, someone whose actions would effectively urinate on FDR’s grave.

[sheshe2]

2. Oh yes, that was a wicked cut, yallerdawg.

The rump using the constitution as a placemat as well.

[uponit7771]

11. "one cannot logically argue that Clinton would have selected a skinhead as a chief strategist", +1

[classof56]

3. K&R with gratitude.

Thank you, my friend, for posting this.

[sheshe2]

5. Thank you, class

[leftofcool]

4. But, but, Hillary gave a speech to Goldman Sachs.

[sheshe2]

6. Ha!

Thanks, leftofcool.

[Lifelong Protester]

7. Kind of makes the whole email thing pale,

Doesn't it??

[liquid diamond]

8. That was just a smokescreen argument

to cover the right and left's hate for Hillary.

[mcar]

9. K&R

[MineralMan]

10. Of course. The people who do that

are not progressives at all. They never were. Most have been banned on DU, finally. Some will return, probably with new screen names. They should all be regarded as the POSUCS that they are.

Better Believe It...

Just saying...

[JCanete]

12. missing the forest for the trees. Your anger is focused in the wrong direction. There is one factor

above all else that is why we lose elections. The Media. There is a symptom of that corporate media, which is the way our side plays politics--trying to play nice with corporations and their propaganda arm, hoping to thread the line just expertly enough that we still kind of speak for the people, but at the same time don't invite the might of the corporate media and their campaign financing decisions to bury us.

And for all of that, they still prefer another. They always support the GOP over the democrats although they fund both sides, and they only like us as an alternative for the sake of maintaining an air of democracy. And after being entirely railroaded by the media in the GE, what do our politicians do? They pick the outsiders to blame. It was the fringe liberal media, or fake news. Yes, that last part was right at least. It was fake news. It just happens to go by the name of the main-steam media.

If democrats aren't willing to take up the mantle and actually go full populist, and say fuck you to the news media, they will continue to get so damn close and to lose, over and over, because the media doesn't care about election fraud, and it doesn't care about voter suppression, and it doesn't care about a dumbing down of our schools, or Russian influence on our elections, or our prison state, or people starving, or the water crisis in flint Michigan, or holding any motherfucker who actually should be held accountable, accountable for anything . And sadly, for whatever reasons, in all of its corporately funded manifestations, it continues to determine for the American public, what magnetic north is. It manufactures the narrative. Either we start fighting against this whole game, or we are screwed.

[sheshe2]

13. My anger?

JCanete

12. missing the forest for the trees. Your anger is focused in the wrong direction. There is one factor

FYI, I am not D.R.Tucker. I am not the author of the opinion piece.

[JCanete]

14. That's fair and I may have misspoken. Is it a position and opinion you share? nt

[sheshe2]

15. Do I agree?

Yes, actually I do.

You’d figure that the confederacy of deplorables Trump has rolled out would cure some folks of the disease of perfectionism; one cannot logically argue that Clinton would have selected a skinhead as a chief strategist, a fossil-fuel magnate as Secretary of State, or an opponent of the EPA to run the agency. Yet, if a supposed non-progressive wins the Democratic nomination, he or she will inevitably be assailed as a traitor-in-waiting to the cause, someone whose actions would effectively urinate on FDR’s grave.

JC, gotta say if you are not hurt and angry right now, then maybe you have nothing to lose. Americans in the 20-25 million range may lose ACA. They are going to die. I posted the other day (somewhere, no link) that 145K will die in the first year, that doesn't take into account the numbers that will die with the dismantling of SS Medicare and Medicaid.

I have no interest in a 'true progressive' winning, I want the 'liberal Democrat' to win.