Jill Stein Redux and the Democratic Primaries

[McCamy Taylor]

I posted this a few months ago. It is that time of year, time for the opposition to meddle in the Democratic primary. So, I am posting it again. May have to post it a third and maybe even a fourth time before November. Russia and the GOP have only one hope this year and that hope is YOU. They hope that YOU will be divided and conquered. And since I am YOU and YOU are ME and WE are ALTOGETHER, that means I get sliced and diced, too.

Anyway, this is what I wrote before the primaries started:

Whenever you see a Democratic Primary candidate who seems too good to be true, remember Jill Stein. The GOP's only hope of retaining control of Congress is to have Russia fund a lot of "left wing" primary challengers and general election third party "left wing" splitters. I say Russia, because the GOP is not going to be able to raise money in the U.S., not with their track record. It will all have to come straight from Putin's secret bank accounts. And from what I hear, he is the richest man in the world, meaning he can fund a lot of "Democrats", "Greens" and "Independents."

And sorry to all our leftist columnists and pundits out there, but when you bash hard working Democrats and demand that they be replaced with the shiniest, newest, flashiest candidate on the block, I have to ask myself "Who are you really working for?"

We prove our Democratic street creds by our actions not our words. And anyone who seeks to Divide and Conquer the Democratic Party is not a Democrat.

Party on dudes. But please for all our sakes, party like Democrats.

[lark]

1. Voting for 3rd party candidates enables Russia keeping drumpf in office.

Please, don't go there. Even if the Dem candidate is too red for your liking, vote for them anyway. Of course if there is a better progressive support them, but no third party (russian) spoilers. Remember that PUtin also supported Bernie and Jill during the primaries and the general and don't let him play 'us" again.

[MineralMan]

2. As the primaries roll out, it will be interesting to see which Democratic

primary candidates for federal and state legislative offices win and become the Democratic general election candidates. There are candidates being endorsed by self-styled "progressive" organizations. I will be interested to see how they fare in their primaries.

[yurbud]

3. who is hurting the party more, progressives or "centrists" who deregulate banks?

where are the swing voters demanding that Wall Street be more deregulated?

[MineralMan]

4. I don't know. As I said, I'm watching to see how the primaries turn out.

If we are to stop the Republicans, we will have to unify, either way. If we don't unify the Democratic Party, what you see now is what you will get in the future.

Is that a good thing? I think it is not. We're going to need to elect Democrats. It is that simple. The direction the Party takes going forward may be detectable if we pay attention to the primary results. I suggest we do that, so we'll understand how the voters are thinking.

And that will differ from state to state.

[David__77]

5. Lipinski might agree.

...

[mcar]

6. K&R!

[Jim Lane]

7. Intra-party races and third-party races are TOTALLY different

You write:

The GOP's only hope of retaining control of Congress is to have Russia fund a lot of "left wing" primary challengers and general election third party "left wing" splitters.

Conflating those two is misleading.

To my mind, it's perfectly clear what progressives should do. We support progressive candidates in the Democratic primaries. If our candidate loses, but (as will almost always be the case) the more conservative Democrat who wins is still better than the Republican, then we support the Democrat in the general election.

This, after all, is what Bernie Sanders and most of his supporters did in 2016.

Here's one possibility for how the GOP can retain control of Congress: How about if millions of progressives are relentlessly demonized and insulted, so that, on Election Day, they're so alienated that they won't bother to show up to vote for a more conservative Democrat. I think they should ignore the juvenile venting and vote anyway, but the fact is that a lot of them won't.