2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBlack Lives Matter! Period. Therefore I Haven't Altered my Primary Intentions.
End of message.
If you like a candidate you like them, their "supporters" may be frustrating but it should never be enough to change your stance.
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tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)is limited to those supporters to which one is exposed (or chooses to be exposed to).
given that Bernie is drawing crowds in the tens of thousands I suspect that his supporters are not all alike, but who knows...
MH1
(17,600 posts)
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)Supporters reflect the candidate. When a group of people support a candidate, it says something about who that candidate is. Their actions also reflect his leadership ability. His campaign includes his supporters, and that is who one needs to work side by side with to get the candidate elected. Bernie says he is leading a "political revolution," that it's about his supporters and not him. So now we see what that movement is about.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)I do believe politics is a circle, so eventually if you go far enough left... well you get it.
But that just isn't what Bernie is, I have a posting history you know where I stand and I am one of his supporters. I'm not a bad guy?
I also do think this argument is a slippery slope all candidates have support from people I'm sure they rather wouldn't have support from.
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)and if the majority of his supporters were like you, he wouldn't be having this problem. Why should people like Bravenak tolerate one offensive insult after another to support a candidate? To imagine that we should see movements for racial equality and human life denigrated over and over again and not have that influence support for the candidate is simply unrealistic. I will never stand with people who affirm the superiority of one man over the citizens he seeks to represent. The candidate does nothing to dissuade his supporters. He uses rhetoric of political revolution, but when confronted with a real revolution taking place in front of him, he becomes angry and walks off stage.
For some time I have perceived much of the anger at the Democratic Party to be about its failure to uphold the privilege of the white upper-middle and middle class and that it seeks to represent constituencies comprised of the subaltern. I find calls for economic justice in that context hollow, particularly when they hearken back to a time when the majority--yourself included--were deprived basic civil rights and many others lived in crippling poverty. The responses to Black Lives Matter has confirmed my views of what this political ethos is about. They oppose what I care most about in life. How could I possibly stand with them?
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)and then tell me what you mean by "now we see what that movement is about"
This supporter see the "political revolution" to be about taking the government back from the moneyed interests to do the work of all of our citizens - to allow the citizens to set the terms of the debate rather than those who would have us choose between red/blue, black/white, LGBT/straight, believers/non-believers - a government of, by and for all.
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)through social media, all over Twitter, on DU, and through shouts in the crowds at events.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)also, what was shouted out by individuals in the crowd? i did not hear anything about this.
what i see are people who are disappointed and sometimes angry at what they feel are unfair attacks on Bernie. There is quite a lot at stake in this election and for many Bernie represents a sort of genuine hope for a better future that hasn't been part of the political process since RFK - and so people will get upset at attempts to derail Bernie.
Some of these people may not have their priorities ordered in the same fashion as Bernie's detractors, but I have yet to come across a Bernie supported who is actually hostile towards the issues that BLM is promoting - in fact I have not personally come across any Bernie supporter who doesn't understand and support Bernie's life-long position on issues of racial justice. It's not as if his supporters are pressuring him to take a stance in opposition to these issues.
As an old(ish) white guy I am just trying to get my head around this whole thing, but I am definitely failing to see what you suggest is happening.
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)Have you listened at all to what African Americans have to say about this? Marching 50 years ago doesn't help black people being killed today. Elevating Bernie above a social movement is not conducive to leftist activism or racial justice.
The notion that you all see Bernie as more important than the citizens is what I find so offensive. The idea that people think those protesters owe him deference, that they owe you deference. Bernie's supporters are overwhelmingly white and middle to upper-middle class for a reason, and reactions like what we have seen over this weekend have showed they are not allies to people of color or anyone else but Bernie and themselves.
Every foul, racially charged term in the book has been used to characterize Black Lives Matters activists, and then you claim not to have noticed any of it? Bravenak was a Sanders supporter and tried to explain to you what was going on, and juries responded by hiding her posts. Yet after all this, you claim to see nothing troubling? It truly is a lost cause. I leave you to your own devices.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)I have been very careful to think things through before speaking on this issue because I know that my life experience has limited intersection with that of PoCs.
I fail to see where I suggest that Bernie be elevated above any person or group or that he is due some deference or tribute - and I think the "you all" that you are using to group Bernie supporters is myopic and unfair.
I clearly stated earlier in this thread that from where I sit Bernie's revolution is "about taking the government back from the moneyed interests to do the work of all of our citizens - to allow the citizens to set the terms of the debate rather than those who would have us choose between red/blue, black/white, LGBT/straight, believers/non-believers - a government of, by and for all."
So lets have the debate... which includes listening as much as it includes pushing for things that are important to any individual or group - Bernie is doing his level best at this and so are many of his supporters.
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)by talking about what they think of Sanders. Obviously they view Sanders as infallible. That much is clear.
That is more the problem than a solution. That Sanders marched fifty years ago doesn't mean he understands racism today and it doesn't mean he is doing everything he could to address the problem. There is an assumption that by virtue of being "liberals," they are immune from racism. Clearly that is not the case. Some have, in fact, explicitly argued that Sanders doesn't need to speak directly to issues of people of color or women, that doing so would be "pandering." Since that discussion more than a month ago, it has gotten progressively worse.
Posters here are systematically working to discredit BLM. They show a clear priority in which that man's career trumps all, and certainly is more important than a protest movement to stop police killings of black people. The threads and posts are everywhere; interviews with Seattle Sanders supporters on NPR; the notion that those activists need to placate white liberals to get them to care about black lives. Who are those women to question Bernie? They must be paid by Soros? Why else would they possibly protest the great Bernie? The entire notion that they need to sit back and defer to Sanders is about elevating him above those black posters and the rest of us. The reaction to any criticism, including discussion of his voting record, by responding that people have no right to question him shows a hierarchical view of human worth with Sanders and themselves at the top. The slurs against BLM and the hiding of posts by African Americans who dare to point to white liberal racism shows shows that they have no intention of being allies. They expect African Americans to support their agenda. Well black folks have done that for decades. and they are still being killed. They are saying enough is enough.
I understand you think his cause and your concerns are about everyone, but many don't see it that way. I don't see it that way because they explicit date is as a recent phenomenon that corresponds with the decline of white middle class privilege, without condemning the structural inequality that is endemic to capitalism and America itself. The very notion that Sanders is "taking government back" from moneyed interests is part of that. Government has always belonged to moneyed interests. That is how a capitalist state functions. At the inception of the republic those interests were slaveholders and big landowners, at the turn of the twentieth century industrialists, and now global finance capital. The one difference now is that the white middle class no longer benefits from the structural inequality that is at the very foundation of America. That is the change, and that is the angst that Sanders draws upon.
But the hopes and dreams of today’s educated class are based on the idea that market capitalism is a meritocracy. The unreachable success of the superrich shreds those dreams.
“I’ve seen it in my research,” says pollster Doug Schoen, who counsels Michael Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton, among others. “If you look at the lower part of the upper class or the upper part of the upper middle class, there’s a great deal of frustration. These are people who assumed that their hard work and conventional ‘success’ would leave them with no worries. It’s the type of rumbling that could lead to political volatility.”
Lower uppers are doctors, accountants, engineers, lawyers. At companies they’re mostly executives above the rank of VP but below the CEO. Their comrades include well-fed members of the media (and even Fortune columnists who earn their living as consultants).
Lower uppers are professionals who by dint of schooling, hard work and luck are living better than 99 percent of the humans who have ever walked the planet. They’re also people who can’t help but notice how many folks with credentials like theirs are living in Gatsby-esque splendor they’ll never enjoy.
http://business.time.com/2009/02/04/the-revolt-of-the-lower-upper-class-begins/
Time and time again Sanders supporters here hearken back to the days of "real Democrats," who also maintained Jim Crow, when the majority were denied equal rights and lived in poverty, while the white middle-class prospered. Your experience is not universal. People have time and time again refused to listen to that, to alter their rhetoric or use of historical tropes in anyway. The time they long for was a time my family lived on welfare, when I worked from age 10 to pay for laundry and school clothes. Now, decades later, I finally manage to make the median wage, and while that amount is scoffed at as nothing to those who talk about how poor they are at $200k a year, for me it is a whole world apart from being unemployed and without a place to live or surviving on public assistance.
I can speak to what it is like to experience these supporters as a black person because I am white. I can, however, address the class message, which I don't find applies to me at all. In fact I find the ethos expressed by Sanders' supporters elitist and alienating. I don't have the same animosity toward Wall Street and the 1 percent because truth be told I don't see much if any difference between them at the 10 percent. I don't know any billionaires, but I have in my life encountered a number of upper-middle class people who treat me like shit, both growing up and online. And they insult me here on DU as a "corporatist" and "allied with Goldman Sachs" because I don't throw aside everything to to return them to what they see as their rightful place atop the capitalist world order. Now they insult BLM and my African American friends. I don't like it one bit. They have made perfectly clear they don't want my support, and I won't be giving it.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)we could all judge BLM according to two women in Seattle.
Fortunately, it's not. Hopefully, you know that his campaign is about bringing people together. He explains this in every speech. That's the movement, the revolution.
It's not divisive, no matter how much some would like it to be.
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Hillary's supporters have been throwing turds at the wall for months now, desperately looking for something, anything, and inventing phony strawman 'issues' to attack him with. Since none of that stuck, they now attack his supporters.
Rank hypocrisy.
artislife
(9,497 posts)and have agreed on this point since 2008. I still cannot imagine blacking out a circle next to the name Hillary Rodham Clinton. Try as I might.
BainsBane
(53,038 posts)They are only politicians. I don't care who anyone votes for. I do, however, care when they work to denigrate movements for racial equality and human life.
artislife
(9,497 posts)BainsBane
(53,038 posts)and I would never tell someone how they should perceive a candidate, particularly when it comes to experiencing racism.
I've had a three year history of having people respond to my posts about feminism and issues of racism as "being divisive," as of lesser importance. I've had people denigrate my experiences growing up poor, while they invoke neoliberal ideology of consumerism over human rights and human dignity. When I then see those same people make claims about "economic justice," it rings hollow for me, particularly when I see posts demonstrating some of their own incomes far in excess of the national median. When it is then followed by defenses of misogynist slurs and clear hostility to movements for racial equality, it confirms my view that what they stand for is in direction opposition to what I care about most.
Sanders has become offensive to me because of the way he is elevated above the citizenry and because he has done nothing to clamp down on the attacks in defense of him. I will also add he has had his own share of racial missteps, not simply with BLM but claiming African Americans vote based on race.
I believe Hillary has learned from her bad mistakes in 2008. You disagree, which is fine. Sanders supporters, however, have sealed his fate. I expect you will have to find another candidate.
artislife
(9,497 posts)But I respect your choice.
It doesn't sound like the angry older women who were shouting at me that my Latino heritage didn't matter as much as getting a woman in the White House. They were very angry about Obama jumping the line and women who jumped with him.
So I can fully understand how you have been on the receiving end of some vile, hostile and belittling abuse from supporters.
May we both get someone who does right by us and people we care about.
And who will take care of this planet for the next generation, because that may be all we have.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)I can imagine it, if Bernie doesn't make it but Hillary does I know exactly who I will be voting for.
I will be doing whatever I can to make sure we don't get there, but if we do, I have no problem voting for her in the GE.
artislife
(9,497 posts)And I haven't voted for a Republican yet...so chances are when it comes down to it...
Just hoping and working that I won't have to make that decission.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)magical thyme
(14,881 posts)
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)
daredtowork
(3,732 posts)I don't know who you support, but it's bogus to suddenly change your primary intentions "because supporters". I believe that to have be staged electioneering - sort of like a GBCW post: using events to create marketing drama around the (questionable) "faction" you are switching sides.
Not buying that with a wooden nickel.
Also, anyone who can bring themselves to believe there is a dichotomy between "the social and the economic" (Hillary propaganda point not #BLM phrasing) was a Hillary supporter from the get-go.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Go Bernie, he's authentic, he's honest, his record cannot be matched on Civil Rights by any candidate in this race.
So the dirty tricksters using Rovian tactics are attempting to obliterate that record with lies and smears, and FAILING because we are all older and wise to their tricks.
This isn't the Dean Scream era, we have the tools and the commitment to end their dirty tricks and get the FACTS out beyond their attempts to block them.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)or punching the same chad, whatever your state does.
In Mass, I fill out a bubble 
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)to you yesterday, intended to attach to your post, but got distracted.
My bad, and will be more careful to read more thoroughly in the future.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)We are all quick to judge sometimes.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)
