If Hillary Clinton is the standard bearer for being a democrat

[BigBearJohn]

Last edited Mon Apr 4, 2016, 06:52 PM - Edit history (1)

It's really time for me to seriously consider being an independent

[daleanime]

1. What would be the sense of staying in a party....

when you're the only thing the party leadership is willing to fight?

[onecaliberal]

2. Very good point.

[KPN]

3. Boom!

No kidding!

[Hiraeth]

4. I think it has been written somewhere that they don't need me anyhow ...

so ....

no.big.loss.

right?

[MisterP]

12. they say Clinton can win on Republican votes, then screams Sanders is winning only with Republican

votes
"send them BACK!" "kick their ASS and take their GAS!" "drill HERE drill NOW!" "let them DIE!" are all bipartisan now

[Hiraeth]

14. IKR. Craziest election season in my adult memory with *maybe* exception of

the Nixon/Ford thing.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Nixon/Ford?

They never ran as a ticket. Spiro Agnew was Nixon's running mate in both '68 and '72.

[Hiraeth]

24. Sorry, inelegant wording on my part. The way Ford came to hold office and then run.

That was all just cray cray

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Yeah, that was crazy

I remember National Lampoon doing a spoof about Ford's pardon of Nixon-- with an image of Nixon riding Air Force One for one last time and going "Wheeeeeeeee!"

That issue's cover featured Ford smashing an ice cream cone on his forehead.

Good times

[Hiraeth]

27. exactly.

[KPN]

5. Thjis post needs a 1000 recs!

But it will probably get hidden soon.

[Jarqui]

6. Bernie proved you could be an Independent for 35+ years and

wind up in a very progressive place.

[oldandhappy]

7. yup, giggle

The day after the primary -- will stay that long so I can vote Bernie! Then Indie here I come. DNC and DWS and local controlling manipulating county chair and clinton games have all exhausted me. I am going to resign from board of local dem club. Will work on voter suppression stuff with other groups since we (local club) are not doing that at the moment.

[Kip Humphrey]

8. I disagree. I think its long past time that we take our party back!

The 3rd-Way and Republicrats walked right in, sat right down and took over our party without a word spoken or a shot fired. The "New" Democratic party is the old republicon party. Having 2 republicon parties is unacceptable in the extreme.

[BernieforPres2016]

17. Republicans had controlled the White House 20 of 24 years before Bill Clinton

Democrats were desperate to regain the White House and the DLC and Clinton sold the party the Third Way. But then Democrats lost both houses of Congress in 1994, and it took some years for it to become apparent that the Third Way agenda that Bill Clinton pursued and enacted was terrible for the country.

The strange thing is that the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate for much of the last 22 years should have wiped out the moderates in the Democratic Party and left a remainder that was more liberal than before. But they've virtually all surrendered to the personal wealth and power that is there for the taking, both while in Congress and via the revolving door to lobbying and industry.

[Peace Patriot]

26. Very good points! I see that, too--the corrupt/revolving door of the Dem establishment...

"...they've virtually all surrendered to the personal wealth and power that is there for the taking, both while in Congress and via the revolving door to lobbying and industry."

There is hardly a thing any more called "public service." It's just a way to put in time while you serve the corporate masters who will hire and enrich you later.

Clinton is the best example but she is not alone, by any means. I see it at all levels.

I was thinking about this the other day when ALL the Dem super-delegates in New York declared that, even if Sanders won the state, they would ALL still vote for Clinton at the convention.

I was appalled at the contempt for democracy that these SDs exhibited. NY hasn't even voted yet! And they're saying this?!

So what's behind it? The Clinton Foundation and all of its corporate and foreign government billions. Clinton is the broker for this ill-gotten money, and the DNC's ill-gotten money, which goes to the campaigns of SD's who are office holders, who pledge loyalty to Clinton, and to the favorite causes and little foundations of the others (party bigwigs, former office holders, et al) who pledge loyalty to Clinton. And they are all part of a "professional class" of Democrats who do things similar to what Clinton did in joining the board of Walmart, even as WalMart was bilking taxpayers to support their underpaid employees with food stamps and public housing!

This is a class war of the have's vs the have-not's, in which labels like Democrat or Republican mean absolutely nothing. Can you comfortably sit on WalMart's board? That is the criterion for joining the professional Democratic Club.

It is not all Democratic office holders or leaders. I have to say that. But it IS the ones who now control our party. Most congressional Dems. Most state legislative Dems. And others.

And THIS IS WHY our Dem Party leaders, for the most part, DON'T fight voter suppression or riggable voting machines, or the destruction of labor unions, or cuts to Social Security and Medicare, or insurance-run health care with higher and higher deductibles and co-pays, or higher and higher tuition at public colleges, or all the other heavy burdens that are placed on the poor majority. They are not OF the poor majority any more, nor are they FOR the poor majority. They are doing the equivalent of sitting on Walmart's board.

And it is so corrupt as to be close to irredeemable.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. If Bernie wins i will stay. If he doesn't then i will change back

Only reason i signed up any way is to vote for Obama. I knew long before that that the Dem party was no longer for the little people like me.

[SoapBox]

10. Bingo!

That is, if we can't wrestle it back from the Turd Way and DINO's.

[Mbrow]

11. K&R great line!

[demmiblue]

13. You have a spelling error (I hope it wasn't intentional). n/t

[BigBearJohn]

19. Thanks...fixed it

[BernieforPres2016]

15. The perception used to be that Independents were in the middle

Between the Democrats on the left and the Republicans on the right.

Now most independents are on the left and the right, with the corporatist Democratic and Republican parties in the middle, throwing red meat on the handful of social issues that separate them to the independents on each side.

[draa]

16. That's my plan.

I have no intention of protecting them with my vote anymore either. Or the people who inhabit that party. If they stay around after what they've seen this cycle they either support that type of shit or they deserve the pain there about to receive. Either way I'm done.

The Democrats, who are supposed to be the defenders of the poor, are protecting criminals who stole $20T dollars from mostly poor Americans. Over 100 million people were affected. Tent cities popped up in communities around the country. Some people lost everything. Entire families were suicide out of existence. And the Democrats are protecting the people that caused it. Or worse yet, as Clinton has done, taking money directly from those people. And yet they want me to vote for that? WTF? Just no. Not no but fuck no. Not now and possibly not ever again.

Stop voting for the people that protect criminals from prosecution. If for no other reason than by doing so you'll be hurting more people because it will happen again.

[VulgarPoet]

18. This is my mindset

They deserve everything that's coming to them. I'm here till day after the primary, then setting myself back right-- these are not the democrats I grew up believing in.

[LiberalElite]

21. Sometimes I feel that I'm

enabling them and then hoping to change them, like some kind of co-dependent. They guilt us with ye olde BUT THE SUPREME COURT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and blaming us in advance for a catastrophe, to keep us in line. Then some wonder why nothing ever gets better. Do what you always did and get what you always got.

[Baobab]

20. By triangulating, they are abusing the fact that the US has a two party system

by making both the parties right wing.

Slick, huh?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

22. If Hillary Clinton is the standard bearer for being a democrat

we are doomed