Stephanie
Diamond Member
- Jul 11, 2004
- 70,230
- 10,864
- 2,040
Good gawd, progressives/liberals do go on and on and on and on. This is from the leftwing hate site, Salon. Don't call them fascist in that they want to TAKE OVER AMERCIA
SNIP:
The left’s real choice in 2016: Why it doesn’t need Elizabeth Warren to run
For all the talk of needing to primary Hillary, here's how liberals really take over the party -- and America
Disheartened progressive Democrats face the prospect of a 16-year gap between the last closely contested presidential primary in 2008 and what would likely be the next one in 2024. Elizabeth Warren isn’t running. Hillary Clinton is and she starts out with very large leads in the early states. But hope is not lost. The choice facing progressives is not and never has been to somehow make Warren vs. Clinton happen or to spend the next 22 months enclosed in a political hellscape fit for only Sean Hannity and Lanny Davis. The 2016 election season does not have to be devoid of purpose or redeeming value.
If something changes in Iowa or New Hampshire Hillary Clinton could be in danger of being upset. At this point she looks like a strong favorite for the Democratic nomination and, by extension, if people feel their economic security is headed in the right direction from around this time next year to the election in November, a pretty good bet to be the next president. Progressives may not be able to change who is nominated but they can affect who is in the room with the nominee and the forces the nominee has to contend with if they reach the Oval Office.
Sure, garbage will not be in short supply this cycle. Democrats will be alleged to “be in disarray,” as in having a healthy internal debate. Declarations that the Republican establishment is putting the Tea Party in its place will abound in spite of what is happening around those making the declaration. The strange notion that we live in a nation of political junkies closely following every single development will inform a lot of analysis. Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush will be to this cycle what John McCain and Jon Huntsman were to cycles past as much of the DC press barely manages to conceal its affection.
Surrogates will say things that will make people in every campaign including their own wonder what they could possibly have been thinking. Candidates’ physical appearance and meaningless “gaffes” (Marco Rubio took a sip of water as human beings are known to do and it became a thing) will get much more attention than they should. It would not be entirely shocking to see a prominent pundit assert that Michael Bloomberg should be nominated by either party or a new vehicle party designed for him; or preferably given the nomination of both parties and the new third party by acclimation because there’s nothing so wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with a soft plutocrat in the guise of a “centrist” technocrat. Polarization will be roundly condemned.
The things voters in both parties tend to agree on that run counter to elite preferences will be overlooked.
In the midst of all of this lies an opportunity for progressives to seize and wield for substantive purposes a dynamic they’re used to rightly bemoaning: whether through the actions of a current president or the candidates in the running for the office, the presidency is the surest access point to a discussion about pretty much anything. A constant pivot from rebuffing attacks from the right to giving credit to a national Democrat when due, to giving strong criticism of that same Democrat when it’s warranted, may appear dizzying but it’s something a lot of Democrats have gotten used to over the last seven years. Yes, elected Republicans are awful on practically everything with a few exceptions on select issues. No, this is not a free pass for a Democrat to simply affirm their Not A Republican status and have whatever they do go uncritically accepted.
Individuals and organizations are perfectly capable of deciding which candidates merit what kind of support while as an overall force engaging in more definitive agenda-setting. The right uses (insert event here) to talk about (insert one of their issues here) all the time. There’s no reason progressives can’t do more to use legitimate access points like, say, the ongoing HSBC scandals to elevate questions about the Justice Department’s application of the “collateral consequences” doctrine to megabanks or the need for a fee on financial transactions within the Democratic debate.
The usual argument against progressives more assertively doing this is that it undermines party unity. This claim has even less to it than the similar assertion that a long nomination fight would spell disaster for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and hopes for a Democrat in the White House circa 2008. The specter of a substantive fight jeopardizing unity and therefore electoral victory has already been raised by people like Steve Rattner, a lead member of the Wall Street wing. Rattner conflates operational unity among the groups that make up the Democratic voting and activist base, which is important, with the struggle for influence between what Thomas Edsall aptly summed up as “the money wing” and “the voting wing.”
sheesh, all of it at
The left s real choice in 2016 Why it doesn t need Elizabeth Warren to run - Salon.com
SNIP:
The left’s real choice in 2016: Why it doesn’t need Elizabeth Warren to run
For all the talk of needing to primary Hillary, here's how liberals really take over the party -- and America
Disheartened progressive Democrats face the prospect of a 16-year gap between the last closely contested presidential primary in 2008 and what would likely be the next one in 2024. Elizabeth Warren isn’t running. Hillary Clinton is and she starts out with very large leads in the early states. But hope is not lost. The choice facing progressives is not and never has been to somehow make Warren vs. Clinton happen or to spend the next 22 months enclosed in a political hellscape fit for only Sean Hannity and Lanny Davis. The 2016 election season does not have to be devoid of purpose or redeeming value.
If something changes in Iowa or New Hampshire Hillary Clinton could be in danger of being upset. At this point she looks like a strong favorite for the Democratic nomination and, by extension, if people feel their economic security is headed in the right direction from around this time next year to the election in November, a pretty good bet to be the next president. Progressives may not be able to change who is nominated but they can affect who is in the room with the nominee and the forces the nominee has to contend with if they reach the Oval Office.
Sure, garbage will not be in short supply this cycle. Democrats will be alleged to “be in disarray,” as in having a healthy internal debate. Declarations that the Republican establishment is putting the Tea Party in its place will abound in spite of what is happening around those making the declaration. The strange notion that we live in a nation of political junkies closely following every single development will inform a lot of analysis. Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush will be to this cycle what John McCain and Jon Huntsman were to cycles past as much of the DC press barely manages to conceal its affection.
Surrogates will say things that will make people in every campaign including their own wonder what they could possibly have been thinking. Candidates’ physical appearance and meaningless “gaffes” (Marco Rubio took a sip of water as human beings are known to do and it became a thing) will get much more attention than they should. It would not be entirely shocking to see a prominent pundit assert that Michael Bloomberg should be nominated by either party or a new vehicle party designed for him; or preferably given the nomination of both parties and the new third party by acclimation because there’s nothing so wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with a soft plutocrat in the guise of a “centrist” technocrat. Polarization will be roundly condemned.
The things voters in both parties tend to agree on that run counter to elite preferences will be overlooked.
In the midst of all of this lies an opportunity for progressives to seize and wield for substantive purposes a dynamic they’re used to rightly bemoaning: whether through the actions of a current president or the candidates in the running for the office, the presidency is the surest access point to a discussion about pretty much anything. A constant pivot from rebuffing attacks from the right to giving credit to a national Democrat when due, to giving strong criticism of that same Democrat when it’s warranted, may appear dizzying but it’s something a lot of Democrats have gotten used to over the last seven years. Yes, elected Republicans are awful on practically everything with a few exceptions on select issues. No, this is not a free pass for a Democrat to simply affirm their Not A Republican status and have whatever they do go uncritically accepted.
Individuals and organizations are perfectly capable of deciding which candidates merit what kind of support while as an overall force engaging in more definitive agenda-setting. The right uses (insert event here) to talk about (insert one of their issues here) all the time. There’s no reason progressives can’t do more to use legitimate access points like, say, the ongoing HSBC scandals to elevate questions about the Justice Department’s application of the “collateral consequences” doctrine to megabanks or the need for a fee on financial transactions within the Democratic debate.
The usual argument against progressives more assertively doing this is that it undermines party unity. This claim has even less to it than the similar assertion that a long nomination fight would spell disaster for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and hopes for a Democrat in the White House circa 2008. The specter of a substantive fight jeopardizing unity and therefore electoral victory has already been raised by people like Steve Rattner, a lead member of the Wall Street wing. Rattner conflates operational unity among the groups that make up the Democratic voting and activist base, which is important, with the struggle for influence between what Thomas Edsall aptly summed up as “the money wing” and “the voting wing.”
sheesh, all of it at
The left s real choice in 2016 Why it doesn t need Elizabeth Warren to run - Salon.com
