AGAIN, HILLARY WAS RIGHT, YET CRUCIFIED BY THE MEDIA, THE RIGHT & SOME ON THE LEFT

[boston bean]

[Foamfollower]

1. Her description of these asshole Nazis was actually very mild and reserved.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Yes she was. Both correct and "Crucified".

I can gladly K&R this one. Content is true and important and I also appreciate your framing; "some on the left" is a fair statement. Hillary quickly amended her initial comment to say that "half" were deplorable was inaccurate, and her correction was also fair of her to make and speaks to her integrity. Far far too many Trump supporters however were and remain truly "deplorable", and he still refuses to disown them.

[luvtheGWN]

21. Yes, she knew the truth, and not just about Trump

but about his supporters and the entire Republican Party. In fact, probably no one knew the truth more than she did. She was the canary in the coal mine, or the Cassandra that people refused to listen to. I'm sure that, instead of feeling a strong sense of schadenfreude, she is silently weeping tears to think what her beloved country has become.

[peacebuzzard]

3. This is the heart wrenching truth.

Brings tears to my eyes again for a world lost.
Thanks for this post.

[mcar]

4. You mean the corporatist, warmonger, turd way, DLCer?

There are some things I will never forgive. One is the way some on the left, including on this very site, treated this noble woman. They have blood on their hands.

[boston bean]

5. + a trillion

[betsuni]

9. Absolutely. They can take all their buzzwords and shove them.

Blood on their hands.

[yardwork]

13. They helped elect Trump and now they're surprised by how bad he is.

[VermontKevin]

20. How did this site let them use such language? It is a moderated site, right?

[murielm99]

24. No, it is not moderated.

We have a jury "system."

[VermontKevin]

29. But the site is owned privately. The ultimate judges are the owners then.

[murielm99]

33. Yes.

And there is a forum where you can ask them questions. I do enjoy checking in here, and I have friends here, so I will say no more.

[liquid diamond]

207. No.

[leftofcool]

28. Amen!

[Maven]

42. Yes they do.

And there still hasn't been a full reckoning with what took place, even on this very site.

[niyad]

44. EXACTLY

[Eliot Rosewater]

103. And now that they see what they have wrought, and they know they are guilty

they are doubling down for more.

I was hoping we could avoid civil war, looks like we cant.

Racists, all over the country, want to own black people again and want to kick out all Latino's, Muslims, etc. For real, this is what they want, oops, forgot about gay folks, they will either be transitioned to straight or removed.

Almost half of your country will either willingly ask for this or passively sit back and allow it to happen.

They did not get over the civil war, and they do want another one.

[Hekate]

175. THIS

[Tarheel_Dem]

195. This! This! This!

[calimary]

223. No. Freakin'. Kidding.

I'd love to face off any one of 'em and say "you happy NOW?????"

I know exactly how you feel, mcar. I find this to be one of those very nearly unforgivable sins. This one is DAMN hard to get over. Especially when the truth was all there. All very available. So was her tremendously impressive and enviable record. And sometimes it was hand-delivered to them (like some people I know who would NOT listen to reason no matter how hard I tried to explain things to them), and STILL they turned up their noses. Turns out a lot of 'em believed crap that we now know was generated by Russian bots and hackers and other assorted nogoodniks. And they fell for it all. A lot of 'em I dismiss as stupid and brainwashed. But some others among them should have known better. She's been proved right again and again and again and again and again. And again.

This is fucking AGONIZING.

[mcar]

252. And I fear we will never learn, calimary

Rs will do the same thing to our next nominee, media will eat it up and "progressives" will join right in. Look how our D's are already being trashed.

[librechik]

271. word

[Beacool]

275. Hear, hear!!!

That's why I hardly come here anymore. I'll never forget how many decided that if Bernie wasn't the nominee they would not vote for Hillary.

Screw them all to hell!!!! I hope that they enjoy what Trump is doing to the country.

[boston bean]

6. I will not forget, we were warned. We were told. And a woman mocked, criticized and crucified for

telling the truth.

Everyone of good heart should have been standing with her. But no political opportunism was more important. I am especially aggrieved by those who were suppose to be the good people, doing this despicable, deplorable shit when she was facing this fascist shit head trump.

[JCanete]

51. What is this, the Lord of the Rings? There is no magical virtue that is a dividing line between

"deplorables" and the rest of us, or you and that small percentage of lefties that opted not to vote. People generally, across the spectrum, behave in ways that they justify as good, based upon a mixture of their own self-interest and their own understanding of the world, and of the other people that populate it with them.

Making a tactical argument for why these people should have voted for Clinton makes sense. Making a logic argument for why Trump voters are hurting themselves makes sense. But bashing people because their hearts weren't pure should be reserved for the realm of fantasy.

[bettyellen]

56. Hearts full of hatred described as "not pure" .... why? There's a world of difference there.

[JCanete]

63. it depends on who we're talking about. Are the lefties also people who have hearts full of hatred?

I'm pretty sure Boston was talking about them supposedly having good hearts.

As to hatred, well what the fuck is hatred? Better question, what do you think it is?

I'm pretty sure its misconception, ignorance, and fear. People hate what they see as evil. People here HATE "deplorables." Some HATE Sanders. Some HATE the "alt-left". Some HATE Clinton and establishment Democrats. They are helped in their hatred by their ability to ascribe motives to these people. Well, that's how everybody does it across the spectrum. I think that leaning on hate is the antithesis of leaning on knowledge.

Getting people to question the reasons they hate and whether their enemies are actually who they think they are is more sensible than telling people, who think they make their decisions with "good hearts" that they are actually assholes and horrible people.

[JHan]

65. Moral relativism, false equivocations...you sound just like Trump with his "on many sides" shit.

[JCanete]

72. Morality is a construct, unless you believe in God, and I don't. I would closely allign myself to

utilitarianism, because i privilege humanity, being among this species myself, and I believe strongly in finding empathy. That doesn't mean I think Trump voters are awash in empathy, and in-fact quite the opposite. I'm not falsely equivocating anything, and I don't know why you went there. Please point out where I'm saying anything like you're suggesting.

I think the object should be trying to get people to build their empathy, and that starts with us because we need to change their minds. If you don't have empathy for those people, you are not going to know how to do that. If you think we can just ....win somehow without winning minds, I'd love to see your calculations.

[JHan]

81. Your false equivocations:

Your linking of other types of "hatred" ( according to you) with hatred of other ethnic groups - which is absurd.

Your assumption that those of us who point out someone is a racist mofo or a deplorable somehow means we lack empathy when we are making an observation about other human beings who are unashamed of their bigotry. It is a wonder you're being so empathetic here when I've seen you lambaste and make character judgements about billionaires and people in the evil corporate media etc etc.. at least be consistent with your so called "empathy" .

And Empathy doesn't preclude observations that a human being is deplorable, disgusting or reprehensible.

You want to know the first step in healing racism in America? Acknowledging it and admitting to it, not tone policing those who point it out - people I've met who describe themselves as recovering racists understand that much, former white supremacists who now work in anti-hate activism don't shirk at descriptions of their former selves..

[JCanete]

89. I don't think rich people are evil though. I think their actions equate to evil. I do think, if

we are going to make something the enemy of the people, we should make it the rich people so that we can get the rest of us on one side, but that's tactical. Rich people have their frame of reference like the rest of us. Its no surprise that they see the world the way they do, though granted, there is a spectrum. Its no surprise that they influence the world in the direction that they do.

Yes it does. It does preclude that. It gets to the heart of their motives. It gets to them being bad or evil, not being misguided or confused or scared to stupid and violent. Their lack of empathy becomes a defect in their personhood rather than a condition that could be changed. You might be able to carry both of these things at the same time, as you suggest I'm doing when I say the rich are harming us...but unless I'm speaking of an individual public figure, I'm pretty sure I'm not name-calling...I'm generally talking about what they are doing. And just to clear it up, when I say they are dividing and conquering, that is as much and more a preponderance of direction, than people with these sorts of motivations discussing it in a dark room. Usually the motivations are less macro and more micro. The macro effect just happens to be the same.

No, I'm not linking them. There are people here literally using the word hate for these people. Of course it isn't on the same level. Thankfully we DO have so much more empathy on this side of the aisle that physical violence to fellow humans is generally beyond the pale. I would like to keep it that way. I would like us to not erase the humanity of others, even if their actions are vile. This wouldn't be a big loss, or rather, it would be an acceptable loss to let those who tip over to one side go....to kick them out of the club and make them monsters, IF it weren't so tactically ineffective. If we already had 90% of the population and we were going to marginalize and condemn 10% that would work. We wouldn't need to get through to them. We wouldn't need to understand them. Sadly, that isn't the case.

[JHan]

104. A young woman died.

They are spreading hate.

Do not tone police those who call out their viciousness for what it is, and how that viciousness manifests itself in Government-

In case you have forgotten.. they are in GOVERNMENT now and will do their best to practice their regressive, EVIL philosophies jeopardizing the lives of millions of Americans.

And here you are fussing over the use of the word "Deplorable" to describe some of them.

Tone policing - which is what you are doing - is you attempting to negotiate with your own side. Your argument is indistinguishable from Trump's "many sides" or this:

"Less than a half-hour after Trump’s live remarks, the Daily Stormer had declared the president’s words as a signal of tacit support for their side:

Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us.

He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate … on both sides!

So he implied the antifa are haters.

There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all.

He said he loves us all.

The neo-Nazi live blog also noted that Trump had refused to respond when a reporter asked about white nationalists who supported him.

“No condemnation at all,” the Daily Stormer wrote. “When asked to condemn, [Trump] just walked out of the room. Really, really good. God bless him.”

It was far from the first time white supremacists had signaled their support for Trump. Earlier Saturday, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke replied to Trump, suggesting the president was attacking “White Americans being targeted for discriminated [sic].”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/13/one-group-loved-trumps-remarks-about-charlottesville-white-supremacists/?utm_term=.7d4b5b70af82

It's moral relativism when you believe that nothing should be singularly condemned using the appropriate language because "empathy".

So attack the argument, not the tone in which it was said, unless you are seriously arguing racism is not a problem and these people are not really racists -- which is beyond the ridiculous, it ignores fucking reality.

[JCanete]

120. No, I didn't say nothing should be condemned. I said people as a whole shouldn't be condemned. Their

actions should be. Their lack of empathy should be challenged. Condemning the fabric of a person's being on the other hand, is first, inaccurate in probably most cases and gets in the way of us doing work we need to do, and second, tactically unsound. I have not at any point suggested that we try to understand the world through racist eyes. I've suggested that we understand the racist so that we can erode that racism.

[JHan]

123. that is word salad.

[JCanete]

126. what? There is a very obvious and distinct difference from condemning a person and condemning a

person's actions, thinking or behavior. Or do you disagree? You're going to check out of the conversation like that?

[JHan]

132. We already know human beings are complex

Racists can be hard workers, kind to their children and relatives, and be gregarious and generous to those they like,,,,while still being disgustingly racist. This isn't exactly earth shattering ....and it won't stop me correctly defining them as racist, deplorable and hateful towards other human beings who don't look like them.

[Eliot Rosewater]

193. Hell no, some people, trump supporting nazis, SHOULD be condemned

and the second they step out of line, jailed.

[JCanete]

234. I already said that if you want to identify as a Nazi, while people are still people and we

shouldn't forget that, I don't think its a tactical blunder for us to condemn the whole person. I don't think its technically correct to do so, and that in itself bothers me, but fine, call Nazis monsters. Their actions and advocacy certainly demonstrate something monstrous, and their numbers are so small, that this isn't making a whole population unreachable. But if MLK had gone around just calling people racist or deplorable, he wouldn't have been able to break through the deeply held misconceptions of the people he needed to convince. I hate to break it to everyone, but we aren't far enough along that we can just brow-beat people into behaving according to more humane sensibilities. We still have to convince them that they have it mixed up. There's no doing that if we call them deplorable.

[sheshe2]

213. Boom.

[Eliot Rosewater]

260. Yep. It is a very clever way to do it, too.

You will see it a lot around here as this place is starting to repeat something.

[bettyellen]

66. Those Nazis in Charlottesville are not comparable to your average anxious fool. They're actively

Promoting hate, so we draw a distinction. Those who promote hatred and twist people's ignorance into hateful action do it for self serving reasons as well as fear and hatred.

While I agree many are too quick to use "I hate ____" towards individual politicians instead of their actions or policies.... I don't see the equivalence to people who planned to travel and spend a weekend of their lives promoting and participating in acts of hatred. It doesn't matter to me that Nazis think they're doing "the right thing" in their hearts. They know their mission is genocide, and we can't soft pedal that by musing about what might be in their "hearts". That's incredibly offensive

[JHan]

70. ++++ exactly, and I'll also add...

The determination to tone police how we talk about racism is really fucking revealing.

The denial of the perniciousness of racism is the very ESSENCE of racism, which afflicts evolution in America. Of all things to tone police - the discussion of RACISM!

[JCanete]

131. but I'm not denying that. JHan, where did I deny the perniciousness of racism? It fucking exists.

Its getting worse. I agree that there are racists IN POWER promoting racism. Do you give any fucks about how to effectively dismantle racism or do you just want to make sure people are in agreement that racists are horrible people...because that will work with who its already working with and it will make it a hell of an eye of a needle for people who are underdeveloped empathetically, or who have misconceptions based upon assumptions and misinformation.

[JHan]

139. One of the first steps in dismantling racism

Is acknowledging it exists. Part of acknowleding its existence is to not tone police those calling it out...

the best thing a racist could do for himself or herself is say "I am a racist" . That is the first step towards recovery, acknowleding your dysfunction...not lashing out at those who have pointed it out.

And don't lecture me about dismantling racism.

[JCanete]

141. I'm not lecturing you. I have a perspective and in order for me to understand yours better, there is

no other way to do it but to also present mine as a counter-argument.

Currently I find your argument to be impractical, because you want people to acknowledge their disfunction before you've infiltrated into their thinking in order to demonstrate to them, their own disfunction. That only works if it is a survival imperative for them to do so, but these people live in their own bubbles in communities that are their protective shells. They have no incentive to see the world that you are demanding they see and telling them they are shitty off the bat doesn't change that. Even if you believe they are shitty, and I get it, how valuable is an approach that tries to get them to accept not that their logic is flawed, but first and foremost, that they are just shitty human beings.

[JHan]

156. How many times must it be pointed out to someone racism is bad?

What, you'd rather lies and to tell them they're not racist? How is that helping?

you are delivering word salad after word salad. On the one hand you admit racists exist and are in government, but on the other hand you don't like language that expresses how awful racists are.... Yes, human beings can be shitty ass people.

you remain more concerned about the tone I am using rather than the argument which you have long accepted, which means you are trying to negotiate with me how I should speak about racism - what is the fucking perfect way to talk about racism JCanete? Activists have been addressing racism for decades and they don't ascribe to your thinking... don't make me go through a list.. Hell I'll use a popular example: Jane Elliot has been tackling racist attitudes in her experiments - not once has she moderated her language to express what an ugly stain it is on human nature. And what her experiments, and other experiments, prove is that most people would fail implicit bias tests - calling this is out for what it is is not the fucking problem.

Acknowledging truth is not disrespect. Sometimes the best thing you could do for a person is to tell them in plain words why they are failing and what they need to do to be better. If they still reject what you have said, that's on them. You're veering very close to concern trolling, .. "I want to dismantle racism too" while wagging your finger at those who point it out and call it by its name.

[JCanete]

237. Call it racism. Racism is not something that has to be permanent. Racism is a state of mind about

others, usually built upon lies that are believed. Calling people deplorable is something altogether different. But assuming people are doing things for racist reasons(which more often than not is probably the truth) and then calling them racists when they don't yet follow the logic that arrived you at that conclusion is not going to be effective. Does "effective" matter to you?

I get that its hard to have the bandwidth to hold any kind of empathy for these people that think such vile things of you and your loved ones, and many of my loved ones, and to be fair, I don't think you should have to shoulder that burden, and my apologies for being really clumsy on this point.

But some of us need to shoulder that burden. Some of us need to connect to these people who have it so wrong and get them to see it just a little closer to the truth, and we will not succeed at that if we just tell them up front that they are shitty people...deplorables...whatever. if we put them under that kind of threat, well they'll just retreat emotionally and mentally back into their racist ass circles where they can feel okay about themselves and justified in their backwards beliefs.

[JHan]

244. Right racism.. so the next step is admitting they are racist...yes?

And don't engage in revisionism. The offense taken last year was because Clinton dared to call out racism.... bothering about "deplorable" is semantics. Racists are deplorable because racism is deplorable... especially in those who are unashamed of their bigotry. It's especially rich since the noisy complaints from certain quarters also derided Clinton for her lack of candor. We had two populists who ran on "telling it like it is" but this was a truth too far? That's awfully selective.

The word was qualified and perhaps the smarter thing to do politically would have been to say nothing because after all, white people make up the majority and she herself acknowledged after, Leaders should not lose sight of their obligation to mend societal fractures which lead to anger and fear - however anger and fear has always been there..... Racism is a feature, not an anomaly, of America.

Those young white men who marched in the streets, the young white man who killed Heather, are all deplorable. Their parents may think they're wonderful and they may make great friends to a chosen few, but they're also deplorable. You think I don't empathize, but I do because I have experienced racism. I know exactly how these people see me and my kind. I know exactly what informs their view. I cannot escape systemic racism, how can they? How can any of us?

What you want me to be is polite, and empathy doesn't require politeness. There's no guarantee politeness makes a dent in changing people's behavior, sometimes a shock of disgust is what does the trick. Sometimes being direct helps and forces the individual to do better...sometimes a cold dash of some fucking truth helps....

Sometimes discomfort is required before a person experiences an epiphany....

The truth is there is no polite way to deal with racism.

So whose feelings are you trying to protect here by telling me how I should speak about racism?

[betsuni]

247. +1000000000000000000000000000000000

[JCanete]

248. I"m not trying to protect anybody's feelings. We've rehashed this over and over.

You are right, of course, that sometimes very direct talk is necessary. I think it works best with us wannabe "woke" white people and not so well with people who have a long(er) fucking way to go. I appreciate that you have an amazing capacity to have empathy for people who have none for you. That must be hard and exhausting, and mostly thankless.

I'm getting tired and if I post the rest of my response to this thread, I will certainly be accused of word salad, but I am not advocating that we bury the truth. We are having a debate about how to get the truth to break through these bubbles and resonate, and how not to.

You may be burned out on entertaining my thinking, but I'll try to respond more thoroughly to your post tomorrow.

[sheshe2]

217. Well.

Currently I find your argument to be impractical, because you want people to acknowledge their disfunction before you've infiltrated into their thinking in order to demonstrate to them, their own disfunction. That only works if it is a survival imperative for them to do so, but these people live in their own bubbles in communities that are their protective shells. They have no incentive to see the world that you are demanding they see and telling them they are shitty off the bat doesn't change that. Even if you believe they are shitty, and I get it, how valuable is an approach that tries to get them to accept not that their logic is flawed, but first and foremost, that they are just shitty human beings.

It is well known what they have thought through the ages. Nothings has really changed. You say they are shitty...that is how you describe them.

This is just shitty? Saying they are shitty? This is their history and the heritage they embrace when they wave their outdated flag of a war they lost centuries ago. Shitty is a mild word, actually an uneducated word for slavery of millions of men and women and their children...enslaved...beaten sometimes to death. Stripped of their dignity and forced to work unclothed and malnourished. It was a horrific blight on our souls as Americans.

The emancipation Proclamation freed slaves and yet they continued to enslave.

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II is a book by American writer Douglas A. Blackmon, published by Anchor Books in 2008.[2] It explores the forced labor of imprisoned black men and women, through the convict lease system used by states, local governments, white farmers, and corporations after the American Civil War until World War II in the southern United States. Blackmon argues that slavery in the United States did not end with the Civil War, but instead persisted well into the 20th century. It depicts the subjugation of Convict Leasing, Sharecropping and Peonage and tells the fate of the former but not of the latter two.
Slavery by Another Name began as an article which Blackmon wrote for The Wall Street Journal detailing the use of black forced labor by U.S. Steel Corporation. Seeing the popular response to the article, he began conducting research for a more comprehensive exploration of the topic. The resulting book was well received by critics and became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2009, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In 2012, it was adapted as a documentary film for PBS, also titled Slavery by Another Name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_by_Another_Name

Ya...that was so shitty.

[Motownman78]

233. For the record

He did not say they were "shitty". He stated that he can understand how JHan sees them as shitty. And just to add, everyone now knows being a racist is bad. Look at how the Nazi protest leaders themselves cried "We are not racists". The leaders would not say that if they didn't know racism was bad.

[JCanete]

135. Like I said, some are gone...too far gone. They have an emotional incentive at this point not to be

reached. I don't think we should be quick to draw the line. I think its okay to draw the line at Nazi, white supremecist, etc. That's fucking fine. Maybe we'll lose a few of the next generation who we might have been able to pluck from those clutches by denouncing their family...etc. but tactically, this isn't a big loss.

Most people, and I'd hope even most trump voters, but fuck, maybe I'm wrong, would not identify as Nazis or sympathize with them. People who don't think they are racists may in-fact be racists, and often are, but the math they are doing consciously at least, is not "person is brown...minus 1 point to their humanity." They think they are factoring other things entirely. They almost certainly have a huge empathy deficit that is reinforced by their assumptions, but they are going to reject the notion that they are racists, and if we don't distance their actions and thinking from their personhood, if we just say You're a deplorable, well there's no hand being extend there. They simply are what they are and they can reject us and that depiction of themselves or they can do the herculean task of, without even understanding the argument, going "oh yeah, I am a deplorable, but no longer."

[Cary]

129. Instead of being defensive you might try some introspection

Has the "alt left" offered any opportunity? If so, I don't see it. As I told you before, I was never anti-Sanders. I don't think I ever said anything too harsh against him. My position remains that Sanders and Hillary Clinton offered about the same positives and negatives.

I was attacked by radical leftists, for the most part. I was approached by Sanders' supporters who were not radical and asked to not hold the behavior of the radicals against them. I was never, ever attacked by any Clinton supporter.

I repeat: my agenda is to elect Democrats. "Conservatives" are evil. It's not too much to ask of erstwhile Democrats that they not aid and abet Bannon's "Clinton Cash" yet just saying that drives some radical leftists over the cliff.

[JCanete]

149. You've attacked me though, but then you wouldn't see me, simply because of my

vote as a Clinton supporter. You've actually questioned who's side I on. When I don't have to go any further than you to point out that that kind of behavior comes from both sides, then I hope you'll at least acknowledge that to be the case. Of course you wouldn't be attacked by other Clinton supporters. On what grounds would they have attacked you?

But just to be clear, in this thread I was only trying to demonstrate what it takes for people to feel hatred for others, and it doesn't take much. The degree of hatred is just a matter of having less trust and less empathy and more certainty about somebody else's nefarious motives. I wasn't suggesting, and it would be absurd had I tried to, that right-wing hatred, and NAZI hatred is the same as hatred here for either Clinton or Sanders, etc. But the mechanism for it isn't different, just the magnitude.

[Cary]

174. I find it odd how hard you try to make everything personal

[JustAnotherGen]

200. on point observation

[JCanete]

245. um...because in this case I have anecdotal evidence of you attacking me for my perspective, while

you make an argument about how Clinton supporters have never attacked you, which apparently isn't about you. In context, it makes a whole lot of sense, but I don't feel personal about it. I'm not making it about me.

[Cary]

269. The point of my anecdote is that from my perspective both sides don't do it

The radical left is radical because of what? They aren't more liberal on policies than I am. They have this idea that some individual is going to be better for them for some inexplicable reason. They seem to have this idea that they don't have to have a majority in the Democratic Party to have their way and they have this idea that if they can't have their way then it's best to allow "conservatives" to run amok.

Frankly I don't want to have any part of this nonsense. This is and must be a team effort and no one person is going to make or break the team.

I am not a leader. I am a follower and I proudly follow our leaders, and fervently believe that we have to trust them and enable them. This current anti-establishment crap is not going to work for any of us. It's a sucker's play regardless whether the suckers are on the left or the right.

[Cary]

124. Unfortunately that isn't true.

People are not objective and your claim here is naive.

[pansypoo53219]

112. started when she pointed out that 'vast rite wing conspiracy'.

[MineralMan]

7. Those who worked against Hillary Clinton, but who claimed

to be progressives, must own their blame for what is happening now. They won't, but they definitely should. We remember. We do not forget. We will speak out.

[betsuni]

10. +1

[lapucelle]

194. ++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you.

[lunasun]

228. Plain and simple enough for anyone to understand . Straight to the point. Thank you MM

[Eliot Rosewater]

261. The anti HRC agenda from the so called progressive movement, headed by Bernie

is why Trump is in the WH.

We could have withstood the Russian KGB agents on the ground flipping votes on election day, had we not seen so many millions hemming and hawing that Hillary couldnt be trusted, that the two candidates were the same, you know, all that INSANE nonsense that came from the PROGRESSIVES.

You and I probably figured people couldnt be that gullible, but they were. I dont know about you but when I saw the results in those 4 states I knew the election was hacked, too many of us for that to happen.

Regardless, the Bernie Sanders movement, which is how I will call it, caused this.

I think most of them are glad, actually. I think they think they can prosper in the chaos.

I wish I could AGGRESSIVELY criticize Bernie and his supporters here, but I cant. If that movement is not exposed for what it really is, 2018 will cement GOP control for decades. We wont live that long but if we did.

[Beacool]

276. Well said.......

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. Can we say that she was actually right when she called Trump supporters.....

"deplorable"?

[Bleacher Creature]

74. I disagree.

Calling them deplorable was WAY to generous.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

85. Can't argue with that

n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. You're correct, but PLEASE DON'T SHOUT in thread titles. Your thread is not more important. nt

[Honeycombe8]

19. Yes, that's irritating. nt

[ismnotwasm]

12. K&R

[betsuni]

14. K&R

[Baconator]

15. Move on....

Some hurt feelings are going to have to be put aside for 2020 and if this place is any indication, it's going to be a long election.

[boston bean]

18. No.

[JHan]

25. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

take all the recs for that.

[lunamagica]

153. That's right. NO! We will never shut up about this

[lapucelle]

215. "Hurt feelings"

SMH

[leftofcool]

31. Nope. Not hurt feelings. Anger

[lunamagica]

155. She WON! The majority of voters voted for her. Russia elected trump

[ciaobaby]

165. So if "She WON!" the hate and vitriol on this string should be directed at the electoral college.

[lunamagica]

171. Well, I agree with you about the EC. However, the vitrol in this string is directed

at the violent and murderous acts by trump supporters. Don't you think it is deserved?

[ciaobaby]

180. I absolutely agree with you.

I just think this some of the posts here have gone astray of the subject of the horrendous and hateful acts by some of the Trump supporters, particularly those who are White Nationalists, KKKers, and just out and out racists.
However, I have a sister who voted for Trump. I grew up with her and I know she is not a racist. Having said that, we rarely speak because of Trump and all the hate he stands for. She does not see it that way. She has been brainwashed, for lack of a better explanation by living in an area that is isolated from any diversity and listens to fox news. It is sad and hard for me to deal with, but she is not "deplorable".
So, the constant and never ending hate towards Trump voters and throwing out the term "deplorable's" gets us nowhere. IMO

[lunamagica]

192. I'm sorry you are going through this with your sister. I can't imagine how hard it must be

[ciaobaby]

163. +1

[mcar]

34. We're trying to see that history is not repeated

Ignoring what happened, and how it happened, does not help.

Funny, isn't it, how after the election so many- the media, the right and many on the left - were demanding that HRC don sackcloth and publicly purge herself and accept total responsibility for being such a "weak" candidate? Then she was supposed to go away and live the remainder of her life in shame and dishonor.

But, when people bring up other aspects of the election, including truths about the responsibilities of certain voters, we're told to leave it alone, put it aside, so 3rd party voters feelings don't get hurt.

Double. Standard. As usual.

[BainsBane]

39. It's one standard

Self first, foremost, and only.

[BainsBane]

35. Move on? People are dying NOW

If people can't face how mistaken they were, there is no chance of a better future.
The egos of the people who dedicated themselves to defeating Clinton and putting the White Nationalists in power are not more important than the lives being taken or the suffering Trump causes.

Rather than acknowledging mistakes, they work to compound them. They don't get a pass for putting Trump in office or for all they are doing to keep him there. They been proven wrong about everything, but rather than reflecting on that, you insist we not point it out so they can keep promoting the same false narrative that got us in this situation in the first place. The lies they promoted and continue to promote must be called out.

[LanternWaste]

37. If you are wearied of the conversation, it's incumbent upon you to move on.

"Move on..." is little more than another tired bumper-sticker. If you are wearied of the conversation, it's incumbent upon you, rather than the speakers, to move on.

[hrmjustin]

40. Tell the young woman Heather Heyer who was martyred to move on!

Tell the twenty or so injuried to move on!

Tell LGBT, People of Color, and Women who are seeing their rights and protections curtailed by Trump and company to move on!

No I will not move on!

[GaryCnf]

86. How ironic

The martyr you embrace was one of the PURPORTED villains called out over and over again in this string.

In March she had posted a photo to her Facebook page appearing to support the presidential run of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article166987992.html#storylink=cpy

[hrmjustin]

88. How does supporting Bernie Sanders make a person a villian?

[GaryCnf]

92. The word "purported" is important here.

Past that, read the other responses or any of the hundreds of other "Blame Bernie" strings.

[hrmjustin]

99. Heather is a martyr.

No one here would ever deny that here.

[BainsBane]

96. No one said a fucking thing about Sanders supporters

There were many millions of people who voted for Bernie in the primary and went on to support and campaign for Hillary in the GE, as Democrats have always done since primaries first existed. But they aren't the ones who set about spreading every bit of GOP and Kremlin propaganda to ensure she was defeated in the GE. Those who nurtured resentment and insisted Hillary was worse used Bernie as a pretext for their own hatred of Democrats.

But naturally you make this all about yourselves, because who else could possibly matter? It is that attitude precisely that got Trump elected. If the never Hillary crowd had thought even a little bit about anyone but themselves, they wouldn't have delivered the country to fascism.

[GaryCnf]

117. Total denial

How many posts are in here calling people out for calling Secretary Clinton a "corporatist?" How about calling out people who complained about her interventionist history while SOS? See, e.g., #4 and responses. Heck, there were even posts calling people out for "working against her." See, #7. It wasn't just the "never Hillary" crowd getting attacked AND YOU KNOW IT.

No, this was a great opportunity to praise Secretary Clinton for her prescience, but some people just had to make it about attacking other Democrats.

[hrmjustin]

130. We are not attacking Democrats!

[mcar]

138. Who is attacking Democrats?

My criticisms are of 3rd party voters, not Democrats. People who continued to revile and demean HRC after she was the Democratic nominee. Some of them left here and started their own website to do just that, because DU wouldn't allow them to call HRC the "c" word.

[BainsBane]

145. And you once again make it about yourself

Showing in no uncertain terms where your priorities lie.

How about dealing with your own denial? How about acknowledging you were wrong? How about acknowledging that all that shit you shoveled about Clinton was ill-advised (I'm assuming by your reaction that you actively engaged in it)? How about acknowledge you were wrong to ignore the very real threat that Trump posed? That you were wrong to mock Democrats as fear mongers and hysterics? How about thinking about the people affected by the violence--the families ripped apart by immigration raids, people of color targeted by hate crimes--instead of pretending that you the ones who are oppressed because people dare to point out you were wrong? Of course not. Make it about you and your imagined sense of persecution. Because the real victims are not the people of color living in terror from White Supremacists, but you. Don't learn from your mistakes. Keep making them.

All kinds of people voted for Bernie in the primary without engaging in the vapid name calling that constituted the entirely of the low-information voters' opposition to Clinton. They didn't all run around for months after the primary doing everything in their power to defeat her. They didn't mock warnings that Trump was unstable, was far too accommodating of White Supremacists, and represented a near and present danger to the country. To equate that with Heather's posting a picture of Bernie on FB is intellectually dishonest. Your view that the word is divided according to a primary resolved 18 months ago is fucked up, seriously fucked up. No other group of Democrats in history has done this. I supported Howard Dean. I didn't whine about his defeat for years on end. I moved on, like Democrats have done for nearly two centuries. I certainly didn't build my entire political consciousness around the fact I supported a losing candidate (whether Dean or others before him) in distant primaries. I'm through indulging that bullshit. Political tribalism is not an excuse for bad judgment or self-centeredness.

Clinton was right. Those who trashed her were wrong. Until you acknowledge that basic point, you will keep making things worse. And of course that's the key issue. You want to keep doing exactly what brought us to this place without ever acknowledging error. That's denial, and it's about the country, not just your bruised ego.

I am through taking lectures from people who have proven themselves wrong on absolutely everything.

[GaryCnf]

151. Since nothing I said

was about me and nothing you claimed about me in that diatribe was about me, I'll leave you to wallow alone in your projection.

Luckily, as Senator Warren explained the other day, you are part of a history that this party will never again embrace.

[boston bean]

154. WHAT??

[BainsBane]

167. What history is that?

Women's rights? Anti-racism? Just what history do you think I represent? The failure to elevate the white male bourgeois self above the rights of the many?

YOU chose to make this White Nationalist hell about the invented oppression of Bernie supporters. You then turn around and tell me "I'm part of the history of this party will never against embrace." Based on what exactly? The fact I failed to elevate your persecution complex above the lives of people of color, the poor, and the vulnerable?

[mcar]

185. I'd also like to see a link to where Warren said that

[GaryCnf]

206. Certainly

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/08/13/liberals-are-heart-and-soul-democratic-party-warren-says/k2KVBY4sfHl1YJELwqR5WJ/story.html

While not invoking former President Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton by name, Warren sent an unambiguous message that she believes the Clinton effort to push Democrats toward the political center should be relegated to history.

“The Democratic Party isn’t going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill,” she said, highlighting measures Bill Clinton signed into law as president that are reviled by much of the left. “It is not going to happen.”

[mcar]

211. Not quite

You said

Luckily, as Senator Warren explained the other day, you are part of a history that this party will never again embrace.

You excerpted Sen Warren saying

While not invoking former President Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton by name, Warren sent an unambiguous message that she believes the Clinton effort to push Democrats toward the political center should be relegated to history.

“The Democratic Party isn’t going back to the days of welfare reform and the crime bill,” she said, highlighting measures Bill Clinton signed into law as president that are reviled by much of the left. “It is not going to happen.”

[GaryCnf]

196. Just for you #121

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029349654

When you come to "save us" keep in mind we can both think and take care of ourselves.

Bye now.

[BainsBane]

214. Save you?

You clearly highly very highly of yourself. My opposition to racism has nothing to do with you. It's about standing up for what is right. I oppose fascism because it's repugnant; not to "save you."

That post doesn't in anyway address your claim that I am relegated to history. All you know about me is that my first priority in life is not Bernie Sanders and those who identify themselves in relation to him. But that's all you care about, which makes me seriously question your claims of being Marxist.

I must have missed the part of Marx that talked about the subjugation of the many to one powerful man. You'll have to direct me to the part of Capital where he talks about how class is defined not according to relation to the means of production but whether someone defines themselves according to a 2016 Democratic Primary.

And why on earth would a Marxist express outrage that the capitalist state (including Bernie) serves capital? And why would they rely on sophomoric buzz words like "corporatist" rather than offering a critique of capital? And how is it that a Marxist cares about a politician and political Tribe to the exclusion of class solidarity?

And if you really think ending economic inequality solves racism, you ought to read some of the literature on race in Cuba.

And if you're a Marxist, how is it that you can be so satisfied with a set of proposals that in no way address inequality but rather serve the middle to upper-middle class?

Now, some personal info about me. I grew up poor in America, to a single mother on welfare. I am also white, which according to Bernie means I don't exist, since white people don't know what it's like to be poor. My disagreement with him is that he talks about inequality but focuses his proposals and rhetoric on the middle and upper-middle class. I was told by one of his most fervent supporters that food stamps were enough for the poor.

I am sick to fucking death of bring insulted as "corporatist" and establishment by people who have no idea what it's like to be poor, including some who talk about "only" having 4 bathrooms and wearing couture gowns, people who own multiple homes or think $70k a year a pittance, all because they divide the country according to Bernie.

I've seen absolutely no attention to inequality in such circles. I've seen a focus on the anger of the upper 20% at the 1%, at least prior to the election. Since then, it's been a very different story. I find it noteworthy that for all the talk about corporations and banks, we've seen none of the post-election activity directed toward either. Instead we see demands to abandon reproductive rights and civil rights, demands that education funding not be need-based so the several hundred K a year crowd can benefit off the labor of the working poor. We see continued attacks on Democrats for the sole purpose of power, power they have proved incapable of acquiring through consent of the electorate. Your remark to me about being part if the past is perfectly in keeping with a view of politics based on power and political tribalism, and not about issues, policies, or class. You've haven't even pointed to an issue. Instead your sole focus is on dividing the world around a wealthy politician. You're so Marxist, your singular concern is power of the political elite.

And all this began because you insisted it was divisive to Democrats to point out that Hillary was right and her detractors wrong, only to show your determination to harden those divides by declaring me as belonging to the ash heap of history, all because I dare to value something besides one politician's career.

And again, the horrific rise of fascism or the victims of Charlottesville don't merit a moment of concern, except for the fact Heather had a picture of Bernie who on her FB. I guess that means her life can be considered valuable. I wonder what we might have seen if she had not posted that Bernie picture?

You keep focusing on political power. Keep buying into politics of personality and entitlement, ignore the fact it promotes the economic interests of the bourgeoisie over the poor and marginalized. Support the fiction that people making in the hundreds of thousands constitute the working class while the working poor and median income voters are the "establishment." Because when you declare as enemies anyone who does not put Bernie first and foremost, you target the poorest and most marginalized Americans.

[betsuni]

242. ...

[GaryCnf]

257. When rhetoric is unchained to fact

it is easy to launch into such rants.

While my gut tells me to respond to your fantasies about what "Leftists" stand for by expounding upon the TRUTH about what the "anti-Left" stands for, my desire to continue to be able to exchange viewpoints with people who care more about building a future for our party than excusing its past failures tells me not to.

Instead, I will simply correct the following non-exclusive list of false statements about "the Left:"

1. Lie >>> The Left believes in "the subjugation of the many to one powerful man" Truth >>> "The Left" believes that the policies espoused by Senator Sanders are, where they differ, preferable to those espoused by the former power structure of our party. For all the insulting insinuations that supporters of Senator Sanders are nothing more than a cult of personality, I think you would have at least some difficulty finding a post among our community here referring to Senator Sanders as "that noble man."

2. Lie >>> "[H]ow is it that a Marxist cares about a politician and political Tribe to the exclusion of class solidarity? Truth >>> Though this seems more about me personally than "the Left," I will be presumptuous and answer for the whole of "the Left." This accusation rests upon a two basic falsehoods. The first is a repetition of the smear that "the Left" is a cult of personality, as opposed to simply a political viewpoint different from your own. I understand that when one is firmly convinced of the infallibility one's own political beliefs, such an accusation seems the only possible explanation why anyone would challenge those beliefs. It isn't. There is actually a principled opposition to the direction our party has taken (with, at least for me, the exception of the decidedly liberal 2008 campaign of the greatest president in history and his necessarily pragmatic campaign of 2012) since 1992. The second is a repetition of the intentionally false and divisive meme that people who look like me, our LGBTQ friends, undocumented immigrants, non-"Christians" of every persuasion but most prominently adherents to Islam, women, workers of every persuasion who have watched their wealth, their income, and their children's future being stolen by the largest transfer of wealth to the 1% in the history of world, and all other oppressed groups are not ALL victims and do not ALL stand in solidarity.

3. Lie >>> The Left are "people who have no idea what it's like to be poor, including some who talk about "only" having 4 bathrooms and wearing couture gowns, people who own multiple homes or think $70k a year a pittance, all because they divide the country according to Bernie." Truth >>> This little diatribe ignores the history of the American "Left" in favor of perpetuating the intentionally divisive meme that Bernie supporters are nothing more than young white ivory tower liberal males just because SOME of his supporters fit that description. It implicitly suggests that the fact that people like me vote 90% and more for the inevitably mainstream Democratic candidate (indeed, I myself have never voted for anyone other than the Democratic Party nominee in the almost half-century since I first voted) proves we reject leftists policies when the fact is that we do not have the privilege to vote our conscience except when that vote is for a potential winner because the consequences of losing in our community are literally matters of life and death. In fact, many of the heroes of the fight for liberation, including Newton, Seale, Cleaver, King, Malik el-Shabazz etc., were confirmed socialists and confirmed agents of change and NOT the wearers of haute couture gowns you might find at . . . (well, you know what goes here).

4. Lie (this time by omission)>>> "Instead we see demands to abandon reproductive rights and civil rights, demands that education funding not be need-based so the several hundred K a year crowd can benefit off the labor of the working poor" Truth >>> Go back through the posts here over the last three weeks on the "we need to welcome anti-choice candidates (actually anti-a woman's absolute sovereignty over her own body candidates because this issue way bigger than just choice)." Count how many of those demanding loyalty to the party over the party's loyalty to one of our party's most basic tenets come from the same pragmatists who routinely cheer these anti-"Left" diatribes and compare that number to the number of "Leftists" demanding the same thing. It's not even close and yet you lay this at the feet of "Leftists."

How much more of this mantra - a term I use because we see it repeated over and over again - do I have to address before you finally admit that "the Left" has always stood by Democratic Party values and by Democratic candidates come time to vote with much greater frequency than at least some groups whose loyalty goes virtually unchallenged? Do I have to go through every line?

Btw, just because I am over being lectured about things I know first-hand, I've been to Cuba and not just for a weekend. You can toss out a hundred articles about the way we are treated there but I will tell you that it pales in comparison to how we are treated here.

[mcar]

270. Well said, BB!

[hrmjustin]

189. Care to have the courage to explain your response?

[GaryCnf]

209. Of course

Look up one post, click, read. My point should be obvious if you do.

Come back and tell me the basis in reality for that massive w****splaining tirade lecturing me about how I wasn't among those hurt by Trump's election and how I was responsible for it because I do not share the poster's unwavering fealty to EVERY SINGLE policy (because, just like all but a handful of Sanders supporters, I supported many of those policies) espoused by Secretary Clinton.

[hrmjustin]

212. Nobody lectured you!

[Hekate]

222. How ironic. No one brought up Sanders except you, in a comment about a young woman...

...who died facing thugs who would destroy this nation.

[GaryCnf]

249. You understand that the only

Last edited Tue Aug 15, 2017, 09:51 AM - Edit history (1)

people who buy this sad attempt to deny that the OP didn't from the very start directly attack the Left and by the time it was 20 replies old turn into YET ANOTHER attack on people who criticized Hillary ON ANY ISSUE and AT ANY TIME (which, surprise, included Senator Sanders) are those who buy into "It's Bernie's fault that Hillary lost," right?

No, for them, it's not good enough to point out how right she was about the disgusting core of Trump's support. It's not good enough even to call it prescient. No, no, we have to listen to another lecture about how it was the "unfair criticism" of Hillary from the left after this statement (which, btw, is a pile of revisionist history in the first place because the overwhelming majority of the criticism she received for making this statement from the Democratic side of spectrum came from the geniuses allied with the DNC who were horrified that she had alienated the white suburban voters they were courting).

If you can't see the irony in the suggestion that "the Left," the very "Left" exemplified by this courageous young woman who came out to stand against clubs, shields, and guns is what gave us Trump and emboldened these scumbags, then you need to look up the word "irony."

[betsuni]

251. It's Democratic side, not Democrat side.

[GaryCnf]

254. Of course

ABSOLUTELY correct.

Will fix immediately.

[Hekate]

255. The use of that term is what we call "a tell". Thanks ever so for fixing it.

[GaryCnf]

258. And here I was thinking it was called

a "cell phone."

But that's okay, when someone doesn't want to talk substance, I guess they reach for anything they can grab.

Take care.

[hrmjustin]

279. You responded to me and I never mentioned Bernie Sanders!

[Maven]

43. No. nt

[niyad]

45. "those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it."

"moving on" would be so handy, so simple, would it not? let us just ignore what happened, pretend it never did, and go on making the same mistakes over and over again.

oh, indeed, that is the correct thing to do.

[Baconator]

108. One of those mistakes...

... Turned out to be our candidate.

Learn the lesson and then move on. Clinging to the past is sure to lead to 7 more years of this garbage.

[Hekate]

225. Really, Baconator? Our candidate, WHO WON BY 3 MILLION VOTES, was a "mistake"? Do tell.

Care to expand on the ways in which the woman who WON despite lies, Russians, gerrymandering, bots, voter suppression, etc etc etc -- care to expand on the theme of how SHE was "a mistake"?

[niyad]

259. our candidate was a mistake???? got it.

[sheshe2]

61. No.

Tell that to Deandre Harris, who was nearly beaten to death in Charlottesville by 10 white supremacists because his skin is black.

[Baconator]

101. Nothing to do with Hillary...

[sheshe2]

133. Well, I think it does.

Some have a real issue with her calling some tRump supporters Deplorable. The men doing the beating are deplorable tRump supporters.

[moda253]

68. Excuse me? I don't think so.

There are a lot of lessons that have yet to be learned by 2016. And sorry but it isn't just "establishment dems" that need to learn lessons.

[Weekend Warrior]

77. Donate here.

https://front.moveon.org/

[liquid diamond]

208. Nah.

[Beacool]

277. Hurt feelings?????

No, I'm seething with anger. A pox on all their houses!!!!

[Mrs. Overall]

16. Yes: "Putin's puppet" and "Deplorables" were absolutely correct as were most of the issues

that she brought up.

[Weekend Warrior]

17. Shout it from the rooftops!!!! nt.

[MoonRiver]

22. Yes, and it makes me so GOD DAMNED MAD!

[KRISITNA]

26. She called them Deplorables she should have never apologized for it.

[Cosmocat]

55. THAT was my only beef with it

Democrats back down EVERY DAMN TIME, even though they have the high ground nearly every time.

Rs VERY rarely back down, even though they are wrong nearly every time.

Something very wrong with that ...

[NastyRiffraff]

27. I can't even express how angry I am

There are no words in the English language to say what I think of the people, including those who should have known better, who called her a corporate shill and far worse names for speaking nothing but the truth.

They own this nightmare. Period.

[ismnotwasm]

47. I will be angry for the rest of my life

It's not a destructive anger. It's an anger of the instructing kind. I have friends who refused to vote for Hillary, who left the Democratic Party. They remain my friends, but they have nothing, NOTHING to offer when it comes to politics. I'll talk to them about gardening. For me, Politics belongs to people who actually care enough to make wise decisions. They hate Trump? They helped create him. They can and do, talk to each other.

I'm done.

[R B Garr]

140. Exactly, when you say someone is corrupt and out of touch, you are not

helping them. That was no help. That is "the lesson" that is deliberately eluding people on this thread.

[BainsBane]

30. She was right about so many things

And the assholes savaged her. The country has gone to hell with their full complicity.

I also don't want to hear one more lecture by people who have been proven wrong time and time again.

[hrmjustin]

32. They saw a Nazi at the gate and still went after Hillary and refused to vote for her.

That is something I can not forgive.

[better]

38. This. A thousand times, this.

And it's this part that makes me fear for the future of this nation, because even if we were to somehow end up seeing impeachments clear out the entire cabinet and a good chunk of Congress, we would still be saddled with 60 million Americans who failed the "don't vote for anyone who tells you he will be a dictator" test.

That test really could not have been any more clear than Trump advocating for the killing of people on the basis of being related to terrorists, and asserting that our soldiers would follow such an unlawful order if he gave it, because he's a strong leader.

[lunamagica]

158. Did you vote for her?

[hrmjustin]

188. Hillary was not the lesser of the two evils.

[Eliot Rosewater]

262. Some wanted that Nazi. They thought if the Nazi won, the harm would be

so bad that their utopia could rise from the ashes.

Some wanted that Nazi simply because they really hate it when liberals lecture them about social issues.

[Aristus]

36. But her e-mails, and, and, and, her speaking voice, and , and, and, Wall Street...

Hope the Hillary-haters are happy. Look at this shit we're in!

[niyad]

46. and her hair, and her pantsuits. . . . the nasty woman!

[workinclasszero]

41. I and my wife are proud of our vote for Hillary

But look at the horror show president the nazi/kkk/Putin republican party installed instead.

[JCanete]

48. er....if this is the way the Democratic Party thinks we should be campaigning in the future,

and if we want to make it an us versus them, not between the rich and the rest of us, but between the 99%, the top 1% will be happy to continue to feed that divide through their corporate propaganda and the politicians they cultivate, and the democrats will continue to lose elections even as they continue to tac right to chase the electorate that our media is dumbing down.

First, she was not right. Assuming the worst in people rather than their best intentions is a good way to ensure that you will never be able to communicate with them and ultimately get them to question their own justifications for their actions.

Second, even if she were right, that statement would have been a tactical blunder. What a surprise that the media, loving this shit, would make hay of it. There are ways to win some of those voters, and Obama showed it. This certainly was not among the ways to win those voters. If she'd won just a percentage of them, maybe she'd be in office right now.

[ismnotwasm]

49. Defending them, while criticizing Clinton. Nice.

Not not only she was right, but many in the African American community tried to tell us what was happening. They got dismissed as "identity politics"--in fact that was going on as recently a couple weeks ago. No pass on this one.

[JCanete]

52. What are you talking about. You either bother to understand people, or we can keep trying to

fix what ails us with leeches. I'm not defending anybody, and there are a lot of reasons beyond this that Clinton lost, totally out of her control. But I'm not going to cow-tow to the "she was right" bs and support demonizing masses of people. It does not help, and it is a misdiagnosis of the sickness.

[boston bean]

76. Most people do understand racists are vile people. Others think they need to be understood.

Consider me part of the first not the latter. YMMV.

[ismnotwasm]

105. Actually leeches have their uses.

When I use them professionally, it's for venous engorgenent that will eventually lead to cell death and death of tissue unless treated. Who, exactly, were you comparing to leeches, because I'm sure you didn't mean it like it sounded.

[NastyRiffraff]

137. Oh please

This faux- intellectualism (tactical! tactical! tactical! tactical! tactical! tactical! tactical! tactical!) is really really stale. It reminds me of a pretentious sophomore essay.

They're racists. They're white supremacists. They're despicable. They're Deplorables. No, I'm not about to waste time "understanding their empathy deficit" or any of the other word salads you propose.

If anything, "Deplorables" isn't a strong enough word.

[JCanete]

143. Thanks for your thoughtful insight. Nothing sophomoric about reductionism at all. nt

[NastyRiffraff]

166. LOL!

"Reductionism!" Typical.

You're getting to be a parody of yourself.

[JCanete]

169. You're just too smart for me. I wish I could be more insulted by I don't know what the burn was here

[Eliot Rosewater]

264. Ignore those who are purposely trying to make your argument AGAINST nazis sound

weird.

Ignore them here, there are many here like that but ignore them.

Ignore the regular posters on Democratic Underground who never support the Democratic Party unless it is someone sanctioned by Bernie.

Ignore the regular posters on Democratic Underground who go out of their way to report any and all LIBERALS in an attempt to silence them.

[NastyRiffraff]

266. Oh, I am ignoring that poster

He was boring me.

[Eliot Rosewater]

268. I am using the "ignore" ploy to make a bigger point.

Here we find ourselves once again having to be VERY careful about supporting the Democratic Party on Democratic Underground

Bernie Sanders is NOT a Democrat, but that is lost here somehow.

[Baconator]

147. Have you considered an internet break?

Possibly an extended one?

I suspect you'd benefit from some time outside.

[Tarheel_Dem]

199. It would be great if you'd take your own advice. I know I wouldn't cry.

[Eliot Rosewater]

263. Why the intentional insult?

Has anyone reported this intentional insult?

[ciaobaby]

187. A question for you.

Who are you referring to as the "they" - This post keeps going back and forth. Are you implying everyone who voted for Trump or are you referring to Democrats who didn't vote for Hillary, or are you referring to White Nationals, the KKK, and racists ?

I ask because not all deserve to be lumped together.
I am sure many here have family members who voted for Trump, as I do, and know they are not racists and they are not deplorable.
They are surely wrong, politically naive and most likely mislead by FOX News, but they are a separate group who will likely see the light or perhaps by this time have.

[hrmjustin]

50. She was not right? what world do you live in?

Trump supporters every day prove they are deplorable!

No the problem was people who lacked the courage to call these people out!

[JCanete]

54. okay, I thought this was an election, where you have to win at least hearts, if not minds.

How the fuck do you think that is smart to smear people as deplorable? Separate their actions from the motivations and misconceptions that drive those actions. Otherwise you're feeding the beast that is going to continue to drag our country backwards. If racism and sexism continue to be effective wedges, the powerful will continue to use them while they pick our pockets. Why are you playing their game?

[hrmjustin]

57. So smiling and waving at them is going to get their vote?

I think not!

[JCanete]

58. No. I didn't say that. Obama pulled some votes didn't he? nt

[hrmjustin]

60. Voting for Trump was not about economic anxiety.

These past few days have shown that.

We need to call these deplorables out.

[JCanete]

64. to what end? Really. What the hell do you think labeling people "shitty people" will accomplish? nt

[bettyellen]

67. You're advocating reserving judgment on armed Neo Nazi? WOW.

No no no. Stop hoping we will pander to these troglodytes. It's not happening.

[JCanete]

75. What? fuck that. Look, there is a point where people are beyond return, or at least, a point

where it is very hard to find redemption. Usually if they've already gone over the line. If they've already done something so horrible that to question the math that led to it would be to make them monsters in their own head. But you want to draw a line and categorize everybody who voted for Trump. You don't want people to come around. You think they are stuck where they are, or if you do think they should come around, you don't want to make it easy. You want them to walk through hot coals to finally get to a point where they understand their own vileness. That shit makes no sense. Open the door wide and help people through it.

As to pander...please define. How am I advocating we pander to supremacists? I'l take one example, and please avoid putting words in my mouth in the process. Show me in my own words.

[bettyellen]

79. I never categorized every Trump voter, but I get that you need to believe that.

[JCanete]

82. You are objecting to me saying that we shouldn't be applying these categories and making it easy to

Last edited Mon Aug 14, 2017, 03:26 PM - Edit history (1)

discount people. So nothing from you on the way I'm suggesting we pander?

[boston bean]

83. Being inclusive of racists is different than being inclusive of those who

Face oppression.

Nice false equivalencies you got going on there.

I damn well will be against them and in no way is my opposition to them the same as their opposition to black persons, brown persons, lgbt or women. Please sell your soft shoeing of racism some place else.

[bettyellen]

90. Yes, it's exactly like the caveats the WH released today about the heroic counter protestors.

[JCanete]

94. soft-shoeing of racism? I'm not saying we need to "be inclusive of racists." I'm saying racism is a

condition of failed empathy rather than an intrinsic quality that is baked into people's DNA. I want to deprogram it. You want to do something else, and I don't think we're going to be able to win that way. Not when divisive rhetoric and a dumbing down of the American populace is in full effect.

[boston bean]

95. Those poor misunderstood racists. Let me get you a fainting couch.

[JCanete]

102. straw-man. Not what I said. I said they lack empathy. We need to understand that. We don't need to

understand that they just suck, end of discussion.

"Why do apples fall to the ground Mr. Newton."

"Oh, they're just assholes trying to clock you in the head."

[boston bean]

109. The lack of empathy resides on one side. And it isn't the side of inclusivity that is lacking it.

Please just stop with the soft shoeing of racists. Like they are some poor misinderstood group who deserves our understanding and empathy. Fuck that bullshit. For real.

[JCanete]

118. again, straw-manning my point and putting words into my mouth about the "poor racists." Point

out where I've said any such thing or shut the fuck up.

[ismnotwasm]

128. "Racism is a condition of failed empathy"

Holy fucking shit.

[JCanete]

136. want to expand or leave me in the dark you clearly think I'm in? nt

[bettyellen]

84. I'm objecting to you lumping in the protesters against Nazis w Nazis because it's bullshit.

But you're a utilitarian more than an empath, so it's not your skin that's being threatened. I get it. Empathy only goes so far, and you are not hated and under threat. It's all an academic exercise.

[boston bean]

87. It is really quite trumpian, wouldn't you say, to be like that??

Sort of like the 'many sides' comment.

[JCanete]

98. No, it isn't at all just an academic exercise, because I want to do what works here. I want to erode

racism. I do not want to use rhetoric that helps to entrench it. Where am I lumping protesters against Nazis in with Nazis? I"m not doing that anywhere. I have no idea where you got that.

[bettyellen]

107. I'm not the only one that "got that" and yeah, you lumped in "Bernie haters" etc upthread...

And what YOU think "works here" does not for the MAJORITY of Dems - women and POC, whose lives (unlike yours) are denigrated and threatened daily by these sick people. I get it, it's not your fight, so step aside but don't tell us "what works" when you have no skin in the game. That's immoral and self serving and totally lacking in that "empathy" you claim to have. You don't have empathy, otherwise you'd not suggest we worry about the feelings of Nazis.

[JCanete]

115. You are misrepresenting what I"m saying and I have no idea why. You are trying to claim that I think

we need to be sensitive to Nazis feelings and try to get where they are coming from, as in "lets really seriously consider your racist world view...wow you might have a point." That's a fucking straw man and unless you can point to something that indicates I'm saying that AT ALL, please move on to the things I'm actually saying.

I'm saying we need to understand what makes them believe what they believe...go to the root of that, so that we can tear it out. Basically saying that its the whole organism will only work if we're going to exterminate the organism. Are we going to do that? No? Then lets fucking figure out the sickness and cure it.

[boston bean]

113. Criticizing racists entrenches racists??? Oh yah. Are you fucking playing us here?

[JCanete]

116. Criticizing racism and criticizing racists for their racism is what we should be doing. Blanketly

defining people as deplorable is not. One is somehting they an change. One is something that they just are.

[boston bean]

119. Racism is deplorable. You quibble with that??

[JCanete]

121. No. What in my last post did you see that quibbled with that.

[boston bean]

125. I suggest you watch the video in the OP.

[bettyellen]

122. It's merely more "STFU about racism and sexism" because it's not my problem....

Let them spend their time "empathizing" with the root causes IF THEY want to work on them. lots of people talk about this- but no of them are doing a damned thing. They wasted their breath trying to silence us, but do nothing to help. What a crock of shit.

[JCanete]

127. I spend a lot of time talking to people who I know who are just fucking ignorant of so many of the

facts, around police brutality, economic inequality, etc. etc. They aren't bad people, they are ignorant as fuck on these matters. They've bought the narratives that are shoved down their throats in the Danville's and other white conservative circles of the world, and that bubble perpetuates itself, and is resistant to claims that "you're just racist deplorables" because of course it is...that's not how these people see themselves.

[ismnotwasm]

142. I COME from those people

Too many of them are unreachable assholes who are convinced beyond every argument that they are superior, that blacks belong in jail or Africa, that Muslims are evil, that women should die before getting an abortion, that women "ask" to be raped, that everyone in America should "learn English", that all "illegals" should've deported--in fact every form of racism and bigotry ad naseum that proliferates in the cracks and holes of American society lives in these people and dismissing what is best described as pathology as a "failure of empathy" is at best disingenuous.

[JCanete]

144. A societal or individual failure or incentive to not empathize. Of course its a pathology.

It is emotionally painful for people to do vile things to people they see as themselves. it is like hurting themselves. It takes putting distance there to do it. The work to be done is to get them to see others as themselves, but yes, there are forces at work that are resistant to that, and I agree that there are some who aren't reachable at all. I disagree with making that determination about who those people are with such a broad brush.

[BainsBane]

148. Whereas blanketly insulting people as neoliberal

corporatist and establishment because they don't support a particular faction's demands for power, that's perfectly fine.

[JCanete]

150. nope, I didn't say it was perfectly fine. I took care to point out that people have ascribed motives

to Clinton and other "establishment" democrats, just as they have to Sanders, etc. I'm going to hope you just didn't see that post.

[BainsBane]

160. the problem isn't just ascribing motives

It's the divisive labels, usually based on nothing but the fact they declare as enemies everyone who doesn't put one man's political career first and foremost.

And you are badly wrong about racism. The events this weekend should have taught you that.

I'd done taking lectures from people who have proved themselves wrong on absolutely everything.

[JCanete]

168. It's only lecturing when I'm talking? What is it when you're talking to me? I consider it

a sharing of your viewpoint. I have yet to see you prove me wrong on something BainsBane and it doesn't convince me otherwise that you just declared it to be so.

[BainsBane]

176. What is happening in the country right now?

What happened this weekend? Did you see Trump voters descend on Charlottesville to protest TPP or banks? No, they are white supremacists, racists, fascists. This whole narrative that they are just misunderstood and really upset about the economy has been proven false. All these demands that the party devote itself to catering to their egos is not only mistaken but repugnant.

All of this was evident in the exit poll data, but people had a vested interest in promoting a demonstrably false narrative. Evidence didn't matter. It still doesn't matter.

[JCanete]

179. Its no surprise to me that scapegoating works. That's what's been working since politics.

It is easy for you to knock down the straw-men that you perceive are the arguments made by Sanders or me here, but they are not the arguments being made. Catering to the egos of racists is not at all what anybody, aside from the MSM, surprise surprise, is saying we should be doing.

[BainsBane]

181. Please

We all heard the statements and saw the threads. I'm done with the excuses.

[JCanete]

183. then quote the words I actually said rather than putting them in my mouth. nt

[mcar]

197. Boom!

[betsuni]

203. Ouch ... burn.

[Eliot Rosewater]

265. And continues to this day, on THIS board, no less.

[Cary]

184. How naive.

They will take whatever you give them and use it against you. The only thing they understand is defeat.

[moda253]

71. I am sorry but you are delusional.

I really don't mean to be a jerk here but her message WAS TO ALL AMERICANS. Her message was "Do NOT let this man control the free world" for a variety of reasons one of which was that this man would embolden truly deplorable people. If that isn't an American message then we truly are a lost nation.

I don't see how we should ever... EVER have to apologize for calling these people what they are.

[JCanete]

80. I'm not suggesting we apologize for anything. Once she said it, I don't see much value in the

apology. It is still tactically stupid. These "deplorables" are relatives and family and friends of other people who think they are good people even if they disagree with them or are leaning in a different direction. There is love there. You don't win the hearts and minds of the others by telling them their daddy is a deplorable.

Of course she was right about whether or not we should let Trump control the free world. To say that he would bring out the worst instincts in people would have been a better way to put this than to say that some people are just shitty.

[moda253]

97. No it isn't tactically stupid.

She didn't lose the election because she called out deplorable people and every time we repeat garbage like this it takes away from the very real and very alarming reasons why our election was stolen of which were Russian assisted Psy-ops and information warfare and Voter suppression initiatives, and taxpayer funded smear campaigns in the form of bullshit allegations constantly over and over and over.


She didn't lose because of a tactical error in calling out deplorable human beings. If that is why she lost then she lost for good damned reason. However I don't buy that can of BS for one second.

[JCanete]

100. Um...I didn't say she lost because of that, and infact in my posts you'll find me saying that there

were plenty of other factors. Still, Obama won voters she didn't. She didn't help her cause here, or do you think she won voters by saying this who weren't already going to vote for her?

[moda253]

111. Obama was going up against Mitt Romney and John McCain

Both of which who many times were not well liked by the likes of which came out to vote for Trump.
True that voters that had voted for dems went for trump... and guess what... many of them did so BECAUSE they were led to believe that Hillary was going to.... wait for it....... wait for it..... that hillary was going to be 4 more years of Obama.

These people are HATE machines who she wasn't going to convert. Quit blaming the victim here.

[bettyellen]

78. You're exactly on the same page as Bannon and Miller here. Defending the Nazis is abhorrent.

If you were as "empathetic" as you claim you'd know why. But the "utilitarian" in you won out- probably because you're not on their list to oppress and exterminate. Pardon us women and POC while we say fuck those people who are trying to extend and increase the oppression against us. If it's not your battle too, you're not truly liberal of progressive. Human rights is a hard line.

[Cary]

134. Exactly right, IMHO

We used to able to sort out disruptors here.

[hrmjustin]

93. Are you for real?

Shaming them! You shame bigots JCanete!

How do you not know this?

[JHan]

110. +++++++

[OilemFirchen]

201. It worked quite well for Trump.

His daily use of invectives - much more distasteful than "deplorables" - to describe those who didn't support him caused him no harm. That included all other Republicans. He even lost the popular vote. And yet, there he sits, eh?

BTW, you're not doing a very good job trying to be empathetic with your detractors on this very thread. What do you hope to accomplish?

[R B Garr]

239. +1, Trump even said he would pay their legal bills.

After he told them to punch someone.

[JCanete]

283. you are right, it worked well for Trump. A divided and more hateful nation will probably cut that

way more often than not. It is feeding ignorance and not knowledge or truth. Do you want to contribute to that?

How am I failing at empathy regarding my fellow posters here? I disagree with the way they want to characterize too many people, although I understand the impulse and I understand how hard it is to do otherwise given what the people in question have either done directly or enabled. I may be failing at tact or sensitivity, but I'm not sure that's the same thing.

[OilemFirchen]

284. Do I want to contribute to that?

I'm not the one suggesting that we delve into the psyche of poor, disaffected racists in order to persuade them to come to jeebus. I say fuck 'em. If that's "contributing" to a "divided and more hateful nation" then so be it. FTR, I'm not. They are. It's really no more complex than that.

I brought up the participants on this thread to illustrate that your remedy is bunk. After all, though you say that you understand their "impulse", if you can't leverage that understanding and your empathy to convince them that they're wrong, how on earth do you expect to do so with a dullard whose only passion is his white pride?

[JustAnotherGen]

202. Why win hearts?

Politicians win my wallet on policy.

Hearts and minds are nonsense. Certainly one would have to be a mental midget to fall for Trump's race baiting dog and pony show. That eliminates minds.

Hearts? Only heartless people would vote for a "thing" that would make fun of a disabled American. That eliminates hearts.

Come now - we are all Democratics who voted for Clinton - we should be able to write "deplorable heartless" things at DU.

The Its that voted for the Bigly IT are all snickering around the dinner table laughing at that young woman's death. Maybe not all. Some might be sneaking around here. But - those folks don't even know the meaning of the word "sophomoric". It's not like they comprehend what they are reading.

[JCanete]

235. I hear you, and appreciate people's need to vent. I have grave concerns that it gets in the way of

the way we do the work of dismantling this nonsense when we misdiagnose the problem. I have grave concerns when perspectives are met with hyperbole and emotional diatribes over thoughtful rebuttal, or an attempt to actually understand the intentions and arguments of fellow DUers, but sometimes, venting is just venting. Shit is stressful. People are suffering.

[StevieM]

231. The deplorable comment, for which she quickly apologized, was a gaffe. It happens. Remember when

Obama said what he did about clinging to their guns and their religion?

That comment isn't why she lost. The FBI decided this election.

Actually, the deplorable comment didn't even cause her September dip in the polls. That was about her tumble on 9/11, ridiculous though that mini-"scandal" was.

[Eliot Rosewater]

267. And the KGB agents who have lived here their entire lives, some born here, who work

for software companies, who work as supervisors at ELECTION PRECINCTS where votes are cast and counted, they flipped votes.

[Skittles]

157. the racist Trump-humping assholes are a LOST CAUSE

we need to concentrate on the PEOPLE WHO FAIL TO VOTE

[Beacool]

278. Who do you want to "communicate" with next election?

The type of people who would voted for someone who called Mexicans rapists and killers? A man who said that AA had no education and jobs? A person who made fun of a disabled reporter, talked about grabbing women's pu$$ies, insulted all POWs by claiming that McCain was not a hero because he preferred his heroes to not have been captured. A guy who joked on the Howard Stern show that his personal Vietnam had been avoiding STDs.

You get the picture, the list is too long. Anyone who voted for Trump can go rot in hell, and yes, they are deplorable.

[Gothmog]

53. Trump has proven that Hillary was correct

[Mike Nelson]

59. Yes, and...

...this did not cost her one Deplorable vote. They were voting for Trump and did not ask for their votes. She also made points about the Trump supporters who were not deplorable. The media said she wasn't aware of this - but it's very plainly spoken. She said it very clearly and had the most popular message.

[BeyondGeography]

62. Hooray for bad politics!

Or do you actually think that statement was a net positive for her on Election Day?

[JI7]

186. How come thomas frank has nothing to say about the white supremacist

Things going on ?

[Hekate]

227. You mean the day she got 3,000,000 more votes than her opponent? Trump kept saying "rigged"

....and like everything else vile that he attributes to others, this was pure projection.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

69. It was not very smart for her to go after the other side's supporters.

That should have been the job of her hatchet man Brock.

One of the first rules of any competition is not to rile up the other team. Trash talk after the game. Not before.

Even though she was right.

[bettyellen]

114. Those votes were baked in- she didn't rile up the base enough. There was so much crap about her

Being announced or coronated, so much crap about emails- people were apathetic. Those fuckers were voting w hate in their hearts, and pretending otherwise gets us no where. She was never getting their votes. It's ridiculous to speculate she - or any real Dem- ever could.

[BainsBane]

152. As opposed to making dismissive remarks about

"the confederacy, less than "smart," referring to registered Democrats as other than "real people," and tossing around terms like "establishment" and "corporatist" in retaliatory ways. I suppose that was genius?

[Hassin Bin Sober]

159. I don't remember her doing that in the GE. If she did, that was bad too.

[BainsBane]

161. She didn't

The other thing she didn't do is mock concerns about Trump as unstable and racist. That was the stock of the people who put him in office, the ones who gave us this White Supremacist nightmare. This is their Fascist state, and they own every last death it produces.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

170. Now what are you on about? Who did what now? Who mocked concerns?

Less pronouns would help here, I think.

[BainsBane]

178. Take a tour of JPR

Look at the posts in the run up to the election. That's just an example.

[JCanete]

164. if your point is that a media can make hay of anything you say, that's absolutely true. Some

things are harder to explain away than others or resonate in a way with people that even their meaning is less important than the impact of the statement, and so yes, from a strategic position, there's no question saying planned parenthood was part of the establishment wasn't a smart thing to say. I think I understood what he meant by that...that they have invested their time and lobbying power into this democratic establishment and that of course, they are going to back that horse, especially since its in the lead and not backing it could have deleterious consequences.

But as to using the term establishment or corporatist...Sanders is clearly alienating some people with that rhetoric but he has built a following with that same rhetoric. I'm not sure you could argue that it has been ill-advised if it attracted people to his campaign. The Deplorable statement was an attempt of Clinton to shore up her base. She already had her base. If you are talking about the GE impact of Sander's campaign, I'd say Sanders campaign is a response to the long taken direction of the democratic party, and one bound to come, so you can't take his influence in a vacuum, even if in the end most of his voters voted for Clinton.

[BainsBane]

173. My point was hypocrisy

Outrage about one comment while justifying others.

Yes, I know he attracts people who are drawn to dividing the world between us and them. It's a tried and true political tactic. That something is popular doesn't make it substantive or right.

The deplorable comment was not an attempt to shore up Clinton's base. It was a gaffe she committed in a small gathering, only for word to leak out. Obviously it was a mistake. That is yet another thing you are wrong about.

And no, I wasn't talking about the impact of Sanders' campaign on the GE. I was talking about things candidates have called voters, and how some are excused and others condemned.

[StevieM]

232. I'll repost what I wrote above.

The deplorable comment, for which she quickly apologized, was a gaffe. It happens. Remember when Obama said what he did about clinging to their guns and their religion?

That comment isn't why she lost. The FBI decided this election.

Actually, the deplorable comment didn't even cause her September dip in the polls. That was about her tumble on 9/11, ridiculous though that mini-"scandal" was.

[George II]

256. "Her hatchet man Brock"? I don't think he was involved with her campaign after February 2016.

[SalviaBlue]

73. K&R

[SweetieD]

91. History will be kind to Hillary. She tried to stop this madness. But so many didn't listen.

[lunamagica]

162. I think I despise those "purity" voters even more than I despise the trumpers

Because when they didn't vote for her they did it with eyes fully open, knowing exactly what was going to happen. every tragedy that has happened since trump was inaugurated, every death, every family torn apart, the destruction of our planet...that's on them as much as it is on trump and the deprorables.

Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, are you happy now? Have you said her name? Say it : Heather Hayer. Have you seen her picture? Your have her blood on your hands.

Are you Happy now?

[jalan48]

172. I was under the impression that Clinton has said the deplorable statement was a mistake.

[BeyondGeography]

177. She walked back the part about "half" his voters being deplorable

Of course, all of his voters were left to wonder if they qualified. And yet, the cheering section here would do it all over again.

[jalan48]

210. Sure seems that way. nt

[JHan]

216. So it's more awful to point out deplorableness in america

best to shut up about it.

not admit to the truth of it because it was politically problematic. That remains your major concern.

The denial of Racism in America is the reason Racism continues to thrive in America.

It is a systemic problem. Most Americans would fail implicit bias tests because the rot is deep.

And yet the outrage is over the word "deplorable" in light of the fuckery Trump stood up for...

The criticism of "deplorable" is all performance art, no one could really object to the underlying claim because the data proved it, so they project their anger at truth telling to the person who dared utter it...despite data after the election pointing to "cultural anxiety" not "economic anxiety" being the impetus for a significant portion of Trump voters. And the refusal to acknowledge this includes people who call themselves liberals and progressives.

The trends were obvious before and after the election, see here:

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12933072/far-right-white-riot-trump-brexit

Even the Intercept : https://theintercept.com/2017/04/06/top-democrats-are-wrong-trump-supporters-were-more-motivated-by-racism-than-economic-issues/

So rather than acknowledge it, you sneer at a "cheering section", despite the truth of this administration, their aim to undo decades of progress and the fact that millions of people enthusiastically VOTED for this.

[BeyondGeography]

218. Candidates don't get points for compulsive truth telling

It was politically dumb, even if the point itself had merit. You weren't going to get those votes, but why give people another incentive to get off their butts and vote against you by insulting them? It was bad politics, which is why she walked it back.

[JHan]

220. This is beyond political pragmatism...

It's always more interesting what gets more outrage - and it's revealing that the main takeaway from Clinton's comments is how politically problematic it may have been, rather than the truth of it.....Again, criticism of performance rather than truth. It seems we like convenient truths because the rage last year was the appeal of populists who "tell the truth" , but it's only certain "truths" that get traction and are deserving of interrogation.

I accept her statement was politically problematic, but that doesn't outweigh the fact we have to grapple with the truth of it which should be our priority.. AND the priority of the Democratic Party.

[ismnotwasm]

219. I remember the "economic justice vs. social justice" threads here

What is happening in America right now is what we were talking about when we said you can't have economic justice without social justice. We weren't talking about it because we liked one candidate over another, but because the lack of social justice was the living reality of so many people. No matter what was in their pockets.

Can they hear us now? What does it take?

[JHan]

221. You can't escape it..

I can't believe it's even "either or" or social justice seen as less important than the other...and in 2017?!?! Racism is particularly pernicious because the country was founded on Racism, it's the poison in the system. It's embedded in institutions. All Trump did was peel off the bandaid to expose the puss.

As I said further up, most americans would fail bias tests. The stats are there, but the DETERMINATION to avoid it even after a year when Trump used dogwhistle after dogwhistle? Wtf is that all about?

[Afromania]

182. for everybody still litigating this shit

It only took

40+ years of republican dog whistle politics

25+ years of Clinton vilification by a deeply entrenched right wing media

some misogyny from "places"

gerrymandering and other forms of voter supression

the ultimate (and predicted by many) dog whistle politician for the racist set

a highly motivated base of people who had been propagandized to refuse acceptance that the world is moving on from what it was and doubled down on that refusal by instead are wishing for halycon days that never actually existed

hate for a black man that politely took their ball of bigotry and tossed it in the garbage while doing a better job than any of their god appointed white saviors

votes pinched off by 3rd party candidates that didn't have a chance and were/are really just republicans in disguise


and, of course

Heavy, HEAVY Russian collusion and interference



Despite all of this and being generally viewed as a flawed candidate the woman won the popular vote by 3 million votes. That in itself doesn't do anything for anything, but it does state the fact that there are more of us than there are than them.

This election doesn't need to be litigated any more.She did what she did, Bernie did what he did. To keep up this back biting insanity isn't going to get done what needs to get done. From here on out we we battle the dummies and evil doers by outvoting them, that's it. Squash this shit and go ahead and and get his co conspirators out of office.



local, state, federal
get them out, get them all out.

Both of the democratic candidates for president last year are our, and the countries ally. This even includes the dummies that voted against them. You know unlike the asshat they actually voted for who hates everybody that isn't kissing his ass.

[ismnotwasm]

190. +infinity

[mcar]

198. Such a good post!

Thank you.

[JHan]

224. ++++++++++++++

[Jakes Progress]

191. Excellent Post.

Not only true, and could also be used as a bot detector.

[liquid diamond]

204. People here

still give her shit for calling a spade a spade. They are deplorables.

[LisaM]

205. I don't care if the title of this thread is in all caps. IT SHOULD BE.

Everyone who's been a Hillary supporter for a long time should be angry. I am very angry. I look at the events in Charlottesville (and to a lesser extent in Seattle) and I see all the anger, and I wonder, where was this anger when once again, an election was stolen from under our noses? Where was this anger when Hillary called out the racists in the Trump campaign (other then directed at her?) Where was this anger when a stellar candidate like Clinton had to tiptoe around the sensibilities of people who supported other candidates because any tiny misstep she made was blown out of proportion? Where was the anger when her own supporters were heckled and jeered at her own rallies by people ostensibly on the left? Who can ever forget the pictures of that young women with a Hillary shirt running a gauntlet of people booing her? Or the woman in the wheelchair who had the same thing happen to her?

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTV-_pjkPSNCdVv2mn0iPO7yR4K2reAIhFd48XArR0-Xs6Z_pz2qA

[JI7]

226. what a repulsive thread

i'm not talking about the OP. but the responses and especially the ones more outraged over clinton's deplorable and other criticisms of the hateful bigots more than what the bigots are doing. and arguments which are pretty much what Trump is pushing with all sides.

FUCK THAT .

even after what has been going on these past few days people STILL pushing the BS talking points and in denial of the bigotry and the bigots are the fucking victims.

[lunasun]

229. Ain't it ?

[JI7]

230. i wonder why it's allowed to keep happening

and why posters who defended democrats have been flagged for review .

[betsuni]

238. Yes, same as "many sides."

[Motownman78]

236. Still, that was her 47% moment

I don't think the voter in Ohio who lost his factory job and who has a kid hooked on pain pills appreciated that he was called a deplorable.

There is so much hatred in this country. While it is true that we Democratic-leaning voters and people are no where near being as brazen with our hatred as those on the right, I read here every day posts of "Conservatives are evil" and "They can go fuck themselves". If we take too many more steps down that path, we become as "deplorable" as some of them.

I agree with a poster above who states that a person who was a Trump supporter probably is not much different from someone who voted for Clinton. Just what they consider right and true is different than your typical Democratic voter. I have found that the truth for most people is very fragile. Your truth can be mainly based upon your perspective. If you are told "Rainy days make you sad", you might believe that to be true. However, you can have a lot of fun on a rainy day as well.

[R B Garr]

240. Yet, the reality is that Trump was courting Bernie voters....

to stir up divisiveness.

"I agree with a poster above who states that a person who was a Trump supporter probably is not much different from someone who voted for Clinton."

Trump voters weren't Clinton supporters.

[JI7]

241. that's what Trump said on Saturday "all sides"

[JHan]

246. There is a massive difference between Romney's 47% and her statements.

Romney poor shamed 47% of Americans, regardless of their circumstances, as "takers" . Clinton specifically targeted around half of Trump voters for their bigotry while acknowledging the other half had every reason to be angry at D.C. and feel ignored - (including a worried father whose child is suffering from drug addiction)

How could anyone not see the bigotry from Trump last year unless they selectively chose to ignore it or were low information voters?

At worst it was a politically incorrect statement, which ironically annoyed people who delight in using politically incorrect terms, but the underlying truth of it cannot be refuted.. there's more consternation over the behavior being called out than the behavior itself.

[Beacool]

280. Well, that guy in Ohio is worse than deplorable, he's an a-hole for voting for a POS like Trump.

Trump made it clear form the moment he went down the escalator at Trump Tower that he was a despicable human being. Are his idiot voters supposed to be praised? They are a bunch of uneducated, prejudiced and bigoted morons. I have no sympathy for any of them. They foisted an abomination on the nation at large.

[Meowmee]

243. So true

I wish she was prez right now, the legitimate president, we wouldn't be going through this bloody nightmare. I thought she was very mild in what she said.

[Indepatriot]

250. If a pig had wings....

The facts are, campaign-wise, the Clinton Machine ran a DEPLORABLE operation. Hello Wisconsin! ,,,,Detroit?.... Pennsylvania? ..Why aren't we discussing how to clean out the Democratic Establishment that created/enabled a candidate and party that was so out-of touch with the electorate they couldn't beat The Orange Menace. Hillary Clinton ran a terrible campaign and lost, as many here predicted. Perhaps instead of still defending our choices of last years candidate, who needs no defending, we can get on with fixing the system that created the problem.

[betsuni]

253. Clinton Machine, Democratic Establishment, out-of-touch, terrible campaign ...

you left out neoliberal and status quo. Why is this comment still here?

[Indepatriot]

272. Refute any one of those assertions..

You can't.

[betsuni]

273. Can't refute things that don't exist.

[Beacool]

274. Hillary was only wrong in thinking that half of Trump's supporters were deplorable.

Last edited Wed Aug 16, 2017, 01:46 AM - Edit history (1)

I think that at least 75% of them are deplorable.

[JI7]

282. but right now that number would be 100 percent

[Beacool]

285. Probably..........

[Lil Missy]

281. Yes she was right. again. But she wasn't "PURE". So we got this orange jackass instead.