2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDNC Vice-Chair Resigns, Throws Support Behind Bernie Sanders
U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii announced Sunday that she will resign as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee and endorse Bernie Sanders for president.
"I think it's most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander in chief will be, is to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment," Gabbard said on MSNBC's "Meet the Press."
BREAKING on #MTP: @TulsiGabbard just announced her resignation as DNC Vice Chair and endorsement of @BernieSanders #Decision2016
— Meet the Press (@meetthepress) February 28, 2016
Hawaii US Rep @TulsiGabbard says she backs @BernieSanders because she respects his approach to foreign policy and avoiding unnecessary wars.
— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) February 28, 2016
According to an email obtained by Politico, Gabbard told her fellow DNC officers that "after much thought and consideration, I’ve decided I cannot remain neutral and sit on the sidelines any longer."
"There is a clear contrast between our two candidates with regard to my strong belief that we must end the interventionist, regime change policies that have cost us so much," she wrote. "This is not just another 'issue.' This is THE issue, and it’s deeply personal to me. This is why I’ve decided to resign as Vice Chair of the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders in his efforts to earn the Democratic nomination in the 2016 presidential race."
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more at link : http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/28/dnc-vice-chair-resigns-throws-support-behind-bernie-sanders
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Meldread
(4,213 posts)It was always clear that DWS supported Clinton and Gabbard supported Sanders. It was also clear that DWS was using the power of the DNC to work for Clinton, which is what caused the public fight between DWS and Gabbard. Therefore, why didn't Sanders flex his political muscle and demand that DWS step down as DNC Chair so that his supporter could take her place?
Clinton has thrown around her weight since the beginning and knows how to use her power to get what she wants. This is why Sanders is losing, because he doesn't know how to flex his political muscles to get what he wants. I've always said that nice people make poor leaders and even worse revolutionaries, and this makes Sanders unsuited for both roles.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)his people will be able to handle her. Who knows, with her ambition she may be your next candidate for president. I don't think anyone should wait for her to inherit Bernie's mantle, though. She is clearly not a patient woman.
FangedNoumenom
(145 posts)
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)Hortensis
(58,785 posts)But, frankly, I doubt Bernie would consider her for a moment. They're both in Congress, and he's likely to know everything you can find on line and a lot more.
FangedNoumenom
(145 posts)However the rumor had been going around that Gabbard is on the list of running mates for Bernie, and this recent news seems to corroborate that.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)Democrats need ambitious people that are willing to take risks and push the party forward. Gabbard has some problematic things in her past that make me squeamish, but that is beside the point from a Sanders perspective. She was a tool that he could have used. He failed to do it. That is a mark on his ability to wield political power.
One of the reasons he has done so poorly on foreign policy, is because early on Clinton sent out the message that any foreign policy adviser that wanted access to her White House had best not advise any of her opponents campaigns. This meant that Sanders had no serious foreign policy advisers while Clinton had an absurd number on her payroll.
This is how politics is played. Sanders isn't playing the game. He has always waved his hands and believed in some magical unicorn nonsense regarding a grassroots revolution. All he has simply done is tap into my generations highly liberal leanings. However, THAT WAS ALREADY THERE. His job as a leader was to channel and direct that energy and grassroots strength into political power. This is what he has failed to do.
The DWS situation was a defining moment for Sanders. It was clear that she was in the tank for Hillary, and he did nothing. He let himself be walked on as if he was a doormat.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Some people are useful only to themselves, until they self destruct. Gabbard elevated herself very fast and crashed very fast. Now she's moving to a new camp for a new try.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)Sanders styles himself as the leader of a revolution. Revolutionaries use the weapons they have at their disposal. If she proved difficult to handle, or didn't know her place in the pecking order, she could have been discarded if necessary. However, climbers like her want to attach themselves to people with power. If Sanders had effectively used what leverage and power he had, and it looked like he was going to be President, Gabbard would have kept her place in line. She would have wanted rewards for her loyalty, and she should have been rewarded accordingly for doing her duty.
This is the problem. Sanders never used any of his influence or power at all. He was--and is--a very weak leader. Yes, he says all the right things. He presses all the right buttons, but he has always lacked the ability to truly deliver. Now we are watching his campaign crash and burn as a result.
Gabbard is jumping ship from the DNC and officially attaching herself to Sanders now, because she knows she has zero chance with Clinton. That bridge is already burned, the Clinton's do not forget the type of insubordination that she showed within DNC. Therefore, she hopes to create for herself some type of position as an outsider if Hillary takes the Oval Office. She is likely eyeing a Grayson type position in the party--hoping to become a liberal truth teller popular with the base. She is hoping to cash in what she can at this moment before it is too late.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)would attach himself to a person without principle. Or be half naive enough to do so. And I don't see him as a very weak leader. Was this always your opinion?
Gabbard's record suggests she could be three times the problem Palin ever was to McCain. Palin was narrow-minded and ignorant as two bags of broken hammers, and she blew up defensively in public after being stressed beyond her abilities, but she didn't use a knife on him.
As for a Grayson-type position, IMO Grayson's a loose flywheel who ruined a good thing for himself and is now fighting for his political life -- alone. He has made so many stupid, avoidable mistakes and alienated so many colleagues that he is probably the very last model an ambitious politician, honorable or corrupt, should copy. All the calls for reform and taking care of the people aren't worth squat if you can't stay in office and make things happen.
Meldread
(4,213 posts)This is precisely why liberals fail to win. This is the difference between the Real Left and the Faux Left. Throwing around the concept of principles is silly when you are trying to win a war. This is the problem. Sanders does not see the far right and those who associate with it or compromise with it as an existential threat. He sees the Conservatives as merely political opponents who are at worst misguided individuals, rather than the enemies of our fundamental core values and principles.
As a result, we find ourselves in this discussion about principles. When we worry about principles that are not relevant to our victory, we should search ourselves for our real political position and the outcome of it: passivity. In other words, an individual would rather be afraid to do what is necessary to win, than to do something that they might regard as unprincipled. Therefore, they choose to forfeit to the other side, a side who has no such moral hangups. These are the individuals Jacques Maritain referred to in his statement, "The fear of soiling ourselves by entering the context of history is not virtue, but a way of escaping virtue."
These are the well meaning white clergy who wrote Martin Luther King Jr. as he was held up in a prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama. They were the well meaning non-Jews and Heterosexuals who pulled down their blinds and closed their windows as Jews, Gay Men, and others were dragged off to Concentration camps, even as they cursed the "evil Nazi's" in secret.
There are also the people who criticize those who take action. For those who opposed Nazi occupation, they joined the underground Resistance, and they adopted the tactics of assassination, terror, property destruction, the bombing of tunnels, the bombing of trains, kidnapping enablers and Nazi officials, and adopted whatever other tactics were necessary to defeat the Nazis. To those who genuinely opposed the Nazi's they were and are regarded as heroes, selfless individuals, patriotic idealists, and individuals willing to lay down their lives for their moral convictions. To the Nazi's they were seen as lawless terrorists, assassins, saboteurs, and murderous monsters who lacked any ethics at all as they did not adhere to some mythical rules about war. However, the truth of the matter is neither side was concerned about any value except for victory. It was a life or death struggle.
Similarly, those who opposed the actions of the Civil Rights Movement criticized Martin Luther King Jr. He was purposefully directing people to disobey the law, to disrupt businesses, and to agitate against the government. Some individuals, not liking the tactic of non-violence, threatened to become violent. Some individuals rioted and some individuals murdered. Those who opposed Martin Luther King Jr. saw him as a man who was stirring all of this up in society, that he was the cause of these problems, and they acted accordingly to try and reestablish the status quo. Meanwhile, many "allies" sat on the sidelines telling him that he needed to hold back, to simmer down, to wait, to slow things down before they got too far out of hand.
You see, there are two types of liberals. There are the liberals that get things done, and then there are the spectators. There will always be spectators on the sidelines, shaking their heads, lacking the courage to do what needs to be done. They are always more concerned about their own social stability, their own security within society, afraid of how they might look or appear to others, rather than doing what needs to be done to bring justice--true justice--to those that deserve it.
This is something that many in the "Sanders Revolution", including Sanders himself, have failed to understand.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Are you speaking of me? If not, who?
Meldread
(4,213 posts)After all, my words didn't end after the first line. I defined who I considered to be the faux left. You can decide whether or not it applies to yourself or others. I wasn't making a direct accusation one way or another, but rather stating my opinion of the difference between different parts of the movement in general.
So, my advice is to go back, read what I wrote in its entirety, and then respond to that.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)This general election in November HAS to be won. If he'd done that, he would turn off likely Clinton voters, whom we need in order to win this thing. We need every voter we can get, and we need to apply overwhelming force, to help put down any actual or attempted efforts to monkey with the vote. We need to win by a margin that can't be overcome without big-time fraud. (I still don't trust the electronic machines). Perhaps there are other reasons or theories.
FangedNoumenom
(145 posts)What a concept! 
Meldread
(4,213 posts)The Democrats would have begrudgingly unified behind Sanders, especially with Donald Trump as the alternative. His threat from the Clinton wing of the party was never the fact that they wouldn't support him in the General Election, it was the fact that they would have undermined him once in the White House. That is why you make a clear example of someone like DWS, to send a message to other Clintonites that if you step out of line, Sanders would mount your head on a wall as a trophy.
This is something I could never stand. Sanders constantly throws around the word Revolution, but it is the most milk-toast Revolution I have ever seen in my life. Revolutions are not civilized affairs, where people meekly discuss their differences. They are, by definition, an attempt to overthrow a ruling establishment. If successful, the old guard either falls in line or they get purged. This was the only way a Sanders Revolution, if successful, could have ended. Yet, it was clear to me from the moment he dropped the ball with DWS that he didn't have what it took to actually lead the liberal Revolution and take over of the Democratic Party. Therefore, had he been successful and become President, he ran the risk of setting back the broader movement.
One would have thought that Sanders, having lived through the 1960's, would at least be familiar with the work of Alinsky.
Mike__M
(1,052 posts)Something's not right here.
We've been told that Bernie is a one-issue candidate, but this isn't that one issue. Is someone lying?
Eric J in MN
(35,619 posts)Gabbard implied Hillary Clinton would get us into a war.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)WhaTHellsgoingonhere
(5,252 posts)rounds. I saw her on IIRC the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She's pretty bold and had no problem speaking her mind even if it meant making DWS and the DNC look bad.
Keep an eye on her 
Meldread
(4,213 posts)She is rather forceful and strong in her words. She doesn't equivocate. I liked the interviews I've seen her give. She is certainly a rising star in the party. However, she is going to hit hard times once Clinton takes the White House. The Clinton's have already sent out signals to everyone that if they endorsed or supported her rivals there would be retaliations.
