When minority voters don't flock to a candidate, we're told we just don't know enough about them and

[JCanete]

49. It isn't that white voters are a "must" do because they are more important in any way.

Last edited Tue May 2, 2017, 03:56 PM - Edit history (1)

white rural voters are a must do because they are hurting us all horribly, including themselves and we need to get them to stop.

Your issues are clearly not about policy here. There is nothing about the policies that Sanders promotes, for instance, that wouldn't directly start to benefit people of color, who are disproportionally relegated to minimum wage jobs in this country, and disproportionately dis-enfranchised and abused by our criminal justice system, which Sanders speaks to very critically, and by our predatory institutions that make it harder for people of color to pass down a legacy of financial stability and opportunity to their children, so free college would also be a huge boon. These are things that give some actual practical redress. Put more money and access to education in the hands of people of color and people of color will have more power to influence messaging and policy.

But there's no question, if the language loses you, then we're back where we started, and we haven't galvanized shit, which is a bummer, because then we all continue to lose. And Sanders may be failing on that front, in-spite of the fact that his policies go, in my opinion, towards evening the playing field, and despite the most important fact in my opinion, that he is trying to turn these rural white people against the very messaging agents that are using racism and sexism and homophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, etc. etc. to divide us even though we have common cause. He is trying to make the villain in the tale, the actual fucking villain. If we can get people to distance themselves from those messengers, we can start to undercut the messaging itself with facts and slowly building empathy.

And Sanders, to his credit, is trying to get these people to sign on to a platform that is supporting immigrant rights, and the poor and middle class alike, and the interests of people of color and whites alike. You think some of his messaging has been undermining of that support for people of color, and perhaps Sanders deserves criticism there for doing it wrong, or even thinking about it wrong.

As to me thinking that you have it wrong, I do, because of the reasons laid out. That doesn't mean I'm right. You think I have it wrong for reasons you could certainly lay out. You don't simply think we're both right. I do appreciate that white-splaining is a thing. I assume that it means talking to rather than with, and certainly implies not listening. For my part, I don't think I'm not listening. You might still say I'm not hearing, but I'm trying to. That said, i can listen, and I can even hear, and still come to a different conclusion at the end of the day.

Clearly I think white rural America has it wrong too. This isn't about saying they have it right, this is about breaking through their logic on the only grounds we can...their short term, immediate, self-interest.

I agree with you that calling Obama out of touch is a gross oversimplification. As the first black president he had a hell of a needle to thread. I will also say though, that as far as policy goes, he and Clinton were not my first choices for the White House in 2008, because they did just seem too comfortable with the status quo.

Both of them were attempting to shatter ceilings that are absolutely constricting to the kind of radicalism you can push on other fronts, so I sympathize with that, and think that Sanders, etc. should remember that when talking about what Obama did in office. I'm proud to have had Obama as our President because he made us, for those short years, a more compassionate and thoughtful nation, and for all the things that did not get done, and the miscalculations(I get thinking they could shame the GOP into bipartisanship by going that extra mile past the center, but that sure as hell did not work out), he did attempt to use his executive powers towards good purposes, and he was the first sitting President to advocate FOR Gay Marriage...etc.

None of that suggests that he should be above criticism, but as I already said, that criticism needs to be tempered with political realities that were unique to him, and as you've said such criticism runs the risk of alienating a large chunk of the base.