2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: To my fellow Hillary supporters: this isn't the time to gloat. [View all]Uponthegears
(1,499 posts)There is a segment of the left which is truly (and even violently) revolutionary. Bernie, who is merely liberal, would not satisfy them any more than did FDR (a fact to which I can personally attest, being part of that segment until relatively late in my life).
That, however, doesn't change the failure of incrementalism to deliver fundamental change despite having over a half century to do so. Here's one tiny example, hopefully a non-controversial one. The VRA has been around for more than 50 years. At the time it was passed, southern states were using poll taxes, literacy requirements etc. to TRY to stop people like my parents from voting. They were gerrymandering congressional districts to dilute our voting power and keep people who looked like us out of political office. After the Act, we, with considerable effort, were able to strike the most onerous obstacles. Where are we now, though?
Using facially neutral voter ID provisions, states (far more states than had poll taxes) have disenfranchised the same voters they did before and no court will stop them. What's more, because too many people want to focus on "how far we have come" instead of how little we have come, the Supreme Court was able pass off the myth of a post-racial electoral world and basically guarantee that the statutes will stand. I won't even talk about how they redid districts to create token representation with no real power for change.
What's more, all of this happened despite a Herculean effort by our President to stop it.
We have to do more.