It's not hard to understand why the Black Lives Matter movement is less than impressed with both the Democratic Party and the liberal blogosphere.
If you count the number of Democratic politicians who hit the streets with BLM, if you count the number of Democrats (even on this site) who said it was a counterproductive inconvenience to commuters, you start seeing -- or are reminded of -- a Democratic establishment that's happy to humor the black community for electoral advantage, provided they don't get in the way of business-as-usual horse-race electoral politics with their 'uppity' street politics.
So what's the Democratic Party offering the black community for 2016?
On the one hand, there's a frontrunner candidate who, to the best of my knowledge, has yet to apologize for her 2008 plays for the white-racist vote. She demonstrated quite clearly that her support for minorities is politically disposable, and it casts tremendous doubt on her sincerity this primary season.
On the other hand, there's a candidate who, notwithstanding his civil-rights record, can't for the life of him seem to appreciate the "fierce urgency of now" when faced with black executions -- and whose concessions in that direction seem like homework do-overs of initially clumsy, deer-in-headlights handling or like the obligatory weather talk to get out of the way before pseudo-revolting against Wall Street with those lucky ones who haven't been gunned down on Main Street.
Then you have a liberal blogosphere in which many writers enjoy that special privilege of making fun of Republicans or meticulously analyzing horse-race politics. It must be nice to feel safe enough to have those priorities while others among us don't know whether they can walk down the street without being executed in cold blood. Make no mistake: Your editorial choices reveal your privilege and the wading-pool depth of your support.
So, anyway, at the moment, we have many in Camp Sanders complaining about BLM's "disruption" during NN (which shows that this bullshit against street politics actually extends far past the centrist turf where I thought it was contained). We also have some conspiracy theories tying BLM to Clinton that will evaporate when those who weren't paying attention during Clinton's "All lives matter" gaffe see BLM make good on their promise to disrupt Democratic debates.
Meanwhile, those in Camp Clinton are gloating and positioning themselves as BLM-friendly. Problem is, BLM isn't going away after primary season, and should Clinton secure the nomination as expected, it will be interesting to see how Camp Clinton's vote-shaming contingent responds to BLM's "Earn This Damn Vote Or Lose" (the kind of conditional support that's borderline verboten around here). I predict a lot of fair-weather friends will out themselves in 2016.