Markos created something remarkable when he created DKos. I’ve scouted out quite a few liberal blogs, and I like them all. But somehow DKos is special. The statistics say that Kossacks are mostly older white guys. Maybe so, but there’s a lot of juicy give and take. The more I’ve delved into the comments, the more I realize what a bunch of smart, opinionated, and diverse bunch of people gravitate to DKos.
I admit I am sometimes frustrated with it. Sometimes I think we’re too snarky. Too in-your-face. But mostly I love it. I come back, over and over and over and over. I love this place. So until Armando and Kos kick me out, I’m sticking it out. You won’t get any “I’m outta here!” diary from me.
But that won’t stop me from protesting. Armando’s recent diary about “Bernie or bust” bugs the shit out of me. Sorry, I don’t usually talk like that. What bugs me is that he’s threatening to ban people because they suggest … just suggest … that they might not vote for Hillary Clinton in the general. DKos is dedicated to electing Democrats, he says, and anyone not willing to support a nominee can go to … elsewhere. They’re breaking the rules, he says (I don’t know the rules, honestly … I’ve never seen them. But if I’ve broken one, then maybe it’s the rule that should go elsewhere).
So, Armando: does that mean that, in 1828, I should have voted for Andrew Jackson? He was a Democrat, after all. And racist though he was, he certainly spoke for people who were disgusted with the big banks. But that’s too far back. Let’s get recent. What if Donald Trump was a Democrat (which he could easily be, actually, in name at least)? Let’s assume he was our nominee. Or heck, assume that Jim Webb had caught fire, and he was our nominee. Would you now be threatening to ban people from DKos for barely suggesting that they would not vote for Webb unless he proved to them that he was reliably progressive?
Hillary Clinton is vastly better than Jim Webb (who I like, by the way, insofar as he deeply cares about income inequality). In fact I dreamed last night about waking up the day after the election and finding out that Hillary had won. I was exultant—like I was in 2008 and 2012—but somehow sad. Sad because I fear she’s Faustian. She’s incredibly smart, polished, and knowledgeable (with the best policy advisers money can buy, she should be). But to become the first woman president, she decided that she had to defer to equally smart, polished, and knowledgeable men who run Wall Street, the Third Way, the military, and our corporate economy.
All those entities can tolerate a woman in power. Or a black man. What they will not tolerate is a serious challenge to their authority. Which is just the challenge Bernie Sanders offers. He would put power back into the hands of the people rather than the one percent.
Hillary Clinton will be a reformer. I don’t doubt it. What I do doubt is that she’ll stand up to the powerful men who say “that’s too radical, Hillary. You can’t do that.” Much as it was too radical to make Elizabeth Warren the head of the new CPA, not only because Republicans Senators might not confirm her, but because the big banks wouldn’t like it (it’s in Warren’s book and Geithner’s too).
Will Hillary stand up, moreover, to APAC and Netanyahu and her own military advisors who might want a big war in the Middle East? Her think tank has already invited Netanyahu to a summit on how to improve U.S.-Israel relations … supposedly to commemorate the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, who Netanyahu lost no chance to bully and demean when he was alive.
Now I have to step back and look at this picture as a sociologist (I’m an historian, but I’ll try all the same). This is a very weird election. In 2008, there was a contingent of women, the PUMAs, who said they would not vote for Obama. It outraged me. Truly. But I think many of us Obama supporters understood that, indeed, Hillary Clinton was an excellent candidate insofar as she was smart, polished, and capable. And insofar as she was all those thing, the PUMAs could only think that we weren’t voting for her because, well, the country is sexist. I remember telling people that if Hillary runs in the future, I’ll vote for her; just not this time.
It was like, “we get Obama now, but Hillary gets her turn next.” Lo, in 2014, it became clear that Hillary would run virtually unopposed. UNOPPOSED. The New York Times told us that Hillary was a sure thing … no one else could win, nor would they even try. Hillary was heir apparent. Crowned victor a full year and a half ahead of the primaries!
To which I ask: when have we Democrats had an open primary wherein one candidate had the field to him or herself? When? Never in my lifetime. But of course she didn’t run unopposed. Two long shots entered the race with her: Sanders and O’Malley. Meanwhile the entire establishment had coalesced around one candidate. It just seemed wrong; it seemed like we weren’t being given a choice. We were being forced to accept the establishment’s nominee, like it or not.
Then, shockingly, Sanders caught on. He proved himself over decades to be an almost perfect Democrat. He calls himself a socialist, sure, but what’s a name? Nothing. The right calls us all socialists! Who cares? We’re not fighting the Cold War anymore. There’s nothing wrong with being a European style democratic socialist. The sting of that word has dissipated with every jab the Tea Party throws. Americans don’t care … they’ve heard that Bernie is a socialist, and yet polls show solid majorities choosing him over ANY of the Republicans.
Bernie is everything we claimed we wanted. He doesn’t take money from Super-PACs. He doesn’t bow to Wall Street know-it-alls. He cares deeply about both economic inequality and racial justice, not to mention gender inequality and global warming. He has been true to his beliefs his entire life, never wavering when some focus group suggests he needs to change his mind. And yet we are told that Hillary Clinton is the only electable candidate, and that everyone has to get behind her RIGHT NOW (the former assertion being explicit; the latter implicit).
Okay, back to being the sociologist. If Hillary Clinton loses the general because we progressive, pro-Bernie males (never mind the females among us) don’t vote in the general, the Democratic Party will be damaged for decades. Or at least it might be. It’s a real concern to me. I don’t want that! But I also don’t want the god almighty establishment—which Kos seems to have joined—telling me who I need to line up for. I will decide that as things progress.
If Bernie loses the nomination, then I’ll make up my mind. Likely I will vote for Hillary and be glad for it … but she and her supporters had better not take us Bernie people for granted. Don’t do the Republicans’ work for them (to paraphrase a recent, famous, and ill-conceived diary on DKos). Don’t tar Bernie so badly that he can’t win a general (and particularly don’t do it with phony stuff about the cost of single payer and big tax hikes on the middle class).
I’m sorry if that comes across as a threat, Armando. It’s the way politics works. People have a vote—and a voice—precisely because it gives them leverage. That’s democracy. If you want to follow Stalin and conduct a massive purge of Berners from DKos, then I will find another blog to love. But I won’t do it until I’m forced. I consider DKos my home, even if not everyone welcomes me there.
I have voted for the Democratic nominee in every single election—proudly!—except 1988, when I was in New Zealand and didn’t receive an absentee ballot. I have voted for every woman nominee my party has ever put forward … both for Congress and Senate (there are quite a number of them in Washington state). I have volunteered for their campaigns, in fact. And likely I will do so again, but not if I’m spat on and reviled and told I’m some sort of threat.
If you support Hillary, great. Your candidate is way ahead in the polls, as your DKos spokespeople announce every chance they get. Which makes me truly wonder: Why be so upset? Why not blithely ignore the critics (who, as you point out, will have no impact on the election anyway)? Though please note that your insistence that you would vote for Bernie if he’s the nominee, by God, is sort of meaningless if you think he has no chance. As well as sort of meaningless given that he’s the more progressive candidate of the two. It’s the reverse of the choice the Bernie people are face with … which is to vote for the less progressive of the candidates (as is usually the case in Democratic elections).
If you purge us from DKos, it’s going to hurt Hillary more than help her. So please, let’s just let things roll out and let’s see what happens. And don’t tell us we can’t use our votes and voices to try to push Hillary to the left. She may not go further left … she is likely convinced that only a Hawkish moderate can win a general. But it is my prerogative and duty to do what I can to make her a better candidate.
BETTER Democrats. That’s what DKos used to want. That’s what I want, too. Here’s my promise: I will absolutely not vote for any third party. No way. Never have, never will. But neither will I this second promise my vote to the candidate of Wall Street and oil companies. I need to see how things develop.
Finally, a note to Kos: you are right to say that polls about electability at this stage mean very little for a general. But you also must know that Hillary Clinton’s popularity is like the proverbial Platte River: a mile wide and an inch deep. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/23/us/politics/lack-of-enthusiasm-from-supporters-may-undermine-clintons-lead.html So don’t tell me she’s profoundly electable whereas Bernie is just a pipe dream. His favorables are like 85%. That’s nationwide, not just among Democrats.
I consider Kossacks my allies, even if we do bicker at times. DKos is my home. I won’t leave voluntarily. But if you won’t love me back, then please, set me free so I can find new relationship.