1. First, a new appeal for Bernie to kick out the Cool Protestors. The Cool Protestors live in a world in which the riots of 1968 led to the defeat of Richard Nixon, where the Southern Strategy never existed and where voters, thanks to the Cool Protestors' little dances, always vote for their interest. In their little world, the suffering of Mexicans and Muslims is really irrelevant. All that matters is their little dances and their pillow fights. If you think Elizabeth Warren is going to allow them to push her away from the podium and grab the microphone to make their Little Wayne performance, think it better.
As there is no suffering more important that their little dances, the Cool Protestors seek a break-up between Bernie and the Democrats so they can frog march Bernie to a ticket with Jill Stein, what guarantees more cameras and more little dances. It's true that Trump has explicitly declared who the scapegoats of his administration are going to be: Mexicans and Muslims. But what is that compared to the cool dances of the Cool Protestors and to their pillow fights? Right?
I am not going to repeat here all the precious services the Cool Protestors have provided to the Trump campaign (providing distractions instead of pushing the press to expose Trump's brutal ignorance on policy or, even better, the way he has defrauded partners and costumers who trusted him in the past; providing excuses for presenting himself as the victim, being victimization a very dear resource the Right has embraced multiple times in the past; providing him opportunities to validate discreetly his bigoted message before his base while directing his speeches to issues more appealing to a wider electorate, like trade; motivating Trump’s base when they make temper tantrums waving Mexican flags as if they were a bizarre invader army; etc., etc., etc.). And you may like Hillary or not. But consider all that is at the stake here and who the scapegoats are going to be. If you want change, let Hillary be a transitional president and prepare the way for Warren to be a transformational one. Joining the little dances and pillow fights of the Cool Protestors, which they have perfected along years in which, despite their temper tantrums, it's the Right that has grown in power. Let them dance to change the name of some street or to proscribe some flag. That's what they like the most anyway. And while they do that, let's build a movement to bring back section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, to give substance to economic rights (as FDR and Martin Luther King dreamed) and to make of America a country where character and not caste determine the future of a person.
2. Though I like Cousins, I disagree that it's Wall Street democrats who want Elizabeth Warren in the ticket to reduce her to a powerless position:
www.youtube.com/...
Let's assume that Hillary wants to set up Warren to silence a possible critic of Hillary's pro special interest policies. Would she do that by giving Warren national exposure? Does she ignore that one of Geithner's strongest critics has been precisely Warren and that Warren would not hesitate in criticizing Hillary if she betrayed the policies offered to Bernie? And it's not just that a Hillary seeking reelection in her first term and a legacy in her second would find it troublesome that her main critic is in the White House with her. It's that Warren, like Sanders, can bring the young vote Hillary can't charm. She can’t just push Warren aside.
But precisely because Warren could be a fierce critic of triangulation inside her own administration, Hillary might be reluctant to consider her unless Bernie offers her his support under that condition. Yet, the personal attacks must not be resumed because if Bernie keeps portraying Hillary as an unsavory character, then he loses his negotiation card because then his endorsement would become impossible or ineffective. More, assuming that polls before the convention showed Hillary tracking Trump by wide margins or an indictment happened, how can Bernie step forward to save the day if, thanks to the stupidities of the Cool Protestors, the friction between Bernie's movement and the DNC become difficult to conciliate? Fortunately today Bernie has had kind words for the DNC, which the DNC doesn't deserve, but that may make the future of Bernie's movement promissory inside the Democratic Party. Today I also heard Jill Stein saying that a progressive movement is not possible inside a reactionary party. Hasn't she been following the Democratic Primaries? As the Tea Party did inside the Republican Party for the worse, Bernie's movement can do inside the Democratic Party for the better, as he has proven already. And even if the final outcome is putting not Bernie but Elizabeth Warren in the White House in 8 years, the result would mean a step forward much more significant that all the years the greens have run for president put together.
3. As I have mentioned before, that national exposure would turn Warren in a formidable candidate in 8 years and, in the short term, put her in a privileged position to hurt Trump. So far Warren has been the person who has proven to get under his skin more effectively.
4. The infantile temper tantrums of the left can cost us not Kasich but Trump in the White House and Trump as a fascist force redefining the Republican Party. If so, forget a more moderate Supreme Court and, at the end of a Trump administration, his policies would be much more difficult to reverse than Bush's, not to mention the risk of apathy returning to constituencies like Hispanics.
5. And please don't get trapped by idiotic arguments. I have heard that Bernie should demand not Elizabeth Warren in the ticket but any person as long as it comes from the Left. That would be the most foolish and self-defeating way of burying Bernie's movement in a grave at the side of Occupy's. It's important that that person be a consistent liberal but what gives negotiating power to Bernie is his appeal to young and independent voters. Any face from the Left won't do it. It would have to be Bernie or Warren. And, as much as I would have liked to see Bernie nominated, the future of his movement is more important. And the future is Warren.
www.youtube.com/...
Sunday, Jun 12, 2016 · 5:21:23 PM +00:00
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Alfredo Martin Bravo de Rueda Espejo
This is the kind of news that we should be pressing the press to make stories about:
www.nytimes.com/…
This goes to the heart of Trump’s approach beyond his base of bigots: the faith on Trump actually putting them first if they vote for him as they partners and workers believed when they associated with or worked for that monster. The press is too cowardly to make that on its own.
Want to help defeat Trump? Call shows demanding stories about this article, share it with every one you know. Make it viral.