***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[gry60]

Still so wild to me. A politician could give me everything i've asked for and i'm not going out there to ride his meat like this. It's like these people forgot what his role is supposed to be and are just enamored by his persona.

Lots of people in the US treat politics like religion. There is no discussing issues; they want somebody they can relate to or someone who can make them feel. Most folks simply run away from anything political, and promising them things is the only way to get them interested. You start talking about inverted yield curves, the failure of trickle down economics, how they will not be attached to a job they hate with universal healthcare, and they doze off. It's hopeless out there.

 

[gry60]

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brie...d-stripper-team-up-to-raise-money-for-migrant

Oregon pastor and stripper team up to raise money for migrant kids after sweeping ICE raid

© Facebook

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[RustyShackleford]

To be clear, I'm not shedding tears for Bernie because of this. I'm just pointing out the facts as I see them with an eye toward encouraging the vigilance necessary to consume nominally "progressive" corporate media as it relates to politics that pose a threat to the status quo in some major way. We saw Warren get a taste of this same medicine in the debates and post-debate coverage because of her support for Medicare for All, as well.

I agree that Bernie has some semblance of his own media machine in the form of online leftist publications (and probably podcasts, though I don't listen to those so I don't know). And I agree with your characterization that they generally portray every other Democratic candidate outside of Warren in a negative light. I guess where I think we diverge is that I think their takes on those candidates are a lot more well-founded and accurate than the mainstream media's, since the latter generally just gives anyone an unofficial stamp of approval who falls within the parameters of establishment politics.

As for the response to the 2016 election, I felt like CNN and MSNBC especially were clearly playing up the racial animosity narrative about white Midwestern Trump voters. But more generally, the notion that racism functions as an independent ideological motor that exists outside of history is something we really need to disabuse ourselves of. Racial ideology can't be divorced from political economy and the social order that said political economy produces. Period. This isn't making excuses for white supremacy or absolving white people for racism, as I know you've expressed in the past. This is trying to understand the phenomenon as it exists within a particular sociohistorical context so that it might be more effectively counteracted and dismantled.

-Sorry but the Bernie supporting media fails the people they serve too. It is completely fine to prefer Sanders on principle but most of these outlets are not doing that.

Example: Cory Booker is left of the field on gun control and criminal justice. His Baby Bonds programs show a ton of promise and is backed by research. Yet most of the discussion about him is not about how he pushes the discussion beyond the pre-approved parameters on this issues, but about the fact he used to support Charter schools, he supposed ties to Wall St., and the fact he didn't right away support Bernie's plan for making America's prescription drug program Canada's. So he needs to be dismissed.

Kamala Harris, forget she proposed one of the largest progressive tax breaks for the middle class, she is a cop that locked up black people so no one should vote for her (we are also at the same time gonna ignore Bernie's shortcoming in the criminal justice field too).

The Beto hit pieces here laughable, that somehow him be affluent should have dismissed him, yet months later the same outlets were on some "its cools Bernie is a millionaire" steez. I remember one dude even wanted to paint Beto as anti-worker because he he gave problems to a union in his city, what was the union representing......it was a police union.

Pete's point about how broken our democracy is gets ignored because he is supposedly the chosen one of the elite as a way to just stop Bernie. Hell the New Republic had to take down a hit piece on Pete because it was how flagrant the personal attacks were.

They should judge candidates as a whole, positives and negatives, and make principled arguments why the fall short of being the adequate candidate. Instead I see bad faith argument, after bad faith argument, build on conjecture to peddle purity test all in the name of one principle.... "SANDERS MUST WIN"

Furthermore many of these outlets have a relationship with the Sanders campaign that leftist would never accept if they felt it was happening in the "establishment". Writers these outlets right hit pieces on other candidates, fluff pieces on Bernie then openly advocate for Sanders, hit the campaign for him, many even work for the campaign. The attachment to the Sanders campaign is way more explicit that what we often find in the "establishment". Yet no other candidate hardly bemoans this lack impartial analysis.

-As far as post 2016 there was a lot of ****ty coverage, open xenophobia was sanitized as "cultural anxiety" or "anxiety over demographic change". The mass media was way more interested in excusing the behavior of racist white people than condemning them as racist. The whole economic anxiety **** to was a fairytale though. Academics have exposed it to be as such. We both agree to varying degrees that the analysis has to include race and class. But that is not what Bernie in regards to voter motivations in the 2016 election, he wanted to erase racism from the analysis....

Bernie Sanders has defended voters who backed Donald Trump for president, telling a rally in Boston: “Some people think the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don’t agree, because I’ve been there.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...rs-trump-voters-not-deplorable-clinton-warren

We went on and peddled this nonsense too...

“Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with,” Sanders said. “It wasn’t that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic party lost the election.”

With another jab at Clinton, he added: “We need a Democratic party that is not a party of the liberal elite but of the working class of this country, we need a party that is a grassroots party, where candidates are talking to working people not spending their time raising money for the wealthy and the powerful.

And let put aside he is dead wrong about the voters, we don't even need to debate it because observable reality had him backtracking off those comments by summer to say there are "some people" that are racist that support Trump, but still acting it was a smaller minority than it actually is.

He also peddled the nonsense identity politics steez. Making it seem like Dems were ignoring real appeals and policy to voters and instead saying vote for me because I am black or I am a woman (the dog whistles to Obama and Clinton were clear). He did this at the same time the right was attacking "identity politics". He kept peddling this strawman until people start pushing back on the that there were policies being proposed and those issues have economic consequences for the groups that they affect. He bemoaned identity politics that he felt hurt him, threw gas on the fire with peddling a strawman, then in 2018 he excuses white identity politics when it hurt black candidates....

https://www.thedailybeast.com/berni...tes-uncomfortable-voting-for-black-candidates

“I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American,” Sanders told The Daily Beast, referencing the close contests involving Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia and ads run against the two. “I think next time around, by the way, it will be a lot easier for them to do that.”

Days later his campaign of course had to act go clean up his mess again and backtracked. But again, the condemnation only goes to the GOP politicians that push the racist attacks, not to the tons of voters that happily rewarded them for those attacks at the ballot box.

You bemoan the fact class often excluded from the analysis, which is cool, your frustration is well founded, but Bernie often tries to exclude racism. And when he does not include it he frames it like the perpetrators are just the a small powerful group, he routinely lets the people that give bigots like Trump and DeSantis power off the hook for making those decision. This narrowing of the criteria of who is complicit is along the of the nonsense the CNNs, MSNBCs, NYTs do.

Yet hardly anyone on the left media takes him to task for it, because of course "SANDERS MUST WIN"

Another thing with purity testing. We often debate because you feel it is ok to call people that don't support M4A, exactly like Sanders wants it, as people find with the status quo and don't really want to help folk. This theme is rampant in leftist media too. If a line can be drawn with Bernie on one side and everyone on the other, it will be drawn, and people will claim it is on principle (not saying you do this). Yet, when Bernie was out here supporting a pro-lifer....

npr.org/2017/04/20/524962482/sanders-defends-campaigning-for-anti-abortion-rights-democrat

Sanders pushed back against the criticism. "The truth is that in some conservative states there will be candidates that are popular candidates who may not agree with me on every issue. I understand it. That's what politics is about," Sanders told NPR.

"If we are going to protect a woman's right to choose, at the end of the day we're going to need Democratic control over the House and the Senate, and state governments all over this nation," he said. "And we have got to appreciate where people come from and do our best to fight for the pro-choice agenda. But I think you just can't exclude people who disagree with us on one issue."

I could only imagine if Beto or Pete said something similar about abolishing private insurance, how many articles, podcast, Twitter post bashing them from the left those comments would spawn.

And where was the Bernie supporting media during all this time he was being ****, and often using the same outlets he attacks now to spread his message? Not calling him out, but most of the time backing his plays, because 'SANDERS MUST WIN"

To me it is really laughable that the same outlets defending Bernie on the WaPo thing, that would be outrage when they see Sean Hannity on stage with Trump, will continuously behave in ways that go beyond what both groups do.

So while I am sympathetic to Bernie's frustration, I kinda roll my eyes at the situation because I know this is more about "SANDERS MUST WIN" and less about principled discourse and media coverage.

Like I always say, I am open to a principled argument in favor of Bernie, most leftist outlets fail their readers and don't make them. Just like the mainstream news fails their readers when they continuously throw out conservative talking points and framing like it is already the consensus.

 

[whitemamba27]

@nawghtyhare

 

[IATT]

@dwalk31

 

[IATT]

 

[aepps20]

EXTREMELY PROUD OF THESE FIRST GRADERS. When da yappas start singing, you can only trust your classmate. YOU GOT iT Dude.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Teacher: Ok kids, recess is about to behind, line up......Not you Tina, you're staying inside, you weren't following instructions earlier so no recess for you.

Lil Tina: Oh wurddddd!!!!

 

[boris]

@dwalk31

I hate this mother ****er.

 

[elpablo21]

EXTREMELY PROUD OF THESE FIRST GRADERS. When da yappas start singing, you can only trust your classmate. YOU GOT iT Dude.

 

[Belgium]

They called Obama a traitor, secret muslim, ... for establishing the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) with Iran.

 

[Wargames]

They called Obama a traitor, secret muslim, ... for establishing the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) with Iran.

I think this is a horrible idea..... so of course Trump and his crony’s want to do it

 

[Belgium]

I'm sure Trump will get right on that. Weintraub is the current FEC Chairman.

 

[Peep Game]

 

[IATT]

@dwalk31

 

[whywesteppin]

Tinfoil hat time...



hmmmm

 

[aepps20]

Tinfoil hat time...



hmmmm

HMMMMMMMM INDEED COMRADE. DA CLINTONS WILL DO DA PERP WALK ANY DAY NOW.

 

[IATT]

@dwalk31

 

[Belgium]

whywesteppin come get your mans

 

[frink85]

whywesteppin come get your mans

That tweet looks fake AF lol

But then again...

Anything goes these days

 

[IATT]

And this ladies and gentlemen is how trump got elected president

 

[Belgium]

whywesteppin come get your mans

That tweet looks fake AF lol

But then again...

Anything goes these days

It is a screenshot someone took of the tweet before Seth Abramson deleted it for some reason.
I can personally vouch for the authenticity of the tweet. While browsing @Popehat's twitter feed on August 13, I came across the tweet I linked in my earlier post.
At that time, I saw that Abramson tweet. It hadn't been deleted yet, thus I can confirm it is in fact real.

I understand how the poor screenshot quality makes it look fake, I just went with the first screenshot I could find.

 

[whywesteppin]

It is a screenshot someone took of the tweet before Seth Abramson deleted it for some reason.
I can personally vouch for the authenticity of the tweet. While browsing @Popehat's twitter feed on August 13, I came across the tweet I linked in my earlier post.
At that time, I saw that Abramson tweet. It hadn't been deleted yet, thus I can confirm it is in fact real.

I understand how the poor screenshot quality makes it look fake, I just went with the first screenshot I could find.

Looks real indeed. After some more investigation I can also confirm the authenticity of the tweet.






Yes, that is right, folks: Epstein and the Clintons together ran a child sex cult in that very spot. They would sacrifice young African boys and girls to the gods of death and liberalism in the hope of bringing back Cthulhu. We've known about this threat since the beginning of time and, thanks to Seth Abramson's tireless investigative journalism and wild speculations, we now know it is indeed true. The fact that Twitter immediately deleted his tweet means we're asking the right questions and have rattled the powers that be.

Only Donald Trump can save us now.

I'll just leave this here.

 

[frink85]

It is a screenshot someone took of the tweet before Seth Abramson deleted it for some reason.
I can personally vouch for the authenticity of the tweet. While browsing @Popehat's twitter feed on August 13, I came across the tweet I linked in my earlier post.
At that time, I saw that Abramson tweet. It hadn't been deleted yet, thus I can confirm it is in fact real.

I understand how the poor screenshot quality makes it look fake, I just went with the first screenshot I could find.

It’s blurry and the font is off so I was skeptical. Thanks for the heads up.