What is Wrong with the Democrats?

[Phoebe]

I would like to know the answer to this question. I received a survey in the mail from them, which was another way of asking for money. The survey outlines all the things that might be important issues for me, the registered independent likely voter. Apart from some very generic stuff about climate change, and meaningless platitudes about access to health care and child care, not one of those issues were my issues. So another way of putting the question might be, what is wrong with me, that my issues are so weird. But I don't think they're weird. Democrats should be having an absolute field day right now, with an opposition that is doing such an astoundingly bad job of nearly everything. It should be so easy to occupy the "voice of reason" post and set up a very, very big tent for anyone who feels like "I don't want millions of people to die senselessly in a preventable war" and "I generally want my community and nation and all the other people in it, no matter how poor, liberal, or brown, to fare well and have a good life and not be poisoned directly by their drinking water or shot to death for no reason, etc, etc." Those two statements seem to neatly divide the Trump Supporters in my town from, well, everyone else of any political persuasion.

However, what do we get from Democrats instead? We get internecine warfare over whether Bernie Sanders should be allowed to endorse a guy who has worked his entire life for progressive causes and is running in a mayor's race against a Republican endorsed by Scott Walker. The reason they opposed the guy, btw, was based on a complete, radical misunderstanding of his record as a state legislator in a tomato-red state where the only way to prevent the most conservative legislators from re-enacting the Handmaid's Tale might just be to arrange a slightly less draconian compromise, from time to time. The identity-politics and purity-tests are going to kill these idiots, and this is NOT THE TIME for idiocy among Democrats. My God, we cannot afford this.

[poorpete]

Bernie has been getting by doubting progressive credentials of half the democratic party, and he's finally getting a taste of the outrage culture and it makes me happy. Even though I think he has every right to support a candidate who does not 100% adhere to his or the party's message.

Purity tests made the right go crazy, and it's starting to do the same to the left.

[Phoebe]

This is what I'm talking about; this is why I don't give one tiny crap about changing the racist hearts and irrational minds of Trump supporters. The sane people still prevail in numbers, despite the relentless gerrymandering of districts, and by God it should be an all-out effort to get them to vote. If they vote, their candidates will win. Registering young people to vote is my #1 side project for next year. It has to happen or we will be doomed to this. And there is no time for your bullshit identity politics, Democrats. There is only time for "everyone who doesn't want to be on a sinking ship, forced to watch while a tiny handful of super wealthy and heartless people utterly trash our country to serve their selfish ends". We are all fucked, basically, and people still riding the Trump train are not going to jump off it just because some pleasant moderate candidate comes along soothing their feelings and understanding their shitty thinking.

[Stan]

[Phoebe]

I just hope they really see it, and realize if you're a moderate Republican just going along with this out of party loyalty, you're lying in bed with people who actively seeking to put Muslims in internment camps. That's the latest meme being trotted out.

[Mike]

Yes. Samantha Bee played a clip of Fox & Friends, where four of them sat around unironically discussing the idea of rounding up Muslims. Exact quotes:

"Is it time to bring back the surveillance of mosques?"

"The only thing you can do Mark, is go into these areas and do pre-arrests. 'I'm not sure what you're up to. I cannot take the risk. Come with me.'"

And lastly, some British dude advocating interment: "With the IRA, we had internment without trial, but now, because of political correctness in the last 20 years, everyone says, 'Oooh no, you can't do that--that's Islamophobic.'"

[Phoebe]

Yep, it's a soft roll out. Nauseating. They're deporting people all the time, btw. High school students with no criminal record, mothers and fathers separated from kids, and so on. So when this comes, I expect the same lack of publicity. But we knew this was coming since the campaign! Republicans are ok with this - it's not just Donald Trump. Farage is Donald's Brexit friend, also weirdly connected to Stone and Assange, and the Guardian reported he was a person of interest in the Russia investigation.

[bralbovsky]

The same thing happened to the Dems that happened to the unions. They became more about their own self preservation than about people. While they used to just e scattered and bipolar, now they are just as fatassed and corporate as the Reps.

If they would kick out the smarmy bureaucratic microbes that have taken over, they might have a chance, but it doesn't look good.