Jon Chait on the impact of the soi-disant democratic socialist on the Democratic Party.
Bernie Sanders Is the Future of the Democratic Party, Right? Not So Fast.
As the competitive phase of the Democratic presidential primary has wound down, the action now moves to the nebulous contest to define the terms of Hillary Clinton’s victory and what, if anything, she owes to Bernie Sanders.
It is a little strange, as Ed Kilgore points out, that the coverage of this question treats Sanders as the victor and Clinton as the vanquished.
The discussion hinges on the premise that Sanders, even while losing the fight for delegates, has won the war of ideas within the party.
The premise is shared by such disparate figures as economically moderate Matthew Yglesias (“Sanders's basic vision of a party with a more sharply ideological message on economic issues is very likely to dominate in the future”) and ecstatic radical Corey Robin, who sees in Sanders’s success the rise of socialism that will sweep liberalism into the dustbin of history.
But this assumes that Sanders’s appeal was mostly or even entirely ideological.
That is probably wrong.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
How the Bernie fans at Salon really feel
We must shame dumb Trump fans: The white working class are not victims
A sample.
The intellectual deformities and disfigurements of the average Trump supporter should provoke universal disgust, but a fun game for phonies has begun to sweep the liberal world of commentary.
Some writers, in their desire to play dress-up as Woody Guthrie, have taken to writing maudlin essays on the victimhood and pitiable state of Trump fans.
People who applaud an inarticulate blowhard’s description of Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” cheer for proposals to ban Muslims from entry into the United States, and laugh at mockery of women’s looks and a disabled reporter’s mannerisms, are actually deserving of sympathy.
According to the Guthrie poseurs, if liberals fail to cry crocodile tears for their idealized version of the “white, working class,” they are actually responsible for the putrid rise of Trump.
And the BLM rioters in Baltimore and all over America?
And yet, they hammer Hillary and the DLC Democrats for abandoning unions and working class interests.
Clintonism screwed the Democrats: How Bill, Hillary and the Democratic Leadership Council gutted progressivism
A sample.
The intellectual deformities and disfigurements of the average Trump supporter should provoke universal disgust, but a fun game for phonies has begun to sweep the liberal world of commentary.
Some writers, in their desire to play dress-up as Woody Guthrie, have taken to writing maudlin essays on the victimhood and pitiable state of Trump fans.
People who applaud an inarticulate blowhard’s description of Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” cheer for proposals to ban Muslims from entry into the United States, and laugh at mockery of women’s looks and a disabled reporter’s mannerisms, are actually deserving of sympathy.
According to the Guthrie poseurs, if liberals fail to cry crocodile tears for their idealized version of the “white, working class,” they are actually responsible for the putrid rise of Trump.
And the BLM rioters in Baltimore and all over America?
And yet, they hammer Hillary and the DLC Democrats for abandoning unions and working class interests.
Clintonism screwed the Democrats: How Bill, Hillary and the Democratic Leadership Council gutted progressivism
Il Duce's real mentor and policy guru, foreign and domestic
Why Russia Resents Us
Pat Buchanan on Russia, NATO, Korea, Japan, China, the Middle East, Israel, nukes, Islam, immigration, trade, and the waning of the white race.
Pat Buchanan on Russia, NATO, Korea, Japan, China, the Middle East, Israel, nukes, Islam, immigration, trade, and the waning of the white race.
Rachel dumps on Bernie
Rachel Maddow Blows Bernie Sanders’ Contested Convention Logic To Smithereens
Bernie himself said only yesterday he's going to try to beat Hillary by winning over superdelegates, though he is notably behind on pledged delegates and popular votes.
Rachel compares the situation today with the situation in 2008, when Hillary bowed out without making a fight at the convention.
Obama's lead at the time was significantly less than Hillary's lead over Bernie right now.
Others, too, are not amused at his behavior.
Bernie Sanders declares war on reality
Instead of coming to grips with the overwhelming evidence that Democratic primary voters prefer Hillary Clinton be the party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders continues to create his own political reality — devising new and creative excuses to explain why he’s losing to her and why he should be the party’s standard-bearer in November.
. . . .
The same candidate who has been railing against independent voters being disenfranchised, who has called the primary system undemocratic, and who has complained about superdelegates, in general, is now calling on those same superdelegates to vote against Clinton (that would apparently include delegates from the states Clinton has won), even though she will almost certainly have the most pledged delegates and the most votes.
In head-to-head general election polls, Clinton trounces Trump, but since Sanders trounces him by a bit more, he argues that he should be the nominee.
In the realm of illogical, self-serving, hypocritical, intellectually dishonest political arguments, this is practically the gold standard.
But with six weeks to go until the last primary, I have great confidence that the Sanders campaign will find some way to top it.
Bernie himself said only yesterday he's going to try to beat Hillary by winning over superdelegates, though he is notably behind on pledged delegates and popular votes.
Rachel compares the situation today with the situation in 2008, when Hillary bowed out without making a fight at the convention.
Obama's lead at the time was significantly less than Hillary's lead over Bernie right now.
Others, too, are not amused at his behavior.
Bernie Sanders declares war on reality
Instead of coming to grips with the overwhelming evidence that Democratic primary voters prefer Hillary Clinton be the party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders continues to create his own political reality — devising new and creative excuses to explain why he’s losing to her and why he should be the party’s standard-bearer in November.
. . . .
The same candidate who has been railing against independent voters being disenfranchised, who has called the primary system undemocratic, and who has complained about superdelegates, in general, is now calling on those same superdelegates to vote against Clinton (that would apparently include delegates from the states Clinton has won), even though she will almost certainly have the most pledged delegates and the most votes.
In head-to-head general election polls, Clinton trounces Trump, but since Sanders trounces him by a bit more, he argues that he should be the nominee.
In the realm of illogical, self-serving, hypocritical, intellectually dishonest political arguments, this is practically the gold standard.
But with six weeks to go until the last primary, I have great confidence that the Sanders campaign will find some way to top it.
Il Duce is "a pathological liar," says Lyin' Ted
Trump attacks Cruz’s father on unsubstantiated Oswald claim
Republican front-runner Donald Trump rehashed unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that his rival Ted Cruz’s father has links to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
In a telephone interview broadcast by Fox News on Tuesday, Trump cited a National Enquirer story that claimed Rafael Cruz appeared in a 1963 photo in New Orleans with Oswald and others as Oswald distributed pro-Cuba leaflets.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump rehashed unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that his rival Ted Cruz’s father has links to President John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
In a telephone interview broadcast by Fox News on Tuesday, Trump cited a National Enquirer story that claimed Rafael Cruz appeared in a 1963 photo in New Orleans with Oswald and others as Oswald distributed pro-Cuba leaflets.
A subtle moralist
Blifil is worse than a mere scoundrel.
He is a vicious illustration of the harm one can do having "the satisfaction of conveying a lie without actually telling one."
Tom Jones, Bk 7, Ch 6.
Cruz vs Trumpists
Saw it on MSNBC.
Cruz waded into a crowd of Trumpists and both brilliantly and fearlessly shredded Trump and his candidacy to their faces, and said outright he was making chumps of them all.
The Guardian's writeup says the Trumpists showered him with rude verbal abuse.
Orange is the new black
Jeez, really?
Netflix cannot resist putting extraordinary doses of porn, especially queer porn, into their shows, eh?
Sure, not all of them.
But a lot.
And the heroine is of course a secular humanist whose nemesis is a vicious and ignorant hillbilly who, after 5 abortions and out of personal resentment, accidentally becomes a heroine of the anti-abortionist Protestant Christian right and herself a true hillbilly believer.
And Catholicism?
It's represented by a lefty nun imprisoned for some sort of peacenik crime and a crowd of ignorant Hispanics devoted to spells and potions.
Good show, though.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Ultimate egoism
There is no myth of immortality supported by any major religion that is not utterly egoistic.
And what does that say about the human tragedy?
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