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A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
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32 comments:
Have a good trip...
Off topic and back to voter suppression which was responsible for Trump's win and 2016 "drop" in African American turnout:
Carol Anderson, Chair, African American Studies Dept, Emery University.
Amy Goodman: "Would you say that Trump won in 2016 due to voter suppression?"
Professor Anderson: "Absolutely. Absolutely"
Of course, Pelosi, FineStein, Schumer, Perez, and Obama are cyring foul, taking legal action,
demanding an investigation. Ha ha ha. (NOT)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/10/16/trump_won_in_16_thanks_to
Jerry,
You continue to promote the theory that the failure of Democrats to challenge the Republican mechanisms for voter suppression is the reason Trump won the election. Nothing that Prof. Anderson said in the Democracy Now clip you link to supports this theory.
Yes, she does assert voter suppression was “absolutely” why Trump won. But it was not because of the mechanisms Republicans have installed to purge the voter rolls, nor because Democrats have failed to challenge these schemes. As she notes, 60,000 fewer Democrats voted in Wisconsin in 2016 then in the previous election, enough to have swayed the election in Wisconsin in Clinton’s favor. But she does not attribute that to the purging of the rolls. They may just have been people who decided not to vote at all because they did not like Clinton. She notes that Florida’s law precluding released felons from voting also prevented them from voting Democratic, as they likely would have. But Clinton lost Florida by more votes than could have been compensated for if released felons were allowed to vote. Moreover, no constitutional challenge to the Florida law would have any chance of success in the S. Ct.
She cites the same figures you and Palast rely on indicating the number of voters purged from the voter rolls in the critical states that gave Trump his victory would have been enough to make Clinton the winner in those states. As I previously pointed out, this argument is misleading – the fact that a voter’s name appeared on the purge list does not mean the voter did not in fact vote, or did not vote for that reason. The voter may not have shown up to vote at all; or the voter may have cast a provisional ballot that was counted in the vote totals. We have no way of knowing whether either of these did or did not occur.
You accuse Democrats, including Obama, of failing to take any legal action to investigate the role of voter suppression in Trump’s victory. Investigate what, and by what legal action? As Anderson points out, a large factor contributing to voter suppression was the decision by the S. Ct. in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) overturning Sec. 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The Democrats fought that decision tooth and nail. They lost by a vote of 5 to 4. Having lost that case, what are they supposed to do? Similarly, in Crawford v. Marion County Election Bd. (2008), the S. Ct. held Indiana’s law requiring a photo Id to cast a ballot was not unconstitutional. And in 2018, in Harmon v. Ohio, the S. Ct. held Ohio’s practice of purging voters who have failed to vote in successive elections was also not unconstitutional. What kind of investigation, or legal action, can the Democrats initiate to overturn decisions by the S. Ct.?
What I find disturbing is that you propose a theory that the Democrats are, for some inscrutable reason, complicit in some sort of conspiracy to allow the disenfranchisement of minorities and poor people to continue. Why would Obama want African-Americans to be disenfranchised? What possible benefit could he derive from such a betrayal of his own people?
The reason I find your theory disturbing is it fosters a belief among those who prefer third-party candidates that the Democratic candidates cannot be trusted, that they are better off sticking w/ more unconventional third-party candidates. It is this very attitude that has resulted in the dilemma we are currently facing. As I argued in a comment I posted on Aug. 11, the reason Clinton lost is not because of a failure by Democrats to challenge the Republican schemes for voter suppression – schemes insulated by the above S. Ct.’s rulings. Rather, it was the failure of voters who supported Sanders in the primaries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania to get over their disgruntlement and vote for Clinton. Had only 1.8% of the Sanders voters in Michigan, 3.9% in Wisconsin, and 6.1% in Pennsylvania voted for Clinton, she would have won the election. Theories like yours, that sow distrust of conventional candidates, could have the same effect in 2020 – guaranteeing Trump‘s re-election.
MS: Let me be clear. What I believe is that Trump won the 2016 election because of voter suppression just as Professor Anderson (cited above) does. I also believe that the Democratic establishment has not made this a central issue. An example of an issue made central by the Democratic establishment is Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Had the Democratic establishment put as much energy and as much focus on electoral fraud/voter suppression as they have on Russian meddling and collusion, I think the Dems would be in a better position to win elections going forward.
This is not the same as saying, as you suggest that I am saying, "that the failure of Democrats to challenge the Republican mechanisms for voter suppression is the reason Trump won the election." Further I never said that the Dems have never taken "any legal action" to investigate the role of voter suppression.
As far as reasons why the Democratic establishment fears a highly energized base that might impact policy, you might take a look at the book, The Crisis of Democracy which can be downloaded here:
http://trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf
In this book, published by the Trilaterial Commission, liberal Democratic establishment types answer the question as to why liberal Democrats feared the growing activation of their base in the mid-70s; short answer: their base was beginning to press their policy demands somewhat effectively, hence the crisis. Neoliberalism (or The Third Way as some Dems have called it), which Obama et al embrace, represents a set of policies to insure that the base will not effectively enter the public arena. It doesn't seem very mysterious to me. Voting in the US is not a right. It is a privilege granted by the state for which one must qualify. Voting mostly takes place on a workday, unlike most countries, and so on. I think I posted this before. Here's Chomsky summarizing why the liberal international establishment in 1973 feared the Dem base. The same system, the same attitudes obtain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F9rKBYwIlA
Jerry,
I think we need to define what we mean by making voter suppression a “central issue.” To me it means that Democratic candidates, out on the hustings, should be making this a “central issue” in their effort to get those whose vote is not being suppressed to vote for them. Is that what you’re saying?
My admittedly quick scanning of the Trilateral Commission’s document revealed nothing that would explain why the leadership of today’s Democratic party would not want to make this a central issue if they thought it would help him. After all, once they got elected they would still be in control..
If I understand your point, it is that the Democratic powers that be--the DNC leadership, big donors, the Clintons of course--would rather a Republican win some of the presently-contested seats than their Democratic opponent, even if that means that they risk losing control of both Houses of Congress.
I’m aware of absolutely no evidence to support that belief. To the contrary, the many requests for donations that fill my inbox daily, the stuff I see on social media or that my kids send me, supports the view that the Democrats want to win every contested race.
Whether to argue to constituents that voter suppression is a reason to vote for a particular candidate, I believe, is a question of tactics, depending entirely on the politics of that State or district. Right now, Heidi Heitkamp is making an issue of it in N. Dakota because of the recent Supreme Court decision not to reinstate the injunction against the N.D. law excluding everyone (i.e. Native Americans) who don’t have a residential postal address from voting. The hope is that it will rouse more of the Democrats in N.D. But I doubt that argument would help Joe Mancin in W. Virginia one iota; indeed, it could hurt him.
According to the polls I’ve seen, Obamacare and the payoffs to the rich of the Republican tax cut are the two best national issues for the Democrats. But each election is different: some Democrats argue for Obamacare and gun control; others for Obamacarebut against gun control. Some for Pelosi as Speaker, some not. I don’t see why any of the candidates, in the 19 days left to campaign, won’t use voter suppression as an argument for their own election if they think it would help. And there’s nothing the DNC can do to shut them up if they want to make the argument.
MS:
This is my understanding: the leaders of political parties must often look in two directions which are in conflict. Primarily,
parties are vehicles by which economic coalitions seek to capture control of the government so that they can use government machinery
to advance their private interests. Succinctly: parties represent capital. But because they need to first get elected, they also need to appeal to broad coalitions of citizens, many of whom have interests that are often in conflict with the economic coalitions whom the parties actually, most forcefully, represent.
Ways of dealing with representing conflicting coalitions (capital and workers, for example) is to manage the franchise skillfully. Disenfranchising large segments of the population has been one time honored way; limiting or blocking access to the ballot another. And probably most often is promising one thing and doing another. So for example, Obama campaigned in 08 on "card check" - a mechanism that would help unions organize but then did nothing about it as president.
Wall St put Obama into office, Citibank in particular. It chose his cabinet. Unions members and many low-income home owners preyed upon by Wall St. were other constituencies. When it was time to make policy, whom was represented well by Obama? who got the shaft? When HRC ran against Trump, my guess is that she thought that he was so terrible, that she could finesse this structural conflict by reaching out first to "moderate" Republicans and by not really beating the drum for labor - they won't vote for Trump any way. She wanted their vote but not their voice.
The challenge for the Dem establishment then is to devise ways in which the Dem base is forced to choose the lesser of two evils every four years - this will get their vote - but not have them enter the public arena in any meaningful way. Or play softball with Repubs. Both parties more or less share the same donor class.
“Had only 1.8% of the Sanders voters in Michigan, 3.9% in Wisconsin, and 6.1% in Pennsylvania voted for Clinton, she would have won the election.”
I guess I don’t really understand this sort of claim. Is it really the case that ALL the Saunders voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, and in Pennsylvania either sat the national election out in 2016 or else voted for someone other than Clinton?
I’m further puzzled because, as I understand it, since polls and polling don’t track individual voters, it’s quite possible that people who voted for, say, Clinton, in the primaries voted for someone else or else didn’t vote in November. And many who supported Sanders--including in the three states mentioned--likely voted for Clinton.
Am I wrong in thinking that this is just another replay of the “It’s all Ralph Nader’s fault”? A claim that is basically an assertion that tribally voting Democrat is the only legitimate way to go, no matter what any particular Democrat espouses politically, economically, socially, or culturally? That may be fine for some. But others of us just can’t go that far since we would experience doing so as injurious to what we hope for.
Unlike Jerry, I’m not convinced that voter suppression explains the 2016 presidential election outcome. But I am pretty sure that some in political parties, including the Democrats, have historically on occasion used voter suppression to injure their opponents both in other parties and in their own parties. Some in political parties have also used voter registration/recruitment to these same ends.
From knowing a few political leaders, admittedly not in the U.S., I assume that anyone who gets as far in politics as Obama or the Clintons or those in charge of the Democratic Party have gotten , are first of all completely calculating and Machiavellian and second of all, ambitious in a way that intellectuals and book-worms like us find hard to understand. They don't put the national interest first and they don't even put class interest first because first for them are their own personal ambitions, which generally are linked to the interests of the dominant class because that's where the power is and they love power.
So it seems completely plausible to me that mainstream Democrats, for a number of reasons, including personal rivalries, might have no problem throwing a national election to the Republicans and then blaming their loss on the evil Russians. I'm not claiming that they did that, only that it doesn't seem out of character for them to do that.
s. wallerstein,
Do you discount the idea that any of them might, at least now and then, want to make things better for the average American?
David Palmeter,
From the first grade we are taught to idealize our presidents. Remember Washington and the Cherry Tree? Lincoln never told a lie: he walked 25 miles through the snow to return 50 cents (I don't recall the exact figure) to a customer who he had accidently overcharged.
That plays into our inner necessary to seek father figures who we believe in, who we trust, who watch over us. With time we begin to realize that maybe Lincoln told a white lie from time to time, especially with the wife that he had, but it's hard to free ourselves of the tendency to idealize our leaders. That is not just a U.S. phenomenon by any means. And when the president is a scoundrel as in the case of Trump, it is no longer the idealized father, but the wicked stepfather whose evilness is exaggerated by
the same need to seek idealized figures and the disappointment that the office of the president is filled by someone who by no means can be idealized.
So in the interest of mental hygiene, I try to be skeptical. I'd rather err on the side of being too skeptical than on the side of being too credulous and it is possible that I do err on the side of being too skeptical.
In my experience, however, nice guys finish last, and for someone to get to be President of the U.S. or of any nation he or she can't be an overly nice guy. Professor Wolff often reminds us (it's from the Bible) to put not our faith in princes.
s. wallerstein,
We all learn that our august forefathers (and our real fathers, for that matter) were flawed human beings. We all are. I agree that it takes an enormous amount of ambition to become president, or to attain any high office, but it does not follow that all of them are seeking the well-being of the dominant class. Bill Clinton has consistently argued that he, and people with incomes like his, should be required to pay more taxes. Virtually all of the Democrats, the multi-millionaires included-- voted against the Rep tax bill, and also against Bush II's two tax cuts. That doesn't serve the dominant interest. Clinton raised taxes; so did JFK. Both had their flaws--serious flaws. Obama no doubt shares many of them. Bernie Sanders has a few. But it is just possible that their egos are best served by doing something that they believe is good for the country, like gun control, universal health care, the environment. They can see themselves honored and admired and spoken well of by history if they succeed. They'll feel proud. That may be motivated them far more than serving the 1%.
Anonymous,
Below are figures on which I based my analysis of the Sanders votes. They represent votes Clinton and Sanders received in primaries in the 3 states which Clinton lost (Wis., Mich. and Pa.) and which cost her the election. (Clinton won 232 electoral votes; 270 were required; the electoral votes of the 3 states = 46).
Wis.
Prim.
Clinton: 433,739
Sanders: 570,192
Elect.
Trump: 1,405,284
Clinton: 1,382,536
Diff.: 22,748
Mich.
Prim.
Clinton: 581,775
Sanders: 598,943
Elect.
Trump: 2,279,543
Clinton: 2,268,839
Diff.: 10,704
Pa.
Prim.
Clinton: 935,107
Sanders: 731,881
Elect.
Trump: 2,970,733
Clinton: 2,926,441
Diff.: 44,292
In my analysis, I assumed 100% of those who voted for Clinton in the primaries voted for her in the election. This seemed a reasonable assumption. For purposes of increased accuracy, I am going to assume only 90% of the voters also voted for her in the election. I am also going to assume 80% of the voters who voted for Sanders in the primaries voted for Clinton. I believe this is an over-estimate. Clearly, the Sanders supporters would not have voted for Clinton at a higher rate than did Clinton supporters. They likely voted for her at a lower rate, given their disgruntlement and belief Clinton stole the nomination.
In Wis.. if 10% of voters who voted for Clinton in the primary did not vote for her in the election, that totals 43,374 votes. If 20% of voters who voted for Sanders did not vote for Clinton, that would total 114,038 votes. Clinton lost Wis. by 22,748 votes and therefore needed 22,749 additional votes to have won; 22,749/114,038 = .2. If 20% of the Sanders voters who did not vote for Clinton had done so, she would have won Wis. That’s only 1 in 5 Sanders voters. Moreover, if the number of Sanders voters who did not vote for Clinton was higher than 20% (a distinct possibility), the percentage of those voters who, had they voted for her, she would have won, is even less.
Mich.: 20% of voters who supported Sanders = 119,789; Clinton lost MI by 10,704 votes; 10,705/119,789 = .09. If 1 in 10 of the Sanders voters who failed to vote for Clinton had done so, she would have won MI.
Pa.: 20% of the Sanders voters = 146,376 votes; Clinton lost Pa. by 44,292 votes; 44,293/146,376 = .3; if 1 in 3 of the Sanders supporters who did not vote for Clinton had done so, she would have won Pa.
Clinton lost the election because disgruntled Sanders voters failed to appreciate Trump represented a greater threat to their values than she. From a practical standpoint, her loss had nothing to do w/ voter suppression. Voter suppression laws had been sustained by the S. Ct.; there was nothing Dem.’s could do to overcome this obstacle. But Sanders supporters could have overcome the obstacle by voting for Clinton. Clinton would now be President. And Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would not be on the Ct.
Re voter suppression, the Ct. wields the ultimate power. Jerry Fresia argues Dem.’s should take legal action to remedy the effects of voter suppression laws. Legal action means either an action in the courts, or activism at the state level to overturn the laws. Legal action in the courts is futile – even before Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were on the Ct., Dem.’s lost challenges to these laws. Their chances of success have gotten worse.
Overturning voter suppression laws on state level requires electing legislators willing to do so. The election of state legislators is also affected by voter suppression laws. Decisions on the one person/one vote principle and gerrymandering also apply to state elections, and have not been favorable. Gill v. Whitford (2018).
The solution to voter suppression lies in the Ct. Because Clinton lost, that solution has been lost for at least a generation. It could get worse. J. Ginsburg is 85. If she survives the current administration, she will not survive a 2nd Trump term. The balance of power will shift to 6/3. J. Breyer is 80; he is not likely to survive a 2nd Trump term, then the balance will be 7/2. You can kiss voter suppression reform good-bye for the next 60 yrs.
"Bill Clinton has consistently argued that he, and people with incomes like his, should be required to pay more taxes. Virtually all of the Democrats, the multi-millionaires included-- voted against the Rep tax bill, and also against Bush II's two tax cuts. That doesn't serve the dominant interest. Clinton raised taxes; so did JFK. "
Hmmm, yes, peanuts for the peons, do what is required to avoid uprisings, while continuing to loot us all - a continuation of the bread and circuses strategy. If the big wall street and bank wealth redistribution act of 2008 had happened back when Americans still had balls, we'd have seen bankers and their politicians hanging from trees throughout New England...
Those nominal tax rates look a bit more just until accountants and tax lawyers do their job. Offshore accounts, trusts, corporate and capital gains taxes, etc., are for the ruling class, while average folks are just lucky if they can get approved for a mortgage where they aren't completely being screwed. Or as George Carlin would say, "folks, it's all a big club, and you and me...we ain't in it!"
Both parties are well captured by the same interests. We all know it. Sanders' line about Clinton speeches at Goldman Sachs hit home and is at least partly what gave us Trump. But the Trumps and Clintons in this country order off the same menu, the rest of us get the scraps.
Anonymous,
It is thinking like yours that demonstrates to me that the liberal left is just as much afflicted by bizarre conspiracy theories as the retarded right.
Hillary Rodham and William Clinton, unlike Trump, were not born with silver spoons in their mouths. They were born into middle class families. And yes, they are wealthy now. But they worked hard in college, excelled in academics, and were ambitious. What’s wrong with that? They did not do anything that most people with reasonable intelligence and dedication could not do.
And if you don’t see the difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, then you are blind. So, you can stand on your laudatory principles, bemoan how unfair the world is, and refuse to compromise with the realities of politics. If you are one of the many who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton because you did not want to compromise your ideals and principles, well, good luck. The Supreme Court, with right-wing conservative justices hand-picked by Trump, is going to compromise your wonderful principles for you.
And, by the way, do you think George Carlin was poor?
David,
JFK did not raise taxes. What is your source that he did?
@MS
Let me try to abbreviate your long argument (October 17, 2018 at 5:05 AM), inserting some questions and comments of my own.
60,000 fewer Democrats voted in Wisconsin in 2016 then in the previous election, enough to have swayed the election in Wisconsin in Clinton’s favor
Clinton lost Florida by more votes than could have been compensated for if released felons were allowed to vote.
Electoral defeat, is your contention, was not due to the electoral rolls being purged.
Here I have a question. If purged rolls do not explain that fall, well, what does? Nowhere you address that question explicitly. It is, however, a relevant question, I think.
I am, in fact, convinced you have considered that question. The clue is in your lengthy closing paragraph:
The reason I find your theory disturbing is it fosters a belief among those who prefer third-party candidates that the Democratic candidates cannot be trusted, that they are better off sticking w/ more unconventional third-party candidates. It is this very attitude that has resulted in the dilemma we are currently facing. As I argued in a comment I posted on Aug. 11, the reason Clinton lost is not because of a failure by Democrats to challenge the Republican schemes for voter suppression – schemes insulated by the above S. Ct.’s rulings. Rather, it was the failure of voters who supported Sanders in the primaries in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania to get over their disgruntlement and vote for Clinton.
Let me ask you the kind of questions you asked Jerry Fresia. After losing the nomination, Sanders supported HRC. What else was he supposed to do?
Voters unhappy with the Obama Administration's handling of the housing bubble burst and the bailout, what should they have done?
Were anti-Clinton Dems-like I think Jerry Fresia is-supposed to lie so as to motivate those disgruntled voters? Should they have kept quiet about the DNC manipulations?
Let me paraphrase you, MS. The reason I find your theory disturbing is that it fosters a belief among the Democratic establishment that no change is required. They are not accountable. It is the voters' fault. What is required is to maintain a monolithic discipline, and to suppress dissent.
-----
If HRC did not lose because her voters were kept from voting for her, then they deliberately did not vote for her. There is no way around, is there?
I submit they did not vote for her because she was a terrible candidate.
It is up to the Democratic establishment to propose better candidates, with a programme attractive to the voting base. The Democratic Party is not an end in itself, MS. It is just a means to an end.
Aren't the US supposed to be a democracy?
Given that there is another anonymous commentator, I think it would be appropriate to identify the author of the previous comment as Anonymous2.
Anonymous 2
I am in a very good mood right now. I just defeated a Russian chess player who was ranked 170 points higher than me. The game lasted 2 ½ hrs. and came down to my king and one pawn against his/her king. I was about to promote my pawn to a queen, and s/he resigned. Take that Putin!
To answer your questions. Why didn’t the 60,000 Democratic voters in Wis. not vote? Probably because they did not like Clinton as a candidate. They were probably the Sanders supporters who were registered Democrats and refused to vote for Clinton. It had nothing to do w/ the voter roll purging. As I point out in my analysis, all that was needed was for 22,749 of those Sanders supporters to have gotten over their disgruntlement and voted for Clinton, and she would have won Wisconsin. and Mich.; and Penn.
I am not arguing that liberal Democrats should sacrifice their principles and hopes for change. By all means, follow your principles in the primaries. I voted for Sanders in the Mich. primary. When he did not win the nomination, yes, I was disappointed. But there was no doubt in my mind that as between Trump and Clinton, Clinton was the better, smarter, more experienced candidate. And yes, the more liberal candidate. More liberal than Sanders, no. but still more liberal than Trump. Okay, she ran a bad campaign, she took union workers and Midwestern voters for granted. So what? So they deliberately refused to vote for her. Remember the adage about biting off your nose to spite your face? Sometimes the most progress you can hope for in an election is to keep things from getting worse. You have to vote w/ your head, not just your heart.
And clearly, things have gotten decidedly worse. Consider, had the small percentage of Sanders voters I identified above voted for Clinton, Merrick Garland, or someone equally liberal, would now be on the S. Ct. As well as another liberal justice instead of Kavanaugh. The liberals would have held the 5 to 4 advantage rather than the conservatives. And we would not have to be worrying about Justice Ginsburg or Breyer becoming ill or retiring. Think of all the liberal decisions they would have issued. For example, they would have reversed Citizens United; they would have issued decisions disallowing the gerrymandering in the states that have Republican legislatures. We would not be worrying about Roe v. Wade being reversed. The list goes on and on. The reforms in voter suppression that Jerry Fresia pines for would have been accomplished, because the Crt. would have struck down the voter suppression laws as unconstitutional. All this has turned into a nightmare because a small percentage of Sanders supporters could not stop pouting and gotten off their butts and voted for Clinton. Was it worth it?
And what is the lesson for the 2020 election? As I say, J. Ginsburg cannot survive another Trump term. The best we can hope for is to keep the balance on the Ct. at 5 to 4. I assume a lot of liberal Democrats are hoping that Warren wins the nomination. Frankly, I am not sure that she can defeat Trump. Maybe she can, maybe she can’t. And if she is the nominee, I will certainly support her. But suppose she does not get the nomination. Suppose Biden is the nominee. Are the Warren adherents going to do the same thing the Sanders supporters did and sit out the election, increasing Trump’s chances of re-election. I understand, Biden is not everyone’s favorite, he’s old school, puts his foot in his mouth a lot. Okay, so what? He may actually have a better chance of taking blue collar voters away from Trump than Warren. And should Biden be elected, you can rest assured he will replace Justices Ginsburg and Breyer w/ liberal nominees. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of 2016 just because many of us may prefer Warren over Biden, or whoever the candidate is.
As I have said in previous comments – you go into the voting booth w/ the candidates you have, not the candidates you wish you had. And there’s a corollary – you go into the voting booth w/ the Constitution you have, not the Constitution you wished you had.
David Palmeter,
For the record, I believe that Trump is so noxious that people on the left should vote for any candidate that the Democrats nominate just to get rid of him. I supported Clinton against Trump in 2016, which you can see if you go back two years in this blog.
That being said, the reign of the neoliberal progressives, which begins in the Carter era and intensifies with Clinton, Felipe Gonzalez in Spain, Tony Blair and Obama, is over. Working class and lower middle class voters are opting for the extreme populist right everywhere, in France, in Sweden, in Italy, in Brasil, etc., because the neoliberal progressives have let them down.
It seems to me that the only way to beat demagogues like Trump in the long run is for progressives to nominate genuinely leftwing candidates who challenge Wall Street, the City of London and neoliberalism in general. I say "in the long run" because with better marketing neoliberal progressives may win at times, but if we want to change society, we'd better begin real political education instead of marketing candidates with great slogans like "yes we can".
As I said above, we also need to work on our very human, all too human, tendency to idealize leaders, even radical leaders like Sanders. No one is going to save us. We're on our own.
By the way, I'm not going to look up the details of Clinton's tax reform, but I do know that the rich in the U.S. in the Clinton era paid a lot less in taxes than they did in the, yes, Eisenhower era.
An analysis based on polling data by Brian Schaffner, Prof. of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, supports my conclusion that there were enough Sanders supporters who, had they voted for Clinton, would have enabled Clinton to win the election. See:
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds
And what the data shows is even worse than my estimate that 20% of primary voters who voted for Sanders failed to vote for Clinton. Actually, a significant number of Sanders voters in Wis., Mich. and Penn. not only did not vote for Clinton, but voted for Trump instead. (9% in Wis.; 8% in Mich.; 16% in Penn.) So, they not only deprived Clinton of their votes, they added to Trump’s vote totals. These numbers alone, had they voted for Clinton, would have handed her the win. When you add in Sanders supporters who just did not vote at all, there is no question that the defection of Sanders voters cost Clinton the election.
How a Sanders supporter could possibly justify voting for Trump is beyond me.
@MS
Congratulations for having won your chess match. Was the Russian chess player you defeated one of Putin's proxies meddling in the elections?
But your reference to games is quite apropos. It is not chess the DNC has been playing, it is the game of chicken. The one to veer off the collision path, loses. For decades that worked just fine.
It didn't this time. Hopefully, it won't anymore. You see, the need to use their brains also applies to the DNC. They have the same power their voters have to avoid the collision. The difference being that they exist to serve their voters, not the other way around.
In the market for votes, as in any other market, the customer is always right.
------
Me, I think Jerry Fresia may have been wrong on the specifics of his case. At least he was pointing the right direction.
Anonymous2
Anonymous 2
My God!
Am I reading what you wrote correctly? Are you saying that those who did not vote for the DNC’s nominee won in a game of “chicken” w/ the DNC? And “Hopefully [the DNC] won’t win anymore.”
Do you have any idea what you and those who think like you have done? You have lost the Supreme Court! Do you have any concept of what that means? Do you think the current Supreme Court is going to do anything, now or in the next 30 years that is in the interests of those who supported Sanders? And, by the way, the assertion that the customer is always right applies when there is a sympathetic supervisor available who agrees with the customer and is willing to make things right. The supervisor here is the Republican Party and the ultra-conservative Supreme Court it has now created. Believe me, they are is not sympathetic to you and your ideological compadres and will not make things right for you.
And what are you threatening – if the DNC plays chicken again w/ you in 2000 by failing to nominate the candidate you and your ideological compadres prefer, you will vote for a 3rd party candidate, insuring Trump’s re-election. In that way you will win the game of chicken?
Are there many more like you out there? Yesterday I was depressed thinking about all the loonies on the right who voted for and support Trump. Now I am finding out there are apparently many deluded people on the left as well.
We are doomed.
Obviously, I meant 2020.
My emotional distress is hampering my motor skills.
Jerry,
You're right. JFK reached a tax cut/budget deal with the Republicans. Overstatement on my part. Rest of the statement stands.
I find the effort to locate THE single cause of Trump's win over Clinton somewhat off point. There are many reasons why she lost, including: black voters didn't vote for her to he extent they voted for Obama; white working class voters didn't ote for her to the extent they voted for Obama; Sanders voters didn't like her; she wasted time in Arizona and Georgia when she should have been in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin; the Comey letters, particularly the second one, so close to the election. I'm sure there are others that escape me now.
But if any ONE of these had gone the other way, she most likely would have won. I liken it to a football team that has lost a high-scoring game by a single point. There are many reasons why it lost--if that field goal hadn't been missed, if the quarterback hadn't been sacked; if the penalty had been called; if that pass hadn't been dropped; if one of the players who made a mistake on each of the other team's touchdowns, hadn't hadn't made that mistake, they wouldn't have lost.
"Do you have any idea what you and those who think like you have done? You have lost the Supreme Court! Do you have any concept of what that means? "
Yep, the supreme court would have been so progressive and enlightened, if not for a couple of Trump appointments. Right.
MS,
I don't know what Anonymous 2 means with the game of chicken, but when he or she says that in politics the customer is always right, I take that to mean that instead of blaming Sanders voters for not voting for Clinton, one should blame Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment for not offering an alternative worth voting for to Sanders voters (and Jill Stein voters). That is, the sales force (Clinton) has to reach the customer (the voters) and if the sales force does not convince the voters, it's their fault, not that of the voters who were not convinced.
I myself believe that the blame is shared: partially that of Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment for not offering a viable alternative to Trump and partially that of the voters for not realizing that Trump is so noxious that even Clinton was worth voting for.
Anonymous
Regarding your comment scoffing at purported progressiveness of the S. Ct.
I am going to be quite blunt – you are ignorant.
It is apparent you are unaware of the progressive decisions the S. Ct. has issued over the last 100 years, decisions that guarantee you and your fellow citizens rights you just assume are your birthright, and rights you do not even know you have. While it is probably a fool’s errand to try to enlighten you regarding the scope of rights S. Ct decisions have protected against forces intent on destroying them, I am going to offer you a bit of education.
For example:
Near v. Minnesota (1931) Protecting freedom of the press by invalidating a Minn. law prohibiting the publication of “malicious” or “scandalous” news, now commonly known as prior restraints. It was the precursor of Nixon v. N.Y. Times (1971), which blocked Nixon’s efforts to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers.
De Jonge v. Oregon (1937) Protecting freedoms of speech by overturning the conviction of De Jonge, a member of the Communist Party, for violating an Or. law by publicly discussing jail conditions and a maritime strike. The case is memorable for stating the 1st Amend. protects even “the speech we hate.” It was the precursor of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), which invalidated an Ohio’s law which made it a crime to advocate violence in support of political causes.
W. Va. State Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette (1943) Striking down a W. Va. law making the pledge of allegiance compulsory in school, deeming it a violation of the 1st Amend. as forced speech.
Mapp v. Ohio (1961) Established the “exclusionary rule,” which precludes the admissibility of evidence in state court criminal trials obtained in violation of the 4th Amend.. (This decision is vulnerable to reversal in the current 5-4 conservative Court.)
Engel v. Vitale (1962) Invalidating a N.Y. law requiring school children to recite an official prayer composed by the state legislature. This led to Abbington v. Schempp (1963), declaring public school sponsored Bible readings, including prayers, unconstitutional.
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) Requiring states to provide legal counsel to a criminal defendant who cannot afford one.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) Invalidating a Conn. law that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception." You thought that Americans always had this right – how could a government tell us we could not use condoms? Well, no, not until J. Douglas wrote the decision guaranteeing that right. This decision led to Eisenstadt v. Baird ((1972), which guaranteed single people have the same right to possess methods of contraception as married people. These decisions, based on a right to privacy implicit in the 4th Amend. protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, led to Roe v. Wade (1973).
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) Rendering inculpatory statements by a person in custody inadmissible at trial unless the individual made the statements after having been advised of the right to an attorney and against self-incrimination. (This decision may be vulnerable to reversal by the 5-4 conservative Court.)
I could go on and on – there are literally dozens of decisions like the above protecting your rights against incursion by the government. But you get the picture. Or do you?
Have there been misses – yes, e.g., Bush v. Gore (2000); Citizens United v. FEC (2010). But if you expect perfection in gov., I suggest you seek citizenship in More’s Utopia. You know where that is, right?
What infuriates me about people like yourself, who trivialize the critical role the S. Ct. plays in preserving our rights, is that due to your ignorance you are willing to throw your vote away on 3rd party candidates who have no chance of becoming President – who, by the way, has the constitutional responsibility of nominating candidates to the Ct. – or by not voting at all because a candidate does not meet all of your doctrinal expectations, and thereby jeopardize the rights you take for granted.
@MS
I suppose, MS, your wild mood swings explain why a few days ago you were contemplating the end of civilisation and maybe even life as we know it in the detached, cosmic perspective of Buddha, to whimper now like C-3PO “We’re doomed, we’re doomed!” because a few thousand voters abstained to give their votes for a candidate you claim, not very persuasively, you didn’t support. I mean, what’s the end of civilisation before the constitution of the Supreme Court, yes?
In the meantime, you had your glorious moment of elation after a patriotic victory against Putin’s cyber-army of trolls.
One must understand that you are not being rude and aggressive. You were just under extreme emotional stress, the same which explains why you fail to acknowledge the evident fact that the DNC set the rules of the game of chicken. Your high cortical functions are impaired.
Because you are hysterical, one must assume you are not a concern troll shoving down our throats the defeatist strategy, your compadres at the DNC prefer (i.e. shut up and vote for them). You are no troll, just a useful idiot of the DNC. You were, after all, incapable of writing properly, let alone thinking straight.
Maybe I have too much faith in you, MS, but I think there’s a more prosaic explanation. You don’t like to be treated the way you feel entitled to treat others. You didn’t enjoy having your own words thrown at your face, as I did deliberately with evident gusto. You didn’t like the barrage of rhetorical questions. You didn’t like having your own motivations, which from where I stand look much more suspicious, questioned.
You are not an emotionally crippled poor devil, victim of random hormonal discharges. You are just a dishonest, arrogant bully who hates being out-bullied in public by those who can see clear enough through your sophistry. That explains your little tantrum.
Having made my case, I’ll leave you with the last word. I lost interest in this farce.
And, yes, that was me Anonymous2.
Anonymous 2
That was hilarious!
I’m sorry – a candidate I didn’t support? I supported both of them – Sanders in the primary, and Clinton in the general election.
As I anticipated, explaining the critical role of the Supreme Court to you was a fool’s errand.
As Zorba said, “On a deaf man’s door you can knock forever.”
And, by the way, I am incapable of writing properly? Didn’t you mean, “That was I, Anonymous2.”
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