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Tendown July 31, 2016

Sunday, July 31, 2016

This is 235. Let's read some Tendown 236.




1. Not as bad as "let's slur atheists" in terms of getting my vote, but this is not the church at which I pray.




2. Who do the Neocons Support? One guess.

“I would say all Republican foreign policy professionals are anti-Trump,” leading neoconservative Robert Kagan told a group gathered around him, groupie-style, at a “foreign policy professionals for Hillary” fundraiser I attended last week. “I would say that a majority of people in my circle will vote for Hillary.”
As the co-founder of the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century, Kagan played a leading role in pushing for America’s unilateral invasion of Iraq, and insisted for years afterwards that it hadturned out great.
Despite the catastrophic effects of that war, Kagan insisted at last week’s fundraiser that U.S. foreign policy over the last 25 years has been “an extraordinary success.”
3. Thanks!

4. The correct way to think about the loud Sanders supporters yelling from the convention floor.

5. As opposed to this - this is the Justice blogger for Think Progress; prior to this campaign, you would have thought of him a reliably progressive.  My views about the world and his are almost certainly very closely aligned.

Except....


6. We can't win a game.  But...


7.

8. Redbaiting.

9. Here's what you can't say at the Democratic Convention.


Here's what you can...

"many Democrats wrongly blame the private sector for our problems" -Mike Bloomberg

10. So, here's the editor of what used to be a lefty mag, Mother Jones, hitting a fringy left political party.


The logic of this is challenging.  

When Sanders did not pick up African-American votes; the view expressed by liberals was it was his fault.  It wasn't that the voters did not appreciate that Sanders would better assert their interests than Clinton, it was that Sanders did not effectively make the case.  Moreover, the thought continued, it's never the fault of the voters - if you want a vote, you need to earn it.  Sanders, in message, in effort, in the structure of his campaign, did not reach out sufficiently to people of color in the Obama coalition and it was his undoing.

Fair enough.  Sure, there weren't many liberals lining up against the "What's the Matter With Kansas" thesis but fine. I'm in.  It's not the voters.  It's the campaign. Sanders did not earn their votes.  Done.

However, in recent weeks, a clear narrative is being established to cover a possibility that Clinton doesn't win - it's the left's fault.  Some % of Sanders supporters will not vote for Clinton and if that causes Clinton to lose the Sanders campaign (or, in this circumstance, the Green Party) will be to blame.

Not the fault of the candidate.  Not the campaign.  Someone else.  

I'm comfortable with that narrative prediction as you don't have to dig more than an inch deep through liberal analysis of modern American history to find that Ralph Nader receives the blame for the 2000 election and therefore, for the Iraq War.  Liberals blame Ralph Nader for the Iraq War more than they blame Hillary Clinton, who voted for the Iraq War.

I want to put aside the fan fiction that a Gore Presidency has a substantially better foreign policy outcome than a Bush Presidency (although, for me, I am 100% convinced that if a Democrat was President on 9-11 every single GOP campaign forever would be "They let us get attacked" and it would be emboldened by mainstream media and the Democrats couldn't bomb people fast enough to try to demonstrate toughness) and instead just talk Nader.

The "it's Ralph's fault" thesis requires one to believe that Nader voters would have been Gore voters absent Nader.

I voted for Nader.  Absent Nader, I would not have voted.  Gore was not a consideration.  This is the benefit of being an old guy; I was around for these things.  

I did not vote for Clinton in '96.  I did not vote for Clinton in '92.  The third way Democrats, the DLC "era of big governmenmt is over" Democrats were not my party.  They weren't New Deal, War on Poverty Democrats.  They were "not as bad as Republicans, so come on you guys" Democrats.

You want to blame someone for 2000, you can't blame Nader, he just gave me someone to vote for instead of staying home or writing in Jesse Jackson.  You have to blame me. And that means we can blame voters for their votes, and then we need to have a discussion about when it's cool to do that and when it's not.  

I'm not voting Green; I'm most likely voting for Clinton.  I think it's the right vote to cast.  But please, if Clinton loses, how about blaming the Democratic Party for seeing incredible anger from those economically marginalized over the past 30 years and nominating the Wall St. candidate as opposed to blaming Jill Stein.  

And one more...


that's all for this time.  I'll be back next time...if there is a next time...

Your pal,

Jim
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