It's opening night at the Democratic Convention. And what was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's sparkly coronation is turning into a bit of a nightmare.
For even as Clinton prepares to accept her party's nomination, what was supposed to be a show of unity, and a bright contrast to Donald Trump's dark and divisive rally, is threatening to become a noisy show of disunity.
With the fate of the convention, and maybe her own fate, in the hands of the man she defeated.
For this is the night Bernie Sanders will address the convention, and is expected to urge his supporters to support Clinton, and focus their efforts on stopping the dangerous demagogue Trump.
And this can only make that job even harder.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced Sunday she is stepping down as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the end of the party's convention, which is set to begin here Monday. The Florida congresswoman's resignation -- under heavy pressure from top Democrats -- comes amid the release of thousand of leaked emails showing DNC staffers favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the party's 2016 primary contest.
The e-mails that prove he was right when he accused the Democratic establishment of being biased against him.
And of course Debbie Wasserman Shultz, who is still insisting on addressing the convention...
Even though anything she says will be greeted by a chorus of boos louder than those Ted Cruz received.
Because she will put herself before the interests of her party, and the need to defeat Donald Trump.
And sadly so are some of Sanders' supporters who are already marching in the streets.
A large, impassioned crowd of Bernie Sanders supporters — chanting “Hell, no, D.N.C., we won’t vote for Hillary” — marched on Sunday afternoon to the site of the Democratic National Convention, promising a week in which the party’s divisions will be on vivid display in the streets.
And saying things like this:
Pasu Tivorat, of Sacramento, who wore a Guy Fawkes mask, an anarchist’s symbol, said Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were equally bad choices. “If we nominate Hillary, then she can continue to abuse her base,” he said. “Every progressive idea we come up with they throw under the bus.”
“I’d rather watch the D.N.C. burn,” he added.
Even though Bernie, who has every right to be angry at the way he was treated, is urging his supporters to focus on the real enemy...
.@BernieSanders: "Most of my supporters understand Trump has got to be defeated" #ThisWeek https://t.co/bCfWE3Rsvt— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 24, 2016
While building the movement that will bring about the real change we need.
And of course I'm with Bernie.
For his political revolution will continue. By the time the 2020 election arrives the new generation will be powerful enough to seize control of the Democratic party, clean house, and set course for the future.
But in the meantime everything must be done to stop Donald Trump from seizing power.
And flush him into the sewer where he belongs.
Because he is a fascist, he is a bigot, he would roll back the rights of women, extinguish the rights of LGBT Americans, do nothing to fight climate change, turn the U.S. into a police state.
And by appointing right-wing extremists to the Supreme Court, would determine the course of justice for the next twenty years.
So progressives do need to unite, and not be fooled by messages like this one.
For there will be no revolution unless that bloated demagogue is defeated.
Only the fires of a fascist hell...
Please click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers
Not fair that Bernie has to tow the party line after he got screwed over. If he can support Hillary and the DNC after the way they treated him and he still goes up and supports her... I've got more respect for Ted Cruz at least he stood his ground.
ReplyDelete-MC
Could it be that too many within the DNC and party establishment got wrapped up and too personally invested in "making history" by electing America's first female President, and therefore came to regard Bernie as a nuisance to be dismissed by any available means? If so, the contempt won't go unpunished by a lot of Sanders supporters and the target of their displeasure will be Hillary.
ReplyDeleteWhile I would hold my nose at the polling station, there are no doubt many who won't accept the insult lying down. Add to that the indignity of being forced to endure the spectacle of Hillary's representatives diminishing the significance of the offence by claiming that she would have won anyway.
Hillary has to get a grip on her messaging and her campaign would likely be better off if a sizeable number of heads were to roll as soon as possible or not at all. The pseudo-resignation of the chairperson isn't enough and the clock is ticking.
Suffer the fool gladly, but not to a point where the fool begins to treat you as one.
A class action lawsuit had already been filed by some of Sander's supporters against the DNC and DWS a month ago, as I remember.
DeleteNot sure if HRC and her csmpaign are included. BS supporters are basically asking for their contributions to Bernie back as they are arguing that the Democratic primary was a sham.
These latest WikiLeaks documents should provide more evidence to support their case.
Could there even be more incriminating documents on the way ... be interesting to see.
You can't be seriously giving those emails any credulity. Out of context snippet usually prove that there was no evil about. If there was a real problem, publishing the entire chain would be more effective. With the meaning stripped, there is no way of knowing what was said or what the conclusions were.
ReplyDeleteI have said before and I a back to saying again, Trump is going to club Hillary like a baby seal. The chief villans of the master of the univese world, the Kock brothers are now backing Hillary. Hillary corrupts the DNC and when caught rewards Wasserman Shultz instead of doing the right thing. If Hillary really cared about America she would resign and Bernie would easily handle Trump.
ReplyDeleteBecause he is a fascist, he is a bigot, he would roll back the rights of women, extinguish the rights of LGBT Americans, do nothing to fight climate change, turn the U.S. into a police state.
ReplyDeleteSimon, who's running a campaign of fear? Trump or the Hillary shills repeating your message above?
You say you're a Bernie supporter. Well, Bernie's message is that America has problems and by working together to change the system we can fix them. Hillary is the Queen of Nope. Her message is "this is as good as it gets, vote for me because I'm a woman and not Trump."
This is the same lesser evil nonsense that Democrats, especially young Democrats, turned out in droves to reject. It's long past time that Dem leaders put aside the fear tactics and started presenting ideas for improving society for the 99% instead of the 1%. That in a nutshell was Bernie's message, which you're ignoring.
Hillary Clinton is just as bad as Trump, she's a mysandrist biogot, a dedicated war monger with blood on her hands, and she's in wall streets hands. And she all around incompetent and she's a cheater. I don't like Trump, but at least he won his nomination fair and square. Hillary should be the one resigning, it'd be different if she won without cheating, but she didn't.
ReplyDeleteI suggest voting for any third party candiate you can find.
Ain't that the truth...
DeleteThe Progressives can unite by voting for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate who had publicly stated she would step aside for Sanders had he been so inclined.
ReplyDeleteNo arguments about how important it is to keep Trump out of the WH. I can understand the argument about voting for the lesser evil. However, while trying to keep the devil out of the house, it is important not to let the demon in instead.
If Hillary can so repeatedly and apparently callously lie about so many things, and apparently participate in cheating, or trying to cheat, her opponent of his nomination, what makes us so sure that she will support the progressive agenda if she gets into the WH?
Remember that she is not legally obliged to adhere to the Democratic platform when she becomes President. Recall also that she used to proudly say that she was a "Goldwater" girl, her father was a Republican, and she used to support many issues the Republicans support (anti gay marriage, fervent support for the U.S.'s regime change policies and wars, fervent support for all trade pacts, etc). Even her VP choice is known for his personal anti abortion stance, his fervent support for trade pacts, and his strong support to deregulate banks. She could easily have appointed a more progressive running mate.
Lastly, if Hillary had nothing to do with the attempt by the DNC to stack the deck against Sanders, she would not have appointed DWS as her Honorary campaign manager after the latter had been exposed for her shameful behavior.
No, if someone steals my money, I can still replace it. However, if someone steals my vote, then it is more serious. This was what the DNC and DWS had essentially tried to do against the Sanders supporters. While Trump had said and done a lot more vile things, what the DNC and DWS had done in this case is just as vile.
And Hillary should not be rewarded with the WH because it would mean that we would be willing to hold Trump and Repbulicans to much higher standards than we hold the Democrats and Hillary, eh?
The 2016 US presidential election currently has what must be the two worst candidates (assuming Hilary gets the nomination) in all of US history. One would have hoped one would have been reasonably decent.
DeleteUnfortunately, if it is the Donald and Hilary then the choice is between a bats.. crazy, sequentially failed at business, narcissistic orange blob with absolutely no government experience and seemingly no idea of international obligations, the US constitution, science, or international law vs. a probably somewhat corrupt and un-progressive and not terribly competent person who, at least, seems to have a reasonable grasp on sanity and some decent government experience.
I would suggest that Americans consider holding noise and voting for the latter. Voting for minor party candidates is likely to just give the win to the orange one. There are times a protest vote makes sense. I don't think this is one of them.
I like Assange's response to the voting for the lesser evil question. He said that if he had to choose between getting cholera or gonorrhea, then he would choose neither. :)
DeleteRemember that Hillary, as SOS, had fervently supported Obama in prosecuting Assange and other whistleblowers. Thus at least on this single issue, one could argue that there appears potentially little difference between "bat shit crazy" or "corrupt".
Therefore, I suspect that Assange and many of Sander's supporters are not thinking of their "NeverTrump" or "NeverHillary" votes as protest votes but rather as voting for a President who could potentially do more for issues that they care for (climate change, foreign policy, not being in the pocket of Wall St., helping millenials, etc).
And as you have pointed out yourself, "corrupt" does not appear to be very supportive of progressive issues. Trump appointed Pence asVP, someone known to harbor frighteningly far right political views. Hillary could have appointed Trump's "Pocohontas" and that would have signalled that she acknowledged the desire of Sander's voters for a progressive. By choosing Kaine, it would appear that she did not think it was important to placate the progressive voters. Worse, it could be seen as giving the finger to the latter.
Perhaps it is time to focus on who gets to control the Senate and Congress. If it is Republican dominated the American refugees will start arriving in the new year and we ought to be ready.
ReplyDeleteHad Clinton really been interested in party unity she would have had Saunders as her V.P. Now he would have been an asset. If his base leaves the party and Trump's stay with him, Clinton will be lucky if she wins.
Trump sounds more and more like the current Pres. of Turkey. Yes, both of them are a couple of turkeys. No that was offensive to turkeys.
This is actually a great point. Having Saunders as her running mate would have been throwing an olive branch/bone to the progressives, but there might be too much bad blood between the two sides at this point.
DeleteI respect Hill for what she's accomplished but and I'd have to vote for her, but she's tainted, sadly. Hold your nose and vote I guess.
When you get law enforcement being targeted in different cities just because they are representatives of a government, we should be worried about a coming revolution in the streets. Clinton nor Trump have the ability to deal with problems we are now facing as a species- in fact many of the causes of these were actually supported by them, even though the possible outcomes known. We need to hold on and hope for the best and salvage what we can as the World realigns. The US is losing influence, new superpowers are in the wings and both China and Russia are playing a game of chess, not the poker that US is playing. GS
ReplyDeleteYoung Hearts be Free tonight! Time is on your side!
ReplyDelete-MC
hi everybody...I don't have the time to reply to all your comments, and even if I did I would have to say the same thing. Donald Trump is a racist, a misogynist, a bully and a dangerous demagogue, and anybody who supports him is a bad as he is. The Bernie revolution is alive and well. If Trump is defeated it will succeed by 2020, and if he isn't it won't...
ReplyDeleteSimon:
ReplyDeleteRe: your commentators in this thread:
Le *SIGH*
I've done my pointed comments regarding this insanity enough times already, I'm not going to bother again now, except to yet again point out how easily the extremes on the left are just as blind to realities they do not like as any on the right. Not to mention the level of dysfunction in understanding how actual politics works, as opposed to how they either want it to work or imagine it should work.
Anyone that can with a straight face make the claim there is no real difference between Trump and HRC, well, its 2000 all over again a la Nader arguing there would be no difference between a Gore Presidency and a Bush Presidency. Well, given what happened in the GWB years, I think we can safely presume THAT was clearly massively wrong, , and that divergence was way less than the one between HRC and Trump.
What I saw, Bernie is trying, belatedly, to make his revolution a useful tool for the long term, but he did a lot of damage in the way he poisoned the Clinton well in his primary run which is clearly coming back to haunt him, and the California delegation in particular seems rambunctious, probably because of the way he was making Cali his own firewall and the way he was pining his hopes on it and barnstorming it so hard in the final weeks. Combined with his rhetoric of taking it to the convention for weeks after it was clear he had lost, and we got what we saw.
He built this, both the good and the bad, and lets hope the latter doesn't end up swallowing up the power of the former, because there is real good there, I've just not been happy with the duplicitous manner in which he delegitimized HRC and the process as only valid if he won. Well, you know my POV here.
As to the e-mails, not impressed by their contents, yet I do not recall the arguments being made actually used by either the Clinton campaign nor the DNC itself, so clearly someone put a halt to making this an action plan, but it did show a clear private bias that should never have been brought into that workplace. More than DWS needs to be held to account here, but the Clinton job she got was clearly a sinecure probably to make her quitting easily for her to swallow without a fight, but not a position with any real influence. People need to understand that sometimes a small price to pay up front beats the alternative in politics, especially where face saving is concerned versus being offered a job with real power/influence. HRC also probably was disturbed by the heavy misogynistic overtones in a lot of the attacks on DWS in the primaries too given how she too has been on the wrong end of such, and that left her with some sympathy too. Not defending DWS, was not a fan on substance either, but many of the attacks she got, well...*shakes head*
Yet so far these emails show no evidence of actual cooperation between DNC and HRC campaign in the primary aside from the fundraising which was out in the open from the outset. So I'm having a hard time feeling all that sympathetic to the argument about how this proves HRC stole the primary from Sanders which so many seem to want to buy into.
Anyway Simon, thanks for being a bastion of sanity in your part of the political spectrum for me, at times I despair almost as much for the left as I have for decades with the right.