Unity, Not Compromise

Conservatives used to sneer at liberal "open-mindedness" by pointing out that an open mind lets your brains fall out.  

They were wrong.  But now I say that a too-open tent that lets your enemies in is suicidal.

People who fought for the other candidate in the Democratic presidential primary are not our enemy. 

 

People who want to deny our basic human rights are our enemy.

• People who think it's OK for cops to shoot and kill unarmed black people with impunity are not our allies.
• People who think women are mindless wombs who must be forced to give birth are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to treat non-cis, non-straight people like criminals or sub-humans are not our allies.
• People who think it's OK to discriminate against somebody else's religion but demand special favors for their own are not our allies.
• People who think workers are drones who don't deserve a living wage or a union are not our allies.
• People who descended from immigrants but think all other immigrants should be deported are not our allies.
• People who think torture works are not our allies.
• People who support the death penalty are not our allies.
• People who think climate change is real but we need fossil fuels so there's nothing we can do about it are not our allies.
• People who think for-profit corporations can operate public services like schools and water and parks better than government can are not our allies.
• People who think rich people need more money are not our allies.
• People who think poor people are lazy, criminal drug addicts are not our allies.
• People who think health care is a privilege reserved for those who can afford it are not our allies.
• People who think the War on Drugs is a great idea are not our allies.
• People who think marijuana is worse than heroin but alcohol is not are not our allies.
• People who think war is the answer are not our allies. 
• People who think that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote are not our allies.

Open the Democratic tent to everyone who shares ALL our values.  And no one else.

Political Animal:

The issues that suddenly divide us? Apparently whether we, as a party, will be unyielding in a woman’s right to choose. Taking a page out of the right’s playbook, Jane Sanders called fighting for that right “political correctness.” I see it as core and just as central to who we are as a party as the bullet points above. We’re apparently arguing over whether economic equality would keep immigrant families from being torn apart by immigration authorities (it wouldn’t), or keep African Americans from being shot in the streets and killed in jail cells (it wouldn’t), or keep Donald Trump from grabbing a woman’s pussy (it hasn’t).

From there Markos discusses where he sees the current divide.

It is interesting to me that these are sometimes referred to as “cultural issues.” But if you are a woman whose economic survival is threatened by a pregnancy, I’m sure that the right to chose can’t simply be relegated to a cultural phenomenon. Same would be true if your family’s survival depends of what an ICE officer decides to do with his time, or if you are a black man in the middle of getting pulled over by a police officer. In all of those instances, these are life and death matters. That is why women and people of color react so strongly to being told that speaking up about them is divisive. It is actually the other sides trampling of their lives that is divisive. We need to be clear about that.

A lot of this discussion was reignited when Bernie Sanders chose to endorse a Democratic candidate who was openly anti-choice. I tend to think about that this way: would I vote for an anti-choice Democrat if the only alternative was the mini-me Trump that is my current representative? You betcha I would! That is what politics is often about in a two-party system.

On the other hand, this morning I read an article from Politico about why the Christian right is so thrilled with Donald Trump’s presidency and have become the one constituency he can rely on. It is all based on what we call “cultural issues” – and that is overwhelmingly about the steps this president has taken (and promised to take) to strip women of their right to chose. So let’s be honest…these are the battles we face right now. Any backing off from fighting them will destroy decades of progress that our predecessors fought for so valiantly.

The challenge Democrats have always faced can be summed up with questions like this:

• Are men prepared to fight for a woman’s right to chose?
• Are white people prepared to fight against racism?
• Are citizens prepared to fight for those who are undocumented?
• Are white collar workers prepared to fight for unions?
• Are the wealthy prepared to fight for the middle class?
• Are those who have good health insurance through their employer prepared to fight for those who don’t?
• Are members of the upper and middle class prepared to fight for those in poverty?
• Are the middle-aged prepared to fight for seniors?
• Are seniors prepared to fight for young people?

I could go on, but perhaps you get the point.

Whenever the answer to one of those questions is “no,” or when the message is sent either directly or indirectly that “my issue is more important than yours,” the divide widens. That is what makes the challenge more difficult for Democrats than Republicans. We can’t afford to play a zero-sum game. We have to care about people who aren’t like us because that is the definition of what “liberal” means.

Marcos ends his piece with a powerful quote from Australian Aboriginal activist Lilla Watson.

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

The over-arching goal of liberalism is that “your liberation is bound up with mine.” That is what it means to form a coalition. That was Bernice Johnson Reagon’s message way back in 1981 and it is what Rev. William Barber is talking about when it comes to “fusion politics.” It is the only path forward for Democrats.

Economic Populism for Democratic Idiots

I still say that we need the working class people of color whose votes are being suppressed, but David Atkins makes a good argument against either ignoring the white working class who voted for trump or abandoning our principles to be even more repug-lite than ever.

The Party does not, in fact, need to throw women and minorities under the bus to win back the voters who defected from Obama to Trump. It simply needs to drive a much clearer progressive narrative, admit that the nation’s economy as it has been run for the last 30 years has serious problems that need fixing, and paint corporate and Wall Street elites as the real villains in the story of the white working class’ downward mobility.

That won’t, of course, win over all of Trump’s voters or even a significant minority of them. It’s not that Matt Yglesias and his like-minded friends are wrong about the prejudiced motivations of most of Trump’s electorate. They’re right.

But it’s important to distinguish between the core Trump voters and the marginal, persuadable ones. Most Trump voters are either regular Republicans who have always voted Republican and always will whether it’s Romney or Trump, or the new aggressive breed of hyper-racist trolls and alt-right Breitbart types. But those voters have always been on the other side of the fence. What has changed is that a not insignificant number of exurban and rural white voters who used to vote for Democrats even as recently as the Obama era increasingly feel that no one speaks for them. They might not particularly like Trump’s racism or uncouth behavior, but they don’t believe that Democrats understand their plight. They feel that Democrats take care of both the very rich and the very poor as well as minorities, but that no one at all is looking out for the person who makes $40K-50K a year in small town America–people who make too much for even expanded Medicaid but not enough to afford health insurance, whose children can’t win need-based scholarships but don’t have the grades to earn merit-based ones, and whose towns seem to be dying inexorably whether Democrats or Republicans hold office. These people aren’t impressed by offers to provide family leave or increase funding for schools. They want their old jobs back, and they want the people who took their future from them to be punished, whoever they may be.

It is these marginal, persuadable Trump voters who are causing the President’s public polling support to crater. If it were all about racism and prejudice, Trump would be riding high: after all, most of the President’s actions since taking office have been geared to stoke xenophobia and hatred. Yet the President is rapidly losing support in the polls, including from his former voting base. The Trump Regrets twitter account is replete with people who held their nose on his temperament expecting action on jobs, and are angry with the President’s lack of focus and lack of results.

An aggressively economic populist Democratic Party can win back a small but significant portion of these voters–enough to flip many competitive House districts and purple Senate seats. But those who have been calling the shots will need to be humble enough to admit their errors and stop pretending that the Party’s only choices are to backtrack on civil rights or stand their ground as beautiful losers who believe that America is already great. There is a third alternative that has nothing to do with triangulation.

The Democratic Party can and must aggressively fight for the white working class votes it lost with a forceful economic populism that gives no quarter on social justice, lifting up the downtrodden construction worker in Peoria while laying low the arrogant hedge fund manager in Manhattan–with liberty and genderless bathrooms for all.

Dem Legislators Need to Come Out Fighting

Now we've got an all-trumpian state legislature in Kentucky.  Expect rapid passage of laws making sexual assault and rape legal - for white men - and permitting all kinds of discrimination - by white men against non-white non-men - and barring trans people not just from public restrooms but from all public accommodations because cooties and mandating wage cuts for women who earn more than 50 percent of what any man earns and more.

The Dems should come out firing on Day One.  Not just voting against all the repug abominations, but loudly and proudly filing bills of their own.  No, they'll never get a committee hearing, but they will get screaming demands from nothing-to-lose dems that the bills do get hearings.

Any Democratic legislators out there ready to fight?  Here are some ideas:

- repeal the gay-bashing marriage amendment in the state constitution

- mandatory background checks and seven-day waiting period for gun purchases

- raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour

- establish the "Right to a Union" outlawing any anti-union efforts on the part of any employer

- double the state tax rate from 6 percent to 12 percent on income above $100,000, and halve the state tax rate from 6 percent to 3 percent on income below $50,000.

- Double the corporate tax rate.

- Outlaw contracting of any state or local public service.  Fund the hiring of thousands of state employees instead.

- mandate unisex restrooms in all schools and public buildings

- build and staff state-supported abortion clinics in each and every one of Kentucky's 120 counties. Free, no-cost, no-waiting, no-questions asked abortions.

 

Bury the motherfuckers in bills that showcase what Democratic leadership really means.

 

Rip the fucking envelope to shreds and scream bloody murder.

Dare You to Watch This

Via Down with Tyranny:

In 180 seconds you will be voting for Bernie Sanders.

Name one plank in Sanders' platform that is not supported by a majority of American voters.

Why You Should Be Glad Grimes Lost

One fewer fucking DINO to get rid of in 2018.  Already, six Senate repugs with Ds next to their names are preparing to give Mitch McConnell his 60-vote filibuster-proof majority, and the dem leadership has surrendered the lame-duck session.

No wonder nobody wants to vote for Democratic candidates: what the fuck are they good for?
 

Alex Ruthrauf at Wonkette.

On Monday, beltway bullshit scorecard POLITICO reported that nominal Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, and Heidi Heitkamp appear eager to help the new Republican majority advance legislation. Manchin even called the idea of not working with Republicans to promote their agenda “bullshit.” They probably think that burnishing their “moderate centrist” credentials in this way will help them keep their jobs when they face the voters in 2018. They are wrong.

Assuming a Democrat is elected president in 2016, and middle class wages remain stagnant or continue to shrink, here is what will happen to Joe Manchin and Claire McCaskill and Heidi Heitkamp in 2018: They will lose.

It will not matter if Joe Manchin literally shoots every climate bill that hits his desk. It will not matter if Claire McCaskill personally lays the Keystone XL pipeline’s ceremonial Golden Pipe. And it will not matter if Heidi Heitkamp drinks a Bakken oil smoothie for breakfast every morning.

All of them will lose.

SNIP

Let them lose. Then start running Democrats who are recognizable as Democrats in a blind taste test. Even in places where the conventional wisdom says they won’t play well. These candidates will almost certainly lose too, at first. But at least the party’s resources will be spent on promoting candidates who support the core agenda that rank and file Democrats go out and vote for. Maybe undecided voters in “red states” won’t trust that agenda in Round 1, but as things stand now, they’re not even being asked to evaluate it. They choose between the Republican and the Republican with a “D” next to their name.

SNIP

So why do we just assume that Democrats in “red” or “purple” states can’t take liberal positions? Probably because they so rarely try, because they’re cowards who don’t deserve to be nominated. So let’s stop nominating them.

You think a candidate promising a higher minimum wage, an FDR-style jobs program funded by taxing the shit out of Wall Street and  universal pre-K couldn't get elected in Kentucky?

Prove it. Run one.

Yes We Did, Yes We Do and Yes We Will Keep Torturing Until the Bush/Cheney War Criminals Are in Prison

Charles Pierce, on the dangers of infection:

For years, our herd immunity on these matters consisted of a general consensus that there were some things that the United States simply could not do and remain the country we told ourselves and the world that we were. We believed that there were things that were unthinkable, and that kept us at least partly safe from an outbreak of our worst impulses. That herd immunity will not be rebuilt easily. It will take a steady intellectual and political inoculation against the worst in us all. And we must contain the spread of the infection as best we can, and not listen to those people who tell us that what always has worked in the past for us endangers us now.

An elderly European acquaintance of mine recently died. Someone who remembered World War II, and the American soldiers who liberated them.  Someone who loved Barack Obama because he represented what to her generation was the very best of America: our honor and our goodness and our refusal to surrender to evil.

I cannot read this report without wondering how I could possibly look her in the eye.

If Pierce's conclusion is too vague for you, try this:

Eric Fair was an Arabic linguist in the U.S. Army from 1995 to 2000 and then, in 2004, he worked as a contract interrogator in Iraq. He remains haunted by what he did there.

In April 2004 I was stationed at a detention facility in Fallujah. Inside the detention facility was an office. Inside the office was a small chair made of plywood and two-by-fours. The chair was two feet tall. The rear legs were taller than the front legs. The seat and chair back leaned forward. Plastic zip ties were used to force a detainee into a crouched position from which he could not recover. It caused muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings and calves. It was torture.

The detainees in Fallujah were the hardest set of men I’ve ever come upon. Many killed with a sickening enthusiasm. They often butchered what remained of their victims. It is easy to argue that they deserved far worse than what we delivered.

Still, those tactics stained my soul in an irrevocable way, maybe justifiably so. But as members of our government and its agencies continue to defend our use of torture, and as the American people continue to ignore their obligation to uncover this sordid chapter, the stain isn’t mine alone.

Jose Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, insists that those who suggest we question more gently have never felt the burden of protecting innocent lives. I’ve felt that burden. And when the time came, I did not question gently.

I’m dealing with my own burdens now. My marriage is struggling. My effectiveness as a parent is deteriorating. My son is suffering. I am no longer the person I once was. I try to repent. I work to confess. I hope for atonement.

As a country, we need to know what happened. We need to confess. We need to be specific. We need to open the book.

Hey, Aynrandy: There's a Lady With a Lamp Here Wants a Word With You

What part of "immigrants built his country" does the Tribble-Toupeed One not understand?

In an interview that aired Sunday, Paul said that those immigrants "are not bad people" but added the United States "can't invite the whole world" inside its borders.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/04/13/3194157/rand-paul-us-cant-invite-the-whole.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

Not to mention that our only hope of future economic security is immigrants - illegal ,dark-skinned, non-xian, gay and everything else.

Also, unless you are 100 percent Native American, shut the fuck up about "illegal immigrants."

And just by the way, moron, a good definition of "bad people" is "people who want to run the United States despite having not the faintest idea of what this country stands for."

QOTD

Jim Hightower:

Some say that a populist movement can’t hold together, that it’s like herding cats. But those who say you can’t herd cats never tried a can opener. They will come. And our can opener is that set of progressive values: fairness, justice, opportunity for all.

Read the whole thing.

If Wendy Davis Can Say This in Texas, Alison Grimes Can Say It in Kentucky

But she won't.  Because unlike true-blue Democratic candidate Davis, Grimes is a repug-lite fake dem with fear and greed where her values should be.

From Wonkette:

Wonkette hero and perpetual state legislature lady-crush Wendy Davis once again set our hearts fluttering:

“I believe that all Texans who love one another and are committed to spending their lives together should be allowed to marry,” Davis said in a statement.

And while we're on the subject, how about a Kentucky Democratic Party Chair who actually "loves being a Democrat"?

When I Say "Democratic Values," This Is What I Mean

This is what disappointed Democratic voters want to hear. This is what will get disappointed Democratic voters off their asses and into the voting booth. This is what can beat repugs in any blood-red district in the land.

And this is what you will never, ever hear from repug-lite not-dems like Alison Lundergan Grimes.



Digby:

Lux writes:

The kind of politics Elizabeth Warren represents is at its heart a moral kind of politics. She doesn’t worry about party politics, as she has always taken on the powers-that-be of both political parties. She doesn’t shy away from a tough fight, instead she has always been willing to push for what is right no matter how powerful the lobbyists on the other side are. And it was fitting that the event we did with her was in a church, because the politics she preaches are deeply moral - the politics not of right and left, but of right and wrong.

She has become an icon for an important new kind of politics, a political movement focused less on the size of government than on, as she talks about in her speech, which side is our government on, everyday people or the rich and powerful. Her willingness to hold both big business and government officials accountable when the playing field is tilted in favor of wealthy special interests is something that has been all too rare in modern American politics, and it is the reason so many people are responding to her the way the crowd in that New York City church was.

And it isn’t just activists who are responding: she is remarkably effective, especially for a first year Senator. It is clear that her calls for tougher Wall Street prosecution drove the bigger, tougher settlements JP Morgan and other bankers have had to agree to in the last year. Larry Summers would be the Fed Chair if it wasn’t for her. Her speech on Social Security was a major factor in taking discussion of Social Security cuts off the table for the time being. And her passionate pursuit of a higher minimum wage have helped create the atmosphere that led to President Obama’s executive order and focus on the issue in his SOTU.

What AFV is seeking to build is a broad national movement around this brand of politics. We want to help Elizabeth Warren and other progressive allies take on the powers that be and fight the good fight for the American people no matter who is on the other side. When she said that “our time has come”, I believe she was right, but only if we join her in the battle. When she said “we have found our voice”, she wasn’t talking about her being the voice of progressives, she was saying we all have to find our voice and join this movement. Join is in that fight by signing up on our website, and enjoy watching Elizabeth Warren at her best.

I post these stories and videos featuring Senator Warren and always feel as if there's nothing left to say. She says it all. And she says it perfectly. All I can do is say, "what she said."

Warren is one of the very few elected officials who is explicitly aligning herself with the progressive movement and is totally unafraid to make that known. That takes guts. She will not be rewarded by the Party apparatus for doing this. But then, she has us.

How to Get This President - and the Country - Back on Track

Yes, there is an alternative to just shrugging your shoulders and caving every time the repugs throw a temper tantrum. David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The President could take a stand, forcing passage of what small improvements might be possible while cursing the GOP for not doing more. Nothing is getting done anyway.

If nothing is going to get done, why not use the intervening time to damage the House Republicans who stand in the way of progress? Why not demand message bill after message bill, sponsor them through the Senate and watch the GOP filibuster every one? Why not then call for reform of the filibuster? Spend every day listing the things the House Republicans will not do? Go to the media and ask why the Republicans refuse to give the President a bill to increase the minimum wage? Why do they refuse to send him an infrastructure bill to create jobs? Why do they refuse to send him a gun control bill?

If I were President, I would go on camera and say:

"You know, I want what the American people want. Like you, I want to increase the minimum wage. I want to boost jobs, increase incomes for middle class Americans, and fix our decaying infrastructure. I want to do something to stop the epidemic of gun deaths in this country. I want to invest in green jobs, move away from the old fuels that fund our enemies, slow down and stop climate change and make America the leader in the technologies of the 21st century. I want to invest in our children's education and stop students from taking on a lifetime of debt just to go to college.

Like you, I want to do all these things. But I'm not a king. I can't force Congress to put these bills on my desk. They have to bring them to me, and Republicans in Congress refuse to do so. I'm asking them directly: give me these bills. The American people want them. I got elected by a significant margin in order to get these things done that I talked about on the campaign trail.

I'm as aware as the American People that nothing is getting done in Washington. It's all bickering and no action. But that doesn't mean everyone is equally to blame. I'm trying to get these things done to bring relief to my fellow Americans. Most of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate are trying to do the same. But the House of Representatives is refusing to do its job. In fact, they're planning on taking America hostage--again!--refusing to pay the bills we've racked up unless we slash even more jobs and hurt our economy even worse than they hurt it already.

Enough is enough. I'm waiting for the House to act, and for Republicans in the Senate to stop filibustering every bill we put forward to help the American people. The Republican Senate Minority has already blocked twice as many bills during my Presidency than in any other Presidency. I've tried compromising, I've tried threatening, I've tried pleading. Nothing works. There's nothing to trade. The Republicans are so invested in trying to make my Presidency fail that they're will to let American go down with it.

They don't want to raise the minimum wage. They want to cut taxes for the rich. They don't want to invest in green jobs and infrastructure: they want to cut jobs and privatize our roads and bridges. They don't want to reduce the number of guns on our streets and in our schools; they want to increase them. They'd rather regulate women's bodies than regulate corporations that evade taxes and pollute our air and water. There's no compromise to be had there. Trust me, I've tried--though the press often pretends I haven't, I've tried as hard as anyone can. They just don't want the same things the American people do.

My message to the American People is this: you elected me to do a job and make your lives better. I'm doing all I can, but I can't do it alone. I need Congress--and Republicans in Congress especially--to do their jobs rather than cater to the interests of a few big corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Everything I can do alone, I'm doing. But I can't do the big things without some help. If you want change as much as I do, if you want to realize your and my hope for a better future, call up and email your members of Congress and tell them to do their jobs and send these bills to my desk."

Would that be a divisive speech? Of course it would. But it's not as if the government is functional now, or as if partisan sniping could get more acrimonious than it is now.

Such a speech might not accomplish too much. But it wouldn't be the speech of a Presidency adrift. It would be the speech of a Presidency on point. It would highlight precisely why the President was taking executive action to go around Congress when possible. It would highlight who was causing problems. It would be difficult for a fractured Republican caucus to effectively respond. And it might even mobilize Democratic and progressive activists to do the seemingly impossible and retake the House in 2014.

The current approach will accomplish no more legislatively, while failing badly politically. If the Presidency is adrift, it's time for the American people to learn why straight from the horse's mouth.