All of those folks who voted for Trump, may very well have voted for Sanders.
There's a journalist who writes for The Nation, who's been returning to the
Midwest ever since the election to interview the people who voted for Trump.
Many of them voted for Obama because they felt that he could help with the
issues they faced, but were disappointed. Then they were drawn to Sanders. But
when Sanders wasn't a candidate and Trump seemed to be promising some of the
same things, they turned to him. Thomas Frank, the author of What's The Matter
With Kansas, who has written and spoken a lot about this subjectd lately,
agrees. His latest book is also on Bookshare. Sanders had huge crowds
throughout the Midwest when he was campaigning. He is basically a "New Deal
Democrat", whatever name he calls himself.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 3:59 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Midterm elections: Democrats’
‘blue wave’ falls short
I would have to disagree with those who thought Sanders could have won the
election. He was too far left to have gotten enough votes. Now maybe in 2024 or
2028, someone similar to Sanders could win on his platform. But I don't think
mainstream America would have voted for him in sufficient numbers in 2016.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 3:48 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Midterm
elections: Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ falls short
There was a time when the shame of the Democratic Party was its Dixicrats.
The party was supposed to represent the interests of the working class back
then, but there was this part of it from the southern United States whose major
focus was segregation. To those of us from the North, it was a relief when all
those bigots moved over to the Republican Party. We had this delusion that now
we had a party that would truly represent democratic valyes. We thought that
the war on poverty and the voting rights actd were proof of the goodness of the
party. Of course we were in denial about our party's willing participation in
the cold war and its succeeding involvement in wars in Korea and Vietnam.
Actually, we identified the party with FDR's New Deal. Ever since the 70's, as
the party has moved to the right economically and eventually more openly
embraced war as a major mechanism of foreign policy, all we had left to cling
to was, liberal social values. That included feminism, LGBT rights, freedom of
thought and religion, and acceptance of people of all races and cultures. But
because economic equality has increased so ddrastically, because all of the
laws and regulations have changed to benefit the ultra wealthy, the
corporations and the banks, because trued educational values have morphed into
training for class position and college degrees now cost astronomical fees,
there is now a fight over what the Democratic Party should be, whom it should
represent, what values it should have. If the Republicans have moved so far to
the right that they represent only the financial interests of the wealthy and
the values of wealthy Libertarians and the religious right, then if someone who
calls him or her self a Democrat espouses those same values, many feel that,
that person doesn't belong in the Democratic Party. There are many people who
believe that had the party been even handed during the presidential primaries,
Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee and that he could easily have won
the election. That possibility then opens a whole new complicated discussion.
However, the feeling is that the same forces within the party which did not
permit that to happen, are so crippled by their ties to wealthy donors and
their complete detachment from the needs of the majority of Americans, that the
forces which allowed Mr. Trump to sit in the oval office, will continue to run
the country, one way or another.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 2:33 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] Midterm elections:
Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ falls short
Quoting the article in part:
"But the candidates within the Democratic Party “big tent” ranged widely in
their views—from Democratic Socialists of America members to conservatives like
party hack Joe Manchin in West Virginia—who shamefully voted for Brett
Kavanaugh to join the Supreme Court...."
Now I don't like Kavanaugh at all, but I hope the author doesn't think that
only people with a narrow range of views should be elected, as beginning the
sentence with the word, "But", implies. That doesn't sound like a very
intelligent way to run a party or a government. That's what's happening to the
Republican party. I do not want the Democratic party to become a mirror image
of that. We are talking about the House of Representatives after all.
And whatever I think of many other peoples' views, there are a wide range of
views out there. The House is supposed to represent those views, not be a forum
for a narrow set of them.
Again, quoting the article in part:
"Evidence that the “blue wave” did not flow significantly to the left can be
seen in the fact that a quarter of the Democratic Party candidates in the Nov.
6 election have a background in the CIA, the military, the State Department, or
national security...."
The fact that a quarter of them had such backgrounds is a problem? Does the
author mean to say that only people ignorant of such matters should be elected?
If the fact that only a quarter of them had such backgrounds is a problem for
him, that would seem to be what he's saying. Again, that doesn't sound like a
very intelligent way to make decisions. Whatever one's positions on matters of
the military, the CIA, the State Department, or national security might be, it
seems hard to justify ignorance as a good approach to making decisions about
matters involving them. Ignorance is Donald Trump's approach to running things.
I hope this author isn't advocating a similar approach for Democrats.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2018 11:24 AM
To: blind-democracy
Subject: [blind-democracy] Midterm elections: Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ falls short
https://socialistaction.org/2018/11/07/midterm-elections-democrats-blue-wave-falls-short/
Midterm elections: Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ falls short
/ 2 days ago
Nov. 2018 Ocasio Cortez (AP)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, was
elected to Congress on the Democratic Party ticket. (AP)
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
“This is the most important midterm election in the modern history of this
country,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, and many politicians and pundits agreed.
President Trump spoke similarly during his week-long campaign tour, aimed
mainly at shoring up Republican candidates in so-called Red States.
“Everything we have achieved is at stake,” Trump declared to his cheering
admirers.
After the election, however, the mood quickly subsided; there was no evidence
that substantial changes had come onto the political landscape.
For one thing, the hoopla that Democrats had drummed up to create a mighty
“blue wave” produced merely a ripple of elected candidates. In a Nov. 7 news
conference, in fact, Trump boasted that his campaign rallies had “stopped the
blue wave.”
The Democrats’ lackluster finish came despite the fact that they had received
the bulk of Wall Street donations. The securities and finance industry backed
Democratic congressional candidates 63 percent to 37 percent for the
Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Of course, the Democrats did succeed in winning a majority in the House for the
first time since 2011, and made gains in many relatively affluent suburban
districts that had leaned Republican in years past.
And here and there, a few rookie Congress members were elected who consider
themselves to be “progressives” or even “democratic socialists.” More women,
LGBTQ people, and people of color than ever before were elected on the
Democratic ticket.
But the candidates within the Democratic Party “big tent” ranged widely in
their views—from Democratic Socialists of America members to conservatives like
party hack Joe Manchin in West Virginia—who shamefully voted for Brett
Kavanaugh to join the Supreme Court. The crook Bob Menendez was also reelected
as a Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey, despite having been censured by
the Senate Ethics Committee for accepting bribes from a wealthy businessman.
Evidence that the “blue wave” did not flow significantly to the left can be
seen in the fact that a quarter of the Democratic Party candidates in the Nov.
6 election have a background in the CIA, the military, the State Department, or
national security. They included, for example, Elissa Slotkin, who won a
congressional seat from Michigan’s Eighth District.
Slotkin is a former CIA operative in Iraq, who also served as Obama’s Iraq
director on the National Security Council. Later, she worked at the Pentagon,
looking into drone warfare, “homeland defense,”
and cyber warfare.
All in all, despite the addition of a few “progressive” Democrats to Congress,
the complexion of U.S. politics has changed very little since the election. The
policies of the capitalist Democratic Party have not been altered one iota from
the pro-corporate, pro-war, anti-environmental ones of the past.
The social issues that the Democratic Party candidates addressed in their
campaigns were exceedingly narrow. “Medicare for All” was a central plank of
the Democrats this year, though we can expect that the proposal will be watered
down; as under Obama, the needs of the insurance industry will have to be
catered to before the proposal ever reaches a vote in Congress. The Democrats
also spoke about repairing the country’s roads and bridges—always a safe bet at
election time—but ignoring the need for efficient mass transportation and the
use of renewable fuels.
Major issues of an international scope were ignored, such as climate change and
out-of-control environmental pollution, and pouring more money into the
military (most Democrats in Congress supported this year’s $716 billion
military budget). Likewise, questions such as the sanctions against Iran, trade
wars with China and other countries, and the endless U.S. wars in Afghanistan
and the Middle East were virtually absent from the platforms of Democratic
candidates for Congress.
Moreover, important domestic issues such as raising the minimum wage to be
enough to live on; the right to low-cost housing; securing the rights of women,
immigrants, and LGBTQ people; and stopping police violence against people of
color generally received no more than a nod by the Democrats.
A referendum on Trump
The main issue that the Democrats ran on was simply “stop Trump.” CNN and AP
VoteCast polls on the eve of the election both showed that close to 70% of
voters hoped to send a message to Trump with their vote; about 26% to 28% of
the respondents were for Trump, and 38% to 40% were against. Trump readily
agreed that the election was a referendum on his administration. He told
potential voters in Mississippi, “Pretend I’m on the ballot.”
The Republicans held onto their “strongholds” in rural districts and in areas
of discontented white workers who had voted for Trump in 2016.
Accordingly, the Republicans increased their edge in the Senate and won several
key governor races. In general, right-wing and Trump-supporting politicians
were elected, while more mainstream Republicans did not do as well. In a Nov. 7
tweet, Trump acknowledged the fact, saying, “Those that worked with me in this
incredible Midterm Election, embracing certain policies and principles, did
very well. Those that did not, say goodbye!”
One loyal Trump supporter who followed the formula, Marsha Blackburn, was
elected to the Senate from Tennessee. “I’m going to work with President Trump
all of the way to build that wall,” she affirmed to voters. A Blackburn
commercial started with a shot of the immigrant caravan crossing Mexico. “I’m
going to stop the criminals who are going toward our border,”
Blackburn stated in a voice-over.
In order to rally his supporters in the weeks leading up to the election, Trump
relied almost exclusively on scare tactics, using racist descriptions that are
commonly employed by the ultra-right. Trump described the Central American
migrants traveling through Mexico as “invaders” and “terrorists,”
and he endorsed a campaign ad that likened them to Luis Bracamontes, an
immigrant who had been convicted for killing two police officers.
Polls showed that the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court was a
key issue for Trump supporters in the election. Only a month before the
election, Trump spread the conspiracy theory that people protesting Brett
Kavanaugh’s nomination (“elevator screamers”) were being paid for by
billionaire George Soros—a figure who is frequently denounced in anti-Semitic
literature.
In the South, with its long history of injustices against Black people, racism
was merged with anti-immigrant prejudices in Republican messages against the
Democrats. In Georgia, Trump said that Democrat Stacey Abrams, a Black
“progressive” running for governor, was “unqualified”
for the office, and that she “would turn Georgia into a giant sanctuary city
for criminal aliens, putting innocent Georgia families at the mercy of hardened
criminals and predators.” The National Rifle Association in Georgia put out a
message, “Defend yourself. Defeat Abrams.” And ABC News reported that a
robocall on behalf of her Republican opponent, Brian Kemp, called Abrams a
“negress.”
Should socialists work within the Democratic Party?
The elections reflected the broader polarization that has taken place in the
United States during the last few years, brought on in part by the
dissatisfaction and alienation that working people feel toward the status quo
in capitalist society. Some workers and middle-class people, often in
“rust-belt” districts that have seen better times, have been hoodwinked by the
anti-immigrant and racist messages of the right wing.
But likewise, there is no doubt that the reactionary pronouncements by Trump
and the right have had an electric effect in mobilizing people in opposition.
The last two years have seen massive rallies in the streets against Trump’s
policies.
Unfortunately, at the present time, working people have no authentic voice in
the political arena except in the streets. Some socialists mistakenly adhere to
the idea that it might be possible to change the pro-big business nature of the
Democratic Party by working within it, or that it might be possible to break a
“left wing” (such as Bernie Sanders
supporters) out of the party. But both scenarios are merely wishful thinking.
Similarly, it is a deadly illusion to think that revolutionary socialists can
be elected to public office and work for significant social change when using
the ballot line of the capitalist Democratic Party—always a “lesser-evil” trap
for the unwary. History has repeatedly demonstrated that the former party of
the Klan, White Citizens Councils, and Southern slavocracy serves the ruling
class elite unfailingly.
That this “graveyard of all fighting social movements” can be considered a
vehicle for advancing working-class interests is preposterous. In general, when
“progressive” or “left” candidates run as Democrats, the party hierarchy forces
them to align their positions with those of the mainstream, not the opposite.
Consider Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the member of the Democratic Socialists of
America (DSA) from the Bronx, who was just elected to the House as a Democrat.
At first, the party leadership viewed her with suspicion, but after winning the
primary vote, she became a celebrity, the subject of talk shows—and even Barak
Obama endorsed her.
Accordingly, the DSA enlisted Ocasio-Cortez to travel to California to raise
money and support for other “left” candidates running in the Democratic Party.
We can expect, too, that the Democratic Party leadership will use her services
in selected and “safe” locales as an opportunity to refurbish the party’s image
when it suits their needs.
They understand that Ocasio-Cortez and other DSAers are fresh faces who can
attract young people and activists with new energy into the party—and thus
channel dissident voices into the double-talking capitalist mainstream.
Sanders played a similar role in 2016, shepherding the unwary first into his
campaign and then into Hillary Clinton’s.
At her acceptance speech on Nov. 6, Ocasio-Cortez told supporters, “We can make
change … We are here, and we are going to rock the world in the next two years
… This is not the end. This is the beginning.”
But real change will never be achieved from within the Democratic Party.
The beginning of a new day for working people in the United States will arrive
when they construct their own party, one that operates not only at the ballot
box but in workplaces and in the streets, and with a revolutionary program to
enable the working class to take political power in its own name and abolish
the rule of the capitalists.
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November 7, 2018 in Elections, Trump / U.S. Government.
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--
_________________________________________________________________
Isaac Asimov
“Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in
telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life
after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved
negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement,
and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no
matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and
more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the
evidence will have to be.”
― Isaac Asimov
