The old people's and aging Boomers' vote shaming and lecturing have continued on FB, and among family and friends. Here is my message again to old people and aging Boomers, shorter than the long history lesson and lecture I delivered last week, and without most statements having links:
Goddamn it! It's April! Not immediately or (claiming) ever endorsing Biden is a strategy. I am far more willing to give room to the younger and other Bernie activist supporters to say no to endorsing Biden in April, and even through the summer. Getting Biden and the DNC/MSNBC/CNN handlers nervous is at least arguably good for leverage. We already see the near billion dollars the Republicans/Republican PACs, and Trump has to create ads, and they are creating ads at will to define Joe Biden for anything he has ever said--or is now saying, in his terrible articulation. Our criticism of Biden is meaningless in the face of that understanding and money-power. I would like to see how the electorate is doing in August 2020, especially if, God forbid, there is a second strain of the coronavirus spreading by then.
I also see from at least one personal and FB friend of some notoriety back in the days of rage, a belief that progressives can now capture the Democratic Party the way the far right captured the Republican Party. My disagreement with this person I otherwise adore has to do with the power of money and media in politics, which is a major problem for progressive forces inside the Democratic Party. The progressives lack both, and the right wing had and has both. Yes, Bernie Sanders raised a lot of money through people powered donations. However, most of us were tapped out pretty quickly to help anyone else. Most far right operatives, who organize events and send the newsletters, are well paid, and have big corporate exec money funding them--plus a real, easy-to-find television and radio media. We have YouTube, with The Hill: Rising, but from there, what, Jimmy Dore (Dore actually has more viewers through YouTube and social media shares, I should add, but nothing like the biggies in hate talk radio and right wing television so easily accessed and passively watched)? Worst of all, unless the Dems push for real union law reform, progressives lack that people powered center the Republicans created through right wing evangelical Christian churches. It is therefore structurally much more difficult to penetrate the corporate power inside the Democratic Party, and, until we knock down the 80% of Democratic Party stalwart voters who believe in corporate media (per pages 43-44 of this semi-recent study), meaning CNN and MSNBC, I see far less hope of changing the Democratic Party from the inside the way right wingers did with the Republican Party.
On this topic of corporate media power, the presidential primary exit polling showed us how the trust in corporate media led people to vote for who the media said was "most" electable, when the polling data showed that was false in the sense Bernie had plenty of polling data to support his being equally electable. The majority of Democratic Party voters, including those voting Biden, supported Bernie's policies and trusted him most with those policies, yet the media said "No! Don't vote for Bernie! He's not electable!" and a majority of Democratic Party voters herded themselves away from the candidate who was likely more electable in the Rust Belt, where Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 and Biden is likely to lose, once the Republican ad machinery informs that area of Biden being the big trade deal supporter and bankruptcy change advocate who made it harder to declare bankruptcy on student debt and credit card debt. Trump is already trying, through his usual misleading Tweets (I say misleading because he only listens to CEOs and stocks his administration with corporate lobbyists), to run to Biden's left on trade with China, something that could never have been done with Sanders.
I agree with those who say it is vital, if we wish to protect what remains of our Republic, to get more Dems elected this November to state and local offices, and get a Dem controlled Congress. It is the best way to stave off the inevitable fascist coup Trump will try to declare in Trump's next term, should he prevail by winning the Rust Belt again (and losing the popular vote, which I believe he will). However, I favor #DemExit after November because it is better to start a new party without corporate domination, and only have to fight the corporate owned media rather than both. And that true second party (Gore Vidal was essentially correct to say there is only a single Property Party in the United States, with two wings, Democratic and Republican), we may be able to better convince more and more people to turn off their televisions and radios for "news." The kids have already done so, and they are far more up as a group in understanding issues--though they tend to be bad at knowing who the hell their state and local representatives are. A new party, where they are there at the creation, may give them reason to learn that last piece of information, so important in electoral politics.
And yes, to those to my left, I am open to being persuaded to go #DemExit before November to the extent of not voting for Biden. Hear that, Joe? You may lose me, too, unless you start to understand the reality of the rot this virus crisis has exposed. You pick anyone for your VP candidate your campaign is floating, such as Harris, Klobuchar, or even the detestable traitor to the progressive movement, Elizabeth Warren (she just did it again in her endorsement of down ticket races, leaving off the Squad, including Pressley, who had endorsed her in the primary!), you may find the young activists convincing me to vote for the Green Party candidate or even Vermin Supreme. Biden's pivot on Medicare for those age 60 and up is less than what Hillary Clinton stood for in 2016, which was Medicare for 50 and up, and what Harris and Klobuchar endorsed in the Senate most recently. Biden's pivot on student debt cancellation did not include private colleges and universities, and certainly not for-profit colleges and universities, and was dumbly means-tested for families earning under $125,000. This does not cover nearly half the students with debt, and is to the right of Mayor Pete's means-tested plan.
Want to excite anti-Establishment independents, young activists, and labor union members across the nation (the last who are more likely to defect in the Rust Belt to Trump, again)? Sara Nelson for VP.
And here is Jeremy Scahill's article in The Intercept from April 20, 2020, which set me off to writing this post. Scahill wrote a long piece, which I get criticized for writing, since I'm not Jeremy Scahill. But sure, read Jeremy, now that you've read my post. And ask yourself, did Jeremy hit the points I did? Jeremy went around them, and did not hit them. Now, I adore Scahill, but my point is we still see even the important people don't know how to approach this political crisis on top of the other crises we face.
And here is Jeremy Scahill's article in The Intercept from April 20, 2020, which set me off to writing this post. Scahill wrote a long piece, which I get criticized for writing, since I'm not Jeremy Scahill. But sure, read Jeremy, now that you've read my post. And ask yourself, did Jeremy hit the points I did? Jeremy went around them, and did not hit them. Now, I adore Scahill, but my point is we still see even the important people don't know how to approach this political crisis on top of the other crises we face.
