Fat Kat wrote:duetta wrote:For black voters, the ‘Democratic establishment’ meets in our living rooms
When the left bashes the party, it’s attacking a loose mechanism of community problem solvers.
My covert intelligence-gathering mission into the “Democratic establishment” began when I was growing up in South Carolina. My mother, a former Black Panther, didn’t believe that a black child could become a fully realized human being in the presence of whiteness, as she recently informed me, so I was home-schooled early on. Without the benefit of a formal social studies curriculum to educate me about political parties, I assumed the “Democrats” were some Illuminati-like secret society. All I knew was that in my grandmother’s house, uttering a negative word about Democrats was like blaspheming the name of Jesus or disrespecting the memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
That’s why, when Sen. Bernie Sanders, his surrogates and assorted pundits say the “Democratic establishment” has banded together to stop him from winning the party’s presidential nomination and united around former vice president Joe Biden, I wonder: Which Democratic establishment? For black Americans, particularly Southerners, it is not the Democratic National Committee, or the corporate donor base, or even, as the political strategist Mark McKinnon defined it during the anti-establishment presidential race of 2016: “The measles. A disease. A political disease.” The Democratic establishment is, quite simply, their community. Those who vilify it are, by proxy, impugning the people who voice their concerns and protect their families.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/black-voters-democratic-establishment/2020/03/12/59390058-6460-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html
Bernie lost the election when black folks in Virginia and South Carolina decided to vote against their own self interest. We unfortunately are led by our “community leaders” and not our own self interest. Perhaps Bernie isn’t religious enough for these tap dancing preachers. Bernie’s platform benefits black people more than any candidate in history outside of Jesse Jackson.
Biden on the other hand, wrote many of the 1986 drug laws, and a lot of the 1994 crime bill that caused irreparable damage to the black community. He’s still arguing against weed legalization. He still has the same “war on drugs” mentality he’s always had. Apparently his lip service and Obama bump is enough for folks to forget about that.
Having said that, I’ll vote for the bastard because the alternative is far more damaging.
I understand the antipathy towards Neoliberal status quo Joe, I do.
But this is all I'm asking for, a recognition that the alternative is a Thelma and Louise drive right off the cliff into oblivion. Every person who is not an identifiably white person of European origins will be at grave risk if these Nazis stay in power. Their agenda is driven by a fear of the loss of white privilege. It doesn't matter if the poor white Southerner who supports them doesn't reap those gains, it is a perceived threat in their minds that the demographic shift in the country will cause them to permanently lose power.
I got my friend the Trumper to finally admit that White Protectionism is the core of their movement. It took 18 months for me to get him to the point of admitting that, but once he did he was quite unapologetic about it, because in his words "We founded this country."
To me that's fundamentally insane if he believes this country was not founded on the backs of other races that suffered greatly, but he just doesn't see it that way. To him, the N word is "just a word" and when I try to say there is a deep historical memory that makes it more than just a word, he tries to lecture me about the great suffering of the Irish as a counterpoint.
These are the people we're dealing with if they retain power. He'll help me if I need help on a personal level, but on the macro level he's probably OK with any kind of evil these people will perpetrate on our society. That's how Nazis become Nazis. They are consolidating their grip on power and once a smarter one than Trump is at the head of the table, we're really dead since they are hell bent on making the executive branch the only power left in our system.
And he's fairly educated too. Think of all of the completely dumb ones who back him up. White fear drives these people. If we don't stop them, they will make life a living hell for non-whites and immigrants. I know Biden is vilified for his part in past legislations, but he's not a Nazi. And the party is driving him left so if we give them a mandate and a control of both branches of government in November, things will be better immediately. The major structural changes that need to be worked out over the next 10-20 years require this stability now to have a chance of ever happening. Without a preservation of checks and balances now, we'll never get a chance to push more progressive legislation anyway.
* We have a Brunson Burner™ * 
