No adding context of the question makes it worse because he was preaching about Dems not reaching voters, the interviewer said what about black voters, and his response to that was that their issues aren't important. You can't even admit what's right there in plain english was said so there's no point in continuing this.
It makes it worse? Sanders was asked a question specifically about white voters and his response was that we need to focus on working class voters that are white, black, Hispanic, and Asian (something you claim doesn't happen when he talks about the working class). The follow up question to that leads from that standpoint. Anybody that isn't woefully misreading the interview would be able to tell that his comment was meant to articulate that the Democrats have committed votes from POC because they are better on issues relating specifically to race than the Republicans. But that alone isn't enough to get voters that aren't getting other material benefits in the form of economics like healthcare or a living wage to get out and vote. His comment on working class white voters isn't to appeal to them specifically, he's saying that working class whites shouldn't be as low of a vote total as they are if they the Democrats were committed to the working class. That they would get more working class voters period.
This is all in the context that you think the modern class Democratic Party is a working class party when the reality is that for some 40-years it has been a corporate party that has advanced the goals of the wealthy. That's what someone like Ocasio-Cortez campaigned against and one of the significant reasons why she won.
It doesn't register because he followed it up by saying issues black and Latino voters have aren't important. The same reason it didn't register when Trump made his first statement on Charlottesville and followed it up with his many sides statement the next day. Again you have this extreme double standard because you like Bernie where now you play dumb as if the context behind all these statements aren't bad, the same way Trump voters justify the crap he says.
I think the issue with you is you just don't care about class. I have no idea what your class privilege is, but do you not think healthcare is an issue that impacts POC? A living wage? Parental leave? Sanders in his policy stump speeches or in writing, specifically states how these universal policies will disproportionately help POC. I can't help but think that anyone would claim that the modern Democratic Party throws bones out to POC and in the same breath would say that a person that is advocating for the greatest transfer of wealth to POC through these set of social programs is throwing them under the bus just has zero conception of class.
There is a large gulf of saying someone has shortcomings on understanding the intersection of race and class and then suggesting that they're throwing POC under the bus. Your false equivalences are as perplexing as they are cringe inducing.
Reasons like saying their issues don't matter? Reasons like ignoring Civil Rights groups for 37 years? Nope you're pushing a narrative that his one flaw was just not getting his message out despite literally talking to a black person that got his message loud and clear and seeing black people mention his message all the time online. You've decided to ignore all those people to come up with your own made up reasons he couldn't get black voters. You're ignoring us like Bernie does, why does this deserve a response?
Yeah, it's stuff like this that I can't help but think you are a dishonest actor here trying to prove your assertion first and not actually committed to anything on good-faith value here. Aside from repeatedly drawing strawman of things I have not said in order to argue against something I never said (when did I say his one flaw was anything? Argue against somebody making these points and don't invent things against me because otherwise you'd be forced to deal in specifics and that's tough for someone talking in vague platitudes and generalities).
You keep referencing this article as if it is the definitive piece on this claim. Just a little bit of research, a little bit of curiosity would lend you to counter-information that doesn't just have you cherry-picking things to back your assertion:
Patrick Brown, executive director of the Greater Burlington Multicultural Resource Center, has this to say about Bernie Sanders: “We are all so proud of him.”
Brown has been organizing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day events since the early 90s; speakers have included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anita Hill, and the Rev. Al Sharpton. According to Brown, Sanders is a regular participant, introduced Anita Hill when she spoke, and received an award from Rev. Sharpton.
Oddly enough, Brown’s words appear in a recent piece attacking Sanders, that said Vermont’s black leaders found they were invisible to him. The premise is strikingly at odds with Bown’s account - which, ironically, is buried more than 650 words into the piece. Before his words in praise of Sanders appear, however, three other individuals critical of Sanders are quoted. While Brown’s active status as a black leader in Vermont is inarguable, the others aren’t so clear; they include a lawyer for an international finance and aerospace corporation; the founder of an organization that Bizapedia lists as ‘inactive’; and the executive director of an organization based 150 miles from Burlington, who seems also to be its lone member. Which is not to say that they are not leaders; but it is an extremely odd choice to present their views as the only relevant ones, especially since Brown, who clearly has a long history with Sanders, could speak from extensive experience about Sanders’ relationship with the African American community in Vermont.
It gets weirder, though. The ‘inactive’ organization, the African American Alliance of the Northeast Kingdom, appears in one other website apart from the Bizapedia listing: across the top of a page on a libertarian website, whose sole content is a link to a rough paraphrase of the original article. The paraphrase, titled “Black Leaders Skewer Sanders: He’s Neglected Us”, does not include Brown’s praise for Sanders. The name of the inactive organization is extremely prominent; the name of the libertarian website it appears on it is far smaller, and is easily missed.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/liam-miller/african-american-leaders-in-vermont_b_9300672.htmlBernie only didn't get black votes because they're low information voters through no fault of their own... That's your message. Let's ignore Bernie still losing black voters 70-25 in later stages of the primary (something you still haven't addressed yet but you claim to be addressing all my points). It spits in the face of your narrative so you ignore it, why should I have dignified this with a response?
You get continuously claiming things that are my arguments when I've not only not said those things, but also rejected the assertions you're making about me don't reflect well on you as an honest actor or even from a point of being successful at persuasion, right? I explicitly rejected the notion of blaming voters or claiming they're "low information," but here you are again claiming I said something I never did.
Another key for your position to have any standing is to play fast and loose with facts from 2-years ago and having me have to go back and look to see just to make sure because you have a habit of getting these wrong. Sanders got below 20s of the black vote when in the South. He got in the high 20s or low 30s when in the North in states like Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. You keep trying to point at me to explain why he still did poorly among black people. Contrary to what you've said, I have given reasons, multiple. Broadly I've said his campaign did not expect to last long enough to invest in states outside of the first two until well into late 2015, they didn't have an effective strategy or message for black voters until the primary was already over that combined populist economics with racial justice, Sanders had his own shortcomings in the nuanced intersection race and class etc. And then there were outside factors of Sanders having low name recognition, the Clinton Machine, decline of labor power in the South, being a message campaign etc, stuff that was mostly outside of his control that influenced it too. You however haven't apparently grappled with why Sanders did do better among black voters in the North versus the South? Why young black voters prefer him much more so than older black voters? And have done hand waving when pointed to polling that black voters now do like Bernie Sanders, by qualifying with it that all Democrats are popular in that respect, a statement that is not true. Why should I continue to dignify you constantly misrepresenting me, arguing claims I never made, or getting facts wrong or in other cases playing very loose with them, why should I dignify any of this?
So when contrasting minority issues by saying they're not important and instead focusing on "working class" issues what is he saying? Do working class minorities not care about minority issues? Why do you keep trying to pivot off the point that he didn't just say working class but that he contrasted working class with minorities? Why should I respond when you continue to act as if contrasting minority issues with working class issues isn't throwing minorities under the bus?
I've already addressed in the first two replies.
So when he said “it is not good enough for someone to say, 'I'm a woman! Vote for me!' No, that's not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies" that wasn't a criticism of Clinton's campaign? Why should I have to respond to such a blatant lie?
Because you are the person that is lying. The statement that you're once again placing in here - without context, without a link (a reoccurring theme with you) - has nothing to do with Clinton. The question was given by a Latina woman and her question specifically was "I want to be the second Latina senator in U.S. history. Any tips?” His response was:
Let me respond to the question in a way that you may not be happy with. It goes without saying that as we fight to end all forms of discrimination, as we fight to bring more and more women into the political process, Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans — all of that is enormously important, and count me in as somebody who wants to see that happen.
But it's not good enough to say, “Hey, I'm a Latina, vote for me.” That is not good enough. I have to know whether that Latina is going to stand up with the working class of this country, and is going to take on big money interests.
One of the struggles that we're going to have right now, we lay on the table of the Democratic Party, is it's not good enough to me to say, “Okay, well we've got X number of African Americans over here, we've got Y number of Latinos, we have Z number of women. We are a diverse party, a diverse nation.” Not good enough. We need that diversity, that goes without saying. That is accepted. Right now, we've made some progress in getting women into politics — I think we got 20 women in the Senate now. We need 50 women in the Senate. We need more African Americans.
But, but, here is my point, and this is where there is going to be division within the Democratic Party. It is not good enough for someone to say, “I'm a woman! Vote for me!” No, that's not good enough. What we need is a woman who has the guts to stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry. In other words, one of the struggles that you’re going to be seeing in the Democratic Party is whether we go beyond identity politics. I think it's a step forward in America if you have an African-American head or CEO of some major corporation.
But you know what? If that guy is going to be shipping jobs out of this country and exploiting his workers, it doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot if he's black or white or Latino. And some people may not agree with me, but that is the fight we're going to have right now in the Democratic Party. The working class of this country is being decimated. That's why Donald Trump won. ...
We need candidates — black and white and Latino and gay and male — we need all of that. But we need all of those candidates and public officials to have the guts to stand up to the oligarchy. That is the fight of today.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/21/13699956/sanders-clinton-democratic-partyClassic white votes pandering by Bernie by telling people that we need to fight against Wall Street, insurance companies, drug companies, fossil fuel industry, and oligarchs. This is what appeals to those racist white people and look at Bernie shamelessly pandering to them. And the questioner who you are trying to weaponize to make your point? She views Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as her heroes.
The underpinning reasons of poverty for a vast majority of minorities is white supremacy. Again white poverty is at 8.8% and black poverty at 27.4%. 62% of black children are raised in neighborhoods with over 20% poverty rates. Only 4% of white children are. You are bastardizing what people want when they call for more black CEOs, why should I be forced to explain to you why coopting right wing lies to criticize the argument for equal representation is bad?
You're trying to disentangle racism and class under capitalism as separate entities that don't interact with one another and cause pain and misery for people in different ways. Nobody is saying equal representation is bad, again you have to say something that I did not say. But what does say is that it isn't enough to have a Hispanic man become the CEO of say JP Morgan if they are then going to turnaround and prey upon poor and working class people. That is not woke. That is not going to undo economic inequality or systemic racism. Having Wells Fargo sponsor an event on black liberation when they defraud black homeowners regularly isn't progress:
https://boingboing.net/2016/05/27/wells-fargo-who-preyed-on-bla.htmlYou are bastardizing any calls for social justice when you try to attribute that if enough POC attain higher class status, then that is the key towards a better society. Equal representation is necessary. But if your selling equal representation by continuing the same exploitation under capitalism, then how you can even claim to be interested in organizations like DSA or any leftist groups that are surging in popularity? You don't sound like a DSA member, you sound like an Obama bro from the Pod Save America dorks.
No one said vote for Hillary because she's a woman. No one says vote for anyone because of their race and sex. Its insulting to pretend people do say that to attack them. Creating some random strawman to make women look bad because you hate Hillary irrationally (because there's a ton of perfectly valid reasons to hate her) isn't the way to go.
My point wasn't even about Clinton. I never even mentioned her, but you yet again have to latch onto something I didn't say, in order to try and make a coherent point. And you happen to be wrong as it were:
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright introduced Hillary Clinton at an event in New Hampshire on Saturday, telling the crowd and voters in general: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/06/madeleine-albright-campaigns-for-hillary-clintonExplaining that women tend to become more active in politics as they become older, she suggested that younger women were backing Mr. Sanders just so they could meet young men.
“When you’re young, you’re thinking: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,’ ” Ms. Steinem said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/us/politics/gloria-steinem-madeleine-albright-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.htmlIt is really important to me that we elect a competent, Democratic woman president. Not because of some hollow symbolic urge. But because the inverse—not electing a woman, again—is much more than symbolic. It reflects the worst of this country, how it systematically has kept power (even representation) from everyone but white men.
https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a30203/hillary-clinton-hot-mess/And again, the point wasn't about Clinton that you brought up out of nowhere. It was that Democrats use identity strategically so they can protect candidates from legitimate critiques and then dispose of identity when it isn't useful for them. These are the people that will try to use identity to protect critiques of Kamala Harris' record as AG in California or Cory Booker's coziness with Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies, and charter schools, as if people aren't making the same critiques at people like Andrew Cuomo for his coziness to big monied interest and efforts in keeping the NY State Senate in Republican control or someone like Joe Biden for having a draconian record on legislation and treatment of black people and his overall centrist politics. Then in the same breath, these same Democratic opertatives will smear people like Keith Ellison or refuse to support progressive women like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Lucy Flores, Cynthia Nixon, and often instead support candidates that are to the right of them and oppose bread and butter liberal positions like a woman's right to an abortion. How this is something I have to explain to you, I'm really not sure.
No one said that equal representation means equal representation at all levels. Capitalism isn't the problem nearly as much as racism. That's just a fact for all minorities. You don't care because it doesn't affect you, but that's not my problem and its not my job to make you care.
A rather astounding statement since capitalism profits off racism and feeds it itself. If you think you can fix racism separate from class, then you are to the right of the supposed organizations you are now stanning for and it makes it even more amusing that you think you are accurately analyzing why Ocasio won her primary.
My goodness. Obviously race is one of the most important determinants of class outcomes, but it is not the only determiner. Your simplifying a very complex study that is saying a lot of things about gender, race, societies different treatment of black boys to black girls and much more. Within the study itself, it says that black girls are on par with white girls when coming from similar wealth. And despite all this, the study does say that poor black people will be far worse off than wealthy black people. There are other studies that show how important generational wealth is in determining how people will do in life and much of the effects of racist policies from redlining to the discriminatory G.I. Bill have impacted that as well.
Your effort to separate race from class is very counterproductive and that's why the movement going forward has to focus on both interacting together for the sake of improving people's lives across each racial demographic.
His history of ignoring Civil Rights groups in Vermont and saying our issues aren't important? That history?
You like cherry-picking, I get it. Sanders has actual history of chaining himself to black women to fight segregation, to supporting a black Presidential candidate and helping him win twice in his state of Vermont when it was unpopular to do so, to being the only white Congressional Representative to join the Congressional Black Caucus to discussing the black voter suppression and purges in the state of Florida in the 2000 election, to supporting gay rights in the 80s when it wasn't popular, to critiquing United States interventionism in Central America and countries where POC have been directly impacted, to visiting and starting congressional hearing to improve the lives of migrant workers in Florida. And guess what, none of that is enough and doesn't excuse Sanders falling far short in another of other instances. But your shoddy arguments aren't doing a good job of critiquing him where there is valid issues with him. It's done the opposite.
He's 76 and has 37 years in office his ignorance is willing ignorance.
The only way to quantify this is that you're the one that is ignorant here.
For one thing they call for forms of AA to get equal representation at all levels. That's pretty big if you ask me.
Where does Sanders not support this? In the rather large quoted portion I had to put here in response to your incorrectly framed point, Sanders explicitly calls for this. Again, what you perceive of throwing a bone to POC, you don't have an example to show that Sanders doesn't support those supposed offerings.
Crushing free trade like Sanders does affects the poorest people on earth more than anyone else. Affects us negatively too. Its not extracting wealth and labor from poor countries you won't find any economist that agrees with that.
Let me reiterate this point for someone that likes to claim that Sanders or even myself is repeating Republican talking points; the party that most often votes for these trade agreements are Republicans. The ones who are most likely to oppose them is the Democratic Party. You are repeating Republican talking points. There are economists and studies that show the harmful effects of these trade deals. Most progressive politicians, activists, organizations oppose the framework of these agreements. This is ludicrous what you are suggesting. Ocasio who likewise does not support those agreements, is someone you keep pretending that you know why she won.
Speaking of Ocasio, the person who did nothing like Sanders, apparently focuses on two policy issues in her victory speech:
Huh, seems like she's talking about the donor class in reference to her primary opponent and advocating for Medicare-for-All. I totally believe you know what you're talking about even when she contradicts you.
And here is an actual DSA member that says none of what you say explaining why Ocasio won:
https://medium.com/@michael.kinnucan/explaining-ocasio-cortez-a5e8a8d40afbSeems way more inline with what I've said than you. Weird.
But you're ignoring the point of what I said which is that you're using the same defense they use. You can be Jewish and not care about the plight of minorities.
No, because it undermines your point and reads very suspicious of you when you compare him to Nazi parties in Europe. Sanders is the only United States Senator that speaks for the humanity of the Palestinian people. Millions of people who are POC. There is no electoral benefit for Sanders to do this. Within much of the Jewish community it is even worse. You will be called a self-hating Jew, a kapo, and could be sheltered out of your Jewish community and lose relationships. Your myopic and poorly reasoned arguments don't and can't account for instances of Sanders doing things - as he has throughout his career - of taking sides on an issue that are not popular or electorally beneficial.
It is repugnant that you compare again a Jewish man that has a record of social justice and committing to acts that give voice and power to the marginalized to someone like Le Pen. It is noted that this is what you're saying here and should reflect the lens your comments are viewed in on this topic going forward.
Continuing to ignore his 70-25 losses towards the end of the campaign...
Continues to gets facts and statistics wrong and doesn't self-reflect on why the campaign did better in the North among black voters than in the South...
Activists say thw same about Hillary and you (rightfully) **** on that right? Its only different when its Bernie because you like him.
If you want to suggest that Clinton hasn't (a) supported more policies that have harmed POC in this country and elsewhere and (b) has a worldview that is at odds with social justice, then by all means. You are someone who is trying to pit race against class, so it is not surprising that you can't see the difference.
1. We're discussing people that did vote and flipped
And those people were likely registered independents. Polling itself showed that Obama would have beaten Trump if he ran against him.
2. The amount of white people identifying as Democrats dropped from 2012 to 2016.
Okay? That doesn't mean Obama would not have done a better job campaigning for working class people (or you know, actually visited those states a few times). Obama literally said the same thing himself in his postmortem of the election.
“Look, the Affordable Care Act benefits a huge number of Trump voters,” Mr. Obama said. “There are a lot of folks in places like West Virginia or Kentucky who didn’t vote for Hillary, didn’t vote for me, but are being helped by this.”
The problem, Mr. Obama said, was that Democratic politicians were not communicating to these people “that we understand why they’re frustrated.”
“We’re not there on the ground communicating not only the dry policy aspects of this, but that we care about these communities, that we’re bleeding for these communities,” Mr. Obama said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/us/politics/obama-third-term-donald-trump.htmlLook, I don't care if you respond to this, but I'm tired of having to defend Sanders on the biggest pile of rubbish you're spouting here. There is a lot of good-faith criticism one can make of Sanders on a litany of issues, but you're sloppy or outright false remarks force me to have to push back. I'm tired of having to defend him because you're using right-wing smears from people like David Brock.
