One of the telling weaknesses in Sen. Sanders campaign message is that despite his civil rights record and cred, his encompassing focus on his overall economic message is perceived as dismissive towards the black community. In that community, He is also a less well known figure from a overwhelmingly white small New England state - so he is not particularly familiar to the urban black community in America where Sec. Clinton has huge support. While Sec Clinton’s record on Black Issues is dodgy, she is a known quantity, and the Black community has legitimate issues with trust for white politicians. As for known quantities, she’s still far and away a superior choice than the active hostility and racism emanating from the GOP side.
Sec Clinton, whether she is just speaking a good game, or really means it, does at least talk about the issues of systemic racism that *specifically* matters to the Black Community, and has learned to speak to them. On Women's rights, equal pay, reproductive rights. Even if it’s ALL BULLSHIT, she is at least having that conversation. Sen. Sanders' overall policies are probably, in the mass and for the long term, better for the nation. But those policies would work in the "raises all boats" sense, in that they would affect all Americans. However, specific constituencies still want to feel that you are talking to them and their specific issues, especially if that cohort feels disenfranchised and excluded from the corridors of power. They feel that when you speak to America as a while - you are not speaking to them as outsiders. Speaking to all Americans resonates a lot less when you feel you’re considered less than a citizen.
Sen Sanders has touched upon a rising wave of the discontented that's become aware that they are NOT represented in any meaningful way by their elected leadership and that they have been misled, lied to and betrayed for decades. He's been stunningly successful and done well beyond expectation in spreading and articulating his message of the corrosive effect of money to democracy and the rising misery and inequalities that threaten to collapse our economy. Telling, it's the same rising tide of discontent that is propelling the Trump campaign. But Sen Sanders has targeted the actual forces at play while Donald Trump has used insults and scapegoating of Mexicans, Muslims, and insulting those who disagree with him. But as a person of some mixed color, I really really wish he’d widen his stump speech. Bro, change it up once in a while and just talk to us and our concerns directly.
“At every event, with crowds as large and excited as at any point in this campaign, people are telling Bernie to fight,” his campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, wrote in a fundraising email to supporters. “To fight for every last delegate, and for every last vote — not just because they’re needed to win, but because each one sends an unmistakable message about our country’s need for transformational change.”
Sanders braces for a rough night in Pennsylvania, four other states,
Alex Seitz-Wald, MSNBC.
Sec. Clinton has the advantage of having been a GOP punching bag for decades, so is an accomplished battle scarred political infighter, debater, and, also yes, an insider’s insider. She's very accomplished at the political game. She may or may not be the best President, but a very able campaigner, one of the best out there for better or worse. This is Senator Sanders' first national campaign. Ever. The fact that he has climbed to a near dead-heat from being utterly dismissed in the campaigns early days is nothing less than spectacular.
Unfortunately, this is all part of the political game, focusing on social issues that people have been trained to be fired up about, while the oligarchy continues to call the shots. Make no mistake, I support Senator Sanders, in the hope that the current status quo be... revised. I hope to vote for him in the WV primary in May. But I will still vote for Sec. Clinton over any of the likely GOP alternatives is Senator Sanders does not prevail in wining the nomination.
I’ve no illusions about “lesser of evils” choices in November. Clinton over Sanders largely feels like choosing an Apple over an Orange compared to a bucket of toxic waste… that’s radioactive… and ON FIRE. Sec. Clinton will most likely be a competent President. But she is ultimately a candidate of the status quo, a continuance of the money and privilege-driven system that no longer serves the majority of the American people, but who are hoping for incremental reform.
But make no mistake, I have no love for the current Democratic Party, who’s absolute incompetence, preoccupation with the Presidential Race, and political cowardice has cost them the House, Senate, Governorship's and State Houses when disenchanted, discouraged and frustrated Democratic and left-leaning Independent voters stayed home in DROVES. The Party, like their GOP counterparts has been so busy serving and not offending their OWNERS, that they have abandoned the needs and concerns their actual constituencies.
“...American politicians don't care much about voters with moderate incomes. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels studied the voting behavior of US senators in the early '90s and discovered that they respond far more to the desires of high-income groups than to anyone else. By itself, that's not a surprise. He also found that Republicans don't respond at all to the desires of voters with modest incomes. Maybe that's not a surprise, either. But this should be: Bartels found that Democratic senators don't respond to the desires of these voters, either. At all.
“It doesn't take a multivariate correlation to conclude that these two things are tightly related: If politicians care almost exclusively about the concerns of the rich, it makes sense that over the past decades they've enacted policies that have ended up benefiting the rich. And if you're not rich yourself, this is a problem. First and foremost, it's an economic problem because it's siphoned vast sums of money from the pockets of most Americans into those of the ultrawealthy. At the same time, relentless concentration of wealth and power among the rich is deeply corrosive in a democracy, and this makes it a profoundly political problem as well.”
Why Screwing Unions Screws the Entire Middle Class
Kevin Drum, MotherJones
I don’t underestimate the ability of the DNC to shovel defeat down the throat of victory in November. The Democratic party’s failures to motivate their own base and attract independents has been as effective at discouraging the Democratic vote as GOP shenanigans have been in suppressing it.
Today's primaries may prove to be pivotal and therefore historic. So for god's sake, VOTE. Much of the current mess out there is the direct result of voters, especially Democratic and left-leaning independent voters, giving up and staying home. If any of you are the least bit motivated by the future of this Nation, get out there and vote your best informed conscience.
Banzai.
#StillBernin.