2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumEnough of the elitist purity. Hillary Clinton will be our PROGRESSIVE nominee.
Progressives are NOT "ignored" at all by the Democratic Party. A woman is head of the DNC. A woman is the House Democratic Leader. DEMOCRATS have voted for and pushed for full LGTB rights throughout the nation. We are the party that elected the first African American president TWICE. It is our party that had the first congressman in Barney Frank come out as a gay person. It is our party that has the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It is our party that fights for education, clean air and water, full healthcare, work rights, and fair taxation.
Has our party been 100% pure? No. It is a diverse party with some range of political thought. It always has been. Has our party made it's share of mistakes? Sure. That doesn't mean that on balance it isn't "progressive." Good grief.
"Progressive" means standing for PROGRESS, and that is what our party does, all the time.
Hillary Clinton was a middle class midwesterner who started with the Children's Defense Fund, worked hard to improved education in Arkansas, wrote a book called "It Takes A Village," fought hard for the people of NY and the victims of 9/11, as Sec. of State fought for LGTB rights and Women's rights around the globe, and on and on. She supports a woman's right to choose, debt free college, full healthcare coverage, clean water action, infrastructure investment, middle class economics, taking on the NRA for common sense gun safety, and on and on. This is PROGRESSIVE. Period!
Has she been perfectly pure? No. Few have. Even Bernie has voted for defense spending if it benefited his state. He has sided with the NRA on some votes. He has also attended fancy-shmancy political summer retreats and conferences where I don't think he minded the nice accommodations, dinners, etc. And he is turning his top guys, Weaver and Devine, into millionaires for their work on his behalf in this campaign. So BERNIE is not perfectly pure either.
And being progressive means being active ALL THE TIME. It means VOTING ALL THE TIME, not just during presidential years. Therefore Bernie's "revolution" can't only be about attending big rallies for him. It must be a MANY YEARS LONG effort to grow progressivism in the country, recruit candidates, work the ground, etc. In other words, it must be a real movement that is bigger than Bernie Sanders, as he has said himself, and for the LONGTERM.
Finally, PROGRESSIVE means BEATING THE RACIST MISOGYNISTIC RIGHT WING DEMENTED MONSTER WHO IS DONALD "FRANKENTRUMP" TRUMP! Anyone who is actually "progressive" better accept the nominee of this party and work to defeat Trump, or there is no way you can claim to be "progressive" because Trump is everything that a "progressive" is not.
Rattlesnake Chaser
(23 posts)CorporatistNation
(2,546 posts)Hillary really betrayed Andrea Mitchell... The entire context of this report was of a solemn nature... A Funeral so to speak...
Andrea Mitchell "I do not see this report as ...ANYTHING BUT... DEVASTATING!"
Chuck Todd "After this I don't think that she could get confirmed for Attorney General!"
Lots of FIBBING by Hillary here.. for more than a year!
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)I do not desire that type of "progress."
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)Tea Party. I predict that they'll experience the same fate.
JudyM
(29,294 posts)How dumb do you think people are?
Response to JudyM (Reply #4)
Post removed
stonecutter357
(12,698 posts)pinebox
(5,761 posts)stonecutter357
(12,698 posts)pinebox
(5,761 posts)Demsrule86
(68,735 posts)No progressive would do the things he has done...at this point he helps Donald Trump.
pinebox
(5,761 posts)in all of DC.
But don't let facts stop your false narrative.
Helps Trump? Bwahahahaha! Sure you go with that. Hillary is a big girl,. I'm sure she can handle the guy who fights for things like universal health care, a living wage, free college, you know, PROGRESSIVE ideals.
QC
(26,371 posts)CorporatistNation
(2,546 posts)See Above preceding... Define "Progressive..." Show us the damn TRANSCRIPTS... She IS OWNED and OPERATED by Thoe OLIGARCHY which includes Wall Street!
MSNBC To the deniers... Watch THIS Video... It is not comforting to think that she may well be the Democratic Nominee...
Hillary really betrayed Andrea Mitchell... The entire context of this report was of a solemn nature... A Funeral so to speak...
Andrea Mitchell "I do not see this report as ...ANYTHING BUT... DEVASTATING!"
Chuck Todd "After this I don't think that she could get confirmed for Attorney General!"
Lots of FIBBING by Hillary here.. for more than a year!
pinebox
(5,761 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Vote for the candidate of the 1% in hopes that she can beat the other 1% candidate.
potone
(1,701 posts)No intelligent person thinks otherwise. But real progress is not just about social issues, as important as they are. Nor is it about tokenism. I don't care if the head of the DNC is a woman; I care that that person represents the interests of the majority of our citizens, not merely the wealthy and well-connected. I wish that I could view the Democratic establishment as being progressive, but I can't.
There is a reason that more and more people are leaving both the Democratic and Republican parties, and it has nothing to do with "elitist purity." We need genuine progressives, not Republican lite candidates. Bernie is a genuine progressive, and Hillary is not. Yes, she came from a middle-class background, but she has lost touch with that class. She and Bill are part of the 1% and that is who they associate with.
Many, many people in this country are just one paycheck away from disaster. This is a moral issue, and one that the Democratic establishment does not seem to be willing to address.
dmosh42
(2,217 posts)AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)You absolutely lack self awareness...
LuvLoogie
(7,062 posts)And being progressive means being active ALL THE TIME. It means VOTING ALL THE TIME, not just during presidential years. Therefore Bernie's "revolution" can't only be about attending big rallies for him. It must be a MANY YEARS LONG effort to grow progressivism in the country, recruit candidates, work the ground, etc. In other words, it must be a real movement that is bigger than Bernie Sanders, as he has said himself, and for the LONGTERM.
You mean it's not phoning in once a week to a radio show, preaching to the choir, answering every question with the same response?
Romulox
(25,960 posts)NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)further anger progressives.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)With a Cebter right candidate, who will be facing some legal issues. (Not about Sanders) but roughly the other half of the voters are not center right. You will try hard to kick them. Some of us already left. But that does not change the reality. You are part of a neoliberal right wing party
EndElectoral
(4,213 posts)QC
(26,371 posts)It wasn't any less dumb the first time and constant repetition hasn't improved it.
pengu
(462 posts)Progressives don't vote for Iraq. Progressives don't vote for the 2001 Bankruptcy bill. Progressives don't vote for the Patriot Act. Progressives don't push fracking. Progressives don't help get votes for welfare reform.
It's not about purity. It's about being in the ballpark. She isn't on either economics or foreign policy.
QC
(26,371 posts)'it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
seekthetruth
(504 posts)Deal with it. To us, they're part of the same coin....just different sides.
Of course Trump is horrible, but so is Clinton. Clinton just hides her ugliness.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Thanks to Bill Clinton's "leadership," I don't really recognize the Democratic party anymore.
aikoaiko
(34,185 posts)k8conant
(3,030 posts)why doesn't she become a progressive?
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Your interpretation of "progressive" differs from others. See her support for fracking, the TPP, the NSA, DOMA, Cluster bombs, Bush's wars, Libya, corporate donations for her campaign, prosecution of whistle-blowers, for a few examples of differences of interpretation.