A Party In a Bad Place

In the fall of 2020, President Donald Trump ran for President against former Vice-President Joe Biden. So I hate to defend the press secretary to Mr. Biden when she says "Remember, when the President decided to run for President...." but here we are. 

Krystal Ball is lying.

The Israeli govt has imposed a siege on every civilian in Gaza, is mercilessly bombing civilian targets, has already forced the displacement of over a million people, has massacred thousands of innocents. To the White House those who oppose these war crimes are akin to nazis. https://t.co/NZpVHvOCLi

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) October 31, 2023

The Israeli government has not imposed a siege on every civilian in Gaza. It is not mercilessly bombing civilian targets. The IDF is bombing military targets which Hamas has strategically placed amongst civilians. That somewhat discourages Israeli bombing raids and when Israel proceeds nonetheless, considerable civilian casualties ensue.  For Hamas: a win-win.

The people displaced "forcefully" have been directed by Tel Aviv to go south because Israel is concentrating its attacks in the north of Gaza. And the massacre? The massacre occurred on October 7 in an attack which Ball will not acknowledge. The word "massacre" has lost all meaning if it doesn't mean rape, burning babies, beheading adults, and slaughtering everyone in your way. But for opponents of the State of Israel, "massacre" is just an eight-letter word to be thrown around recklessly. 

College students and hundreds of thousands of protesters worldwide marching in support of a ceasefire to preserve innocent lives are in no way comparable to the neo-nazis in Charlottesville. https://t.co/4D5GWlHxUy

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) October 31, 2023

 

Asking "does President Biden believe the anti-Israel protestors in this country are extremists?"Peter Doocy was being diplomatic, wherein he could have replaced "extremists" with "anti-Semitic" or "pro-Hamas."  Jean-Pierre avoided answering the question directly, yet accurately equated them with the Charlottesville protests. 

Jean-Pierre cited President Biden's repeal of Trump's "Muslim ban" and effort to address 'Islamophobia,' anti-Semitism, and related forms of bias and discrimination." In the context of recent events, she could be slammed for equating the danger of "all forms" of hatred with that of anti-Semitism, which is growing exponentially and threatening the political viability of the President's defense of Israel.

And yet, .for Nina Turner, the problem evidently is that the press secretary noted that candidate (or as she inaccurately stated, "President") Biden condemned the violent Unite the Right rally and will not tolerate hate as President.

Or maybe that was not really Turner's concern. I suspect that noting that the left- or, rather, ethnic groups the left favors- in its most extreme form present a threat to our basic values is offensive to her.

So maybe Karine Jean-Pierre, in her faltering and barely coherent fashion, desires a measure of credit. There are bigots such as Turner and Ball on her far left condemning her for defending standard, traditional moral values. There are Democratic politicians and pundits who see protests of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," know that means the elimination of Israel, and turn mute. Representing President Biden, the press secretary decried prejudice. Other Democrats now must step up and denounce the people who would like the Israelis to sink into the sea and vanish from history.

Share |

Confronting Reality

One-time Democratic congressional candidate, MSNBC host, Democratic activist and current podcaster Krystal Ball realizes the Democratic Party "panders to identity" rather than addressing issues which affect minorities and struggling Americans. Citing an important study described in The New York Times by authors Ian Haney Lopez and Tony Gavito,  She recommends for Joe Biden

It's time to let go of the identity politics which change nothing substantive and only serves to assuage the consciences of white liberals. Less 1619 Project, more Battle of Blair Mountain. Embrace the class war and see what happens with that black and Latino enthusiasm if only the donor class would let him.

She adds

But all is not lost, my friends. There was a strategy that effectively appealed to Latinos, black and white voters alike. I'll give you one guess what it was. These voters were most persuaded by a message that linked class and race in a broad strategy against elites.

The research is right. The key is to link racism and class conflict. Democrats should call for Americans to unite against the strategic racism of powerful elites who stoke division and then run the country for their own benefit. This is not to deny the reality of pervasive societal racism but it does draw attention away from whites in general and toward the powerful elites who benefit from divide and conquer politics. This, of course, was exactly the approach of Bernie Sanders.....

This begs analysis in three key areas:

1) Good for Ball that she would emphasize racism among elites, rather than among the American people as a whole. Liberal pundits and the mainstream media too often emphasize the latter to the exclusion of the former while the Democratic political class, as Ball has noted, typically simply turns a blind eye to the racism of elites.

2) Bernie Sanders did in fact do extremely well among Latinos in the Nevada caucus.  However, this was the only state among the four which mattered (Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina the others) with a large number of Latinos. Further, we don't know why Sanders proved so popular with that cohort in Nevada, with one theory being that the youth (among whom Sanders was popular everywhere) leaned on their parents, often less conversant in English and American culture generally, to vote for the Vermont senator. It is unclear whether Sanders' appeal to Nevadan Latinos reflected a general popularity throughout the nation with that group.

3) "This, of course, was exactly the approach of Bernie Sanders." No, it wasn't. Bernie's message centered on class and though he always has had liberal views toward minorities, he was led kicking and screaming into showing real concern about blacks or Latinos. The approach Ball approvingly cites was that of Elizabeth Warren, whom Ball, a fervent supporter of Sanders, criticized regularly.

It's only fair to concede, as someone pointing out the disingenuous nature of Sanders supporters, that the inter-sectionalism which Ball describes (but which term she assiduously avoids) was not one of the two reasons I preferred the Massachusetts senator to the Vermont senator. 

But it is now only a few days shy of seven months since the pivotal South Carolina primary and a few days later, Super Tuesday, which effectively ended the contest for the Democratic nomination. And the supporters of Bernie Sanders still can't face reality.

The reality is that black voters crushed the campaign of Senator Sanders.  Exit polls indicate that in South Carolina, Biden won 61% of the black vote while his closest competitor received 17% of that vote.  Exit polls indicated Biden won approximately 63% in Virginia, 72% in Alabama, and 60% in Texas and North Carolina. At his best among black voters, Sanders trailed Biden in Minnesota by four percentage points.

The former vice-president did extremely well, and the Vermont senator very poorly, among blacks for reasons related to both Biden and Sanders. This occurred despite Sanders' strength among blacks who are young- as he was strong with other young voters- which obscured the flat-out dominance held by Biden with middle aged and old blacks. 

That doesn't mean that Biden would be a better President generally than Sanders, that he is a better general election candidate than Sanders would be, or that the issues which most concern blacks are ones Biden will more effectively address.

It means only one thing: Joe Biden owes his nomination to African-Americans. The South Carolina primary was the first in which a majority of primary voters was black (still are black, no doubt). But he wouldn't have surged to the nomination without South Carolina and, specifically, without African-American voters in South Carolina. 

When the South Carolina primary was held, Sanders clearly was in the lead for the nomination.  Recognizing that, those voters, a majority of them African-American, overwhelmingly opted for Joe Biden, for whatever reason. They didn't especially want Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, or Pete Buttigieg and they most emphatically did not want Bernie Sanders. It's difficult for Sanders' acolytes, and somewhat less for those of us for whom he was second choice, to face that reality. But it doesn't erase reality.

 

Share |

Never Argue With A Crystal Ball

She's absolutely right, you know:

I deeply admire and respect Hillary Clinton. I think she is a great intellect with great fortitude. I think she was a strong secretary of state and a hardworking and effective senator.  But I have come to a difficult realization: I don’t want Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016. I hope she does not run, she is not the right person for this moment.

Back in 2008, when all my peers were jumping on the Barack Obama bandwagon, I backed Clinton. The country was reeling from a disastrous eight years under President George W. Bush. We were desperate for competence after his incompetence; for respect for government after his disdain. We needed, in my view, a capable hand. She was well positioned to manage the end of two wars and to regain the international respect that had been lost during the Bush presidency. Clinton was a fantastic fit for that moment but that moment has passed.

Now, we are in a moment of existential crisis as a country. As we recover slowly from the Great Recession, we’ve discovered that we don’t much like what we see. Only 28% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction. Some 67% are dissatisfied with the wealth distribution in this country. And as corporate profits soar to new heights, working folks get the shaft sharing in virtually none of the gains of the recovery.  In fact, 95% of the income gains over the recovery years have gone to the top 1% of income earners.
It is clear now that we have two economies: one for a thin slice of educated elite and one for everyone else. That is the moment we are in now. So I ask you, does Hillary Clinton sound to you like the right person for this moment?

In a time when corporations have hijacked our politics enabling them to reap all the profit without feeling any compunction to do right by their workers, is someone who sat on the rabidly anti-union board of Walmart for six years the right person to restore worker’s rights?

In a time when we are still reeling from a global financial disaster brought on by foolhardy bank deregulation, is someone who recently took $400,000 to give two speeches at Goldman Sachsthe person we need to wrest control of the asylum back from the banking inmates?

Keep in mind that at those paid speeches, Clinton wasn’t giving tough love to these masters of the universe. On the contrary, she said that “the banker-bashing…was unproductive and indeed foolish.”Of course, it was her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who did much of the deregulating that got us into trouble including ending the Glass-Steagall prohibitions on mixing traditional banking with speculative investment banking.

More to the point though, in a time when we badly need to be inspired, rallied, and made to believe that America can once again be true to the American dream, we desperately need someone who is mission driven. We need someone who is clearly passionate, who is living and breathing and feeling in their bones the plight of the worker and the middle class, and who is unafraid to stand up to the Wall Street titans. That person is not Hillary Clinton. It is Elizabeth Warren.

Warren is, for good reason, the public official most feared by Wall Street. Since coming to the Senate, she has aggressively questioned banking regulators on why Wall Street banks were not being vigorously prosecuted. She’s argued for expanding Social Security, for increasing the minimum wage, for using the infrastructure of the post office to provide basic banking services to the poor. Most recently, she pressed the Obama administration to nominate more judges who come from a background in public interest work rather than from big corporations. She’s been fearless, determined, and relentlessly true to her roots as an advocate for the middle and working classes.

Some argue that Warren is too liberal to get elected. To me, this analysis is both shallow and cowardly. The causes that Warren champions from consumer protections to expanding Social Security to increasing the minimum wage are quite popular. I would be proud to back Warren in a battle over the real future of the middle class, the working class, and the American Dream. I would be delighted to have that argument any day. And if I believed that Clinton was ready for that fight, I’d be all in.

I just don’t think that’s where Clinton’s heart is though. I think she is safe, careful, constantly evaluating her positions, drawn to the center, wherever that happens to be at the time. To be clear, I would back Clinton with all my heart against any Republican, and I would even support her over most Democrats. But she is much less than ideal.

Despite all her talents, Clinton is not the woman to address the deep inequality, corporate political capture, and middle class rot afflicting our country. So although I deeply admire and respect Secretary Clinton, I must say: Don’t run Hillary. Don’t run.

That was MSNBC's Krystal Ball who, true to her name, last week was not predicting Hillary Clinton won't run, only that the party and the nation would be better off if she doesn't.  Unfortunately, there is little chance that Elizabeth Warren will run for the nomination in 2016- and in an ironic twist, a run probably is even less likely if the presumptive nominee, Mrs. Clinton, enters the race as expected.

But compare what we do know about Senator Warren (videos below) from what we do know about former Senator and Secretary of State Clinton.  With bank regulators on out-of-court financial settlements:










On GOP efforts to end the Affordable Care Act and shut down government:







On student loan debt:






Questioning regulators on illegal foreclosures:







On reviving Glass-Steagall, from The Young Turks:





By contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has never been someone known to be a stand-up woman. Consider Michael Tomasky's remarks ten weeks after the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya:

Let’s start at the beginning. What did Rice have to do with the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack? In all likelihood, absolutely nothing. Consular security is a State Department matter. The U.N. ambassador has no authority over such questions. If the matter of security in Benghazi was ever the subject of a principals-level meeting of the top national-security team, then maybe she was privy to a discussion. But it’s certainly not her decision. The only outpost whose security she’s responsible for is the one in Turtle Bay.

For a while one heard conservatives ask, well, if this wasn’t her gig, then why did the administration send her out there on those Sunday shows Sept. 16? It didn’t prove much, this question, one way or the other, but it was a fair enough point. This past Sunday, The New York Times’ reporting answered it. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have been the one to do those shows, and she was asked first, but she said no.

So it would be especially revealing to determine what Hillary Clinton thinks of the idea of reinstating Glass-Steagall, especially because that was accomplished upon the signature of President William Jefferson Clinton. The sins of the husband should never be visited upon the wife (as Senator Paul will learn).    But determining whether Mrs. Clinton is bold enough to endorse that critical policy prescription would be a good test of her fitness to be president in a party with giants like Warren and this guy.





Share |