Well, not understanding a particular group of voters IS a bad thing. Of COURSE it’s a bad thing… if you want to win elections and if people in that particular group aren’t voting for you.
Naturally African Americans are not monolithic. No group of people is. Going further, I’m not sure anyone can understand exactly what it’s like to be someone else–same race, different race, whatever. So if you prefer, I’ll rephrase: the problem is a) that in 2016 Sanders did not seem to understand many of the concerns, outlooks, and issues shared by many African Americans, and b) that this lack of understanding hurt him–badly–at the polls.
Whatever Sanders may have meant by his comments the other day, he said it poorly, and it was unsurprisingly interpreted as more of the same. It’s really not incumbent on voters to interpret a politician’s words in the best possible light–to say, “Well, what he really MEANT to get across was…” or “If I squint very hard I can see what he was driving at…” No; it’s up to the politician to say it in a way that is clear and straightforward and unambiguous (to be, in your words, “shooting straight”), in a way that cannot be interpreted as just another example of your blind spot. He couldn’t do it.
“almost won” in this case meaning having approximately a thousand delegates fewer than Clinton, winning 11 fewer states and territories, and almost 4,000,000 votes behind Clinton nationally.
Strikes me as a rather idiosyncratic meaning of “almost”.
No, what he said was racist. If someone feels uncomfortable about electing a black candidate, they are racist. By definition, if you feel uncomfortable doing something because of race, that is racism. To say it is not is to condone racism.
If you want to say he didn’t mean what he said, then fine. But you still have to acknowledge that what he actually said was racist. And you don’t get to attack everyone else for taking him at his word.
You don’t have to know everything about them to know that such a statement is a bad one. The idea that we should not allow race into the picture with politics is wrong, when race is a big issue to many people–something they deal with in their life the majority of the time.
White people can forget about race. But black people have said they are always conscious they are black.
For a guy who one of his biggest problems was that he didn’t understand black people, doubling down on that rather than trying to learn is a bad idea. Especially when dealing with a voting block that has a high percentage of simply not voting if they aren’t happy with the candidates.
I don’t think he has a chance to win the primaries, but I did think he had a chance to go higher in them than he does now. I actually kinda hope this means he’ll be tanked early on, replaced with a real progressive who also cares about the racial issues. And that, this time, he’ll take the hint and actually drop out rather than tying to siphon off support.
But I worry he’ll stay on as a protest vote against the people with a chance, because he’s that petty, like he was last time.
Yes, Vermont could be called Montblanc, but you know that Bernie was very active in CORE and SNCC back in the 60s, right? He was part of in the March on Washington (I Have A Dream), too. Granted, that was a long time ago, but the idea that he’s a racist is rather mind-boggling. I know you aren’t calling him a racist, but just the idea is rather odd.
Who is calling him racist? Several posts lead with the idea that he’s not, as if that’s even the point.
The point is that he seems unable to talk about racism without coming across as out of touch and dismissive. If you’ve just witnessed candidates from your own party being taken down by racist politicking, particularly in states suspected of engaging in voter suppression and other shenanigans reminiscent of the Old South, the last thing minorities want to see is party leaders soft pedaling reality to assuage white guilt. Does that mean going the complete opposite and calling everyone and their mama who voted R a racist? Not at all. But at least act like you understand this is actually the time for pep talks aimed at blacks and others who might be feel defeated and disillusioned right now. Give them a reason to think you are going to fight for them, rather than placate and appease those who think blacks are icky.
This. Bernie can’t run as the alternative to Clinton when Clinton is not on the menu. He’ll have about 25% support from go, but it will be difficult for him to rise above that.
As a white man, you may feel that way. You are not being coddled and catered to. You are concerned about making sure that you pay the lowest possible tax rate, and that you are able to go about your day and do whatever you want with no interference. You support politicians who put your comfort and welfare above that of others.
Meanwhile, other demographic groups have other concerns. They are concerned about systemic poverty and racism. They are concerned about police shootings and the negative effect of having a law enforcement agency that is hostile to their communities.
It is possible that the ymay dismiss your concerns about not being able to buy your latest upgrade to your 70" TV while they address the suffering of those that you don’t really care about.
So, yes, you should vote for the white guy who will protect your interests at the expense of a minority’s, as that is what is in your own selfish short sighted best interest.
I don’t understand why people complain about feeling guilty when they discover that there are other people out there who are suffering due to policies that they support. You shouldn’t feel guilty, white guilt is a stupid concept. You claim that you are made to feel guilty, that you are told that you should feel guilty by being reminded that policies that you support cuase harm to others who have less political power than your chosen identity group. No, you are just being reminded that your identity politics comes at the expense of those who are already marginalized by having favored your demographic for generations.
You are not told to feel guilty about the past, your are only asked to take some responsibility for the future.
I am always mystified at white folks who don’t get why minority voters won’t get on the ‘populist’ bandwagon, even when Bernie consistently puts his foot in his mouth over this stuff. Guess what? We recognize that Trump is also an example of populism, the kind we are much likely to see in the US. So I’m more than ambivalent toward Bernie, I am actively hostile to him, because I know he won’t lose sleep over the black and brown folks crushed by whatever revolution he is peddling. At least Trump is honest about it.
Yup, a lot of people who might have run didn’t because 2016 was the year of Clinton and the Clintons are very powerful in the Democratic Party. People who weren’t thrilled about Cliinton weren’t given much of a choice, so they coalesced around Sanders. In 2020, we’re going to have lots of candidates in the primary and Sanders won’t seem nearly as special as he did in 2016.
First, it’s not unreasonable for someone to vote primarily based on what they perceive as best for themselves and their own family, even if it’s not necessarily the best for other people. Nobody has an obligation to vote against their own interests.
When you have politicians of any color who make race and racial issues a large plank in their platform, they’re explicitly drawing a line in the sand. And if that line happens to draw you and yours on the losing side, it’s not necessarily racist to choose what you perceive to be the side that favors you and your family. In other words, once the campaign becomes about identity politics, it’s not necessarily racist/sexist/classist/etc. to choose your own identity, whatever identity that may be.
I think that’s more or less what Sanders was getting at- for whatever reason, race was part of the campaigns- maybe by explicit inclusion, maybe just because some of these people were the first black candidates in their districts/states/whatever. And some people didn’t know how to handle that- it was an unknown, or maybe their preferred party is feeding them racist gobbledygook.
And that doesn’t necessarily make them racist if they were uncomfortable with it- people are generally uncomfortable with change, and with things that are different than themselves.
Unreasonable? No. Unethical? Absofuckinglutely: if you prioritize your own convenience over the basic needs of other people, you’re behaving terribly. People absolutely have an obligation to vote in a way that increases justice, even when that means that their own position of unjust supremacy is lowered a bit.
This is repugnant. We live in a world of profound racial injustice, and Georgia is close to ground zero for racial injustice in our country. The idea that Abrams or Gillum made things be about race is steeped in willful ignorance of history; and white folks who choose white supremacy over racial justice are 100% racist.
More nonsense. At best, I think it’s fair to characterize such folks as dupes. But they’re dupes who’ve accepted racist arguments; and even if we choose to focus our anger at the purveyors of those racist arguments instead of at the willing audience for those racist arguments, that doesn’t absolve that willing audience.
I think what bump is saying might be true for some politicians, maybe the ones he referenced in his local area. But I never got any sense that Gillum or Abrams were out to vindictively stick it to white people.
I take it for granted, based on the things I was aware of in the early 1960s, that many white Americans in 1958 (more predominantly but far from exclusively in the South) saw black people as occupying an evolutionary or Biblical niche that was somewhat higher than the apes, but distinctly lower than white people. And that by 1968, a lot of white people of good will who intellectually acknowledged that this view was wrong, and were coming to understand the power dynamic that had spread this lie, were still struggling to get past seeing things that way.
But if white people of good will in 2018, an entire half-century later, are still struggling to get past this to the extent that they still feel uncomfortable voting for an African-American, then all I can say is, they’re not struggling very hard.
