The Democratic Party I grew up knowing is dead.

For my entire life, spineless Democrats have clung to the "middle of the road," refusing to believe the plain truth that nothing belongs there except yellow stripes and dead 'possums.



-app

Definitely one of the old progressive folkies like him, with roots back to the Wobblies/IWW. Have you heard his collaboration with Ani DiFranco? I admire her so much for seeking him out before his time was up, and allowing their collaboration to reach a whole new generation.

Anyway, whoever first coined the phrase, it rang true then, and rings even truer now.

-app

...at the turn of the last century. Wish we had a Labor movement in general.

Our party is no longer nourishing and it smells as roadkill mentioned above

I will never vote Republican and still hold Democratic ideals (or at least what used to be dem ideals), but I am now and independent. My hope is we either lead the party to a correction, showing them that corporate greed, fracking, and war mongering are not the way, or form a new party that incorporates real Democratic values.

I just got a post hidden for saying I would likely vote to stop that any way I can.

2 of the comments said I should be banned.

I am really sorry I donated a penny to this site.

There is no real free speech here and I'm about to flee. Apparently you have to support the Dem party no matter how corrupt and that defines the Hillarians - People who will support corruption no matter what if it's in their own party. They call themselves liberals and progressives and support no real liberal or progressive values. Despicable.

I can't do that and I can't be around that.

I'll let you guess which juror I am.
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Tue Apr 19, 2016, 04:38 PM, and the Jury voted 2-5 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Alerter, find something to do with your time. I've seen much worse than this. Go take a bubble bath or read a good book.

We should call it the Progressive Party. We should use the symbol of the bird I found on internet and that's in my tag. I don't know who made it so it's a copyright infringement though but I'd bet they'd be willing to let a new actually liberal progressive party use it.

I can only see a mass exodus from the Dem party coming out of this election. The extreme voter suppression is the final straw. I bet it doesn't survive the minute after they nominate Hillary.

and probably a few million more

One that favors cooperation instead of competition. Freedom and fairness. Based on ethical human ideals, that transcends ethnicity, religion, color or national boundaries.

I think it's because some people look at politics more as sport, so they're not really concerned with the destruction and pain their candidate may cause they just want to win.

Thank you! you've made me happy on this night the DNC appears to be stealing another election via mass voter suppression.

My state's already voted, and when the GE rolls around, they're going to vote red so my vote doesn't matter anyway-- what pisses me off is the corporate kowtowing the party seems more than content to keep doing. I remember democrats being more than dancing puppets, but hey, maybe I saw things through a filter of youth and they've always been that way.

That is all. Now it is obvious

It's no ones fault but the ignorant. We should put as many barriers as possible to keep the ignorant out of our elections.

That is not the same as voter ID laws rammed through by repugs to stop dems from voting.

and changed my registration from I to D. It took 5 minutes. I knew to do it.

Anyone who didn't must not be serious about their franchise or very poorly informed. These are longstanding rules.

It really just wasn't that hard to deal with the rules.

Access and knowledge of the internet as you? I've heard the same bullshit about other rules and laws which make it harder to vote, never heard it come from the Democratic party though.

So, now they can feel as selfish and superior as humanly possible.

In Tennessee, I only need register. We may be backward in a lot of ways, but at least we have open primaries so Independents get a say, even if that's only to drive votes to one of the two major parties.

Right after I posted that, I got an alert that the Tennessee legislature will now allow us to register online.



Timing is everything...

https://t.co/KFDzZU8kwd

So, apparently, now I can just go online and register if I should ever move or anything. I'm already registered and have been since the day after I turned 18.

...doesn't matter if your affiliation is mysteriously switched, or your vote is stolen.

Hiding which candidate each delegate is pledged to, is obvious manipulation. It's the sort of thing that a party does when it believes that its preferred candidate will do better with a coin flip than with a motivated voter.

That's his campaign's responsibility. Perhaps more time should've been spent on securing delegates instead of having the huge rallies.

And btw, all those people at the rallies and not enough delegates fielded — surely someone in those huge crowds could've been the delegates needed.

What's up with that?

We are probably more informed than most Americans, because we are involved in politics all the time, and yet there are DU members who weren't aware of some of their own state voting rules because it never affected them before, and a lot of it is pretty complicated (caucuses).

I think it's harsh to blame only voters for being uninformed. I think it's the responsibility of the state and the parties to make sure their citizens are completely informed. Just like college. It's not just the student's responsibility to learn. It's the state's/parent's/high school's responsibility to make sure they do by helping them afford it and encouraging them to go. But we don't teach our students about voting rules in school. It's something they have to research on their own, and the rules change state to state. Too many people are tuned out on politics, so while they may make the effort to be registered to vote, they may not know all the rules...so when an anomaly like Sander's switching parties to run hits them unawares, they can be left out of the process.

I agree with another poster here who suggested the Sander's campaign should have been more on top of educating people in the different states about their rules and deadlines. Before those deadlines were passed.

It's all done by Party leadership?

The choice was already made behind the scenes, this is just the dog and pony show leading up to the big reveal. Smoke and mirrors, stage illusions. I could have gone to a local stageplay of Hamlet and been more entertained by all this horseshit.

Are you saying the ONLY legitimate outcome was Sanders winning?

No, the DNC made the choice that Hillary was to be the nominee, and while I wholly align myself with Sanders and thank him for being the spanner in the works, to the utter exclusion of ANYTHING to do with Hillary, I'm more than cognizant that the fix was in before the first round started.

...are you saying that YOU were clever enough to see Sanders' merits, but the average voter just isn't as smart as you?

I won't be WillyT'd so easily, though.

What I'm saying is, this cycle has given me reason to lose faith both in the morality of the people I once assumed to be my peers, and in the concept that a Democrat is supposed to be a progressive. But then again, I have problems seeing civvies who look at the military like pawns for unethical regime changes as my peers in the first place-- so hey!

enough to go after so he lost all those delegates, otherwise he could very well be leading in the delegate count.

That is not on the DNC, that is directly on the Sanders' campaign's disregard of the importance of the Obama coalition in winning (twice, in '08 and '12) — the black vote in the southern states, and all states btw, is a key segment of that coalition and the full democratic constituency (blacks, Latino Americans, gays, Asian Americans, women, Native Americans, and progressive whites — BUT NOT JUST PROGRESSIVE WHITES).

It is no one's fault but the Sanders' campaign that they didn't recognize that soon enough, especially in New York where there is splendid, multi-colored diversity.

Don't keep misleading people.

In fact, I teach high school civics classes.

In Norway, you have to be a member of a party, and attend your local party convention in order to participate in the decision of who will be the party's candidates. You have to be a card carrying member. No one outside the party has a vote or a voice. The candidate for prime minister, however, isn't decided by all the party members. That's decided by the delegates elected by the local conventions for the national convention, and there's no pledged delegates.

In the general election, each voter can decide to vote for whomever they want, they can even write in their apolitical neighbor if they want. But the parties decide who the candidates for prime minister are, without the voices of a majority of the voters. Because in democratic countries, it's accepted that all can vote in the general election, but only party members can vote in party elections.

We've got quite a few Third Wayers here, and it always feels like talking to Republicans, because they hold Republican values and attitudes.

otherwise we get called Nazis, misogynists, racists, tea partiers, and the like... It's like we're supposed to hold our nose and pretend the vulture-esque reek of dead things isn't all over them.

Dad (RIP) is not here to see it.

Sure, one is clearly better than the other, Bernie.

But Hillary is a literal socialist herself when compared to anybody on the right.

or killed?

Then your premise falls on its face; I only have one.

We haven't even hit Thursday yet... No, if the worst happens, I'm either voting Stein, or just voting downticket dems and leaving the presidential selection blank. My state'll go for the warhawks under their proper name, and my vote won't have mattered as it is.

You know if I cant have Bernie I am gonna be pissed too, but I am not going to relegate women, gays, minorities to 2nd class citizens because I didnt get what I wanted.

Oh well...some of us will do that, some of us wont.

Speaking of REPUGNANT

Pansexual, biracial, and in the military. Voting for Hillary is tantamount to voting for a risk to put a bullet in my head in an unethical and completely unnecessary regime change. I won't add myself to her body count.

/bye.

SMH

#VoteBlueNoMatterWho
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Don't let anyone tell you that you have to vote for her. Much respect.

We'll all still be second-class citizens. That won't change.

changes if GOP steals the WH.

And if you are not a white, straight, protestant male, I submit you are not a student of history or paying attention.

I prefer the more authentic People's History, rather than the fictional version.

We'll still be second class citizens under Clinton, and it won't make a bit of difference if you are gay, a women, black, brown, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or just a loaf of pumpernickel bread; the fact of the matter is she'll be deaf to anyone who isn't a corporate executive. In her mind, there is only one kind of person who matters, and that's a corporation who will pay the kind of money for policy decisions that will benefit said corporation.

You think she cares about gay people? Hahaha. She prefers asexual corporate monoliths.

I prefer a universal health care system with a single payer so that everyone will have access to providers regardless of gender, nationality, religion, health, age, status, class, or the ability to pay.

I don't see the point of either question.

You don't have to leave it blank.

Come on in out of the cold.

do not soon reorganize our societies around human need rather than human greed, this planet might literally cast us off. We've got to stop being a cancer on the Earth and start making policy decisions that affect our species as a whole.

Fuck this shit. Seriously.

I swear a lot of the comments on du lately could be lifted from freeper comments in the Star Tribune whining about people having the vote counted.

...both sides' supporters have escalated this so far that they have effectively dehumanized each other.

Edit: And I mean that in general terms. It only takes a few horrible people on either side to cause this back and forth escalation.

Edit2: And guys, the OP is asking why we (as in Hillary supporters) mock them not why we disagree about this.

Our Republican Third Way "Democratic" candidate uses the same rule book as her buddy Shrub.

would mean the status quo is no longer when she won before. They don't want anyone rocking their Hillary boat. But it's sinking little by little.

It's not their voting or wanting to vote that is being mocked.

It's their complete ineptitude in helping themselves achieve their goal of voting that is being mocked.

If anyone could go in at anytime without being registered or following the laws and rules, we really wouldn't be a democracy.

It would be chaos.

WTF

But these critics are clueless on the issues of the injunction request. If roles were reversed, they'd have peed their pants and thrown a fit.

Because being able to follow basic rules isn't one.

This is about registering. Are you again that too? Is it voter suppression to require voters to register ?

well let's just say that's the sort of thing I have heard Republicans say in response to voter purging and election fraud.

I thought you were against victim blaming?

.

vote." Typical blame the victim. Rationalizing disenfranchisement. "What ever it takes to win."

Ineptitude should not prevent a citizen from having a voice (a vote) in their self-governance. That's the whole point.

Voting is not an aptitude test. It the expression of choice.

Democracy, for liberals, means ALL the people.

And I sure didn't see a lot of griping about those. Just the "seven out of eight wins!" mantra over and over and over. They represent about the smallest faction of voting possible (and they are intimidating to attend).

They at least offer the opportunity to vote.

In most places, there is a limited (at best) number of reasons you can supply an affidavit to vote instead of attending, and in some places there are no reasons. If you can't drive or there is no bus route there, for example, there is generally not a provision for that. There are also very good reasons you might not want to have to share your vote in public, say you were voting differently from your boss, for example (in our 2008 caucus, it also pitted some neighbors against each other). The allotment of delegates is also kind of quirky, though that is a different issue.

I don't call it a total shutout when people fail to meet a deadline - that said, the NY State one is pretty far out. I think it should be closer. Things can happen to candidates or candidates can drop out, which might make someone choose a party or possibly even change parties. That said, I think a lot of the new, younger residents in Greenpoint and Williamsburg probably don't label themselves as Democrats most of the time, nor do I think they give much money to the party or other candidates (I don't know this, I think this) running as Democrats. When was the last primary election in New York anyway?

for broad representation of party voters and can understand the point of view you express in your second paragraph, as well.

That said, I've been a Democrat since attaining voting age in the Sixties and have voted Democratic 99% of the time, but I joined not from blind loyalty to a label (and certainly not for any loyalty whatsoever to entrenched party regulars), but because the Democrats represented basic civic and moral values. Recently, the Party -- and the Party's favorite candidate -- have drifted far, far from those original civic and moral values. So, for many of us, the question arises: what is the Democratic Party? Is it a label? Or a set of basic values?

I'm not a New Yorker (though have relatives upstate) and so don't know Greenpoint from Williamsburg, but if these new, younger residents hold the original Democratic values sacred, whether they are party regulars or not, then there is something fundamentally wrong, both to the Party and to the (a million times more important) nation, to shut their voices out with party-protective rules.

people want. No Oligarchy and fairness for the average citizen! The laws for this primary STINK!

He's making absurd promises there is zero chance he will fulfil. Telling people what they want to hear, even when it's not true, is not honest.

That ought to be the default state of affairs, and a voter's missing some deadline or arcane piece of paper ought not to be an occasion for mirth.

I don't have a problem, though, with the rules for party primaries being a bit more strict.

So the became Democrats. Unfortunately they brought their conservative amoralism with them.

there are many many so called Democrats that proudly voted Bush in 2000 posting on this site.

This is about choosing a Party's nominee.

You should examine your premises more closely. Something needs cleaning up there.

Do you want to vote in the Green Party too ? Or the republican ? I mean it would be unfair of the Greens or the Republicans not let you have a say in their nominee too right ?

...sense.

acceptable to some when it helps their candidate. "Anything to win"

I like it when the vote is counted properly, too.

I'm funny like that.

- Emma Goldman

It's the RW mindset of believing the poor and working class deserve their lot in life.

I just don't have sympathy for people who don't understand the rules, and want them changed to fit their whims. Just because you're an independent voter doesn't mean the world revolves around you. If you want to vote, you are more than welcome, if you play by the rules of the game. It's simple.

It should be guiding principle.