Elizabeth Warren has been talking a lot lately about Bernie's issues, not because they are Bernie's issues-- they're her issues too-- but because they are the issues the voters of Massachusetts elected her to talk about. And if she sounds like she's denigrating the Clinton campaign by continuing to attack Wall Street abuses and the rigged economy and by continuing to attack the inherent unfairness in the TPP and taking to the Senate floor to declare, "Anyone who shrugs and claims that change is just too hard has crawled into bed with the billionaires who want to run this country like some private club," well... if the shoe fits... But she hasn't endorsed Bernie and I doubt she will. She's the only Democratic woman senator who hasn't endorsed Clinton though. And the worst of the right-of-center Clinton shills-- the Claire McCaskills, Kirsten Gillibrands, Debbie Stabenows and Jeanne Shaheens-- have been pressuring her to get on board the women's train for Hillary. I imagine the shills at EMILY's List are doing the same. Warren didn't run for the Senate because she was a woman; she ran because she has a progressive vision for how to make our country a better place, a progressive vision which is far, far, far more in synch with Bernie's than with the reflexive timidity (at least on policy) and conservatism of Hillary, Claire McCaskill, Kirsten Gillibrand, Debbie Stabenow and Jeanne Shaheen. Progressives don't admire and respect Warren because she's a woman; they respect her because of what she stands for. Otherwise she's just be some wretched careerist hack like McCaskill or Gillibrand. Or what Pelosi has turned into in her dotage.In 2013, right after election day, E.J. Dionne looked at the results and wrote America Shifts Left, not as a celebration of the ugly and failed identity group politics that dominates the worst elements of the Democratic Party but as elebration of the election of politicians who stand for progressive values and principles.Much earlier, in their seminal 2006 book on grassroots politics Crashing the Gate Markos Moulitsas and Jerome Armstrong eviscerated many notions of old school Democratic Party politics, narrow identity politics being one especially ugly component. Writing last year about how EMILY's List has devolved into an organization that primarily helps wealthy conservative women-- who are (mostly, but not always, soon we'll be introducing the newest anti-Choice EMILY's List endorsee) pro-Choice-- target progressive men, I noted that when the book first came out I didn't fully appreciated that point-- "about how the single-minded, single interest groups that make up the Democratic coalition are a force for dysfunction. EMILY's List, far more than any other group, is the poster child for that destructive attitude that has been, in recent years, so harmful to the progressive movement." They are the organization you can LEAST count on to "examine the content of his or her character," let alone his or her stands on issues, when looking at candidates.In his NYTimes column yesterday, Nick Kristof posed 2 questions to the spirit of Bernie' campaign that you would expect to see from the epitome of establishment news and opinion:
• Can you translate your bold vision into reality? ... I’m skeptical. I’m for Medicare for All, but it won’t happen.• Can you get elected? Or would your nomination make a President Cruz more likely?When voters are polled today about how they would vote in a general election, Sanders does pretty well. For example, he beats Ted Cruz in the RealClearPolitics average, while Clinton loses to Cruz. But at this stage that’s almost meaningless: Republicans are blasting Clinton while ignoring Sanders. If he were the nominee, he would be savaged.One particularly sobering item for Sanders supporters: A Gallup poll last year asking voters what kind of person they would be unwilling to consider voting for. Six percent of Americans say they wouldn’t vote for a Catholic, and 7 percent wouldn’t support a black or a Jew. Some 24 percent wouldn’t vote for a gay candidate, and more than a third would refuse to vote for a Muslim or an atheist.However, the most objectionable kind of person by far was a socialist. Fifty percent of Americans said they would be unwilling to consider voting for a socialist.
First off, Nick Kristof, ladies and gentlemen, has decreed that although some of his best friends are single payer, "it won’t happen." Is that so, Nicky? What would have you said between 1773 and 1776 when the progressives were arguing for the Declaration of Independence? That King George was our friend, as so many establishment conservatives did? Would you have denounced Thomas Paine as a lunatic and a dreamer and banned Common Sense from your household? Would you have scoffed at Richard Henry Lee's resolution by insisting that declaring independence was "premature," as so many establishment conservatives did? Would you have backed the conservative delegations from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and New York in threatening to withdraw from the Continental Congress? Would you have said it was impossible for the struggling little colonies to fight off the world's mightiest army? How about in the battle for emancipation of the salves? Too hard? Impossible? Women's suffrage? Public education? How absurd and pie-in-the-sky was that? The anti-Trust laws? Food safety inspections? The abolition of child labor? Rural electrification? Land grant colleges? National parks? The weekend? The minimum wage? Social Security? Civil rights and voting rights for minorities? Clean air and water and consumer safety? Medicare? All of those things were foot against-- long and hard-- by conservatives and the establishment declared them all "impossible." Fuck you! As Senator Warren said, in case you weren't paying attention, "Anyone who shrugs and claims that change is just too hard, has crawled into bed with the billionaires."Question 2: Your kind never stopped screeching that FDR was a socialist. He was elected and reelected 4 times. Every poll-- not "some polls," shows that Bernie would beat Cruz, Trumpf and Rubio," unlike Hillary. But we're supposed to ignore that data and pay attention to your establishment intuition instead? And by the way, Herr Trumpf has been the most effective destroyer of reputations of anyone in politics in recent years. He and his followers have been attacking Bernie daily... as Bernie's polling numbers continue to rise and as poll after poll after poll shows that he's the only candidate from either party with a positive favorability rating from voters. More Americans hate Jeb, Trumpf, Rubio, Cruz and Hillary than like them. But more Americans-- though not establishment whores like yourself-- like Bernie than dislike him. Why don't you go live in England and pledge fealty to the royal family?You can contribute to the Make Nick Kristof Cry Fund here. And then he can celebrate Medicare For All single payer healthcare some day.
