The following is a guest post submitted by fellow mom and Democrat Josephine Moore, New York Democratic Delegate for Bernie Sanders, who was also our original source for our post about the assault that occurred at a New York State delegate meeting earlier this week. She has two kids, a daughter who is five and a son who is three. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of MOMocrats.
I registered as a Democrat on my 18th birthday and remained a Democrat until a couple of years ago, when I switched to the Green Party after getting tired of watching the Democrats turn their backs on progressive values. I switched back to Democrat shortly after Bernie announced his candidacy.
Shortly after Bernie announced his candidacy for president, I made a promise to myself: to never again vote AGAINST a candidate. I deserve to exercise my right to vote for the candidate who I believe in the most, regardless of what personified anachronism is sitting on another party’s line.
Now, as the Democratic propaganda ramps up and everyone is railing about Donald Trump ushering in the Fourth Reich, I have to admit: I’ve wavered. I’ve wondered: Do I have a moral obligation to once again put my values aside to stop Trump from ascending to the presidency?
But all of those doubts were wiped away when I, as a pledged delegate for Bernie Sanders in New York, sat in the NY Delegation meeting on June 21. You might have seen the video or read the reports about the shenanigans that went on with the “election” of the state delegation chair, Andrew Cuomo. But that’s not what’s been bothering me the last couple of days.
Before all the drama went down, a Hillary Democrat got up and gave a rousing speech rejoicing that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee. She called him “a gift to Democrats.”
This man who we’re all supposed to be wringing our hands over, the great threat of our time, for which we need to—once again—compromise our ethics and throw our moral compass out the window to elect Hillary Clinton . . . they were rejoicing. I was appalled and disgusted. The Trump candidacy is a good thing for opportunistic Democrats hoping to bring a political revolution to heel.
And I sat and remembered: Election after election, we are presented with a Republican boogey man. And yes, Donald Trump is the worst one yet. But let’s stand back and think about the reason he’s there:
Third-Way Blue Dog Democrats and entrenched, out-of-touch politicians who are selling our government to the highest bidder and making the lives of everyday people more and more difficult every passing year. Politicians exactly like Hillary Clinton.
If Hillary Clinton wins, then we continue down this path of increasing wealth and income inequality, needless wars and militarism, corporate cronyism at the expense of people, and the further acceleration of our livable planet’s sustainability.
And people will become more desperate than they are now, more angry, more unable to see who to blame. So they’ll blame the Other—they’ll scapegoat a group. And 4 or 8 years from now they will elect a Republican nominee who will make Donald Trump look about as scary as a Kardashian. And Democrats will once again put forth their crony candidate, and they will once again offer nothing more than “Vote for us or else you get HIM!” (or her, you never know).
But this time there will be more angry, desperate people.
If we ignore the desperation and anger, it grows. If we don’t fix the problems, we will eventually be consumed with the rage of our society.
Democrats are doing this because it is a strategy that has worked for them for decades now: Rule by fear because we’re better than Republicans. And if that’s the bar you’re setting for how you earn your votes, then you’re not reaching high at all, you’re not trying, you’re not caring, and you’re not thinking about the needs of the people and how you can help to improve their lives.
You will not address the anger. You will not fix the problems. And the rage will grow.
But at some point the Democrats’ strategy is going to fail. And the sooner, the better, because the Republicans’ candidates are only going to get worse.
(Besides, almost all the things Trump talks about doing, Clinton has actually done, in some cases over and over again. I don’t buy that she’s better than Trump—I’m not saying he’s good, but I won’t concede that she’s better.)
So I no longer doubt my promise to myself. I will only vote for a candidate I believe in. And it’s not my or any other individual voter’s fault if we get a Donald Trump presidency.
The Democratic Party, by way of its superdelegates, insists on putting up the weaker candidate, the candidate who, even with all of the advantages bestowed upon her through obscene amounts of corporate money, DNC favor, and media bias, could not definitively secure the nomination and now depends upon superdelegates to coronate her.
Bernie Sanders, who eschewed Super PAC and corporate money, who was essentially blacked out by the media and largely disparaged and dismissed when they did mention him, and was hampered in every way the DNC could think to hamper him without explicitly appearing to favor their queen, is only about 200 pledged delegates behind Clinton.
These facts, in addition to the myriad polls showing how much better Sanders polls against Trump and that Clinton is the subject of an FBI criminal investigation, do not support the myth that Clinton is a stronger nominee to send into the general election.
So when superdelegates, many of whom threw their favor to Clinton before anyone else entered the race or before the first debate (they don’t even TRY to hide the system of cronyism!), claim they are choosing the candidate best positioned to win the general, I don’t believe them for a second. They are playing the game, a game by which you win if you have a villain and you can make everyone live in fear.
But this isn’t a game. It’s our democracy, our country, our world, our lives. And it ends here.
If you’re not a Democrat, excuse me for not giving a rotten rip about how you think the Democratic Party should change. Be a Green if that’s what you are. But you don’t get to come into my house and start rearranging the furniture because it makes you feel good.
There’s so many inaccuracies, distortions, and ridiculous hyperbole in this post it’s not worth responding to on a point-by-point basis. Maybe you didn’t notice that this blog is intended to promote Democrats. Or maybe you did, and just think it’s cool to blow them up because purity or something.
There are more feelings in this post than facts, and far too many pieces of misinformation. I’ll name just one: the so-called “media blackout” has been debunked. Sanders (and Clinton) received less coverage than Trump, but almost all of Bernie’s coverage was positive.
Then there’s Clinton’s voting record, 93% the same as Sanders’, which speaks for itself and goes against the “Hillary is the corporate devil” narrative. It’s odd that she’s being held to a different standard than other candidates, but not surprising.
I could go on, but I’m unlikely to change your mind. No one can do that. You’ve already determined which way you’re going.
I can only say that I’m disgusted by this left-on-left cannibalization. It’s also been historically ineffective. The mindset that a scorched earth (4 years of Trump) will harken a broader revolution is bunk. Look at what happened after McGovern. Nixon, Ford, Carter (for one term), Reagan. From 1969-1993, we had all but one term filled by a Republican.
Sanders’ supporters are passionate, but they seem unable to come to grips with the fact that the majority of Democrats did not agree that he should be the nominee. I have never heard so many demands being made by a losing party and its supporters. Your side is planning riots and mayhem at the DNC and may of Sanders’ supporters don’t give one rip about party, or unity, or even the future of the country. The “I’m voting Trump or third party” people would rather injure the rest of the team than be a part of it….they don’t care how many people will be hurt by a Trump presidency, including minorities, gays, and the elderly. If they can’t carry the ball, they’ll just burn down the field.
It’s said that HRC supporters are “sore winners.” I think it’s more the case that we’re looking at all these sore losers, processing their threats, tantrums, hatred, and delusions (just read the Sanders FB pages; there are still people who think he’s going to win) and wondering why the hell these people think that they can take over our party.
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Very well written, thank you. Spot on.
Well written! You put in words how I feel about Killary and these elections. Thank you!
Boy! You´ve really pissed off the Hillbots! WTG!
They can´t abide a world where people vote their conscience instead of succumbing to fearbaiting.
Bottom line hillbots: If your candidate offers us NOTHING but lipservice and status quo (to hell in a handbasket), we ARE NOT obligated to vote for her just because she isn´t Donny T. If you gave a shit about democracy you´d give back the $hillary PAC money and #FeeltheBern !
Beautifully written. “I’m not Trump” is not a platform. More facts are added every day showing a stunning lack of transparency and allegiance to Big Money. Clear voter suppression in numerous states where, surprise, she ended up winning, is not a coincidence and is sickening. Do your homework, people!
In the downpour of negativity i will stand alongside your views.This belief in a moral obligation is really is a twist that america as a country faces. There is no black or white.This belief that we must stand by one candidate sorely because the other option is terrible is a mental conscious weight on. When no substance can be used to propulse a candidate this rhetoric is pushed forward. America’s political system is outdated and is time to modernize. No more black and white i will choose whatever color i feel is right. Its not about democrats or republiclans those petty labels ans tje line that divdes them blur and fade ever more as time passes, the focus is about the state of democracy and where its headed not for us but for the generations to come
I love it and you were spot on. As for facts the reason the Democratic party is on life support is because it tells its members and constituents to go to hell by its fxxx up actions. On July 28, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 275 to 156 to approve the energy bill; on July 29, the US Senate voted 74 to 26 to approve it. And on August 8, 2005, President Bush signed the final bill into law.OIL & GAS SUBSIDIES: $6 BILLION
Section 1329
Allows “geological and geophysical” costs associated with oil exploration to be written off faster than present law, costing taxpayers over $1.266 billion from 2007-2015. The provision claims to raise $292 million from 2005-06, and cost taxpayers $1.266 billion from 2007-2015. It originated in the House (there was no such provision in the original Senate bill). Record-high oil prices should provide a sufficient incentive for oil companies like ExxonMobil to drill for more oil without this huge new tax break. Public Citizen’s Analysis of the Domenici-Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005 – 2 – OIL & GAS REGULATORY ROLLBACKS
Section 322
Exempts from the Safe Drinking Water Act a coal bed methane drilling technique called “hydraulic fracturing,” a potential polluter of underground drinking water. One of the largest companies employing this technique is Halliburton, for which Vice President Richard Cheney acted as chief executive officer in the 1990s. This exemption would kill lawsuits by Western ranchers who say that drilling for methane gas pollutes groundwater by injecting contaminated fluids underground. Only 16 companies stand to significantly benefit from this exemption from clean water laws: Anadarko, BP, Burlington Resources, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, Dominion Resources, EOG Resources, Evergreen Resources, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, Oxbow (Gunnison Energy), Tom Brown, Western Gas Resources, Williams Cos and XTO. These companies gave nearly $15 million to federal
Both parties said, Americans have no right to clean water, safe drinking water, clean air, compensation or liability opt the Superfund Law. This is why millions of Americans all over this country are standing up and saying no to the establishment and yes to a Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Both parties have put corporate interests over the interests of the people and we pay their salaries. We pay them and they give us their ass to kiss. No this is it we must take a stand and that woman was spot on.
”Case in point, I live in Phila. Pa. where fracking takes place. The people in Western, Pa. a lot of them have no running water in their homes because their wells were destroyed beyond repair. They went to the Republican and Democratic party for help. Zero. One of the guys who CNN or MSNBC interviewed to ask if they were going to be voting for Hillary. He said, “the democrats said they were going to bring jobs.” That place looked like a damn ghost town, and just so you know here in Pa. when the oil and gas companies frack they do not have to clean up their radioactive waste. The children have to play and walk around radioactive waste. The doctors signed a non disclosure agreement not to tell the people what chemicals are causing the cancers and the children to be sick. The EPA is worst than useless. Obama was supposed to bring green jobs in fact we had a solar panel factory right outside Philly, when Obama ran in 2008 he came here and told the people he was going to increase the funding for the plant. Right after he was elected he sent that $34 billion dollar contract for green jobs to China and shut the one down here right the one he was going to increase funding. The Democratic Party is fricking useless and it is on life support. This is happening all over this country, Flint’s water poisoned, Dimock, Pa. was ground zero for poisoning the water. Like a vampire it saw Bernie bringing millions of newbies into the fold. But the dumb ass leaders thought they were dealing with the backward elements of the past who would allow people to piss in their face and tell them its rain. And they would fall in line and vote for the lesser of two evils. This party has lost 31 governorships and out of the legislatures they only control 2 states in the union Ill. and New Jersey. And if Bernie is not nominated in July you can just pull the plug because come November those millions of newbies, BERNIE OR BUST, DUMP THE DEMS, BLACK MEN FOR BERNIE AND MILLIONS OF OTHERS WHO HAVE BEEN DISENFRANCHISED AND HAD THEIR VOTES STOLEN BY THIS PARTY, WHO THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS OKAY F THEM WE WILL UNITE THE PARTY LATER, NO WE ALL will sit home and watch Trump win. Pull the plug dems game over.
Democracy died when the Constitution was written. We never really had Democracy we had the illusion of Democracy. “The delegates to the Constitutional Convention represented the right wing of the revolutionary movement and were, as Charles and Mary Beard noted, “practical men of affairs-holders of state and continental bonds, money lenders, merchants, lawyers and speculators in public lands.” (like what we have now) They wanted a strong central government that would levy and collect taxes, regulate commerce, control the issue of currency, assume the financial obligations of the Confederation and the impairment of contracts. They were equally in agreement on the dangers of democracy and the necessity of preventing its flowering. The delegates said, James Madison wanted to secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction”. Just before then, in Massachusetts, where the hard money men controlled the courts and legislature, that very “faction,” made up of impoverished Patriots-it was disquieting to recall how vicious and ugly they been as anti-tory mobs rose in revolt under Captain Daniel Shays, and kept the state in terror for five months before being dispersed by the militia in February 1787. “You talk of employing influence”, Washington wrote to General Henry (Light Horse Harry) Lee, “to appease the present tumult in Massachusetts. I know not where the influence is to be found, or if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is no government. Let us have one by which our lives, liberties and properties will be secured or let us know the worst at once”. The people wanted paper money, considered the “root of all evil” in Federalist economies and they wanted the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Madison wrote that the “malcontents” were turning to the polls and if they could garner sufficient votes their “wicked measures” would be sheltered under the forms of the Constitution. Madison wanted constitutional safeguards for the Property Party: “In framing a system which we hope will last for ages, we must consider the changes age will produce.” An increase in population would necessarily increase the proportion of those laboring under hardships of life and who “secretly sigh for more equal distribution of its blessings.” These might eventually outnumber those who are “placed above the feelings of indigence…Symptoms of a leveling spirit…. have sufficiently appeared in a certain quarter to fie notice of the future danger”. Source (Dirty Business, Ovid Demaris, The Prosperity Game, pp. 1-2). This shows that in the 1787 they were looking here into the future 2016 and that danger of Democracy they were trying to stop is here in 2016 in not only Nevada it is in every state Bernie Sanders is running in, they are going to be stealing votes with the machine and having their military there to make sure nothing gets in their way. In addition they are showing you what they will do to make sure there really is no democracy. You have been lied to all these years and this explains why they have been dumbing down their citizens. “Aaron Burr cut short Hamilton’s career but not his broad scheme-the Jeffersonians took over his policies and passed them on to John Connally and Richard Nixon. His philosophy is a basic ingredient in American political tradition: the people are turbulent, ignorant, and poverty stricken. With the growth of wealth, inequality, and class antagonism must increase. (racism, and all isms). Therefore the stability of the social order and security of person and property could be maintained only by a strong government in the hands of the wealthy and intelligent. To these classes, government at all times should render financial aid for the sake of attaching them to the government by the strongest bond-interest on capital-thus increasing national wealth and maintaining employment of the people.” This is what Bernie wants to do provide jobs here not overseas in a damn bullshit war created by rich people for money for rich people.
I have voted Democrat in every election since 1988 and if Hillary is the nominee this will be the first election where i will not. I am way past tired of being manipulated. I actually fear a Hillary presidency much more than a Trump presidency. The media more often than not turns a blind eye to her crimes. This election was the most corrupted election in my life, and some have been pretty damn bad! The fact that the MSM refused to cover the voting irregularities and voter supporession, shows that they will just be a lap dog for her administration. At least, they would actually report on any transgressions by Trump. Im not playing anymore! Im done with the DNC! They have proven to be more corrupt than the GOP and I didnt think that was even possible. Farewell! Good luck without us!
She is an authentic Democrat if she delcares herself to be, and it’s not anybody elses place to say but her’s, so everyone else mind your places. Each of gets to decide fo rourselves and nobody else get s to define us fo rourelves but each of us individually. As a 3rd generation proud registered Sanders Democrat whose grandather and mother were FDR/Trrman/JFK Democrats, and who se grandfather attnded Masonic Lodge with Harry Truman, (and I can prove that) – I’m with Sanders and this author. She is right and the #BrockBoughTrolls are wrong. Propagandists usually are.
Trump is not a creduble threat. He’s a friend of The Pantsuit’s and Spouse and they cooked this up together. It’s a Hegelian dialectical sham and we do not negotiate with terrorists and Toxic Momy Dearests in Pantsuits. No Hillary. Ever. No. #StillSanders #BernieorBust #WriteInPOTUSSanders
You’re afraid Trump will become President? Fine. Here are your options of scenairos – pick one:
1. Trump wins because we will never vote for The Pantsuit. We’re taking you down with us because you all decided to be spoilers and Trump is *on you* and *on The Pantsuit* for failing to do what is right for the country put her ego aside.
2. We’re Writing In Sanders in all 43 States, the Sore losers Laws don’t apply to Presidential Elections and aren’t enforceable in court anyway – so POTUS Sanders wins anyway and Trump is *still* *on you* and *on The Pantsuit.*
So either way – get behind Sanders because he’s your option.
Now knock it off.
The neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party will continue to unleash war on its progressive wing. It appears a schism is highly likely post-convention if Bernie doesn’t claim the nomination. Maybe the party should rebrand itself the Neoliberal Party, so not to confuse it with the authentic progressive members.
waaa waaaaa we lost and now we’re trying to force our loser ways on you, even though we don’t even really want to be in your part … that’s what I read anyway