Meanwhile, Michael Totten reports on what’s been brewing in the Democratic Party
Michael Totten went to the Democratic Convention and talked to a lot of Bernie Sanders delegates and supporters:
I asked them to tell me the biggest problem they had with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment, to narrow it down to one or two things. I got a variety of answers.
“Our biggest problem,” a young man said, “is her lack of integrity.” Everyone nodded. They had other complaints, though, that set them far apart from Clinton and the party’s establishment and placed them firmly in the camp of the alt-Left.
“The Democratic Party hasn’t gotten rid of patriotism yet.” This was a complaint.
“Chants of USA, USA were disturbing. I felt like I was in Germany in the 1930s.”
“They brought out the flag and sang the national anthem.”
“You have a problem with the national anthem?” I asked.
“It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Every country in the world has a national anthem,” I said. “It’s perfectly normal.”
“Just because something is normal doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.”
Some surprised me again by agreeing with Trump’s lambasting of NATO. “These entangling alliances are going to get us into World War III.” At least two of these Sanders delegates said that the United States should completely disarm and have no military at all, like Costa Rica.
…[A] party espousing these ideas would find it extraordinarily difficult to win a general election. The alt-Left is no more palatable to moderate swing voters than the alt-Right. That, I suspect, is one of the unspoken reasons that the Democratic establishment wanted to muzzle these people, why it wanted to push them so hard that they do not come back, why it wanted Bernie Sanders beaten.
I asked everyone at the table if they intend to quit or to keep fighting inside the party. All said that they would keep fighting. None said that they would vote for Clinton. As far as they’re concerned, she’s a Republican.
…These young millennial delegates are the rising generation. They preferred Sanders over Clinton by a margin so overwhelming that the word “landslide” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Their collective vote was more like a tectonic shift that forced a new mountain range up out of the plains.
There’s nothing inevitable in politics, but these delegates, if they take over the Democratic Party in the future, will control the platform and the messaging, and their extreme views, combined with their generation’s startling disregard and even contempt for democratic and broadly liberal principles, will scare the daylights out of moderates in the party and could easily trigger an existential crisis. Don’t think it can happen? Nobody saw the rupture of the Republican Party coming.
That’s a pretty chilling set of responses. But at the same time, it’s fairly typical leftist stuff that’s become much more mainstream and more common, especially among the young.
Will such a rift take place for the Democrats? I don’t think so. I think the party will continue to move inexorably to the left in a more incremental fashion as a whole, as it has already been doing during the last couple of decades (some would say since FDR) and particularly during the Obama years. And it will do that in part by ejecting those who won’t move leftward with it (Joe Lieberman, anyone?).
However, one little quibble with Michael Totten about this statement of his: “Nobody saw the rupture of the Republican Party coming.” I certainly did four years ago, and I very very much doubt I was the only one:
One thing I believe is that, if Romney loses this election, the right will start tearing itself apart in anger. That’s another thing the left banks on…I already see some evidence of it in articles and comments from the right that accuse Romney of not wanting to win, of not going on the attack enough, of not doing whatever it might be that the brilliant armchair strategists would be doing if they were running for president, an election they of course would win by dint of their brilliant strategy. If Romney loses, the RINO theme will rise again undiminished, and the hatred of the “Republican establishment.”
My opinion of what’s going on is quite different: if the American people re-elect Obama despite his failures, lies, betrayals, immaturity, gaffes, arrogance, destructive foreign policy, demonstrated leftism, small-mindedness, lack of leadership, executive power-grabs, fiscal irresponsibility, and a host of other negatives I may have forgotten to list but which have been operating for the last four years, then it will prove that the American people have fundamentally changed in the direction they want this country to take, and it will require some major upheaval to reverse that trend.
Trump was merely the symptom of a huge rift that had already occurred before he declared himself a candidate. He leapt into that already-existing gulf, and pushed with all his might to widen it.
He has succeeded in that endeavor.
“Chants of USA, USA were disturbing. I felt like I was in Germany in the 1930s.”
How can these people be reasoned with?
It’s interesting what is happening to the democrat party. I see it as a direct and very predictable result of the leftist takeover of the education system, starting in the early 60’s. It’s what you get when students are brainwashed for 12 to 16 years with leftist propaganda. History is only taught as a method of denigrating the Judaeo-Christian, democratic, capitalistic free enterprise culture of western civilization.
Kruschev was right when he said he would bury us.
As a retired secondary teacher
““Nobody saw the rupture of the Republican Party coming.” I certainly did four years ago, and I very very much doubt I was the only one” – Neo
You may have expressed it so, but you were not the only one – I certainly felt it as far back as 2008.
This article that made it clearer (sorry, I was not a neoneocon reader back then)…
“It was what Luntz heard from the American people that scared him. They were contentious and argumentative. They didn’t listen to each other as they once had. They weren’t interested in hearing other points of view. They were divided one against the other, black vs. white, men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor. “They want to impose their opinions rather than express them,” is the way he describes what he saw. … The old Frank Luntz was sure he could invent slogans to sell the righteous conservative path of personal responsibility and free markets to anyone. The new Frank Luntz fears that is no longer the case, and it’s driving him crazy. … Luntz’s populism has turned on itself and become its opposite: fear and loathing of the masses. … The people are angry. They want more, not because we have not given them enough but because we have given them too much.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-agony-of-frank-luntz/282766/
Note: Luntz was one of the “architects” of the GOP discourse for much of the 2000s or longer.
(sorry wrong key) As a retired secondary teacher I’ve seen the change that unrestrained leftism has brought to education.
In the mid 90’s I quit the NEA because an “education” conference I attended spent 3 days on fundraising for Clinton and had almost no educational content at all.
Y’all remember the “apology” tour by obama, and the dixie chicks declaring their embarrassment at being Americans, right?
2008.
It is like some sort of “guilt complex” that some have with the relative “success” of our society.
It is at least a bit odd on its face that NATO can be seen as a dangerous entangling alliance while a pass is given to the alliance with the genocidal regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran our PresidentPseudonym has been constructing these last eight years. Funny what people (and I particularly do not mean by “people” solely democrats or the leftish leaning people, but so very many on the nominal political right as well) induce themselves to notice, and what they induce themselves to ignore, no?
It’s interesting what is happening to the democrat party. I see it as a direct and very predictable result of the leftist takeover of the education system, starting in the early 60’s.
It’s not just the education system. Think of all the movies that have been made since then that question/condemn everything about America and the West in general.
About a month ago there was an online article that Instapundit linked to (it may have been from the NYT online edition), in which the writer, obviously fresh from the “liberal” cocoon, noted the frequency with which the words “constitution” and “liberty” could be heard at Republican gatherings, but almost never at Democratic gatherings. She was like Jane Goodall first encountering the gorillas and not quite understanding what these strange creatures were possibly about.
It’s a little out of the way, but if one troubles to look one can see that John Dewey was no potted plant (though deceased by 1952, so surely earlier than the “60s”), nor was his teacher, J.-J. Rousseau. Progressivism’s roots are cast quite far back, and I think it would be better to remember than to forget.
Took an art workshop recently, thinking it would be fun. But, unlike in other workshops I’ve attended, all this group could talk about was politics and hating America.
All the participants were mature, affluent, white, well educated, upscale, suburban homeowners, (and naturally, mostly female.)
They claimed to feel ashamed to be American, compared to cool Europe, ‘since they were young.’
They said global warming was the only important issue and can be solved by force. They participate in civil acts of disobedience and endorse violence to achieve the goal of stopping the country from using engines (i.e. cars), nuclear power and the use, drilling, mining and storage of all forms of ‘non renewable’ energy.
They believe America, republicans, neocons, colonialism, capitalism, racism, patriotism, vaccines and Monsanto are responsible for all the world’s problems, which would be immediately solved by disarming and disbanding the American and Israeli military, making the UN the world govt, erasing all borders, stop using energy, eating gmo food and having children.
Exploding our economy, invasion by a hostile enemy or the possible extinction of humanity, were features, not bugs.
All of them proclaimed they were ‘socialists’ and ‘pacifists’ and were ardent Bernie supporters– except for one, because Bernie didn’t want to confiscate all guns.
I’m sure they believed other things, but I couldn’t take it anymore and stopped going.
Esther, you must live in either Cambridge, Ann Arbo, or Berzerkley. Right?
Lol, might as well, but I’m in the New York area.
Nobody saw the rupture of the Republican Party coming.
I wouldn’t affirm that exactly, as it isn’t entirely accurate.
The Left is correct that chanting USA USA scares them. After all, DNC prefers to chant the candidate’s name, like a cult. You see how that is much better than chanting USA, USA, USA all the time?
They chanted Obama’s name so much, I ended up deciding to call him Hussein Obola instead, just because. And they had so many chanters, America ended up becoming Obamaca.
This is old, but paints an interesting picture to go along with this post:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/the-agony-of-frank-luntz/282766/
“It was what Luntz heard from the American people that scared him. They were contentious and argumentative. They didn’t listen to each other as they once had. They weren’t interested in hearing other points of view. They were divided one against the other, black vs. white, men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor. “They want to impose their opinions rather than express them,” is the way he describes what he saw. “And they’re picking up their leads from here in Washington.” Haven’t political disagreements always been contentious, I ask? “Not like this,” he says. “Not like this.”
Luntz knew that he, a maker of political messages and attacks and advertisements, had helped create this negativity, and it haunted him. But it was Obama he principally blamed. The people in his focus groups, he perceived, had absorbed the president’s message of class divisions, haves and have-nots, of redistribution. It was a message Luntz believed to be profoundly wrong, but one so powerful he had no slogans, no arguments with which to beat it back. In reelecting Obama, the people had spoken. And the people, he believed, were wrong. Having spent his career telling politicians what the people wanted to hear, Luntz now believed the people had been corrupted and were beyond saving. Obama had ruined the electorate, set them at each other’s throats, and there was no way to turn back.
Why not? I ask. Isn’t finding the right words to persuade people what you do? “I’m not good enough,” Luntz says. “And I hate that. I have come to the extent of my capabilities. And this is not false modesty. I think I’m pretty good. But not good enough.” The old Frank Luntz was sure he could invent slogans to sell the righteous conservative path of personal responsibility and free markets to anyone. The new Frank Luntz fears that is no longer the case, and it’s driving him crazy.”
Years ago Eugene Rose pointed out that liberalism inevitably tends to nihilism. You see that today.
This post at Ace of Spades HQ is funny, damning, sad but true!
___
“Is It True, As Newt Gingrich Charged, That MeAgain Kelly Doesn’t Talk About Policy?”
–Ace
“….That doesn’t make her much different from any other hack — including myself — minding the 24 hour news cycle and trying to keep up “churn” and post one post an hour (or thereabouts) while — how do I put this softly? — doing as little work as possible to accomplish this.
The news cycle, on both sides, through television to print to the internet to talk radio, fixates on scandal — who lied, who contradicted himself, who said pussy — as a substitute for talking about policy questions, because:
1. Policy stuff is harder to discuss. Even if you’re an expert, it takes longer to write a post about policy than to dash off a hot, emotional piece about someone’s misbehavior. And yes, for example, Obama’s lie about Obamacare was misbehavior. We could have been talking about Obamacare’s deception on this point for years; it was right there in the fine print. Instead we didn’t talk about Obamacare until we had some identifiable personal sin — the lie — to talk about.
2. Policy stuff takes longer to put together. You can spit out ten scandal/sin posts in the time it takes you to just conceive or edit one policy post.
3. Policy pieces simply do not attract enough attention or interest. Policy reports aren’t boring, necessarily, but they do not offer the promise of a scandal story: the possibility of bringing that son-of-a-bitch down, finally, with one more damaging personal story, and one that doesn’t really take all that much effort to produce — or to digest.
By the way, this is almost entirely Fools Gold. Scandals do not bring people down. Hillary supporters will support Hillary not because she’s free of scandal, or that they believe her incessant self-serving lies, but because they draw a check from the government and they want to keep that check coming.
Likewise, surprised-to-find-ourselves Trump Supporters are not going to be dissuaded about supporting him over alleged sexual advances because of the Supreme Court, you idiots….”
Brian E:
I saw that post of Ace’s, and I would ask whether he watches Megyn Kelly’s show every day.
The reason I ask is that when she first got that show, I used to watch nearly every day. I did that for quite a while, although I stopped well over a year ago so I haven’t followed her recently.
But her show was distinguished at the time for a pretty good in-depth discussion of policy. And that happened day after day after day. Of course, she covered scandals, too. But the reason I watched her is that she was head and shoulders above the others in concentration on meaty issues in some detail.
My guess is that Ace and others don’t watch her all that much, just when something scandalous is happening. Or perhaps her show has changed in this Year of the Trump.
One prominent difficulty in any examination of Trump’s “policies” will surely be the discovery that these are predominantly Democrat positions. So perhaps it’s better for Trump’s prospects with nominal Republican party voters that they not be too assiduously informed.
So the election isn’t about issues but about personality.
A moderate candidate, like Rubio, would win even if he doesn’t run as a democrat. But Trump will lose because he is too much like a democrat.
Issues don’t matter anymore, just personality. Just wonderful.
sdferr,
Which of these are democrat policies?
“Therefore, on the first day of my term of office, my administration will immediately pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC:
FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;
SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.
On the same day, I will begin taking the following seven actions to protect American workers:
FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205
SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator
FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately
FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure
Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:
FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.
Neo-neocon,
I used to watch Fox News and thought Kelly interesting on O’Reilley. Haven’t watched for several years. I did watch the interview with Gingrich (on youtube) and thought his frustration was legitimate. She also used the label “sexual predator”, which in my mind is a tell.
We’ve had the conversation about the allegations. I can’t defend his behavior and you and I agree that some may have merit.
I will defend him to this extent. He’s 70 and grew up in a different era. Times have changed and society has changed it’s attitude to what was once boorish behavior that received a slap and a ‘get lost buddy’ to sexual assault.
I can only say, the corruption of Hillary, which will become more entrenched in the bureauacracy will have greater negative consequences.
Just like sexual assault allegations leveled against Bill Clinton before the 1992 election, the voters decided it didn’t disqualify him, since he obviously won. If the allegations against Trump are conclusively proven, I would expect him to be impeached.
But see, we’re back to arguing which candidate is a worse person– and not about the policies that will effect us for many years.
Brian E:
I don’t base my objections to Trump on his sexual behavior. I’ve described my objections over and over, and although I certainly disapprove of his sexual behavior and make no excuses for it, my main points about it are strategic—it hurts him as a candidate, and he hasn’t reacted well to it in the present, either.
But policy discussions are secondary to character discussions for Trump, for the simple reason (as I’ve said many times) that he is a liar and a con man and has never held political office, either. No one has a clue what his policies really would be. He is also impulsive and unpredictable, and has a history of being pro-big-government and pro liberal Democratic policies.
I also wrote a post on why I don’t think he’d be impeached, either, and certainly NOT impeached and convicted (the conviction is that only thing that matters).
Tuvea:
Personalities have mattered a lot in presidential contests for as far back as I remember. That’s the way people are constructed.
A lot of people voted for Obama over Romney because Obama “cares about me.”
George Bush senior looked at his watch, therefore was the snobby patrician who didn’t care.
Etc. etc.
But with Trump and Hillary, personality is even bigger, and they both are hated. However, Trump (as I’ve said over and over) is distrusted for reasons I’ve described in the comment above this one, which means to many people that his policy promises don’t matter because he has no intention of keeping them. That is why for Trump, character is more important to many voters than his policy promises.
To use an analogy, if a con man and philanderer promised a woman that he’d be faithful to her and provide for her, she’d be a fool to trust him because—character would override those policy promises.
On the other hand, we trust Hillary to follow the leftist agenda. Which is the only reason a lot of people support Trump.