Big money made a big comeback in 2022 in Democratic politics, more than matching the surge in small dollar contributions that had been kicked off first by the Howard Dean campaign and then catapulted by Bernie Sanders back in 2015 and ‘16. The potential held within that political transformation was the subject of my last book, called We’ve Got People, which drew its title from a line from AOC, “They’ve got money, but we’ve got people.”
Ryan: "And so, to me, if the left and the center-left don’t come back with a forceful kind of recreation of a better world that stems the tide of this rising fascist energy, at some point they’re going to be over overwhelmed by it, no matter how kind of popular, and clever, and, you know, 80 percent you can make your issues that you’re running on."
Exactly right!
There is also an ideological bias that the Dmitri person interviewed by RG exhibits in abundance.
For example:
Bernie Sanders did not flounder or fail in 2016: he was swamped in the 2016 Convention by Super Delegates voting against him, undemocratically named by the Clintonian, neo-liberal Democratic Party leadership, who put their collective hands together very forcefully to push down on one plate of the scales. That got us someone many, myself included, saw as a sure looser set up to oppose the outrageous candidate for these outrageous times, the cruelty-reality-show star for the cruelly self-satisfied crowd of his admirers and followers.
There isn't, no matter how many times it is said, an "extreme left" in the USA, at least not one in any way that matters. Surely, if one takes the time, one would find some Maoist somewhere, or a supporter of bomb-throwing anarchism. But those are rare oddities, they are not a movement in any way that matters. But people here hae been trained to think that anything to left of Biden (or even Manchin) is "Extreme Left."
"Medicare for All" was a sure loser in a electoral campaign? Why?
"Defund the Police", in its crudest interpretation, was a bit of nonsense of the kind that is heard in fraught times, such as when police officers were murdering people and getting away with it, with Grand Juries composed mostly of Whites opening the door for the murderers to go free. But there was also a different and thoughtful position under the same lemma, that "Defund the Police" meant to take the funds that were being used to pay for things the police was not trained to do, and to use that money instead for funding the work of, for example, social workers that were trained to do it.
And nowhere in this discussion a word has been said about the need to mobilize the population here and world-wide, to get the coming Climate Warming catastrophe to be less catastrophic.
We have problems, terrible problems, looming ahead because of that not being taken care of with the overriding urgency necessary. To concentrate instead on such things as winning over "swing voters", people that, depending on how they feel that day would much rather vote for Trump-dominated Republican candidates than for Democratic ones, or the other way around, is worse than a waste of time. It is a recipe for everybody loosing everything that matters in the historical equivalent of the blinking of an eye.
I agree that the immediate task urgently at hand is doing the outmost to keep the Republicans getting the Presidency in2024, but what if that is achieved? What then? Looking anxiously to 2028?
But never mind: we should do what we have always done: keep hitting out heads against a brick wall, instead of going through the open door in it. Because we are so very smart and good at figuring out how to come ahead in politics: just pour enough money into it, and stir.
I am glad that you did this interview because it gives a good picture of someone whom I consider to be an enemy of equality. I wish, Ryan, you had asked him about economic inequality, U.S. militarism, or how to fix the climate crisis.
His ideas are very consistent with his status as a hanger-on to a billionaire. **Let's talk about race and sex and don't mention how much lower my guy's tax rate is than the school janitor's.**
This is like TV show politics. Like sports, or some board game. What are the odds and how do they change if you use this word on TV? George Floyd was an actual person and this Democrat Insider should spend a week with his family.
1. Ryan you are the only journalist I have ever given money to. This interview is one of many examples of why I respect and appreciate the hell out of you.
2. Dmitri can go fuck himself. The reason people don't believe politics can improve their lives is because oligarch sacks of shit like him make sure politics don't improve their lives.
Anyone who doubts that I would encourage to look into how and why the Democratic super majority in California ensured their own medicare for all (AB 1400) was foiled, or how President Biden "the most pro union president FDR" sided with rail barons to screw union workers out of sick days, or to read Judge Zloch's ruling in the matter brought against the DNC over the democrats screwing Sen Sanders in the 2015 primary (US District Court, Southern District of Florida CASE NO. 16-61511-CIV-ZLOCH) wherin the defendant (the DNC) argues it was their right to lie to their donors and the American people that they run an impartial primary when in fact they don't. The judge agreed with them.
The list of these is endless.
So much for "the politics of the possible", amirite Secretary Clinton?
3. Donald Trump is the result of sanctimonious asshats like Dmitri by way of their success in ensuring politics only work for oligarchs like them.. The harder people like him gaslight the american people to vote for a flacid do nothing "sorry we tried our best but the parlimentarian said no so our hands are tried" candidate who serves only to ensure people like Dmitri get theirs at the expense of everyone else, the more power someone like Trump has because - like any demogogue - their power is fueled by the ritious anger of millions of disaffected people ground under the wheel while the Dmitri's of the world eat cake and tell them to vote harder and to want and expect nothing more than empty promises every four years.
(to Dmitri now)
Fuck you Dmitri. And I suppose thank you. You said the quiet part out loud. In that you and Trump have something in common. I will never vote for someone like Trump. That being said until you get it through your fucking head that real people are hurting in real ways while you attend posh fundraisers and play chess with their lives, I will vote for every Nader, Sanders, Stein, and Perot I can find until the message gets through that Trump is the symptom and YOU are the disease.
Ryan: "And so, to me, if the left and the center-left don’t come back with a forceful kind of recreation of a better world that stems the tide of this rising fascist energy, at some point they’re going to be over overwhelmed by it, no matter how kind of popular, and clever, and, you know, 80 percent you can make your issues that you’re running on."
Exactly right!
There is also an ideological bias that the Dmitri person interviewed by RG exhibits in abundance.
For example:
Bernie Sanders did not flounder or fail in 2016: he was swamped in the 2016 Convention by Super Delegates voting against him, undemocratically named by the Clintonian, neo-liberal Democratic Party leadership, who put their collective hands together very forcefully to push down on one plate of the scales. That got us someone many, myself included, saw as a sure looser set up to oppose the outrageous candidate for these outrageous times, the cruelty-reality-show star for the cruelly self-satisfied crowd of his admirers and followers.
There isn't, no matter how many times it is said, an "extreme left" in the USA, at least not one in any way that matters. Surely, if one takes the time, one would find some Maoist somewhere, or a supporter of bomb-throwing anarchism. But those are rare oddities, they are not a movement in any way that matters. But people here hae been trained to think that anything to left of Biden (or even Manchin) is "Extreme Left."
"Medicare for All" was a sure loser in a electoral campaign? Why?
"Defund the Police", in its crudest interpretation, was a bit of nonsense of the kind that is heard in fraught times, such as when police officers were murdering people and getting away with it, with Grand Juries composed mostly of Whites opening the door for the murderers to go free. But there was also a different and thoughtful position under the same lemma, that "Defund the Police" meant to take the funds that were being used to pay for things the police was not trained to do, and to use that money instead for funding the work of, for example, social workers that were trained to do it.
And nowhere in this discussion a word has been said about the need to mobilize the population here and world-wide, to get the coming Climate Warming catastrophe to be less catastrophic.
We have problems, terrible problems, looming ahead because of that not being taken care of with the overriding urgency necessary. To concentrate instead on such things as winning over "swing voters", people that, depending on how they feel that day would much rather vote for Trump-dominated Republican candidates than for Democratic ones, or the other way around, is worse than a waste of time. It is a recipe for everybody loosing everything that matters in the historical equivalent of the blinking of an eye.
I agree that the immediate task urgently at hand is doing the outmost to keep the Republicans getting the Presidency in2024, but what if that is achieved? What then? Looking anxiously to 2028?
But never mind: we should do what we have always done: keep hitting out heads against a brick wall, instead of going through the open door in it. Because we are so very smart and good at figuring out how to come ahead in politics: just pour enough money into it, and stir.
I am glad that you did this interview because it gives a good picture of someone whom I consider to be an enemy of equality. I wish, Ryan, you had asked him about economic inequality, U.S. militarism, or how to fix the climate crisis.
His ideas are very consistent with his status as a hanger-on to a billionaire. **Let's talk about race and sex and don't mention how much lower my guy's tax rate is than the school janitor's.**
This is like TV show politics. Like sports, or some board game. What are the odds and how do they change if you use this word on TV? George Floyd was an actual person and this Democrat Insider should spend a week with his family.
1. Ryan you are the only journalist I have ever given money to. This interview is one of many examples of why I respect and appreciate the hell out of you.
2. Dmitri can go fuck himself. The reason people don't believe politics can improve their lives is because oligarch sacks of shit like him make sure politics don't improve their lives.
Anyone who doubts that I would encourage to look into how and why the Democratic super majority in California ensured their own medicare for all (AB 1400) was foiled, or how President Biden "the most pro union president FDR" sided with rail barons to screw union workers out of sick days, or to read Judge Zloch's ruling in the matter brought against the DNC over the democrats screwing Sen Sanders in the 2015 primary (US District Court, Southern District of Florida CASE NO. 16-61511-CIV-ZLOCH) wherin the defendant (the DNC) argues it was their right to lie to their donors and the American people that they run an impartial primary when in fact they don't. The judge agreed with them.
The list of these is endless.
So much for "the politics of the possible", amirite Secretary Clinton?
3. Donald Trump is the result of sanctimonious asshats like Dmitri by way of their success in ensuring politics only work for oligarchs like them.. The harder people like him gaslight the american people to vote for a flacid do nothing "sorry we tried our best but the parlimentarian said no so our hands are tried" candidate who serves only to ensure people like Dmitri get theirs at the expense of everyone else, the more power someone like Trump has because - like any demogogue - their power is fueled by the ritious anger of millions of disaffected people ground under the wheel while the Dmitri's of the world eat cake and tell them to vote harder and to want and expect nothing more than empty promises every four years.
(to Dmitri now)
Fuck you Dmitri. And I suppose thank you. You said the quiet part out loud. In that you and Trump have something in common. I will never vote for someone like Trump. That being said until you get it through your fucking head that real people are hurting in real ways while you attend posh fundraisers and play chess with their lives, I will vote for every Nader, Sanders, Stein, and Perot I can find until the message gets through that Trump is the symptom and YOU are the disease.
namaste