The Gleaner (Jamaica) slams Hillary:"Identity politics is all, broadly, that's 'left'" of Democratic

[snagglepuss]

Party".

snip

Bill Clintons role in economic decline is little understood by America. ]But Hillary Clinton's candidacy has cast light on Clinton's actions.

Clinton entered the scene during a period of decline in Democratic Party funding, but realised he could gain Wall Street's backing by moving the party rightward. He formed the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC), which took strong root in the US Senate. Considering the influence the DLC has had on US politics, it's crazy that so few Democrats know about it.

snip

The US, meanwhile, continued to play policeman to the world, to be a kind of military welfare state of which no one has been more supportive than Hillary Clinton.The number of US military bases has continued to grow and now stands at 800. This meant a swelling of power by military corporations as Pentagon budgets went unchallenged, while efforts on behalf of the poor were submitted to withering scrutiny (viz Obama's modest expansion of health care, "historic cornerstone" of his presidency, gained only after furious struggle).

But amid an onslaught of hostility and Republican supremacism, Democrats played the identitarian game from the other side, leaving poor whites in the cold, all pretence of class solidarity abandoned.

Today, the long rightward drift of the Democratic Party is barely noted. But tolerance for people of colour aside, Hillary Clinton is less liberal than Richard Nixon, who presided over an expansion of welfare and creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Amid economic ignorance and Republican ferocity, politicians who don't express outright hostility to black or gay people have been gratefully embraced by open-minded voters. (This may be the reason both Obama and Hillary Clinton decided, recently, to back gay marriage.) Identity politics is all, broadly, that's 'left' of the Democratic Party.






http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20160427/who-bernie-sanders-and-why-are-voters-so-excited-about-him

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Exactly. n/t

[pampango]

2. Isn't that what conservatives accuse the Democratic Party of - playing identity politics?

That all we do is play one racial or ethnic group off against another?

[Uncle Joe]

4. Identity politics couldn't past muster with either party if the corporate media conglomerates didn't

carry that propaganda water, it's all about divide and conquer.

Keep a rough equilibrium between the parties and nothing substantive gets done for the American People, except for the occasional table scrap.

[dinkytron]

3. Exactly. Exactly. Bernie talks truth to power. And the world knows it.

And this shit cannot be put back in the can.

[sadoldgirl]

5. Tis is so true, and

just wait until the TPP will be signed.

[rhett o rick]

7. What is holding it up? nm

[Doctor_J]

10. Obama probably feels like it would damage Clintons chances in the ge

He'll wait until after Nov 6 to drop that turd in the punch bowl.

[rhett o rick]

13. That's what I am afraid of. People won't notice after he pardons the Bush War Criminal Gang. nm

[stillwaiting]

6. I look forward to the first Democratic latino, native American, asian, and gay neoliberal President.

Or not.

There must be so much more than that. Or we're fucked as another illustrious poster has so sagely proclaimed.

Now, if it's a gay Asian that's NOT a neoliberal or neoconservative, but instead a true progressive, then FUCK YEAH! But, if the best progressive candidate is a white male, then we desperately need to elect him.

Step up progressives we will embrace you. No matter WHAT your identity.

[Skwmom]

12. The other day the argument seemed to be that this candidate is Latino, but since this one is

gay it makes perfect sense that we would endorse the latter. Like WTH? How about what is their record, where do they stand on the issues? Obviously, there must be some kind of hierarchy in identity politics.

[bjo59]

8. That is absolutely right.

[Doctor_J]

9. Yep. We ran the first black president last time, the first female president this time

At some point the gimmicks will run out and we'll have nothing left but a watered down republican platform

[Juicy_Bellows]

11. I agree but with one caveat - not sure it'll be getting watered down.

In the information age, with all the access it grants us to information previously never so readily available, we still see scores of people acting like it's Team Blue or Team Red.

But the star quarterback played for Team Red last year!!

Yeah, but they're playing for Team Blue this year!! Go Team Blue!