Has BLM staged ANY protest at ANY GOP candidate event?

[Proud Public Servant]

Honestly curious. There are 17 people in that clown car, and each and every one of them supports overtly racist policies (and more than a few are overtly racist, period) -- including giving the police a free hand. Is BLM going after any of them? Or is this more an exercise in policing ideological purity on our side rather than fighting the actual enemy?

[libdem4life]

1. Or the other Democratic candidates? Smells like a Hit Job.

[AzDar]

6. With a capital "H"...

[libdem4life]

13. Why that's unethical and low down, if so. Hmmm. New rules, aka no negative ads,

require different strategies to make your opponent look bad. I sure hope not, but...

[Adrahil]

21. Oooo! I know! You mean Hillary, right!!??

[odd_duck]

15. Careful now...

You are having an instinct/reaction that happens, when something does not 'pass the smell test'.
There are many possibilities at play here, with one being that it is a paid agent provocateur.
I remember all too well with Seattle in 1999 at the World Trade Organization meeting where hired agent provocateurs attempting to incite rioting and turn the protest violent, only to encounter brave resistance from real Liberal/Progressive protest leaders.

I am not saying that this is the case, just a possibility.

[libdem4life]

27. Always a possibility...Bernie ruffles lots of feathers. Keep it up...stay safe.í

[restorefreedom]

2. also no presence at any hillary events

[QC]

8. It costs $2,700 to enter into the exalted presence of Hillary.

One can heckle Bernie for free.

[NuclearDem]

9. Clearly, it's because Hillary is behind it.

And not at all because she makes very limited appearances with security organized by the Secret Service.

[HooptieWagon]

3. That'll happen in the GE...

first things first, they're concentrating on Hillary's biggest primary threat. They're just political tools.

[Rick Said It]

4. I think it about Ideological Purity

I don't think there is any reason to attend GOP events and give them a hard time about BLM -- or really any subject matter.

The passengers in the clown car are not going to beinfluenced - not even a little bit -- by any liberal or progressive protests.

At this point, the only thing that matters is appealing to the far-right members of the GOP base.

They are in a quandary. Right now, their mission is to get air-time -- to be noticed by conservatives --- to get mentioned on FOX and all of the other conservative media.

If BLM protesters showed up at the candidates' events, it would only accomplish two things.

1. It would point out to the GOP base that they must double-down on their racist agenda. They will see the protests as an uppity rebellion to the "natural order of things." They will push their candidates harder.

2. It will fire up the candidate they are protesting to dial up the racist rhetoric even further.

Once the primaries are over and the GOP candidate is trying to pivot to the center - that is when that particular candidate will be vulnerable to being called out, not only on issues surrounding racism, but on all the far-right rhetoric he/she had to speak to get nominated.

Rather than protesting them, I think that the best path forward is to do what I am doing -- collecting clips and quotes - from any of those who I think are the viable GOP contenders and speaking out after the GOP convention.

So far, the GOP race is following the pattern of 08 and 12.

The ultimate candidate will not be one of the overtly racist and extreme contenders. It will be someone who can appeal to the broad base of the GOP voters - those voters who are racist, etc. who think because they don't use the N word they are good people.

That ultimate candidate will have said plenty of extreme things, which, thanks to YouTube, and all social media, he/she will not be able to deny.

They protest Sanders in order to hold him accountable. If he has a chance of beating Clinton at all, he's got to appeal not just to the progressive base - he's got to appeal also to the minorities. So they want him to show that he's about more than single-payer and financial regulation.

[brer cat]

5. Why would they?

There isn't a clown car candidate or supporter who could possibly be influenced by anything they said. Total waste of time. Bernie on the other hand, is running to be on the democratic presidential ticket where he will need the votes of AAs among others if he hopes to win. If he can be persuaded to listen to their pain and react appropriately, the party will be stronger and more inclusive, and he will have a better chance of gaining additional support.

I am not a member of BLM and do not speak for them.

[closeupready]

7. Of course not. Why do the hard thing when playing softball

is easier?

[HooptieWagon]

10. Because screaming at and assaulting your ally is so productive.

is probably needed.

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. Nope. Funny that.

[Maedhros]

12. No, they are an exclusively anti-Sanders movement. [n/t]

[Nye Bevan]

14. If they did that they would have to contend with no-nonsense security, and risk arrest.

Much easier to go up against soft targets.

[pnwmom]

16. None of them would ever allow a protester to get near the stage, much less grab a mic. n/t

[davidn3600]

17. Not yet....and not against Hillary either.

[Triana]

18. Not at any Hillary events, either. n/t

[daredtowork]

19. The possible "Allies" miscalculation

There have been a number of posts expressing consternation, if not outrage, about how #BLM doesn't work with it's "Natural Allies".

I also noticed when I posted my OP on "All Lives Matter" that there is a resistance to discussing anything people might be doing wrong even on DU, even though #BLM sources state they don't want people to use the phrase "All Lives Matter". Instead people seem determined to bring the #BLN movement around to their reasonable viewpoint.

Hmm. That's either a game of chicken or two ships passing in the night.

Another thought is the fact that Hillary is able to split the "social" from the "economic" precisely BECAUSE this message moves to the Right. Several people have posted on how their own black families are actually very morally conservative and weren't quite with the "Progressive" agenda - and I would bet they primarily meant gay marriage. A few years ago I worked in an environment that was primarily African American women: I was amazed at the strength of religion in that workplace when the white workplace seemed largely secular. Their particular religious denomination had a whole culture around it which included a charismatic minister who wrote a lot of plays about family and marriage. Office culture was strongly centered around the experience of family, marriage, motherhood - and reinforcing all of those things. There was also massive office support for women's education, promotion, and support during times of disaster. There were also a lot of readers of the end of times Left Behind series.

At least one post I saw today described how the GOP had "infiltrators" in the African American community to convinced people that abortion was a conspiracy to kill black babies, etc. It's extremely disrespectful to presume such manipulators are even necessary.

Perhaps #BLM is working against their economic interests and even their Voting Rights interests when they throw Bernie under the rights, but perhaps they are putting something else above those economic interests. For years the GOP kept the South poor by inviting people to vote for White Supremacy rather than their own economic interests. Perhaps that appeal to the "moral order" doesn't just work on white people. Perhaps we are looking at people willing to vote against their own economic interests rather than tolerate gay marriage?

Whether the "Allies" can deliver on economic interests has also been questioned: the women who disrupted Bernie's Seattle event claimed that the economic platforms of the Left were used to place issues of racism behind issues that would benefit "all" people. One of the leaders of the Seattle #BLM movement is a hardcore Christian who was a previous GOP supporter of Sarah Palin. It occurs to me that her attack on Bernie and the Left really ISN'T about negotiating with the allies: perhaps it is about walking #BLM further away from a Democratic Party that is morally unacceptable to her. In order to do that, she has to discredit the "economic platform" and "the Allies". And perhaps she is not a "tool" of GOP operatives, but rather someone who would prefer to see African Americans in the GOP fold because that is a more morally comfortable place for this culture of African American Christian women to be.

In the deep background, of course, we can ask who paid all the ministers: that could also be another red-mapping long game.

[nc4bo]

20. My bar is much lower......where are the protests against all Democrats?

The NAACP was also there yet this group chose not to ally themselves with one of the most prolific anti discrimination groups in this country, again why?

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. Why should they?

No Democratic candidate can get elected without black voters. No Republican who's gotten elected since Nixon has received more than 15% of the black vote. Maybe it's time for Democrats to stop taking those votes for granted, eh?

[Vinca]

23. Maybe because a Republican could become the next POTUS.

Maybe because all of the GOP candidates are people who either signed, voted for or endorsed legislation that limited voting rights. Without the vote you have nothing.

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. The point is that if a Republican does become the next president...

it won't be because of the African-American vote. If a Democrat does? It very much will.

[Vinca]

25. So why is BLM only disrupting Bernie?

I'm sure he's been arrested more times for civil rights related actions than the people ruining his speaking events. In all honesty, I think someone is paying these people to make Bernie look like a fool since he's getting larger crowds than anyone in the race from either side.

[BillZBubb]

26. Well if you spread the LIE that Democrats take those votes for granted...

maybe so. The fact is the Democrats have taken huge political hits for trying to advance civil rights in this country. It has cost the party a lot. As Lyndon Johnson said, we lost the South for a generation (actually more).

Democrats could have backed off on civil rights and maintained a solid presence in the South. That would have given Democrats more power, more control and a Democratic Supreme Court. But, it wasn't the right thing to do.

For people to claim that the Democrats take black votes for granted is ignorant, a lie and an insult. It is shameful to even make that claim.